Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 14

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WikiProject Aircraft talk — Archives

Request for Work

Hello, I'm Dfrg.msc, and I want to make some constructive edits to Wikipedia. It's not that I am unable to, I would just like some guidance. So, if you have any specific tasks related to this topic, please inform me on my talk page, be specific and include links and I'll help out as soon as I can. Thanks, Dfrg.m s c ^{1 . 2 . 3} 07:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Editing aircraft info

Please see help "Editing aircraft info" and advice user talk:HiFlyChick on how to put the specs in the page/template. Stefan 05:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Revision of Aviation lists

As anyone else not satisfied with the new version of {{Aviation lists}}? Half of it is whitespace! To my eye, it looks absolutely hideous. Karl Dickman ^talk 00:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The first time I saw one displayed, I thought that it was a problem to be fixed. I see no reason for it to be stretched across the whole page. Askari Mark | Talk 02:02, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it's not very easy to fix. The 100% width is coded into the MediaWiki:Common.css, so the only way to fix it is to abandon the use of the navframe class. Unless, of course, anyone knows how to tell CSS to fit the table's width to the contents. Karl Dickman ^talk 00:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I changed the class to toccolours recently, but Akradecki reverted me on the grounds that this discussion was still ongoing. With everyone's permission, I would like to reinstate my change, for the reasons cited above. Karl Dickman ^talk 05:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

C-1 Trader

This article could use some help. I made a pretty large edit today, but some work still needs to be done. Someone should upload a picture, too. Zaku Two 22:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added it to the to-do list at the top of this page. Please feel free to expand my addition with more specific comments on how to improve it. Karl Dickman ^talk 00:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

article assessments

~~These are counterproductive. Why should there be such for aircraft articles but not for ones on history, mathematics, mating habits of mammals? Think about it.~~ Ok, it seems this assessment idea is taking over. But my other points stand. Paul Beardsell 03:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

And as ANYONE can assess an article we end up with the ridiculous situation where one editor goes around placing his own PERSONAL assessment on articles - usually without any constructive criticism.

Let's please stop this bad-mark / gold-star nonsense. Don't assess an article, improve it. If you assess an article you are already asked to "(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)". But often / mostly this does not occur. And you know why? Because it is just as easy to improve the article as it is to critique it properly. What you assessors are doing more than anything is demotivating contributors to the encyclopedia. I spend a lot of my time working on many articles - lots of them aviation related - to find that some lazy sod has come along and given them ratings without giving a reason or suggestion for improvement. This is demotivating.

You lazy assessors: Stop! Article assessment: No more, thanks!

It is just as easy to improve the article as it is to critique it properly. Ratings without a REASONED assessment and SUGGESTIONS for improvement are a waste of time. Most article assessment ratings do not have reasons or suggestions. I am close to saying I will not contribute to an improperly assessed article. Others must be similarly irritated by the critics around here.

Comments invited.

Paul Beardsell 00:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting ideas, and here's my view. Assessments are not just for aircraft articles. This project has joined with 184 other projects (and growing daily) at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index to help assess every single article in Wikipedia. The point is of course not to assess articles on personal vallues, but based on the guidelines at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/Assessment#Quality_scale (based in turn on Template:Grading scheme). Currently over 404,000 articles have been assessed. This is part of a larger project, the aim of which is to identify articles suitable for release in print, CD, DVD, etc. and also to identify weak areas in Wikipedia, as many editors focus on specific topics and many good articles and subjects go ignored/unnoticed by the general public. I hope this doesn't disuade you from editing, but rather focuses your attention on the needy. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 01:43, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Assessments are not necessarily a bad idea! The problem we have is the unreasoned assessment. Assessing an article as somewhat lacking in quality is USELESS unless you make suggestions for improvement. Also, who are you (or any other single person or any self appointed group) to set themselves up as capable of assessing the quality or even importance of an article? Quality of prose? Quality of facts? Importance in monetary terms, number of bombs dropped, innovations? No. If you're going to assess without specifying reasons and improvement suggestions that's a nonsense. Paul Beardsell 03:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that assessments are a useful and valuable tool for improving articles. This is particularly true for newer editors trying to learn the wiki style. The real problem is with how assessments are currently conducted. When editors ask for an assessment, they're basically asking for guidance on improving their product from stylistic and content experts. What they get is something that appears to be a random "grade", a few terse words — possibly supplemented by vague and overly broad criticisms on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Assessment#Requesting an assessment page. The most unused space in the Wikipedia is that little "comments" link on the rating template placed in the article's Talk page.

Paul is perfectly "spot on" when he points out that "Ratings without a REASONED assessment and SUGGESTIONS for improvement are a waste of time." That's what is demotivating and counterproductive. If someone cannot take the time to contribute meaningfully to the improvement of the article, they shouldn't bother rating it. Where I disagree with Paul is when he asserts "It is just as easy to improve the article as it is to critique it properly." Sometimes it is, usually when it's minor — and if that's all it is, the reviewer should go ahead and fix it. Most of the time, though, implementation of even concrete guidance can involve more work and/or specific knowledge of the topic than the reviewer has to offer. Still, the guidance of the more skilled editor is the greatest value to be received from an assessor. This is particularly true because while it's made clear that quality standards have been "tightening" over time, there is no concrete guidance of what these standards are.

I have found that the examples provided by the Quality Scale are of little utility in understanding how to judge the quality of an article. If you compare those with the criticisms found by surveying a number of assessments, current article ratings, and occasional Talk page comments about how an older article doesn't measure up to those elusive "tightening" standards, you'll find there's almost no consistent correlation between what constitutes an article of B-class or higher. It is not hard to find examples of assessor criticisms (not necessarily off the mark) in their rating which appear in Quality Scale examples of higher-grade articles. If the Quality Scale examples are off the mark, they need to be fixed. On the other hand, if the implied tighter standards are accurate, then I can tell you there are no FA- or A-class articles in Project Aircraft – based simply on the grades assigned by assessors to assessed articles having "defects" which can also be found in those Project Aircraft articles (as well as the Quality Scale examples). Perhaps the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index needs to review the reviewing process? Askari Mark | Talk 05:48, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes! I agree with all of that, even the bits where I am corrected. Paul Beardsell 17:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Article assessments are subjective tripe. Get rid of them and be done with it. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 17:58, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

That's what I would want, ideally. I thought I was a voice alone. But there is such momentum behind rating many articles at WP - not just aviation ones - that I thought better to go for some change than risk none at all. Perhaps I should resile from my new cuddly persona and revert to my usual prickly self. Paul Beardsell 19:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Assessments are crap. I just saw several well-written aircraft articles, with citations, that are 5+ paragraphs long - yet they're considered 'start-class'. The FJ Fury article cites three sources, describes development, variants, and service, features complete specs, and has several images. What is the standard here? Do we want every aircraft article to be 300kb monstrosities like the Convair B-36 featured article? I don't see why perfectly good, informative articles are being rated things like 'start-class' and 'b-class'... it seems to undermine the authority of wikipedia. If we want it taken seriously as an encyclopedia, this assessment system needs to be either more strictly sorted, or much more transparent to end-users. ericg ✈ 03:58, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

UGH. Those of you who are using AWB and mass-tagging articles, please cut it out... it's totally fucking up the watchlist functionality and clogging the pipes like crazy. Could you perhaps consider a less obnoxious, reduced-spam method of rating articles, if you must do so? ericg ✈ 05:46, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

If you are, perchance, referring to my assessment work from last night -- I actually have no idea what "AWB" is, aside from some sort of plug-in(?). All my work is done by hand. The "flood" was from going down my list of watched pages - only a few more to go there and then it's the (more reasonably-paced, I admit) hunt-and-peck method of rating pages as I come across them.

The assessments are, IMHO, a good thing in that, as Badbilltucker points out below, they allow us to see what articles are in OK shape and which need work. (The FJ Fury article, BTW, I find short, but YMMV.)

Also - with regard to "improvements are as easy as assessing" - they are if you know details about the subject at hand. I may know an article in need of improvement when I see it, but if I am not knowledgeable on the subject I can't work on improving it. - Aerobird 22:16, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps when I'm tagging the articles I should assess them as well? I can't think of any way of tagging articles in a way that doesn't involve editing many in rapid succession. Even if I edited unassissted by AWB, I could do my edits as fast or faster. Karl Dickman ^talk 15:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

In response to those who wish to criticize assessments, I would say a few things. One, there is (or should be) a way to request that an assessment be reviewed, available to everyone who questions an assessment. Two, the primary purpose of these assessments is to help determine which articles are closest to either good article or Featured article status, thus letting the editors in the project know which articles are closest and furthest away from reaching either of these statuses. Lastly, in response to the question about importance, I would note that several projects are involved in active discussion among the membership of which articles are to be classified in the "Top-importance" category. Maybe having the choices for this particular category, determined by the consensus of the members of this project, would work here as well. Badbilltucker 16:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

"Targeting" aircraft-related weapons

A few of us have been discussing the new Template:Aviation lists and I'm wondering whether the List of aircraft weapons and — more particularly — List of missiles really belong as "Aviation" lists. For one thing, they seem to be included in Aircraft's scope only by default and on its project page, aircraft-related weaponry is encompassed only by the words "and anything else related to Aircraft." Secondly, Aircraft's parent is "Transportation" and aside from Baron von Münchhausen and Slim Pickens' immemorable wild ride in Dr. Strangelove, air-launched ordnance doesn't seem to be a popular mode of transportation. Moreover, few of the aircraft weapon and missile articles covered by Aircraft are well-developed; even the List of aircraft weapons is poorly maintained. It would seem they might fare better — as well as be more properly located — under the purview of the Weaponry task force. What are your thoughts? (I've also posted this on the Weaponry task force talk page in the interest of promoting some "cross-cultural" discussion.) --Askari Mark | Talk 18:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It's a grey area. IMHO, air-launched missiles would possibly fall under the project's umbrella, while such beasts as Bomarc certainly would - it's essentially a "one-shot expendable UAV" as much as a missile. - Aerobird 03:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Thought on this further...really the division between "aircraft" and "missile" is not nearly as clear-cut as it appears at first glance. What differentiates an aircraft from a missile? Taking off under its own power? Nope. Being capable of landing? Sorry. Capable of being re-used? Uh-uh. Capable of attacking multiple targets? Cluster munitions anyone?

As I mentioned above, BOMARC is definitly an unpiloted aircraft. But what of Tomahawk? Hound Dog? Quail? Really, when it comes down to it, the only difference between an Ohka and an Exocet is the guidance system. - Aerobird 03:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

By these definitions, all missiles are "aircraft" and it becomes impossible to define a "missile" either. To me, the essential difference is whether it is supposed to fly in the air and safely return its "payload" or is supposed to be "expended". I think the exceptions prove the rule. The Ohka was a (suicidal) manned missile and the Natter was a true hybrid that for obviously good reasons never entered service. In any case, my original query remains: Since editors from this project don't seem to have much interest in missile articles, perhaps WP:Air should pull its markers and leave them to the WP:Military history/Weaponry task force. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

New WikiProject

I have created a new WikiProject related to this one; Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Bull Air Race World Series. Please join if you are interested.--Hamedog_Talk|^@ 09:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

E-767

Rather than redirect to the 767 article, I think we could make an article on this plane. Zaku Two 22:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:AIRCRAFT - templates and categories

I am currently planning on working on an overhaul of categories and templates. I have been dabbling for a little while now and the more I get involved, the more work it looks like is needed. Please feel free to check out the talk pages for these Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Templates and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Categories! Some ideas and help coming to consensus on what should stay and go would be much appreciated! - Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

P factor

I know that the P factor article is currently listed under wikiproject physics. Does anybody think it might belong under WP:Aircraft as well, as it is a commonly associated with aircraft? Just wondering what other people thought about this. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 13:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely.--chris.lawson 15:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I will go ahead and add the wp:aircraft project tag to it. I think this article deserves some attention. i have some textbooks and stuff related to flight I will use to start enhancing the article! I also think it wouldent be too hard add a good diagram explaining it. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 16:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

$100 Hamburger

Anybody think that the $100 Hamburger should be part of wikiproject aircraft?. I added a tag to the talk pgae but if somebody wants to oppose this, I will not object. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 16:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense to me, though the airport people might also be interested. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 02:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Aviation, maybe, but not Aircraft. Askari Mark | Talk 02:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Yea, I thought that after I added the tag. I will look into that project tommorow. Maybye it can belong to both. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 02:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Dealing with vandals

There has recently been a great deal of vandalism to the Aircraft page. Much of it has been by a single editor, 70.178.110.204. All of his posts on all the pages he has "contributed" to have been vandalisms; his favorite word appears to be "rape". Do we have have an administrator among us here who can at least temporarily block him? Perhaps after a week, he'll get bored and go away. Askari Mark | Talk 03:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

If he keeps on, post his ip at WP:AIV and explain it. Make sure to warn the user! If you need help with this, please ask me on my talk page. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 10:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have semi-protected the aircraft page. Karl Dickman ^talk 11:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Operation Bolo

I need a little help relolving a dispute. There is a new user named Tu-49, and he created an article on Operation Bolo. The problem is that it is almost a verbatim episode of "Dogfights". I have wikifyed the article but he has simply put all of his stuff back in. And much of it has nothing to do with Vietnam, or belongs in the Vietnam War article. I would like a little bit of help with this.--LWF 01:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The article in its current state is awful. The style is informal to the point of being giddy, writing and grammar are poor, and the user appears to utterly lack any concept of what makes a good Wikipedia article. In addition, the contents of the article border on copyvio (and I will tag it as such unless a major rewrite can happen without interference from Tu-49). - Emt147 ^Burninate! 01:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I did, but he got annoyed and put it all back. By the way, be careful how you change it, he has stated that if it is changed without consensus of some sort he will get very angry. Which could cause problems.--LWF 01:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

He uses terrible grammar/spelling, is obviously a kid, and worst of all, he's a huge Ace Combat fan, yet can't even make decent edits in those crappy articles... that should say more than enough about how much we should trust his edits to real-world articles... Zaku Two 01:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the talk page of the article, seems that Tu-49 is fairly aggressive and could use some WP:CIVIL, etc etc. The talk page is a mess but I will be glad to look at it and throw my own two cents in over there. IF you have any questions, or particular comments on the article, We can start a discussion on my talk page -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 02:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Everyone, please see Revision as of 18:18, 7 December 2006 by LWF, of Operation Bolo. I have proposed reverting to this revision, and making further changes from there, and would like a consensus on if I should.--LWF 02:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I cannot find that particular revision, can you link it here in the talk page? Thanks! -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 02:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you meant this one from 17:18 on 7 December 2006? Karl Dickman ^talk 05:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

New problem, there is a section on Robin Olds in the article, and I don't think it should be there. It is a story about a dogfight Olds participated in during WWII, not Vietnam. I'm pretty sure it's the same one from the episode of "Dogfights". I keep saying I think it should be moved to Robin Olds because it is just about him and not Bolo, but Tu-49 disagrees, and implies that the article belongs to him and he should get the final word.--LWF 02:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

And why are we treating the "Liek i made teh artacle so it b3longs to m3!!!111one" defense as valid? Zaku Two 02:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I've never treated it as valid, the only person who has is Tu-49. In fact several people keep telling him to stop trying that.--LWF 02:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Aircraft button

Just FYI, I successfully completed a script that adds a button to the toolbar (the row of images at the top of the edit window). When clicked, this button inserts {{Infobox Aircraft/help}} into the article. This should prove to be useful for anyone who's interested.

However, it only works in IE so far. When executed in Firefox it has some bugs. I have asked for help on the technical section of the Village Pump. Anyone who's interested can see the source at User:Karl Dickman/airbuttons.js. Karl Dickman ^talk 02:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I made the script Firefox specific; I will add code for IE later. For those who are interested, I added a popup menu for when the button is clicked, where you can fill out the fields. Unfortunately, the script doesn't succeed at inserting what's entered in the fields. But you can view the popup. Karl Dickman ^talk 01:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox Aircraft, Users & Flags

If you're interested in chiming in on what "Primary users" & "Other users" should be included in Infobox Aircraft and whether national flags should be attached to those nations, please add your comments to Template talk:Infobox Aircraft#Primary users. Grazie! Askari Mark (Talk) 21:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Wiki project welcome template

I see several other Wiki projects have welcome templates. Would that be something other people involved in this project would be interested in seeing? I would have no problem designing it, just want to make sure some other people htink that would be a good idea before I jump in headfirst. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 15:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Convair B-36

Convair B-36 has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Gzkn 11:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Pitot-static system, Pitot tube and Static port

As far as I can tell, as major parts of aircraft, this would fall under wikiproject aircraft. These articles are extremly sub par and need expansion. I am planning on writing these articles well but was wondering what other aircraft project members thought. Should there be a seperate article for both Pitot tube and Static port as well as Pitot-static system, or should we write one really good article on the Pitot-static system and redirect the other two to that article? -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 14:36, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

By all means combine them into a single article (with appropriate redirects to support searches). Askari Mark (Talk) 16:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

That is what i was leaning towards. I think it would be alot easier to cover both individual systems and how they work together and there importance within a single article. Anybody else have feedback, opinions, etc?-- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 16:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I did a major rewrite of the Pitot tube article some time ago, although I haven't had time to do any further work on it for some time due to real-world commitments. Having looked at the separate articles, I support a merge, probably into Pitot-static system, and I will assist in the improvement of that article as and when I can. --Chrisd87 19:01, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, I too support a single pitot-static system article. It probably is also worth mentioning in it how RVSM also affects the physical aspects of the pitot-static system, and how the system has to be certified to higher standards as a part of meeting RVSM requirements. If you need references for this, let me know, as I have access to some. Akradecki 19:58, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, a merge would improve the topic representation. They can always be split if the article grows large. CP/M^comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 21:34, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

There have been a couple of comments in opposition to the merger on the Pitot-static system talk page. I've put a note in there directing people to this discussion. Chrisd87 11:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

yea, I read the comments, i had originially proposed the move. I removed the noticve from the pitot tubve article because I do not beluve the move to be correct. However, I think after a rewrite of the pitot static systm article, there should be a notice at the top of the pitot tube article says, For the aircraft specific pitot-tube, see pitot static system or something like that to point seekers in the right direction. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 13:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Mikoyan MiG-33

Needs attention badly. Barely any info, and half of it is incorrect anyway. Zaku Two 21:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm actually working on an article to replace that stub — in my spare time ... which is becoming a little hard to find the closer Christmas gets. Askari Mark (Talk) 22:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Delete Category:High wing aircraft, etc.

Category:High wing aircraft/Deletion discussion

Flight instructor or Flight Instructor

I created a category for Flight Instructors and it was changed to Flight instructors by an admin. I believe the all cap term is correct, since this is an official government title like Professional Engineer. I know it's a minor point, but Flight Instructors deserve the recognition of a specific title as opposed to a generic term. I'm interested in feedback from this forum before proposing a title change on the Flight instructor page. The cat and the main page need to have consistent titles. Dhaluza 04:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I know it is an FAA title, is there a category for Private Pilot? vs. Private pilot? I think some more feed back from the wp:aircraft community would be good. I will also do a little reading, see what I can find. I dont see why your reasoning is wrong dhaluza. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 04:25, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm also inclined to believe that this is correct, especially if I see some sources. Karl Dickman ^talk 05:39, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The FAA does not currently hold "flight instructor" to be a proper noun, just as it does not hold the term "private pilot" to be a proper noun. (Pilots certificated at the private level in the United States can be properly said to hold an airman certificate with private pilot privileges.) As such, and as a flight instructor myself, I would oppose any move contrary to WP:MoS.--chris.lawson 06:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Sweet, thanks for clearning that up! I oppose then after the above explanation. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 17:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Aircraft cost reporting

I’ve been seeing a number of editors misreport aircraft costs. This is quite understandable since there are some many different ways of reporting aircraft costs, as well as the fact that most sources reporting costs mislabel the specific type being reported (usually through ignorance as well). Moreover, two different countries might have similar, but differently named and slightly differently calculated costs that are otherwise roughly equivalent. To aid our editors in understanding what they’re reading (assuming the source is knowledgeable), I’d like to provide a brief overview of the different ways in which costs are typically captured. (Actually discerning whether a given cost number is accurately referenced requires some experience, though, especially since sources generally aren’t very clear as to what cost elements are or are not included.) Please note that a “unit” cost is the indicated type of cost for a program divided by the number of aircraft being paid for (i.e., the “per airplane” cost).

Recurring flyaway cost: Usually reported as “unit recurring flyaway” (URF) cost, this covers only the airframe, engines, avionics, and other such equipment that come “standard” with every airplane. Until the F-35 program began using it, the URF was rarely ever reported in the general press. The F-35 program uses it to capture those costs of the basic airplane that are common to all of the partners. The partners are individually responsible for those elements they may desire to “tailor” the airplane better to their specific requirements.

Nonrecurring flyaway cost: Almost never separately reported, the nonrecurring costs include basic “startup” costs which are apportioned over the whole fleet of aircraft planned to be built, as well as allowances for user-required changes.

Flyaway cost: The flyaway cost (FAC) is the sum of the recurring and nonrecurring costs and is always reported as a “unit flyaway cost” (usually abbreviated “FAC” and rarely “UFAC”). It is the most commonly reported cost and is normally what most people think of when they think about what an airplane “costs.” However, just to keep things from being simple, there is something called “total flyaway cost”.

Total flyaway cost: This is always reported as a “unit” cost, and is often also referred to as “weapon system cost” or simply as “flyaway cost” — however, it comprises not only the “basic” flyaway cost, but also the delivery costs and the peculiar support equipment, technical data packages, training equipment, and a variety of contractor services required to provide initial support for the airplanes; all of this is usually amortized over the size of the customer’s purchase. Unfortunately, with the total flyaway cost often being called “flyaway cost” and the term “weapon system cost” being used generically (even sometimes for the total lifecycle cost), it takes an expert to figure out which is which. For the purposes of Wikipedia, editors should treat the “total” FAC and “basic” FAC as the same “in round numbers.”

Procurement cost: This can be reported as either a “program cost” or a “unit procurement (or program) cost”; the unit procurement cost (UPC) adds cost of the initial spares — amortized over the quantity being purchased — to the flyaway cost. This is the other most commonly reported type of cost, and is usually derived from the reported procurement program cost divided by the quantity of aircraft being bought. (It’s not an accurate accounting, but usually just about all one has to go with.)

Program acquisition cost: Rarely ever seen – and normally only in the US — the PAC adds the costs of research and development, testing and evaluation, and related military construction (e.g., new hangars, test facilities, etc.) to the procurement cost. It can be found in the US DoD’s “Selected Acquisition Reports”. Detractors of a program often used this to “estimate” an exceptionally high unit cost for an airplane; while it is a “legitimate” form of cost, it is often used it as a political tool by comparing it to the FAC or UPC — which are very different types of costs — to imply that it is the “real” cost (generally perceived to be the FAC or UPC) of the airplane as opposed to the government’s “official” — and by implication, deceptive – cost (the actual FAC or UPC).

Life-cycle cost: The (total) life-cycle cost (LCC) takes the program acquisition cost and adds to it all of the projected lifetime logistic and operational costs: munitions and missiles, AVPOL (fuel, oil, and lubricants), spares (other than initial spares), replenishment, depot maintenance, system support and modifications, as well as the costs of hiring, training, supporting, and paying the personnel associated with the operating unit(s). In recent years, the term “life-cycle costs” has increasingly been used to refer to just the logistic and operational costs, while the term “total life-cycle costs” includes the PAC.

Wikipedia editors should only use the unit flyaway cost (FAC) or unit procurement/program cost (UPC) in their articles and identify which they are using. I hope this helps! Askari Mark (Talk) 20:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

This is worth keeping somewhere besides the archive. Naturally, adding this whole post to WP:Air/PC is instruction creep of the worst kind. Perhaps there's somewhere else we can put it? Karl Dickman ^talk 00:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I could add it as a subpage to my user page and link to it from WP:Air/PC. Would that suffice? Askari Mark (Talk) 00:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of something similar. By all means, please do so. Karl Dickman ^talk 00:59, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've added that to my to-do list. Askari Mark (Talk)

An expanded reference version of this article can be found at User:Askari Mark/Understanding aircraft unit costs. — Askari Mark (Talk) 02:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Adopting "orphans" over the holidays (and beyond)

I’ve been going through the Russian aircraft pages and was surprised by how many lacked {{WikiProject Aircraft}} templates — several dozen! — and of those which had them, how few had even a stub or start rating. By no means were these articles all about little-known or insignificant aircraft types.

Given the demands on our time over the holidays, I thought it might be a good idea to invite my fellow editors to pick an aircraft company they like and go through its products adding templates where needed, and marking those which are stubs or start pages as such. My purpose for this is to have a fuller list of “orphan” articles which editors — particularly new editors who are looking for a place to “help out” — could browse through in order to find one to “adopt.” Perhaps someone more skilled in coding than I could work up a random “stub/start of the day” box to raise awareness of some of these articles needing attention.

I’m also hoping that we can encourage editors working on these “starter” articles to introduce notes and references as they go; a lot of “established” articles on popular aircraft are short — if not bereft — of these and it’s much harder to go back and add them in many months later, even if you were the one who wrote it in the first place.

To minimize duplication of effort, I’d like to encourage those who take up this challenge to post below the companies whose products they’ve gone through. For topics that are aircraft-related but not a manufacturer’s product, I’d recommend adopting a lower-tree category. Thanks and Merry Christmas! Askari Mark (Talk) 19:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I like that idea. I have been slowley trying to do that as i create nav templates for each aircraft manufacturer. I will keep doing it but wont tie myself down to a particular company right away. I will also probably continue my template creation (and duplication on spanish wikipedia). -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:38, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Askari Mark: Antonov, Beriev, Bisnovat, Ilyushin, Kamov, Lavochkin (incl. LaGG), Mikoyan, Mil (incl. Euromil), Myasishchev, Neman, Petlyakov, Polikarpov, Sukhoi, Tupolev, Yakovlev
Chrislk02:Anything really. If I find some I want to take on, I will put it here.

I really think we shouldn't be creating templates for every manufacturer, but if you need help with the sequences, I've already got a couple dozen manufacturers' sequences listed. If you create other items with sequences, please update them at the list i've been working on! ericg ✈ 22:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Designation sequences

Recently, I came across the Mitsubishi F-2 page, and noticed the following in the Designation sequence: |sequence=

Fighter Support Aircraft (Strike fighter) : F-86F - F-1 - F4EJ Kai - F-2
JASDF designation: F-104J Eiko - F-4EJ/F-FEJ Kai - F-1 - F-15J - F-2
Trainer Aircraft : T-33 - T-2 - F-2

These sequences seemed very convoluted, and I assumed they had been added by a newbie. I therefore simplified the list to: F-1 - F-2, which is the numerical sequence in which the F-2 is located.

However, another editor has insisted on complicating the list again. He has added:

Sequence is not a list of every fighter to serve in that role, just of the designation sequence itself. (my text) However, In this case the Japanese do not use a linear sequence for aircraft designations of this system (e.g. F-2 and F-15) (his text) (Commented out)

Fighter Support Aircraft (Strike fighter) : F-# series: (Japanese) F-1 - F-2 - (Foreign) - F4EJ Kai - F-15J - F-86F - F-104J Eiko [1]

He has provided several links on the article talk page to back up his claims, but to this date I have not found any coroborration there, other than picture galleries listing the aircraft.

This has the potential to grow just as the multi-line sequences did (which, by the way, are back again). I don't see the necessity of listing every aircraft in a particular role with a given air force, as I believe the list is only intended to show a particular sequence. However, I will abide by the consensus on this matter. - BillCJ 16:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I frankly think the sequence lists should follow only the manufacturer's product series or the air force's usage of its own uniquely assigned series. In the Japanese example, only the F-1 and F-2 comprise a true series. Some countries like Spain and Sweden will assign unique indigenous designations (even to foreign aircraft they acquire) which would comprise a series; I'm not so sure they would be useful outside an article on that aircraft, though, since the general reader would not be able to readily relate it to the "common name" designation. Askari Mark (Talk) 01:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Navboxen again

I felt I should reopen this discussion, since many editors have arrived in the last few months, some of whom have taken part in creating navboxes. I would like to allow everyone to mull over the discussion once again, with the eventual goal of creating a statement for WP:Air/PC. Karl Dickman ^talk 22:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Most recent proposal

See #Proposed page content standard for navboxes in footers above for the original discussion.

Askari Mark proposed this statement:

The use of navigation boxes in aircraft articles, particularly in footers, should be kept to an absolute minimum. For a navbox to be included in an article, it must meet one of the following criteria:

The navbox links to aircraft-related pages that are closely related but have disparate names. (See ~~the B-29 article~~{{B-29 family}} for an example.) If no other pages are linked to from the navbox, consider using a table instead.
The navbox only offers links to articles on subjects that are directly related to that particular aircraft, or to pages on other very closely related aircraft. Otherwise, consider placing links under "See also" instead.

Furthermore,

The navbox should not be used where a "See also" link to a category or list ~~will suffice~~ would be equally useful.
The navbox should not contain subsections which simply reiterate or summarize information presented elsewhere in the article.
Navboxes should only appear in the footer or — in those rare cases where it may be more appropriate — at the end of the "Related content" section.
There should not be more than one navbox per footer (besides the standard Aircraft footer); for consistency in appearance, the standard Aircraft footer should come last (or after "See also", depending on how that particular article is structured).

As a general rule, if the subject of the navbox is not essentially related to the particular article, it should not be included. For instance, a navbox on Lockheed Martin may be appropriate for such a large conglomerate, but it should not be appended to every article related to the company, its officers, and products.

Please also refer to Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes for more information and guidance."

I'll put my two cents in: I personally like the consistent look of collapsable nav boxes. Boeing 707, for example, has 3 and the result is a lot of navigation options for our readers. Let's keep in mind that our "customers" are not ourselves, but the general public that comes here to look things up, and the more ease of navigation that we offer, and the more consistent a look that the articles have, the better it is in the end. I'd like to see this format become the project standard. Akradecki 01:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I will reitterate what I said on the originial proposal page by agreeing with akradecki. Remeber, in the end, most of these articles are not for aircraft enthusiasts, but probably a highschool or college student writing a paper or an individual interested in aircraft but not keen to all there ins and outs. I agree that the format should be standardized. I also have a proposed rewrite of the first criteria. And it goes. "1. The navbox should not be used where a "See also" link to a category or list ~~will suffice~~, especially in the case of large and or broad categories. For example, a navigation box of "All Aircraft," or even "All single engine aircraft", would be too large and too broad a grouping to be useful as a navigation box. A navigation box for a narrow enough category or grouping, such as aircraft by a particular corporation (for example {{Bell Aircraft}}) or a particular class of plan may be appropriate, especially when it is believed in to aid in navigation of readers of the article." -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 01:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

(My above proposal may be wordy and full of instruction creep, i am all for rewording it, as long as the spirit of the change is addressed. Please feel free to help with rewording, if it is felt appropriate). -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 01:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to go out on a limb and comment a bit further. I respectfully disagree with the concept that a nav box should not be used when a "see also" link or other such link would suffice, and here's why, with the Bell box Chris mentioned as an example. One of the features in many articles are the headers "see also" and "designation sequence". Any change in one article (such as a rename, split, new article, etc) requires editors to manually go through each article and update each section appropriately. Using a nav box instead of a designation sequence list allows an editor to make one single change and have it consistently show up in all the articles. All the little things that can be done to streamline this kind of maintenance task results in us being able to devote more time to where it's needed, and reduces the potential for error to be made or an article inadvertently overlooked. Akradecki 17:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I like that point! Perhaps we should add something to the requirements being, "information common to a set of related articles", such as desgination sequences, similar aircraft, etc etc. Just another idea. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed update to category scheme

I have summarised my changes at /Categories/Proposed update. Please leave comments there. Karl Dickman ^talk 02:46, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Average deaths per accident

An unregistered user (190.40.118.171) has been adding statement on aircraft pages about the average deaths per fatal accident. I cant work out what this tells me or if it is relevant but I just thought I would ask before deleting it. MilborneOne 18:13, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Is he posting references with it? Have you asked him to please include references? If he does not include references i would probably delete it. At least ask him though and see if you get a response. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

He's not posting refs, because the info is already present. For instance, on the Boeing 767 article, the statment:

Hull-loss Accidents: 6 with a total of 568 fatalities

was already present, the anon user just added "(average 94.67 deaths per accident)", basically doing the math from existing information. Akradecki 18:24, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I cannot personally see why that information would be useful. If i saw it, i would probably delete it. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that is necessary, but it doesn't warrant an edit solely to remove it. - Fnlayson 19:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- After thinking about it a little more, i would probably assume good faith, until the user shows otherwise. Try to outreach to the anon, welcome them, suggest they create an account! -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:05, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

B-17 Flying Fortress

I put B-17 Flying Fortress up for a peer review as a precursor to FAC. Comment here. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Ratings - for the umpteenth time

Since the assessment system isn't going anywhere, I have one request for you guys: PLEASE consider following the instructions clearly included on the assessment template! If you've forgotten what it says, let me transclude it below:

Notice anything? Specifically, this sentence: “If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses” [emphasis mine]. I'm not seeing any of these short summaries. If the assessment system is to have any merit at all, it needs a basis for ratings. Leave that short summary or don't do anything at all.

It's beyond exasperating to see an article 'assessed' without any real information about what is lacking. This kind of bureaucracy without usefulness is why I've distanced myself from the project, but every time I see (assessment) in my watchlist I get drawn back in. ericg ✈ 20:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

What is perhaps even more exasperating to those of us who do try to do assessments, like me, who is only involved in the project to the degree I am for that specific purpose, is those people such as perhaps the editor above who have never read the Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Assessment page, which itself specifically says that given the number of articles to be reviewed, it is often not the case that the assessor can leave detailed notes for each case. To point out a couple of obvious reasons why comments may not be included:

the article is specifically stated to be a stub by the inclusion of a stub template. In that case, there's really not a reason to indicate why the assessor agrees with the writer of the article himself. The same holds for those articles specifically designated GA or FA; again, all there really is to do is agree with the existing formal nomination and review.
This basically only leaves Start, B, and A class articles. Now a start article is one which is not yet complete. For instance, I recently downgraded the article Animal shelter when I found that, for all of its existing content, it did not cover any of the shelters outside of the West. On that basis, by the terms of assessment, it really can't be counted as a B article. B is basically reserved for those articles which are comprehensive in their coverage of the subject, but not yet a GA. They most often fall short because of too few references or stylistic considerations. A-Class articles for what it's worth are almost nonexistent. That is basically reserved for articles which are only in terms of style or referencing short of FA consideration. Also, for what it's worth, it is possible for someone to actually ask the person who performed the assessment to complete the section. I know that I have been asked that after the fact about one or two dozen times, and have always done my best to respond as completely and fully as possible, generally by the end of the day. Badbilltucker 20:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Please don't assume that I have ignored the Assessment subpage - I have read it, but I think that claiming vast numbers of articles to rate means explanations aren't required is a blatant cop-out. The amount of effort required is disproportionate. If I need to track down the rater for an explanation, they have to go back, look the page over, decide what was wrong, and write up a short description. If you were to do it when rating, it's a simple 2-minute exercise to summarize what needs fixing because you just observed the issues and rated the article. You guys are tearing through articles and leaving letter grades, but it's totally subjective. Your Start might be my B, or vice versa, but if you rated an article Start and said "needs discussion of shelters outside North America" on the comment page, how long would that take to make your issue with it totally clear to other editors? Ten seconds? Thirty? Is that too long to spend to benefit everyone else?

If comments aren't always required, then you guys need to change all the assessment templates to read "If you feel so inclined, please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings, but if you're in a hurry, skip it". Either assessments are beneficial, or they aren't, but unexplained ratings are, to the majority of editors, useless. Please, if you take the time to read and rate the article, spend the extra 30 seconds to summarize the issues. If you don't have the time, maybe you guys should consider slowing down - quality, in an encyclopedia such as this, trumps quantity. ericg ✈ 20:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I find it amusing that someone who is making a complaint for the "umpteenth" time, by his own words, seeks to criticize the actions of others as useless, particular when he seems to think that the only people who ever pay attention to the assessments are the members of the projects involved. I know for instance that the Core topic collaboration and several others use the assessments as one of the guides in determining which articles are most deserving of assessment. Presumably, however, none of these matter to someone who has made it clear that he reacts voluably whenever he sees an assessment. I also note how much time he has seemed to possibly even waste over time criticizing assessments. Maybe, if he were instead to try to help out assessors, instead of simply only criticizing them for the "umpteenth" time, he might make more headway. Instead, bluntly, I have to say that repeatedly wasting his own time to post these criticisms, and give others cause to respond to him and thus take up some of their time, is probably the most "useless" thing I've personally seen to date. Badbilltucker 21:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It'd be nice if you could discuss this without resorting to personal attacks - or perhaps you could simply refer to my contributions, and note the minimal amount of time I spend discussing assessments compared to editing - but maybe I am asking too much. A rated but unassessed article (I feel, justifiably I think, that an unexplained rating is not an assessment) is not particularly helpful, bordering on useless. This is my opinion, which I feel I am entitled to.

My request was a simple and civil one, made in the best interests of the Wikipedia. How dare I attempt to improve the system! I'm wasting time! I will stop attempting to better this encyclopedia immediately, because I have no interest in carrying on a discussion with someone who cannot be civil. ericg ✈ 21:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Sir, you were the one who first described your reaction as being "beyond exasperating". If it is a personal attack to rephrase someone's own statements as describing your reaction as "voluable", then I am in fact guilty. However, I would like to point out what are clearly, at least to my eyes, a number of flaws in both your positions and actions.

(1) The primary purpose of assessments, as I perform them, is to ensure that the article has the banner in the first place (at least 70% of the articles I see don't), and then to provide an admittedly rough guide to the current status of the article, if it is not already defined. If you find seeing the assessment "beyond exasperating", then, by all means, try to ignore what you find objectionable.
(2) I know that most of the banners I have myself created (probably 30 to 50, maybe more) include the comments section. I also know that very few of the others do. On that basis, it is perhaps a bit unjust to demand of someone who is working with templates which generally do not include comments to try to ensure that they include comments. This is particularly true in those cases when one is adding more than one banner at the same time, for instance, Biography, Nation/region, Industry, occasionally one or two others. In cases like that, it may well be an unfair demand on the time of the individual that they check one each and every banner available, particularly if one is operating primarily with banners which do not have the comments section, certainly well beyond the 30 seconds you seem to arbitrarily judged it to take.
(3) I note that you view your comments as being a "way to improve wikipedia." Please note that I have myself been approached by probably 10-20 projects to try to assist them in settting up assessments. In fact, of all the projects for which I have tried to assess, including this one, the only person I have ever heard honestly criticize assessments at all, and certainly as frequently and emotionally as you, is you. Perhaps, and I say this quite calmly, you are yourself perhaps reacting on some basis other than pure logic.
(4) Certainly, if you have any real complaints about the assessment process, the place to go is probably the WikiProject Council (which actively encourages assessments), or maybe Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. Certainly, continually posting these messages on this talk page is probably, at best, counterproductive, particularly considering how few people ever read talk pages anyway.

And, by the way, if you would like to check User:Badbilltucker/to do, you'll see that the only assessments for this project I have yet performed are on those articles listed as separate pages in the main parent category, which is, factually, rather few. Even there, however, I wound up adding banners to about 5 or 6 when I went through a week or so ago. Badbilltucker 22:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

For the record, I agree with Eric. Blanket criticism without suggestions for improvement is not useful under any circumstances, and rating an article a "B" or "C" without stating the specific problems with its contents (or, for that matter, rating it an "A" without identifying what it does well) isn't helping people to know how to improve an article. It's merely wasting the time of the people who have said article on their watchlists.

Now, I'm not saying that you're particularly guilty of this, Bill. But as a general rule, without reasons behind the criticism, saying "this article could be better" isn't telling people anything they don't already know.

I will take this opportunity to point out that doing a half-ass job of assessing articles just so they have the assessment banner on them is a tremendous waste of time. In fact, without a reasonable degree of thought given to the assessment, it's actually counterproductive, because the presence of the banner implies, at least to most readers, that the article has been assessed already and therefore discourages others from critically assessing the article. If someone was inclined to spend an hour or two properly assessing articles, those with the assessment banner would likely be last on that person's priority list.--chris.lawson 22:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I clearly agree that blanket criticism without suggestions for improvement is a waste of time. And, frankly, as I saw no indication from the originator of this thread as to how to improve the system, other than to demand more work from a small number of people, that is what this thread struck me as, particulary having seen his previous iterations of the same statements. And, again, please understand that those individuals who, perhaps like you (I don't know), who are not involved in determining likely candidates for collaboration, etc., are not the primary people these assessments are being made for, or the audience they are aimed at. It is in fact those individuals who are involved in collaborations, etc. Generally, if you look, most projects have very few if any articles assessed, largely because so few people want to take the time to do it in the first place. Please note the assessments for Wikipedia:WikiProject Atheism/Assessment, for example. I find such as that particularly objectionable, considering that they haven't even bothered to find the stub, GA or FA articles within their scope, which are clearly defined. I also acknowledge that that assessment page was created by me only a few days ago, and that I am still not finished with all the other assessments for religion projects; a number of other similar projects are just as bad off, but I knew this one most immediately. Also, there is another benefit which can only become visible in the long term, and is thus not yet visible. That is that as articles are added to, they will be involved in "bracket-creep" and possibly, over a year or two, reach GA or even FA status without people having noticed if periodic assessment, as is requested by every project, were not performed. This, again, is one of the reasons behind assessments, and one whose results are not going to be as immediately visible as some people would probably like. And, again, except in those cases where the current status of the article is already clearly defined, I try to add at least the most obvious of the flaws of the article in question. Personally, except in cases where it is obvious why an article has received a specific assessment (and this includes the presence of internal stubs), then it seems to me that we assessors should be at least allowed to assume some level of familiarity with the system on the behalf of other editors. And, lastly, I note that there are very few people working in the field, and that by definition some of them are less skilled or competent than others. Personally, I think the best solution might be if some individuals were to perhaps spend some of the time they have to date spent criticizing the system and perhaps using that time to improve it, rather than simply bemoaning it, that might be the optimum solution. And, yes, I do agree that comments are useful. I should also point out that, if there is a banner for quality, POV, or whatever, on the article itself, I don't necessarily include specific comments in the comments section. In those cases, particularly when I tag them as needing attention, I more or less assume that the reasoning is obvious. Badbilltucker 22:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Bill, I suggested that users of the assessment system include comments. You state that comments are useful. You also say that you "saw no indication from the originator of this thread as to how to improve the system, other than to demand more work from a small number of people" (you may refer to me by name, if you like). What, exactly, was wrong with my suggestion? That it might take more work? That's hardly a valid criticism of the underlying issue - unexplained ratings.

I have commented on the assessment process here perhaps two or three times, but I'm hardly the only person to ever do so. I'm not sure what's going on here, but apparently the only disagreement we have is that I think those assessing articles should change their methods - and, in the majority of cases, explain their ratings - while you do not. ericg ✈ 23:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The primary flaws with your proposal are as follows:

(1) You assume that somehow I or any other assessor should not only determine the existing status of an article, but that they also somehow also know, presumably through some form of divine guidance?, how good the article could or should be,
(2) you assume the assessor will also have direct knowledge of the relative experience of the editor who created and/or will be working on the article, and how likely they are to respond to feedback positively or negatively, and also, implicitly,
(3) you assume that every assessor also have intimate knowledge of the style guidelines for each project, over and above that regularly displayed by many of the more active writer-editors of the project. On that basis, my response is not a "fear that it might work," but rather "the fear of the very likely, and frequently almost certain, disastrous consequences of doing so." So, for instance, I see what is clearly a good "Start" article. That is, it contains the minimum amount of information required to give a cursory, if complete, knowledge of the subject, and does not have any immediately glaring defects. This, by the way, is more or less a good description of the standard article in wikipedia. Should I include in the comments, as you seem to be suggesting, "Needs to be at least four times longer, which hopefully at least two reference citations per paragraph, and at least one or two appropriate pictures, to be even considered for GA status, make that seven times longer with three or four pictures for FA status"? How many new editors would be immediately scared away from wikipedia if we were to do so? Or, perhaps, if it is a stub, are you requesting that the assessor basically attempt to find sources and then rewrite the article on-the-spot to bring it up to Start class, probably taking at least ten to fifteen minutes in doing so (probably more like half an hour), and thereby possibly effectively neglecting more substantial articles that had not yet gotten to which would more reasonably benefit from the simple assessment, that is, make it clear to the 1.0 Editorial Team that this other article that they had not yet reached for work on the first article is of possibly much higher quality or significance? Again, although perhaps more explicitly this time, the assessments are done primarily for the benefit of the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team, to determine which articles will be included in CD or other releases, and which articles that have to be included need a lot of work, not the members of the individual projects directly. This is not to say that the individual projects can not make use of them, however, In fact, we would hope they would. Honestly, if any of you were to review the suggestions for layout of a project, the kind of detailed Peer Review which you are requesting is supposed to be done internally, by the project's own Peer Review unit. They are the ones who are best able to supply what you are asking for. Instead, what I basically see is asking someone else to take total responsibility for determining the existing level of quality of the work of a large number of third-party others. Please tell me how such a proposal stands even the remotest chance of being one "that might work."

In terms of real, reasonable, suggestions for how some of the things you are requesting might be achieved, may I humbly suggest two things which I have known to work elsewhere:

(1) have the members of this project set up a Peer Review department, which will be able to supply the information you requested to an interested editor (and, by the way, you would be appalled at how few even are interested), and
(2) create a separate page, generally a subpage of the Assessment page, where the members of this project can collaboratively determine the relative importance of specific articles to the project. The best example I can think of is Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Assessment/Top-important, where the members of that project are collectively determining which articles are the ones most deserving of the attention of the editors of the project. If this project were to do so, then the members of the project actively involved in article creation and expansion would know which articles are of the greatest importance to the project, and which ones are in most immediate need of such attention, and/or would benefit from more attention.

And, as a final point, I can honestly say that your original, dare I say rather emotional and judgemental, posting, may very easily be seen as being rather less than "civil" itself. In fact, I regret to say, that was how I initially perceived it myself, and my apologies if I were myself judgemental in my responses. Badbilltucker 15:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as providing negative/positive comments, would it help to add an extra field in the template for that? It wouldn't make someone add them but it should help. - Fnlayson 05:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Instead, what I basically see is asking someone else to take total responsibility for determining the existing level of quality of the work of a large number of third-party others. No; you are already doing this as you letter-grade articles. You may implicitly understand what 'B' means in regards to an article's status, but nobody outside the assessment system does. Whatever your opinion on how I introduced the topic, it is an issue which needs to be addressed if ratings are to serve any real developmental (rather than classification) purpose on the wikipedia. ericg ✈ 16:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Again, however, please note that the letter grades are not necessarily intended for the use of the individuals writing articles for projects. And you yourself stated that "No one outside of the assessment system understands them", while you earlier said that you yourself do, therefore contracdicting yourself in such a way that I cannot personally know which of your answers to respond to. The primary, and original, purpose of assessments is to notify the people in the CD editorial team of which articles should be considered for inclusion in the CD or other media and which articles that have already been selected for inclusion in the CD or other media are in most desparate need of work. If, perhaps, you wish to eliminate the CD selection process, then I humbly suggest that you suggest doing so in the appropriate place, which this is not. Also, as indicated, in most articles, there are no specifically glaring weaknesses. They simply are what they are, in terms of level of current quality. Several others already have templates attached to them indicating existing weaknesses, which would probably be redundant to duplicate. You had explicitly said you wanted indications of where an article "needed work", and anyone trying to answer that question, without an explicit prior indication from the writer of the article as to what his intentions with the article in the short or long term are, is very likely going to alienate, and possibly push out, of wikipedia even more editors. And, honestly, I myself have yet to see even one page where a writer has made such intentions obvious. So, I could tell someone who was simply trying to added some relevant information to what was of a given class but not enough to make it anything higher than its existing class that they had done so, but, for the most part, that is unnecessary, particularly when I rarely if ever see any sort of explicit indication of intentions. Generally, the lack of comments indicates basically that the article has no glaring flaws, and can generally be said to be regarded at being a certain level of quality. You in particular seem to be seeking the more detailed Peer Review, which is technically supposed to be found within the project itself. Actually, honestly, if more projects had Peer Review, there would be much less need for the CD Editorial Team to have people like me going through all the articles we do, because that work would already be being accomplished in house. Again, I suggest you concentrate your efforts in areas which are more likely, and most immediately, going to produce real results, as perhaps in ways that I have already indicated above, than seeking to continue to criticize an existing system (specifically, assessment) for failing to do things it was honestly never intended to do in the first place (specifically, for providing individual, detailed, peer review). And, as indicated below by the individual who seems to be doing most of the assessments for this project, for which he has at least my real and serious thanks, and who may well be one of the other, perhaps more primary, targets of your ire, all it would take would be a request for a more detailed opinion, even without a formal peer review process. Generally, that sort of request is required to receive a formal peer review anyway. Again, the best proximate way to address the problems you cite are in house, by the other more active members of the project. Maybe if more of them were to involve themselves in the basically administrative functions, there would be no need for such focused conversation in the first place. Badbilltucker 17:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is how I see it. I often throw ratings on articles. Yes some explanations would be nice, but sometimes there would be no useful information. Half of the articles are stubs. Self explanatory, no need for explanation. the A, GA and FA are self explanatory and dont get put on there often. The difficulty then becomes discerning between Start and B class articles. These judgements are often subjective as when I look at an article I probably look at different things than Karl does. Even if there is a set criteria, it would require that I am an expert on the subject and know that the article is complete and accurate. On a random note, if you would ever like an explanation of a rating I have given, please let me know on my talk page and I will be glad to let you know! -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 16:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I know that if I could just type |comment=Needs severe reworking to conform with the much superior layout recommended by WP:Air/PC, that I would include such a summary almost always. However, to implement such a system we'll have to talk to Oleg Alexandrov who runs Mathbot, so he can set it up to include comments based on Fnlayson's system in the article tables on our assessments page. Karl Dickman ^talk 06:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify something in my head, where exactly are people looking to see comments? The assessment system is set up to put the comment on a subpage of the talk page of the article, which then transcludes them to the project list. Taking a quick look at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Aircraft articles by quality/1, I see a lot of comments which can be acted upon, and reasons for assessments given. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 02:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I talked to Oleg, who runs Mathbot, and he indicated that the comments are located where they are largely because it would be impossible to do it any other way. I asked him if implementing the use of a parametre for the comments was possible, as I suggested in my post above, and he replied that "With what you suggest, I think the bot will have to visit each page individually, and now there are 463084 of them, which is infeasable." Frankly, my sole reason for proposing that we have a parametre instead of a subpage is that it would, hopefully, increase the number of comments that are included with ratings. Karl Dickman ^talk 01:58, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Born2flie: Eric, I must say that I agree with you on this point. Don't mind me too much since I'm just passing through, visiting. I mostly play with just the helicopters, since there are fewer people to disagree with while working on those articles. I'm no longer a member of the project, but since there is an established guideline here, its something to work with and I too have been bothered when going to an article's talk page and I find the article unassessed.

So, I gave up my New Year's weekend and went on an assessment binge...including Comments on the Talk:Article/Comments subpage. Sometimes it was something facetious. Sometimes, it was just acknowledging that I found the article already assessed by WP:MILHIST. Just the helicopters, though, so it wasn't that significant a dent when you consider the 1000's of articles within the project. If it is an article I really care about, I'll work out an outline and post a To Do template ({{todo}}) and put a laundry list of what information I know about the aircraft that is missing from the article. I don't think I've ever come across an article that was upgraded on the assessment with accompanying comments on the comment subpage.

More than assessing articles, I wonder what strategy or plans you have to increase the number of FA/GA class articles within the project?

Anyways, good luck. --05:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Responding to your last point, I personally am going to work on listed B-class articles and get them promoted through peer reviews etc. I have found an interesting page on the Military Wikiproject Assessment page there is a section for Requests_for_A-Class_status. An article must go through this process before anyone can assess it as A-class. This eliminates the need to fo to peer review etc and bother outside projects with an article that may not be ready yet. Just an idea for those assessing military related aircraft. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 06:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I had my basic say on this topic in the last go-around, so I won't reiterate it here. However, I've learned something new from Badbilltucker: "The primary, and original, purpose of assessments is to notify the people in the CD editorial team of which articles should be considered for inclusion in the CD or other media and which articles that have already been selected for inclusion in the CD or other media are in most desparate need of work." In the six months or so I've been active here, that's the first I've come across it. I, like I believe most of the editors here, have perceived it as part of a peer review system, which I'm pretty sure is where ericg is "coming from." The take-away I get from what Badbill has written above is that only CD editorial team's assessors should be assessing an article. If I am reading him right, his view is that the projects are supposed to concentrate more on prioritizing the articles for improvement (and following through on that), not formally "assessing" them (i.e., giving them a "letter grade"). Am I correct, Bill? Askari Mark (Talk) 23:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

If that's the actual purpose, then I apologize - but this needs to nonetheless be made much more clear, and the arbitrary 'rating' of articles probably needs to be slowed way down by casual editors. My annoyance with the system as perceived would probably have been stopped mid-stride had the system itself been explained fully, either in the rating templates or by the CD team itself. ericg ✈ 00:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Newsletter/notice?

As those of you who have been around the project for a while probably know, I like to complain about how guilty I feel when I consider "legislation" proposed here to be "passed" after a 3-0 or 4-0 vote. (Or rather, alternatively, after the unanimous consent of 5% of the project's participants.) I think a possible solution is something similar to the WP:MILHIST Newsletter, a publication that is delivered regularly to the talkpages of interested users by Grafikbot; user's can specify how they want to receive the newsletter by adding themselves to the appropriate sections at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Outreach#Delivery options.

A similar system could serve as the vehicle to notify project members of important discussions. To help prevent annoyance, we could make a rule that notices could not be sent out more than once every two weeks.

Or, another idea might be an opt out option on the member sign up page. At the bottom of a notice we send out, we could include the link and the details on how to, "opt out".-- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 02:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

A classic example of such a situation would be the ongoing discussion about the appropriate use of templates in footers (see above): I have attempted to draft a policy statement on this subject. Another example is my Categories/Proposed update to our category scheme. Once I feel like all the kinks are hammered out, I will submit it to this talkpage for final discussion. When I do so, I would request that a notice be sent out to project members announcing that a very important discussion on content standards was taking place. Karl Dickman ^talk 00:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Might i also suggest a todo template that we keep up to date. Coupled with this, create a new uswer welcome template (I will be glad to design it, i have a bit of template design experience). This way, as we gain project members, we can post a welcome on there wall with a section of areas they "might want to check out or get invloved with". I think that this could promote project invlolvement. Furthermore, after an important proposal is posted, lets post on other projet members talk pages. I am all for trying to boost project involvement! ANy reccomendations on the new member template would be much appreciated! -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 00:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

And oh, by the way, I would be glad to assist in development of a newsletter. Just let me know what needs done or if you need any ideas or reccomendations or feedback. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 00:49, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Our todo template is {{Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/to do}}. Karl Dickman ^talk 02:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)