Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft/Archive 1

message: 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.
Regarding the table, since we are using the style attribute, it's occurred to me that perhaps it would be  useful to define styles in the wikipedia style sheet for tables that go on the left top of the page (tables for aircraft, and for other WikiProjects would follow the same principles. I was thinking of something like this:
  
table uses full width of page
table uses full width of page (as necessary), body text doesn't flow around it
fullwidth tables would be useful for big tables inside the body of the page.
  
table at left of page
tab is fixed size at left of page, body text flows around it
I don't know where leftflow tables would be useful, but they might be, somewhere.
  
table at right of page
tab is fixed size at right of page, body text flows around it
rightflow tables would be useful for the tables that go at the top right of pages, both in descriptions of aircraft, and in many other places.
I've just had a go at fixing the Dassault Rafale article. It had far too many large pictures and bad formatting. It still needs major work in the copyediting departments and needs going through to make it properly NPOV. David Newton 20:13, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It reads like a cut'n'paste from another source, too.  Hopefully a PD one. —Morven 21:03, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: I've gone round and fixed the image format, tweaked the data table, and worked on the first paragraph.  Boy, does it need work. —Morven 21:27, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

message: Is there a good way to standardize this information?  Look at F-4 Phantom II to see what I'm talking about.  As it stands right now, it's a very large, ugly list (with lots of holes).  Are there any suggestions for the best way to standardize this information and make it prettier (with each nation's Air Force roundel and what not)?  Anybody?  Bueller?  If no one has any thoughts, I'll work on a mock-up idea.  (I may do this anyway.) RadicalBender 20:59, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be interested in your ideas for presenting this.  Right now we don't even have articles for pretty much any air force unit worldwide ... —Morven 23:42, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I question the need to have long lists of units on the main page itself - I suggest that List of units which have operated the F-4 Phantom II (or some less wordy alternative!) would be better. But either on the main page or a sub-page, some sort of standard way of presenting this data would be nice. --Rlandmann 05:23, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: Somewhere in the last week or two of categorising, I came across one or two entries that presented the list of units in a neat table. I can't for the life of me remember what articles they were, though! I have a feeling that they were British aircraft of around the time of the Second World War... Does anyone have any idea of what I'm talking about? I thought that this layout would make an excellent standard to adopt for this info. --Rlandmann 08:03, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: OK - answered my own question - it's in Bristol Blenheim. Great work! Anyone have any problem with this bring rolled out more widely? --Rlandmann 08:08, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Units Using {Aircraft}

message: Is there any interest or merit in doing a "year in aviation" (or "year in aerospace") series, like has been done for list of years in science, list of years in film, and so on? Geoff 22:46, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: As I recall, someone began one.  There are, I believe, years through most of the 1980s defined. —Morven 23:41, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: So there is.  Silly me.  Geoff 23:51, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: However, feel free to get this going again! —Morven 01:14, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of years 

message: I've poked around looking for information on variants (prompted by the three entries for various similar Lancair Columbia models) and couldn't find whether it was preferred to merge them into one article (i.e. Lancair Columbia) or separate (Lancair Columbia 350, Lancair Columbia 400, etc). On a side-note, Rlandmann, I've changed the two aircraft you placed in the :Category:Home-build aircraft to :Category:Homebuilt aircraft to correspond more closely with the actual terms used in the General Aviation community. I'm planning to go through any other kit aircraft and add them over the next few days. -eric 16:28, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)
:There is no "policy" on this - for now, I think we're just happy to be getting articles! I think that length should be the determining factor here - and few variants are written up in sufficient depth (at the moment) to necessitate separate articles. If it were me, I'd be putting the article under Lancair Columbia with redirects from the variants until and unless any of them dominates the article to the degree where splitting it off seems better --Rlandmann 21:26, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Variants?

message: Why oh why do tables on Wikipedia, other than tables of contents, still have such hideous appearances?  Why have they not been delightfully styled up like all other page elements? mnemonic 03:54, 2004 Jul 23 (UTC)
:Unfortunately, the software that powers the wiki still needs tables to be styled individually. It seems that it was possible at one stage for table styles to be set with a template, but this feature is now broken and/or no longer supported.
:As you can see above, we're currently discussing the appearance of the WP:Aircraft table, and the desirability of having a table at all, as opposed to a specifications section. Please tell us what you think! --Rlandmann 04:25, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Tables