Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fixed-wing aircraft without flaps

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. \ Backslash Forwardslash / (talk) 01:06, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of fixed-wing aircraft without flaps

List of fixed-wing aircraft without flaps (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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This article is a random list of articles. There are many thousands of fixed-wing aircraft that do not have flaps and even a complete list of them would serve no purpose as this categorization is without meaning. It would be similar to creating a List of aircraft with wings or List of aircraft painted red, in other words it is an inherently non-encyclopedic list. - Ahunt (talk) 23:22, 10 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • NOTE: It wasn't nominated for AfD because it is incomplete, but because it is an inherently non-encyclopedic list. Please don't remove the AfD template from the article again, As Per WP:AFD you are free to improve the article over the next seven days, but the matter of whether the article is retained or deleted is determined by consensus here on this page. - Ahunt (talk) 00:09, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I have made a couple of contributions to the article in an attempt to make it more accurate. However, it is not the sort of list I expect to find in an encyclopedia. Dolphin51 (talk) 00:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Not a good list at present, but it would easily possible to add some basic identifying information that would help browsing, and I have done just that. The references for each point could be triviall added from the articles on the underlying aircraft. Orphan is extremely easy to correct--just make a link from each aircraft article. DGG ( talk ) 00:59, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The people at AIR, who are likely to have the most expertise on this matter, don't believe the list is useful. I have some personal knowledge of the topic and don't find it encyclopedic. There are lots of unencylopedic lists that can have notable members and not be orphans—for example United States politicians with having ''s'' as the third letter of their family name. In other words, notable members and references to a list do not make a list encyclopedic. Bongomatic 05:07, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I said below, our real world expertise is not relevant. Other projects, like Google's knol and the citizendium, allow contributors who consider themselves real world experts to insert material that relies on their personal opinions. We don't. You claimed "There are many thousands of fixed-wing aircraft that do not have flaps..." Why shouldn't we regard this as a lapse from no original research? Inserting material that relies on our personal opinions is a lapse from WP:NPOV. And so, it seems to me, is removing material that relies solely on our personal opinion. Please understand that this is what it appears you are doing -- trying to get an article deleted because it differs from your personal, unsubstantiated opinion. Geo Swan (talk) 03:26, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -- Nominator claims: "There are many thousands of fixed-wing aircraft that do not have flaps". Are there? This disturbs me. We don't allow contributors to insert material based on WP:ILIKEIT. And we don't let contributors excise material based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Our nominator may be some kind of aeronautical engineer. That would be irrelevant. Unlike, say, the Citizendium, or Google's Knol, contributors here who are real world experts aren't allowed to insert material based on their real-world professional opinions. They have to cite WP:RS, just like the rest of us. So, returning to nominator's claim: "There are many thousands of fixed-wing aircraft that do not have flaps..." perhaps our nominator could substantiate this claim? No offense, but without substantion for this claim it looks alarming like editorializing to me. Geo Swan (talk) 03:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -- I see that all three comments on the talk page are all from a few hours ago. I can't help wondering why our nominator didn't raise their concerns on the talk page. This really seems like an editorial concern first, not grounds for deletion. If the assertion above: "There are many thousands of fixed-wing aircraft that do not have flaps..." is incorrect, it would save the time of all of us who participating in this discussion, if our nominator attempted to sort out their concern on the talk page first. I think those working on this article deserved an opportunity to address this criticism on the talk page, not in an {{afd}}. Geo Swan (talk) 03:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • This article was discussed at WT:AIR#Useful list?, which is a legitimate place to duiscuss options. The consensus there was that it should be deleted, hence we are now at the AFD. Also, note that this list was created in May 2007, which is plenty of time for the articel to have been greatly expanded, but it was orphaned most of that time. Most of the editing on the article, other than the article's creation, has been done since the discussion was opened at WTAIR, and much of the since then has been done by proponents of the article. While I am certainly not a fan of knee-jerk AfDs, I think 28 months is quite enough time . - BilCat (talk) 04:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Geo Swan: thanks for your comments to the AfD, but as per WP:NRVE you will note that neither the AfD nominator, nor anyone else, is required to cite sources to show that the article, or in this case, the list, is non-notable. Instead it is up to the article creator and article editors to cite sources show that this is a notable list. The article does not provide any indication that this is a notable or even a useful list. Because fixed wing aircraft without flaps are so common (and in fact may be close a majority of the category) no published expert has said that "a list of fixed wing aircraft without flaps would be a short and useful list". In fact going through my own aviation library I can find no work that makes any pronouncement on the subject at all, I contend because it is a trivial subject. Going though Janes I can see that a complete version of this list would be very long, perhaps ten thousand types, and range from the Wright Flyer to the Avro Vulcan. There are thousands of types built before 1920 without flaps, most ultralights designs have no flaps, almost all biplanes have no flaps and the vast majority of light aircraft built before 1950 had no flaps. I content that if you could complete the list it would still serve no purpose and would be similar to a List of aircraft that do not have V-tails or List of aircraft that do not have four engines - an enormous list that would not be useful to any reader. I am still waiting for someone to explain how this list could be of use to a reader.- Ahunt (talk) 14:19, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete It would be better to categorize airplanes by what they do have in common, not something they lack. Would you have an article on "boats without rudders"? or "animals without tails"? I don't see what makes this different. Northwestgnome (talk) 05:02, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I see the discussion pointed to on [wt:air] is mainly between the two proposers for deletion at the top of this debate. In common with comments above, I don't see that it has been demonstrated that flapless airplanes are so common a list would not make sense. The article in question claims they are rare and no one has seen fit to dispute this by changing the article. Nor has anyone explained why not having flaps is a trivial technical issue: I thought flaps were considered essential on aeroplanes so the article struck me as interesting as an annexe to whatever article discusses the technical points in detail. Ought to be cross linked, of course. Sandpiper (talk) 08:14, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per nom. MilborneOne (talk) 08:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, I cannot find any evidence from reliable sources that these criteria are used to group or classify aircraft, doing so for a Wikipedia article in my opinion constitutes original thought. A Google search of "fixed-wing aircraft without flaps" gets no non-Wikipedia related hits ([1]), even given that there are many other possible ways to express the meaning of the phrase, it is indicative of the lack of coverage. Guest9999 (talk) 18:17, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per nom. Sole Soul (talk) 09:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moderate Keep: I actually think this list could be encyclopedic. I'm not convinced there's too many aircraft without flaps to list, but if there is, then this list can be made more general with links to more specific lists. It's not the greatest list topic in the world, but I don't see anything wrong with it. If there is a better list topic to cover this subject, then we can call for another AfD. --Triadian (talk) 03:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:13, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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