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This page is an archive for old talk relating to WikiProject Aircraft. New questions, comments, and discussions should be directed to the project's talk page. |
Some of the (many) aircraft lists now:
Existing pages giving list of aircraft
(Other pages such as Bomber don't seem to intend to be a collection of all aircraft of that particular class.)
Unwritten (so far) lists:
Lists for one country only:
Related lists:
Here is my preliiminary proposal suggesting how we can unify this:
There are three ways we can categorise aircraft: by time, by nation and by function.
I suggest the most important of this is time. Two aircraft from the 1920s will be similar to each other, in the technology used in them, even if they perform different function (e.g. a bomber and a transport aircraft). Two aircraft from the 1990s will also be similar, (e.g. bombers and transport aircraft from this ear might both use jet engines and fly-by-wire). A bomber from the 1990s will have more in common with a transport aircraft from the 1990s than with a bomber from the 1920s.
How do we split up aircraft by time? One possibility is by era (1903-1919; -1938; -1945; -69; 1970 onwards). Another would be by decade (1900s, 1910s, 1920s etc).
After time, we have a choice: we can either subcategorise by nation first, or by function. I suggest that we categorise by function, for two reasons: (1) many aircraft are built by international consortia these days, and (2) an airliner from one country is more like an airliner from another conutry than a fighter from the first county.
So the scheme is:
I prefer using lists rather than tables. Partly because the table here looks too big on my browser; and partly because the software doesn't cleanly handle tables yet.
At the top level, each time category should get its own page. Partly because of this, I prefer time preiods to be decades rather than eras, so we would have for example Aircraft of the 1920s instead of Aircraft of 1920 to 1938.
Within the time-category page there would be headings, one for each category, within each heading, a sub-heading of country, and within that a list of models of aircraft. (If these pages get too big, they could always be subdivided into separate pages e.g. Helicopters of the 1960s etc.)
It seems the disticntion between aircraft types always blurs, and aircraft development takes a long time and so many aircraft could be in two categories of time. Even the manufacturer and designer can blur with joint ventures. I think the holy grail for the project would be to have all the aircraft in a large database, with a custimizable search engine to review them. Maybe have series of selectable drop down lists, rather then a hierarchy of clickable list links.
Have maybe a 'Time period', 'Propulsion Method', 'Number of Engines', 'Primary Construction Material', Manufacture', etc etc. So someone could select 'bomber' as under 'type', and list of all bombers, as well as articels on 'bombers' in general would appear. As an example, another sample search could be, 'British(under 'nation'), propeller-(under propulsion), single engine-(under engine number), wooden (under- construction material), ww2( under period). There person could even choose diffent time filters -- such ww2 era, and arbitrary span of years ( 1926-1928), or a decade 1960s.
The key difficulty here is haveing developing a standarized format and coding such a setup. Rather then us trying to decide on the best orginztion method-- lets have allow a person to choose.
That way the if I had the question mentioned in discussion -"What are the contempories of the Bf109" I could find and answer by doing things like setting the filter as 'Modern', 'Fighter', 'German'. ( assuming I new what a bf109 was)
All the current lists could be kept as answers to more general quereis. If just 'german' was selected- then maybe "list of german ww2 aircraft", "list of german modern airliners" "list of german x-planes" would show rather then listing hundreds of plane links.
Well if anyone knows how to code this or have comments on it let me know. If this worked this would be a usefell setup for other "things" such as the weapons, or vechiles which both suffer similair problems as aircraft.
Greyengine5 February 4, 2003
(I orginally placed this under discussion but moved it here since it more of a new orginaizational structre then a list naming convention)
(please discuss conventions for lists of aircraft here)
I created the large table initially, but quickly ran into problems. One is the size as you mention, the other is that it's a pain to actually edit - very hard to find the right "box" to put something in. That said, I feel that the timeline is about right, I prefer it to decades, because decades are not a natural fit for the spurts in aircraft evolution (which mostly benefitted from the two world wars). Also, a particular model of aircraft would tend to span decades, for example the Spitfire would belong in the 1930s because that's when it was created, but most people would probably go and look for it in the 1940s - do we put it in both, which would be duplication, or in the first, where it might not be as useful? That's why eras work better I feel. As for tables versus lists, I think I agree with you there - lists are better with Wikipedia's current software. The table was one of my first pages I made on Wiki - since then I've come to realise that lists are a darn sight easier! My feeling is that as long as there are enough index pages of the various types, each linked to the others, then people will be able to find the articles, which is what counts. GRAHAMUK 03:25, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Regarding aircraft that span two time periods, this will happen whether we have decades or eras. I think it best to put the aircraft in the time period when it first flew; we could put a prominent notice to this effect on the main list of aircraft page. -- Cabalamat 03:34, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Bear in mind that if someone is interested in a particular plane, they'll type in "Spitfire" or whatever and be taken directly to the relevant page. -- User:Cabalamat
Stan, it's good that you ask the question, what's the point of the eras/decades. To me, the primary purpose of the lists is to be encyclopedic, that is, to have a comprehensive list of every aircraft that's ever flown, and some that never flew, if they're important enough. For two purposes:
It may well be that these lists are able to answer "what were the Bf 109's contemporaries?", but if they aren't, I don't think it's a problem, because there can be other articles that aren't merely lists. For example, one can have an article on the air war in Europe during WW2, or (and see the discussion on the Talk:Eurofighter Typhoon page) an article comparing the capabilities of contemporary fighters.
If we say that lists must include all aircraft that were in use over that time period, it'll make the lists a lot bigger. Furthermore, it'll require that Wikipedians know what dates an aircraft was used, for all its operators; this is going to take people more time than just finding out when it first flew. Also, we could have the list stating, at the top of the article, "All fighter aircraft that first flew from 1940-1945" (or whatever) which would make confusion impossible for all who read the article.
-- Cabalamat 17:26, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Whats the standard when it comes to refering to WW2 in wiki? WW2, WWII, World War 2, World War Two, World War II? I prefer WW2 simply because it has the lowest number of charaters to type in(-easiest) but it may not be formal enough for titles and it doesnt turn up as many many hits. So whats the wiki standard here, some ok to use in artiticles but not in titles? no standard?
Hits on Google (note: I put them in parenetheses so it would not search fragments, although none war related ones can still come up somtimes):