Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 2

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WikiProject Aircraft talk — archives

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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.

See discussion on Offsite forum on Wikipedia:Village Pump. Rmhermen 13:23, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Straw poll - Web forum (was mailing list) 1.1 Comments/Questions: 2 Tables on Wikiproject Aircraft 2.1 we have been over this already

Straw poll - Web forum (was mailing list)

Just a quick show of hands here - if a web-based forum were set up to discuss issues relevant to this WikiProject - who would be interested in participating? Please place your signature below by 00:00 1 August. --Rlandmann 09:44, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

For it

• Rlandmann 09:44, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• N328KF (Joseph) 13:34, 2004 Jul 25 (UTC)
• eric 15:55, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)
• ✈ James C. 17:50, 2004 Jul 25 (UTC)
• —Morven 23:16, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)

Not for it

Abstain

• Bobblewik 13:31, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC) (I do not feel qualified to predict what I would do).
• Greyengine5 15:12, 2004 Jul 25 (UTC) (although depending how it was done, i might be either for it or against it)
• Cabalamat 19:58, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC) (I'm not sure whether I would be able/prepared to devote much time to it).

Comments/Questions:

Would this be on the wikipedia or on some third party site? Are we going to wait until the wikipedia has a forum feature or try and find some sort of free web forum- and if that, which one. Greyengine5 17:09, 2004 Jul 25 (UTC)

it's been suggested that the talk pages be revamped, however i do not think this will happen soon. a simple off site forum could be made freely on tripod.lycos.co.uk using phpBB. ✈ James C. 17:50, 2004 Jul 25 (UTC)

Ok well thats pretty reasonble, I changed my vote to 'abstain'. Depending on how it was actually done I think it could work well, though it might have some problems. I think if the forum had admins, I wouldn't want it to be people who were not wikipedia admins.

Also, if wiki ever comes up with a better forum system, I think it be important to be able transfer the history over. It might be worthwhile to see if any other projects have done this and get some input from them as well. Greyengine5 19:29, 2004 Jul 25 (UTC)

If there are more votes in favour than against by the time the poll closes, I will be seeking an off-wikipedia forum to have this forum hosted. I'm open to suggestions, but my thinking is leaning towards Delphi forums - http://www.delphiforums.com largely because of their long-term stability.

Membership would be open to all, and a prominent link from this page to the external forum would be maintained. Discussion from the forum would be archived back here regularly (how regularly will depend on the traffic - weekly? monthly?

I'm not going to hold my breath until similar threaded discussions are available at wikipedia, but if and when this feature becomes available, the external forum would be shut down and discussion moved back here.

Finally, there's nothing more "sinister" about wikipedians using an external forum to discuss aspects of a project than if we were exchanging private email, or chatting via IRC or any other IM network (or meeting in person over a cup of coffee). In fact, a web forum ensures a transparency and accountability that none of those other modes of communication do. --Rlandmann 22:34, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A quick look at delphi makes it look extremely full of ads. I'm inclined to go with James' phpBB suggestion, I've used it in the past and it works pretty well. I actually have (way too much) webspace available, along with a pretty short url. So, no ads, and no costs. I'd be glad to install it (actually I'll play around with it now, just for kicks.) -eric 23:50, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, that literally took three minutes to set up (www.aeronaut.ca/wikiforum/), if you'd like to see how it runs and if it's preferable to the existing wiki talk or delphi forums. -eric 00:08, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone have an in with anyone like airliners.net? Maybe they wouldn't mind us having a forum for ourselves, considering what we're doing ostensibly benefits them as well? I have a membership there already, dunno about the rest of you. -Joseph 03:13, 2004 Jul 26 (UTC)

I checked out the phpbb one- seems pretty nice. I wonder if there's some GPL'd forum software wikipedia could incorporate in the future, so projects could have this hosted off wikipedia. In the meantaime though, is there a way to have this one send updates when somone posted a new comment there? Greyengine5 13:17, 2004 Jul 26 (UTC)

So, it's settled, then? -Joseph 21:51, 2004 Aug 2 (UTC)

Tables on Wikiproject Aircraft

Tables use in the Wikiproject is also discussed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Table and Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/old table talk. Rmhermen 14:13, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

I support the table standard because it is consistent with the tables being used in a large number of other projects (Ships, Protected Areas, Tree of Life, etc.) I feel a consistent appearance lends to the appeal and authority of the Wikipedia as a whole. Plus I like how they look and how they make the article more readable because I can ignore the side-box unless a require more information (just like USA Today -oh, wait, there you read the trivia side-boxes and ignore the lousy articles.) Rmhermen 14:36, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

we have been over this already

The table 'standard' actually tends to break many browsers, such as those in mobile devices and for users with narrow/low-resolution screens. The formatting of the table is not standardized, and often leads to bits of the page overlapping each other. Finally, it is rather hard to see them as looking anything but awful - the color scheme doesn't remotely relate to the wikipedia, the fonts are different sizes on each one, and they are almost invariably either empty or contain unused/inapplicable fields. Just because the rest of the wikipedia uses them does not mean they are a good idea, just that they are the 'standard'. Your claim that they make the article more 'readable' doesn't actually make sense, as you are actually not reading the article if you're only reading the specifications.

If you've read any aircraft reference books, you'll find that tables are not a standard method for displaying specifications of aircraft. To illustrate this, here are two pages from two separate books. Great Aircraft of the World uses a small text-formatted section overlaid on a large three-view of the aircraft, while Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II uses a normal text-formatted block following a section on the aircraft's development.

As you can see, neither uses a table format. I'm aware that both are not web pages, but the fact remains that a normal text-formatted section is not only considered readable by the 'industry professionals', it is the de-facto standard. As you are not an active participant with this project, I'm not actually sure I understand why this is such a big deal to you. -eric 20:18, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)