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The name of the article at gliding suggests that it is a general article on gliding, whereas it is restricted to soaring of sailplanes (whatever you want to call them). I think that the article should be merged with this one, or else renamed to flying sailplanes or soaring or something similar.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 20:29, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
It's a glider with rigid, fixed wings. I get that.
OTOH does that mean that the space shuttle is technically a sailplane? How about Radio-controlled glider- I think that probably is a sailplane. Presumably paper aeroplanes aren't because they have flexible wings. And the Gimli glider presumably isn't because it isn't designed to be a good glider. But the Shuttle is a bit of an outlier.
But whatever, I think it's reasonable to limit the scope of this article to just manned sport gliders, but we shouldn't appear to be more general than we are, we can always create a more general article to go at sailplane (general) or something if it's necessary or more probably just rely on wiktionary for the accurate definition of the term.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 16:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Hope that helps. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 02:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
::You have the unusual distinction of being able to fill a talk page on your own.
JMcC (
talk)
11:03, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
(undent) In precisely the same way that the normal understanding of the word "car" implies a passenger-carrying wheeled vehicle and requires the modifier "model " in front of it to indicate otherwise, the normal understanding of the word "sailplane" implies a crewed air vehicle. Sub-scale remotely controlled (or uncontrolled) models are called "model sailplanes" or "model gliders". -- Rlandmann ( talk) 00:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
(undent) See above. Model sailplanes are sailplanes in the same sense that a radio-controlled model car is a sports car. This argument is now a purely semantic one, and it's unlikely in the extreme that anyone is going to find a source to say that "model sailplanes are sailplanes" (or not) any more than anyone is going to find a source to say that "models cars are cars".
Let's put it another way – do you have a reliable source that describes model sailplanes and sailplanes in the same breath? None of the encyclopedia-type works on aircraft that I own cover model aircraft, and neither of the encyclopedias of sailplanes cover model sailplanes. -- Rlandmann ( talk) 00:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
One of the problems with this discussion is that it is spread over more than one talk page. I have therefore pasted in some comments that I made on glider (aircraft). Wikipedia:Name#Use_the_most_easily_recognized_name states that "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." I hope that this principle will guide our discussions and reduce the case for a "purist" title. Most people would not expect to type in the word 'sailplane' to find the article about gliders. JMcC ( talk) 13:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC) & JMcC ( talk) 13:42, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Now that the bout of editing seems to have subsided, we can now take stock of what has been gained and lost. There is a curious situation in which links from [[glider]]s are directed to [[sailplane]] while links from [[gliders]] are directed to glider (aircraft). You can imagine that throughout Wikipedia these slight variations have been used at random. I have therefore been through each in "What links here" to ensure that they at least link to the right article. After some shaky conclusions from the statistics above, I can announce that in reality only a minority of the links from elsewhere refer unpowered aircraft in general. Sailplane used to be re-directed to the common name of 'glider', but now glider is re-directed to the uncommon name of 'sailplane'. The comparison table has moved from hang gliding. It was originally there because there is a blurred line between hang gliders and paragliders. The editors of the hang gliding article will probably want something similar re-instated eventually, whatever we do to this table here. This article also unnecessarily duplicates information about instrumentation and markings giving an impression that these are now fillers to help justify this article's existence. Comparative data about launch and landing can be put into the comparison table. The article glider (aircraft) now has a tautologous name and so it should be moved to something like Unpowered aircraft. JMcC ( talk) 09:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Looking through the links to glider/sailplane, there were some links which apply elsewhere. These were mainly references to military gliders. In the articles about their use, there is no need to identify them as anything other than gliders. However if someone referred to a glider today, few would think of a Horsa. I have therefore amended these links and they now go to military glider. After that the links are mainly to types of sporting glider, their pilots and places from which they launch. There is no evidence of widespread use of 'glider' in a more general sense. JMcC ( talk) 18:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the article you propose to revert to: [1], it has a very large number of severe deficiencies.
In short that article is highly inconsistent, even deceptive about what a glider is, and fails to mention or define entire classes of gliders (gliders like the space shuttle that are not sailplanes, hang gliders or paragliders) while you are defacto claiming it to be a general article on gliders and proposing to point all the wikipedias links to it.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 17:47, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Fundamentally you seem to have no workable strategy. That glider == sailplane is not a sustainable position to take in a general work such as the encyclopedia; that definition is not encyclopedic and there are enormous holes in that article that preclude it being in any way adequate.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 18:11, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I mean, fundamentally, is the space shuttle a glider or not? If you're arguing that it is not in the wikipedia, that only sailplanes are, because that is the common usage, then I think that the wikipedia is quite frankly going to be a heap of useless junk. If it is a glider, then the definition in the article needs to cover it, and the article needs to cover the definition.
This 'common usage' stuff in MOS is intended for when there are two entirely disjoint definitions, not when there are two definitions with one a superset of the other.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 18:20, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
![]() | This redirect does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
|
The name of the article at gliding suggests that it is a general article on gliding, whereas it is restricted to soaring of sailplanes (whatever you want to call them). I think that the article should be merged with this one, or else renamed to flying sailplanes or soaring or something similar.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 20:29, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
It's a glider with rigid, fixed wings. I get that.
OTOH does that mean that the space shuttle is technically a sailplane? How about Radio-controlled glider- I think that probably is a sailplane. Presumably paper aeroplanes aren't because they have flexible wings. And the Gimli glider presumably isn't because it isn't designed to be a good glider. But the Shuttle is a bit of an outlier.
But whatever, I think it's reasonable to limit the scope of this article to just manned sport gliders, but we shouldn't appear to be more general than we are, we can always create a more general article to go at sailplane (general) or something if it's necessary or more probably just rely on wiktionary for the accurate definition of the term.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 16:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Hope that helps. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 02:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
::You have the unusual distinction of being able to fill a talk page on your own.
JMcC (
talk)
11:03, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
(undent) In precisely the same way that the normal understanding of the word "car" implies a passenger-carrying wheeled vehicle and requires the modifier "model " in front of it to indicate otherwise, the normal understanding of the word "sailplane" implies a crewed air vehicle. Sub-scale remotely controlled (or uncontrolled) models are called "model sailplanes" or "model gliders". -- Rlandmann ( talk) 00:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
(undent) See above. Model sailplanes are sailplanes in the same sense that a radio-controlled model car is a sports car. This argument is now a purely semantic one, and it's unlikely in the extreme that anyone is going to find a source to say that "model sailplanes are sailplanes" (or not) any more than anyone is going to find a source to say that "models cars are cars".
Let's put it another way – do you have a reliable source that describes model sailplanes and sailplanes in the same breath? None of the encyclopedia-type works on aircraft that I own cover model aircraft, and neither of the encyclopedias of sailplanes cover model sailplanes. -- Rlandmann ( talk) 00:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
One of the problems with this discussion is that it is spread over more than one talk page. I have therefore pasted in some comments that I made on glider (aircraft). Wikipedia:Name#Use_the_most_easily_recognized_name states that "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." I hope that this principle will guide our discussions and reduce the case for a "purist" title. Most people would not expect to type in the word 'sailplane' to find the article about gliders. JMcC ( talk) 13:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC) & JMcC ( talk) 13:42, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Now that the bout of editing seems to have subsided, we can now take stock of what has been gained and lost. There is a curious situation in which links from [[glider]]s are directed to [[sailplane]] while links from [[gliders]] are directed to glider (aircraft). You can imagine that throughout Wikipedia these slight variations have been used at random. I have therefore been through each in "What links here" to ensure that they at least link to the right article. After some shaky conclusions from the statistics above, I can announce that in reality only a minority of the links from elsewhere refer unpowered aircraft in general. Sailplane used to be re-directed to the common name of 'glider', but now glider is re-directed to the uncommon name of 'sailplane'. The comparison table has moved from hang gliding. It was originally there because there is a blurred line between hang gliders and paragliders. The editors of the hang gliding article will probably want something similar re-instated eventually, whatever we do to this table here. This article also unnecessarily duplicates information about instrumentation and markings giving an impression that these are now fillers to help justify this article's existence. Comparative data about launch and landing can be put into the comparison table. The article glider (aircraft) now has a tautologous name and so it should be moved to something like Unpowered aircraft. JMcC ( talk) 09:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Looking through the links to glider/sailplane, there were some links which apply elsewhere. These were mainly references to military gliders. In the articles about their use, there is no need to identify them as anything other than gliders. However if someone referred to a glider today, few would think of a Horsa. I have therefore amended these links and they now go to military glider. After that the links are mainly to types of sporting glider, their pilots and places from which they launch. There is no evidence of widespread use of 'glider' in a more general sense. JMcC ( talk) 18:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the article you propose to revert to: [1], it has a very large number of severe deficiencies.
In short that article is highly inconsistent, even deceptive about what a glider is, and fails to mention or define entire classes of gliders (gliders like the space shuttle that are not sailplanes, hang gliders or paragliders) while you are defacto claiming it to be a general article on gliders and proposing to point all the wikipedias links to it.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 17:47, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Fundamentally you seem to have no workable strategy. That glider == sailplane is not a sustainable position to take in a general work such as the encyclopedia; that definition is not encyclopedic and there are enormous holes in that article that preclude it being in any way adequate.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 18:11, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I mean, fundamentally, is the space shuttle a glider or not? If you're arguing that it is not in the wikipedia, that only sailplanes are, because that is the common usage, then I think that the wikipedia is quite frankly going to be a heap of useless junk. If it is a glider, then the definition in the article needs to cover it, and the article needs to cover the definition.
This 'common usage' stuff in MOS is intended for when there are two entirely disjoint definitions, not when there are two definitions with one a superset of the other.- ( User) Wolfkeeper ( Talk) 18:20, 16 December 2008 (UTC)