Talk:Light fighter

message: It has now been nearly three weeks without any references added to the completely unreferenced and in some cases incorrect Lead Maury had written, and without correction of the significant errors in the under-referenced Concepts section.  There also has been no discussion on the Talk page about the many errors and omissions that have been pointed out in these sections, errors that were specifically listed in order to allow the contributing editor the opportunity to add references and fix the major errors that had been introduced.  I have thus today replaced those sections with candidate new text which is fully referenced, and as far as I can tell from the references, also correct in its statements.  
The candidate lead is four paragraphs that summarize the total article content.  The form Newzild had edited it into was very brief “news format”, whereas policy specifies encyclopedic format of typically four paragraphs or less.  It summarizes and weights the major issues as it is supposed to do.  I left Maury’s major contention that some modern “light fighters” are modified trainers, but as this assertion is unreferenced I would assume we must find appropriate references or else take that out.  I don’t know of any references on that point other than sales literature.  
The Concept section, in addition to now being sound and referenced, is also considerably shorter than the “incorrect point” followed by “referenced counter-point” form that it has been in for several weeks while waiting for corrective edits.  I did leave it in Maury’s preferred Advantages and Disadvantages form, just with the true and referenceable advantages and disadvantages presented.  In the interest of encyclopedic compactness, I also reduce historical content and focused more on the general light fighter concept, with most discussion focused on the more important modern era.  The historical thinking is adequately covered in the History sections.   
My hope would be that these edits would be allowed to stand as a blueprint and plan, a sound foundation suitable for building upon.  If so, they can then edited into final form by a team effort.  If we do that I believe we will have an article worthy of promotion well above the current “Start Class” level.  The material is strategically important and very militarily interesting, and could allow this article to proceed all the way to Feature Article status.  
Maury, I made these edits with only two insertions.  You can revert them both without violating 3RR.  However, if you do then we should enter into the Discussion part of the BRD cycle.  Even if you don’t revert, we are overdue for discussion and team effort in improving this article for promotion. I'm not trying to do unilateral editing here.  But, in the absence of necessary error correction and referencing that I have been waiting several weeks for, I'm trying to put a sound foundation in place that can be edited from here into an excellent article.  We can't get there without discussion and attracting strong editors to work on the article, people like Graeme, who in my opinion are limiting their input because they don't want to do the work only to have it unilaterally written over without discussion and teamwork.   
PhaseAcer (talk) 17:48, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Per definition on WP:Article size, Northrop F-5 is closer to 10,000 words. Which is within recommendations. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:27, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Going just by "readable prose", the current light fighter article is only about 6600 words.  Wiki guidance is that single articles up to about 40,000 words are generally fine if the subject is worthy of a longer article.  But, the point is that we are not so long here that we need to leave out key information for encyclopedic brevity.  For example, the few sentences it would take to explain the Gnat dominating over the F-86 is a key example of light fighter effectiveness that would be very worthwhile to include. PhaseAcer (talk) 13:56, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggested Editing Plan

message: MOS:CITELEAD essentially says that the summary nature of the lead means that the only cites in the lead should be to superlatives like best, heaviest, etc. as the text in the main body, with the appropriate cites, should support the statements made in the lead.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:38, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Much tidying still to be done. I hope that what I have done so far is an improvement. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:52, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Steel, the nice thing about you working on this truthful and deeply referenced article is that it gives you the chance to absorb some of the material.  You could now take your awareness of the truth and the references over to the heavy fighter article and do something about the massive unreferenced propaganda being presented there in defiance of the literature of the field and of Wikipedia policy on neutrality and references.  You might then lobby to add some coverage of fighter effectiveness and light vs. heavy in the main fighter aircraft article, which refuses to acknowledge the very existence of this issue which has been one of the most hotly contested and critically important defense issues from before WWII to now. Again, that is a massive defiance of Wikipedia policy on neutrality, references, and weight of coverage of important issues within a subject. Only the PR departments of heavy fighter companies, and their allies, could be happy with the current suppression of these massively important issues in the Wikipedia fighter article set. PhaseAcer (talk) 15:56, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for the compliments. I have long been aware that independent analysts tend to favour the light fighter but professional defence staff (and their political masters) tend to fall for the big statements. My naive assumption is that the reality probably lies somewhere between the two extremes, but my chief shortcoming is a lack of time to get deeper in to the topic. May I suggest that you add citation tags to the worst uncited claims in the heavy fighter article? I am adding it to my watchlist as I write this, and will do whatever little I can to try and ensure fair play. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Steel, reading about air combat and Wikipedia editing are hobbies for me (I am an electronics engineer) and I have a stacked up work week.  But, I will tag them and provide some discussion on the heavy fighter talk page this coming weekend. But, everything I have said is the straight truth.  If the irritation is coming out, it is because I have been telling the truth for four years now, while stacking the references up to the ceiling, and still get slapped down.  I do happen to know a few of the top guys in the field, and they confirm the accuracy of what I have presented.  One is a retired top military aviation DoD analyst, two are well known book authors on the subject, another is a retired senior executive on the F-16 program who was deeply involved in its definition and design, and another that I know through private flying and that I regularly get together with is a retired F-16 squadron commander and USAF Fighter Weapons School instructor. They all agree with every significant point I have tried to make here. PhaseAcer (talk) 23:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: You are not alone in knowing more than most about a subject. See WP:EXPERT for some thoughts on the editorial issues this raises. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:00, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm just an amateur who enjoys studying the subject and discussing it with a few actual experts I know.  One of the guys I mentioned above, an elite pro, tried to do some fighter editing on Wikipedia several years ago. But, his expert information and references acquired over decades of professional work were rejected by several aggressive editors, so he quit and won't be back.  He says he will save his effort for professional journals.  That is a loss for the Wiki fighter articles. PhaseAcer (talk) 23:46, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds unsurprising. No promises, but there is a saying, "Softly, softly catch'ee monkey." — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:31, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  The lede