Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide/Layout (Accidents)

Comments

A couple of comments:

1) By Introduction - do you mean the lead paras?

2) Passengers - while generally, the limits proposed here seem sensible, I can forsee examples where the discouraged information would be appropraite - such as the plane was full of Pilgrms to Lourdes, or it had a large number of childen form a single school for example.Nigel Ish (talk) 23:33, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

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Another question. In the notes section it says, "With due regard to a neutral point-of-view the article should not include comments by persons or bodies designed to blame or distance those persons or bodies from actions taken." Can someone explain what this is supposed to mean?Mattnad (talk) 15:06, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I took out the whole 'Notes' section, which was confusing and not appropriate for a style guideline. Dlabtot (talk) 15:23, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Creep!

Eek, instructions creep. I find this proposed guideline definitely redundant with what we have already including WP:Common sense, and the part about notable passengers a contradiction to the main notability guidelines (if a passenger was notable, why wouldn't they be included in the list of deaths? Also, notability is not really about article contents). --LjL (talk) 21:26, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The idea that an individual was notable if they had an article was to remove the notability argument as by having an article it had already established. If we dont have that descriminator then we could end up with continuos arguments about notability and possibly a full passenger list (because Smith is their then why isnt Jones) and against the principles WP:NOTMEMORIAL. So a passenger with an article equals notability which is clear with no fuzzy edges. MilborneOne (talk) 11:22, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, I subscribe to the principle that doing things right sometimes involves not doing them the easy way. For what is worth, I oppose this proposed guideline, both because of this notability issue and because the rest of it merely duplicates other policies ("See also", "References" and "External links" - seriously?!). --LjL (talk) 15:50, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what duplicating other policies is about, this is a guideline to editors on what is expected in a new accident article, so it lists the headers and explains what is expected for each header in an accident article. Cant really see any duplication of policy documents. But you have a right not to agree. MilborneOne (talk) 21:35, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Template outline

• Given that a large proportion of these articles start out in a frenzy of editing after an event, a subst'ed template that contained the outline of the article would avoid a lot of edit conflicts and ad-hoc layout. It could include something like:

==<!-- Crew -->== <!-- Details about the number of flight and cabin crew belong under this heading. Information on the experience and training of the crew may be included where relevant. This section is not needed for a simple total of crew, if it is adequately shown in the infobox.-->

• This would be invisible until edited:

• LeadSongDog come howl 15:39, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I dont know anything about subst templates but it sound like a good idea. Not sure how the article creator would know about it but it may be worth a try. MilborneOne (talk) 21:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

"only information from official investigation bodies, operators and airports should be included"

This is just blatantly wrong... we have policies and guidelines as to what can be included in Wikipedia that have broad consensus and which can't be over-ridden by a style guideline. So I'm taking it out. Dlabtot (talk) 22:53, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Can you imagine if this policy were made a rule across Wikipedia for all articles? So for instance, articles covering a politician could not include anything except content from official biographies, press releases, etc. etc. In the context of an accident article, it would preclude almost all information that comes from news reporting if it's not a direct quote of an "official" body. This policy would also preclude separate academic or journalistic studies. In effect, we have a call here for blanket censorship of content that does not fall with this narrow band of sources. Mattnad (talk) 14:58, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

You put your finger exactly on the problem. Dlabtot (talk) 15:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Aftermath

An editor who was not signed in (Special:Contributions/153.221.6.50) made a number of edits to prominent aircraft accident pages where the editor removed information about whether the airline reused the flight number after the accident. I've always found this information to be of use, so I undid these edits. However, I see that flight number reuse is not listed as part of the Aftermath section in this style guide. Should it be? Cxbrx (talk) 16:30, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't the aircraft, passengers, and crew come FIRST?

The aircraft, passengers, and crew should come first as it sets the stage for the accident, investigation and aftermath sections. It's better to give people the background and segue into the accident part rather than jump right into the accident. Tigerdude9 (talk) 21:42, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Not exactly; the article is about an accident, so it makes sense to have the Accident section as the most prominent one, instead of the minutiae about when the aircraft involved was first delivered to such-and-such airline. However, if there is a complex background to the accident flight, then a Background or 'Flight history' section before the Accident one may be in order. --Deeday-UK (talk) 01:36, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

The full article should tell the full story of the accident in an easy to understand format. Often that means understanding who the aircraft and crew are, before diving into the accident itself, and many articles are already written assuming this (see below). For people who want to know the short version of the accident without getting into the details, that's what the LEDE is for. People who want to skip to the "Accident" section can use the TOC. Shelbystripes (talk) 18:39, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Tigerdude9. The essay is confusing, as it claims "Aircraft" and "Crew" should follow "Accident", but it also tries to acknowledge "Background" as the first part of "Accident". Aircraft and crew information are often the key background! (This is especially the case when the article is referencing the crew members by name, or the aircraft type is relevant to the accident description.)

In addition, "Aftermath" is often used to describe events that happened after the accident and search/recovery are over (other than the investigation), including long-term consequences of the crash and investigation, so it should go after "Investigation". This way, the "Aftermath" section inherently supports notability for an article.) Consistent with existing good articles (see American Airlines Flight 191, Swissair Flight 111, United Flight 232, etc.) the proper order should be more like:

• Infobox
• Lede
• Background (broken out into "Aircraft" and "Crew" if needed)
• Accident​
• Investigation
• Aftermath
• See also
• References

This layout would be more consistent with how editors are actually editing in recent years. Shelbystripes (talk) 18:30, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Disagree, it has been standard practice for a long time to start the accident article with a description of the accident. The details of the aircraft and crew are not that important to the story being told to be the first thing to be mentioned. MilborneOne (talk) 18:53, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Just to be clear, does that mean you'd want to rewrite United Airlines Flight 232, for example? The "Accident" section assumes knowing who the crew members are (as it refers to them by name), which makes the crew section coming first seem logical. While improving the accident description section, I had recently improved the article by adding to the DC-10 description in the "Aircraft" section, so the flow of the accident section was a little less interrupted by describing the DC-10's hydraulics and flight controls. I ask that you review that work, and confirm you think the article would read better without it, if that's what you actually mean to say. Shelbystripes (talk) 19:22, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes it needs to follow the consensus here. The crew in most accident articles is really trivia and doesnt need to be first. Knowing that an aircraft was first flown 1999 and was operated by Floo Airlines twenty years ago it not the first thing needed in the article. The lead will tell you it is a Bloggs Funbus. MilborneOne (talk) 19:30, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Can we propose, instead, getting rid of trivial information then? If it's part of a style guide, I'm all for it. I would rather agree on what shouldn't be in the article, above or below the accident description, than try to create some rigid rule that says crew information always goes below the accident. If crew information isn't relevant to the accident, we likely don't need more than 1-2 sentences on who the crew are. Shelbystripes (talk) 19:39, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I think any reasonable suggestion to make the articles better is worth a discussion. We to tend to go over the top with the Pilot was Joe Soap aged 26 who trained in Footown on a small aircraft when the crew composition on a lot of accidents is not really of note. We tend to do the same with aircraft trying to add the history of the aircraft when it is not relevant to the accident, particularly past owners and the like. Perhaps do need a better introduction before the accidents I just didnt like the idea of putting what is mainly trivial at the start of the article. I appreciate that sometimes the crew and the aircraft are important to the accident but perhaps not all the detail. (Its a bit like the Daily Mail it is said allways mention the value of your house when it has no relevance to the story). MilborneOne (talk) 19:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I, too, am guilty of adding irrelevant detail to accident articles. It would help if we had better alignment on what should be included and when, and I think identifying how to reduce irrelevant content would be far more helpful than the section order. (For example, perhaps we could agree on pilot details only worth listing out if pilot experience comes up as a contributing factor or in recognition of heroism. Even pilots' names may not always be necessary, nothing is sacred to me if we can just all agree on how to do things.)

I will try to put together a proposal on what I'm thinking detailed enough for feedback. In the meantime, I self-reverted my edit on 2020 Calabasas helicopter crash to avoid conflict, though I'll request that nobody else start rewriting articles such as United Airlines Flight 232 that were mentioned here, until this discussion plays out. Shelbystripes (talk) 20:04, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Agree that no changes are made while this discussion is open, happy to wait for you to come up with some ideas, I dont think we are that far apart. MilborneOne (talk) 21:05, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree on some of the points raised here, in particular that for WP:AATF articles the focus must be on the accident itself, so having the aircraft description (including s/n and past owners) placed before the Accident section for a lesser-known crash caused by pilot error doesn't make sense and is just a distraction.
However, for complex, high-profile accidents such as the mentioned United Flight 232, Tenerife etc., a Background section is well in order, and in such cases it makes perfect sense to cover relevant details about the aircraft (e.g. the DC-10's hydraulic flight control system is crucial to understand UA232) or the crew, whom are often referred to in the article and notable in their own right (Haynes, Sully etc). But the majority of articles (say Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409, for example) don't require much background if any, so any info about aircraft and crew shouldn't be more prominent than the info on the accident itself. --Deeday-UK (talk) 16:56, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

In popular culture

I notice a lot of these pages have an "in popular culture" section that consists solely of television shows dedicated to explaining and re-enacting airline crashes. This doesn't strike me as being "popular culture", since that implies it's broken out of the sphere of media dedicated to aviation accidents. Some articles such as Air France Flight 4590 or Adam Air Flight 574 instead use a different name for this section, such as "Dramatizations" or "Documentaries and other media". I think those are much better names for this section, and I'd be interested in having one of those alternate names be official style guide policy. InvisibleUp (talk) 07:00, 4 March 2024 (UTC)