Talk:Heck Field

Archiving of AIP link

Hey @Kerry Raymond:, thankyou for your recent edit in preserving the links for this page, and for all the work you put in to wikipedia! I just have a question as to whether it is necessary to link an archived version of the AIP to the 30 Nov 23 version? This is current, however my understanding is that the template (Template:AIP AU) will automatially update to the latest version when Airservices Australia releases a new version every 3 months, so its unlikely to become a deadlink or obsolete. It looks like this was an automated edit by your bot, but it seems a bit redundant. Before I undo it, I just wanted to check with you that I'm not missing something? Dfadden (talk) 01:54, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

OK, there are a few things to unpack.

Firstly, it's not my bot. It is a tool anyone can use. It gets run using a bot on most articles sooner or later. I tend to use it proactively whenever I have edited an article, because, having been onwiki for almost 20 years, I've seen a lot of deadlink citations that are now lost forever, so I try to ensure there is an archive url whenever possible. But, whether or not I do it, it will sooner or later be done by the bot.

But, having said that, the tool does not archive URLs produced by a template (as such URLs do not appear in the wikitext of the article), so I took a look at the article (the version you created [1]) and I see (below) that an explicit not-templated URL is present. It is that URL that is being archived and I don't think the template will be updating it. Since, as you say, the template will produce this URL, why is also there explicitly?

| footnotes = Sources: Australian [[Aeronautical Information Publication|AIP]] and aerodrome chart<ref name="AIP">{{AIP AU|YHEC|name=Heck Field}}, [https://www.airservicesaustralia.com/aip/current/ersa/FAC_YHEC_30NOV2023.pdf Aeronautical Chart]</ref>

I took a look at Bankstown Airport which uses the same template, but it does not have an explicit URL in it, so maybe that explicit URL should not be present in the Heck Field article?

| footnotes = Sources: [[Aeronautical Information Publication|AIP]] and Movements at Australian Airports from [[Airservices Australia]]<ref>{{AIP AU|YSBK|name=SYDNEY/Bankstown}}</ref>

Having said all that, the template updates the PDF being used as the citation but it does NOT update the information in the infobox corresponding to it, so if something changes at Heck Field (say the runway is made longer), the PDF from AirServices Australia will end up having a different length to what is stated in the infobox in the article, which is why it is normal to provide a specific URL and access-date for the citation. In terms of the general principles of citation ("Cite it where you saw it"), it is always better to cite the specific quarterly PDF from which the values in the infobox were obtained and archive that PDF. Otherwise the values in the infobox box will sooner or later be inconsistent with the AirServices Australia current PDFs. How will the reader know that what's in the infobox may not be what's in the cited PDF? Kerry (talk) 03:21, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate the response. Automated functions and bots are not something I've really explored in wikipedia, so thanks for helping to fill in the gaps for me about how they work!

To your first question, I copied the footnote format from another article and replaced the original ICAO code and URL. I believe you are correct that an explicit URL is not required, but I also cannot find any specific guidance on whether its convention to include it or not. Inclusion is pretty inconsistent, as some articles like Alice Springs Airport and Darwin International Airport include the URL after the template, while others including Albury Airport and Brisbane Airport do not. This is something I might raise on the Aviation wikiproject/Australian Transport project pages.

Your second question "How will the reader know that what's in the infobox may not be what's in the cited PDF?" is a fair one. For me, I understand the limitations of wikipedia enough not to rely on it as an authoritative source, and would check the link for currency and accuracy if I was relying on the information! However, I accept that the majority of readers may not think this way, so I can see the value in including the archived version. I will leave it be. Dfadden (talk) 05:16, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, a conversation with relevant task force/project might be useful. I don't write about aviation (apart from mentioning airports/fields being in various Queensland place articles), so I don't have a strong view on how this should be handled. There are some topic areas on Wikipedia where we have a higher standard of expectation wrt citation where there is a real-world risk, such as medical information (as both patients and GPS use it) and biographies of living people (as they can sue Wikipedia for defamation). Now I can see information about airfields having some real-world risks if our info is not correct. While you would like to think a responsible pilot would do more than read Wikipedia, people can be lazier than you think. Thinking about it a little, maybe the way around the problem is to use a specific AirServices PDF with dates and archived version for the infobox and article content, but in the external links or a section called "Latest information" have the template to the most recent AirServices documentation for anyone seriously intending to use the airport. just a thought ... Kerry (talk) 06:45, 16 January 2024 (UTC)