Talk:Flight International

Article name and content

This article was redirected to Flight International Magazine; I have reverted. This (Flight International) is the correct article name. Also, the redirected page was a verbatim copy of the first paragraph of http://www.reedbusiness.co.uk/rb2_products/rb2_products_flight_international.htm. The article is in need of improvement, which I will try to do over the next while. Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 16:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Straight and Level

Is 'Uncle Roger' (Roger Bacon) still doing his Straight and Level column in Flight?

Might be worth a mention if so, or if something similar exists in the magazine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.248.136 (talk) 00:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, he's still around: uncle-rogers-basic-flying-rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.248.57 (talk) 09:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

.. and Straight and Level's still there; straight-level —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.248.57 (talk) 09:50, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Sources and writing style

I removed the following material published by Reed Business Information, the owners of Flight International. The problems are that it is written in a promotional, rather than dispassionate and factual style, and is not based on any independent, third-party sources.

Disputed content

With a team of journalists and correspondents around the world, it provides global coverage of aerospace manufacturing and aviation operations in the areas of air transport, business aviation, defence, general aviation and spaceflight. Features include the magazine's famous aircraft cutaway illustrations, flight tests of new aircraft, in-service reports and sector-by-sector analysis. [...] Since the late 1920s, Flight International has become particularly well known for producing highly detailed aviation illustrations, known as 'Flight Cutaways' and 'Micro-cutaways'. These were pioneered by Max Millar, head of the artist's department. Some of the best known artists in this field were Arthur Bowbeer, Frank Munger and John Marsden, who between them produced several hundred cutaways between 1946 and 1994. According to Flight, the goal of the cutaways is to inform aerospace professionals of developments in civil and defence aircraft and engine programmes, and to do so in uncompromising detail, worldwide. The Cutaways are a globally recognized product and benchmark for detail and accuracy.

—Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:56, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

So work to improve the sourcing. Even edit it to improve the tone. But do not simply blank sections that you dislike. And when reverted by another editor, per WP:BRD DO NOT simply start edit-warring to have it your way. Also 'reading some of Flight might be useful. These cutaways are ubiquitous, distinctive and have been so since the middle of last century. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:04, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

That may indeed be so, but material on Wikipedia should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and not the beliefs or experiences of its editors, which I think we can assume applies to experience in reading a given publication. Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed, and The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material [...] any problems with the text or sourcing should be fixed before the material is added back. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:15, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Since the above material as well as a good deal of the section Flight Daily News is written essentially as an advertisement, I think adding Template:Advert to the page pending resolution of this dispute would be appropriate. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:32, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Regarding sourcing, I doubt that reliable sources will be found for most of the above material, particularly descriptions of the magazine's "features", "team of journalists and correspondents around the world", "best known artists", and "globally recognized product" – as well as statements from the section Flight Daily News such as "it was a new concept in air show daily newspapers" and "it markets the information it provides as 'today's news today'". This is essentially advertising, which does not belong on Wikipedia according to What Wikipedia is not. A good deal more is simply unsourced trivia, which even if reliable sources were found, wouldn't represent the most significant, published viewpoints on the topic as required by Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 08:22, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Andy is currently on a 31-hour vacation from WP, so his response will be delayed. - BilCat (talk) 21:24, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Pending further responses from other contributors, I removed some material from the section Flight Daily News, and other unsourced and/or advertising-like material (Special:Diff/749511259), for the reasons detailed above. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:51, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Update: All of the material that I removed has been re-added with no explanation and no attempt to address the concerns I raised above. The user who added the material back also reverted the addition of the only independent, reliable source cited so far, which was added on 25 December, as well as a couple of commonsense changes made by yet another user, once again with no explanation. The current version of the article is once again bloated with unsourced or poorly-sourced promotional content and trivia. Moreover, citations to sources based on press releases circulated by PR Newswire and Business Wire seem to fall far short of the standard of "third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" per Wikipedia:Verifiability (emphasis mine). To address the concerns raised in this section as well as under § Primary sources below, I suggest restoring the page to the revision as of 23:18, 25 December 2016 (minus the AfD tag). —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:42, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that "Rv ignorance" is not a helpful edit summary when reverting large changes or indeed in any other circumstance. Once again, Wikipedia's contents are determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:52, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Update: Since no one has objected since my last comment was posted two weeks ago, I have restored the page to the previous version by User:Fnlayson. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:30, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Note: It seems that this page has had problems with such promotional content for several years now. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:12, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

References

Primary sources

My addition of the {{primary source inline}} tag after the part about incorporating the journal The Aircraft Engineer & Airships was reverted here with the explanation that the information is not "conversational or extreme". That's beside the point – according to WP:RS, "Although specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred".

WP:V states that articles should not be based primarily on self-published sources. Currently, two of the three sources used in the article are self-published, primary sources. Reliable, independent sources are needed to avoid giving undue weight to trivial aspects of the topic. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:56, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

See also WP:V: "Base articles largely on reliable secondary sources. While primary sources are appropriate in some cases, relying on them can be problematic". —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:38, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Update: Once again, the tag was removed, which may have been accidental. I've added the {{third-party}} tag to the top of the page, which should address this and other sources used in the article. In particular, press releases circulated by PR Newswire and Business Wire are not third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Their addition to the article only amplifies the problem of primary sourcing I mentioned above. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:22, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I have removed the tag after a tidy up, it has only two "closely related" refs now one of which deals with the content which is probably not unreasonable and one is a front cover related to the incorporation of a different title. We can probably in time find another ref but as it is factual rather than opinion it is really not an issue. MilborneOne (talk) 10:48, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Two sources out of five with close ties to the subject is still significant, in my opinion. Whether the material is factual isn't really the issue. Reliable, secondary sources are needed to establish the relative WP:WEIGHT of different statements. In such a brief article (and yes, I know it was longer before I removed a bunch of promotional content), every statement should be evaluated for whether it represents a summary of accepted knowledge about the subject – If the 1920s merger with The Aircraft Engineer & Airships is accepted as being significant to the topic, then finding a reliable, independent source for it should be a trivial matter. However, I'm not seeing any mention of it in independent publications.

Frankly, I question whether reliable, independent, secondary sources exist to support the material about the magazine's "global coverage", "features", "famous aircraft cutaway illustrations", "sector-by-sector analysis", etc. This is merely advertising, which does not belong on Wikipedia. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:43, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Sangdeboeuf I dont disagree with your statement that some of the words are still a bit fluffy and they should be removed, I am still looking for something on the aircraft engineer & airships but it is not a journal I have heard of before so it probably is not significant. I would still argue that a primary source is fine for factual information about itself but I understand your concern about weight and balance. MilborneOne (talk) 15:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I've removed the part that read like an advert. It was evidently copied directly from the company's website.

Having looked more closely at the source cited for the statement

In the mid-1920s Flight incorporated a related journal, The Aircraft Engineer & Airships

I'm not seeing any mention of the other journal being "incorporated", or indeed of it ever having existed as a separate publication. There are just the words The Aircraft Engineer & Airships underneath the main title, Flight. I'm guessing there was a bit of original interpretation by some Wikipedian involved here – in that light, I would suggest removing the statement entirely. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

References