Aviator369

Welcome

Hello, Aviator369, and Welcome to Wikipedia! Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Star Mississippi Happy editing! StarM 01:13, 25 May 2009 (UTC) Getting started Introduction The five pillars of Wikipedia How to edit a page Intuitive guide to Wikipedia Finding your way around Table of contents Department directory Editing articles How to develop an article Manual of Style Getting help Frequently asked questions Cheatsheet Where to ask a question Help pages New contributors' help page How you can help Contributing to Wikipedia Community Portal Follow Wikipedia etiquette Practice civility

Great job on the British Caledonia articles

they've needed some love for a long time, kudos for finally taking them on. StarM 01:15, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks and your assistance requested

Thanks for all of your great contributions to British aviation articles. Keep up the great work.

I'd like to request your assistance. I have been tidying up a number of these articles to bring them in line with the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which has been developed by the Wikipedia community to make the articles easy to read and to improve the consistency of formatting acrtoss all Wikipedia articles.

These edits include:

• removing repeated links and links to plain English words to reduce the visual clutter -- see WP:OVERLINK
• correcting hte capitalisation of section headings -- see WP:HEAD
• removing unnecessary piping of links -- there is no need, for example, to pipelink in order to include an acronym in a link when the name is spelled out, or to include a suffix to the article title -- see WP:LINK
• spelling out acronyms on first use -- many readers may not be familiar with acronyms like CAA or BOAC, so spelling them out the first time improves the readability of the article -- see WP:MOS.

Unfortunately, an anonymous editor has been reverting my changes without even the decency to discuss the changes on the talk page. This sort of behaviour can lead to an edit war, which is a pointless waste of eveyone's time.

I may have to block that anonymous editor, or protect the articles from editing if this continues. I do not want to do either.

I would appreciate your help in keeping an eye on these articles so that this sort of vandalism does not continue, and so that we can keep the articles improving. Thanks. And thanks again for all of your contributions. Regards, Ground Zero | t 16:27, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello Ground Zero: I actually did observe the recent frequent changes made to some of the aviation articles and think what the anonymous user has done is not good. Having said that, I also observed that one edit he/she (?) made to the British United article actually did make sense. I remember seeing him/her annotating one of his changes with a comment saying that British & Commonwealth during the BUA era was not the same company as British & Commonwealth Holdings (the link he/she edited). I actually checked it out (using the references cited plus additional research online as well as at my local library). Actually, he/she is right as far as that edit is concerned (ie, British & Commonwealth and British & Commonwealth Holdings were not around at the same time - the latter succeeded the former ca. 1985 when the old British & Commonwealth shipping company transformed itself into business/computer services type of outfit before it went bust during the early '90s recession). I am therefore of the opinion that we should reinstate this particular edit of the anonymous user, but leave all the others as they are (ie not revert back to his/her changes). Also, regarding the expansions of acronyms when they are first used in an article, although this is common sense and conforms to Wikipedia's stylistic rules, there are instances when using the acronym itself without displaying the expansion in a link to another article is easier to comprehend for first time readers or readers who do not know much about the subject, especially when they are very long - eg IATA is easier to read than International Air Transport Association (IATA). If the reader is interested what IATA stands for, he/she can click on the link which will take him/her into the relevant article where the expansion will be displayed and explained. Moreover, grammatical constructions that use 's look awkward if the apostrophe follows an acronym in brackets - eg it is better to display BEA's in link than British European Airways (BEA)'s. I hope my observations do not sound too confusing, but I think we should let common sense prevail, rather than doing meaningless nonsensical edits on the one hand (like most of the anonymous user's recent edits) and applying Wikipedia style rules too rigorously on the other.

NB: With regard to the British United article, I would therefore like to revert the change I have just explained above, as well as put the Airwork Services link at the very top in the introduction itself instead of having it further down (as at present). I hope this compromise will be acceptable to you. Aviator369 (talk) 22:50, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm just seeing this now. I understand your point about B&C Holdings -- you're right, the link should be piped to exclude "Holdings" if it was not part of the name at the time.

I disagree with you about IATA - it is meaningless to the non-technical reader, and should be spelled out per WP:MOS. Others have made the "click through" argument, but Wikipedia errs on the side of clarity for the reader.

In the case of BEA, putting the acronym after the possessive form is not incorrect, but the sentence can read better rearranged to avoid that construction as you have done in some cases. An alternative is to consider whether the acronym in brackets is needed at all -- if "BEA" is not used elsewhere in the article, then it could be left out altogether.

And I apologise again for the blanket revert that I did in error on one article. That was an unfortunate slip of the keyboard that I did not intend. Ground Zero | t

With regard to your edit summary today on British Caledonian, please calm down. I made the edit to which you referred (the B&C one) ten hours before you explained why it was incorrect. I would understand your anger if I made it after you did so, but that was not the case. please stop accusing me of vandalism. I can assure you that I am a contributor of long standing on Wikipedia, and that my edits are aimed at bringing hte articles in line with Wikipedia standards. I have explained my edits on the talk pages of the articles. Ground Zero | t 22:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

May 2009

My apologies. I accidentally reverted your perfectly valid edit. Warning removed. Happy editing! Quantumobserver (talk) 01:11, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks Quantumobserver.Aviator369 (talk) 01:12, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Some resources for you

Let me again thank you for your contributions. I understand that you are new here, and that you are not familiar with how Wikipedia works.

Please assume good faith. I am, like you, working to improve Wikipedia articles. You can see from my edits that I am fixing spelling, formatting errors, reducing overlinking, making and copyedits to improve the articles. If I make a mistake, r make an edit with which you disagree, that does not mean that I am trying to vandalise the article or be disruptive. We can work out our disagreements on the talk pages of the articles. there is no need to get into edits wars, which are a waste of time.

I also ask you to be civil. Ill-tempered edit summaries do not contribute to a collaborative atmosphere. It is better that we work together than against each other.

You bring a knowledge of the history of these airlines, and I bring a knowledge of Wikipedia style and policies. Together, we can improve these articles significantly.

I am doing my best to explain on the talk pages on what bases I am making these edits by reference to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and other Wikipedia guides and policies. If you disagree wit my edits, please explain why on the talk pages, and refer to these sources to support your arguments. Thanks. Ground Zero | t 03:33, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:03, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:03, 24 November 2015 (UTC)