Space Shuttle

The text says that the glide ratio of the space shuttle is 1:1, but I thought it was 4:1. Could someone more knowledgeable say anything about this? -- di92jn

NASA's web site gives 18-20 degrees. If my sums are right that is 3:1. Article amended JMcC 11:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Glide angle depends on Mach number. Hypersonic, it's about 1:1. At landing it's about 4:1.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 06:25, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right name?

It seems to me that the subject matter is listed incorrectly under Gliding rather than Soaring. The opening sentences aptly make the distinction between Gliding and Soaring and then the rest of the article is about Soaring. WPElliott 16:18, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The world governing body, Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, calls it 'gliding' so I think that is the definitive name and no change seems likely. JMcC 12:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense, thanks WPElliott 15:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Inventor of the air glider.

My son has been on this site doing homework about inventors. The problem that he seems to be coming across is well reflected right here. Under the category of inventors, it states that Otto Lilienthal is the inventor of the air glider. When you click on "air glider" by his name, you get a COMPLETELY different answer. Can someone help here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.7.141 (talk) 11:22, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have never heard of an "air glider". The term "glider" is used to describe unpowered aircraft and so the word "air" is superfluous. The article on First flying machine gives a useful list of people who were crazy enough to launch themselves into the air without first understanding aerodynamics. I am not sure that they were inventors, perhaps merely madmen. There is a blurred line between just plummeting less quickly and genuinely controlled flight. The latter needs an understanding of the basics of aerodynamics. Perhaps the Turk, who is listed as one of Turkey's great achievers by another Turk, also achieved controlled flight, but the first person who is recorded as having applied scientific method to the problem of heavier-than-air flight was George Cayley. I think that gives him the right to be called the inventor and he has been called the "father of flight". Cayley's coachman certainly flew his glider and two replicas of his glider have been flown in the recent past to show the practicality of the design. Furthermore Otto Lillienthal knew of Cayley's work and based his designs on it. However he also made great advances and many flights, and so was one of the people who in turn inspired the Wright Brothers. As with many inventions, the answer is not quite so simple as you might think. Penicillin and steam engines are other examples. The French even dispute that the Wright Brothers were the first with powered flight. JMcC (talk) 12:10, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure. Any flight you walk away from is a good flight ;-)- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 06:30, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We need to embrace the controversy, and describe who says what about who rather than take sides.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 06:33, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yaw string

Your section on instrumentation should also include the Yaw String. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arydberg (talk • contribs) 17:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestion. The caption to the picture refers to the yaw string, which is linked to an article about turn & slip. I think that is sufficient and it keeps the article reasonably compact. JMcC (talk) 18:48, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Among the planes mentioned I could not find the Schweizer 2-33. You have a section on it at:

http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Schweizer_SGS_2-33

You might consider adding a link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arydberg (talk • contribs) 21:33, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the suggestion. It is impractical to list every type of glider in this article. However there is a link to List of gliders which does contain the redoubtable 2-33 and a link to its article. JMcC (talk) 23:48, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Scope of article

I'm not sure that the scope of the article is very clear. If it's a general article about gliders (which I think it should be), then it probably needs to be beefed up on all the different sorts of gliders there are. If it's mainly about sport gliders/soaring then that needs to be made clear and a new article on gliders in general created. What do others think?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 06:28, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These days, the term 'glider', when used with a qualification, mainly applies to sailplanes used for sport and recreation. It could be argued that the term is generic but when people wish to refer to other types, they tend to say Military glider, Hang glider and Paraglider. With the exception of the space shuttle, there have been few other types of glider. If this article were broken up, it would have to finish at the end of the history section with the Wright Brothers and then have links to separate articles on sailplanes, Military gliders, hang gliders and paragliders, but I am not sure it would be a great step forward. JMcC (talk) 11:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's two issues here. There's the page that people get to when they type 'glider' and then there's what this article contains. I'm completely unconvinced that this article should be anything other than a general article on gliders, and sports gliders/sailplanes need to be elsewhere. Possibly at the end of the day most people will end up at sailplanes when they type in glider; but that's a separate question.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:43, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I split the article. I turned the sailplane article into an article on fixed wings sports gliders, and made this the general article. It's still a bit incomplete and messy, but then again it was anyway, and I think that we need to take an eventualistic approach to this article as with all articles in the wikipedia.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:59, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is a reasonably good case to mention birds or mammals that predominately glide here as well; change the definition to be inclusive and add a few paragraphs and perhaps a section or so.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:51, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added it to the disambiguation page instead; currently by editorial choice we're defining the article to be for aircraft only.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The word "glider" is unfortunately fuzzy. It has at least four increasingly specific major meanings:

a thing that glides (including various flying machines. but also animals like the sugar glider)
an unpowered flying machine (including fixed-wing, flexible-wing and rotary-wing machines)
an unpowered, fixed-wing flying machine
a sailplane

This article used to be principally be about definition 4, with nods to definitions 2 and 3; and I'd agree that this probably reflects what most English-speakers think of as a "glider".

It's now been repositioned very firmly at definition 2; with sailplanes split to their own article and lots of material added about flexible-wing machines. I think this is problematic, and my feeling is that it should be positioned at definition 3, with nods to definition 2.

Pragmatically, both in terms of technology and of history, there's a lot of common ground between sailplanes and other fixed-wing gliders (and indeed, the line can be blurry in some cases); but very little common technology or history between these machines and the flexible- and rotary-wing aircraft that could also be described as various sorts of gliders. --Rlandmann (talk) 13:23, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly support Thank you, Rlandmann. It sounds entirely reasonable to me. JMcC (talk) 14:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well we're trying to write an encyclopedia. Historically they evolved from dictionaries. Dictionaries have multiple definitions per entry whereas encyclopedias have just one definition per entry. This means that for a dictionary and an encyclopedia to cover the same ground, the encyclopedia often has a lot more articles on the same word.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the definition used should be number 1 or 2; or if this article isn't doing that, then we will need another article to cover the general case. It's then a question of consensus what the names of the articles are and which article you get when you type 'glider'.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought it would be interesting go through some of the internal links and sample how the term 'glider' is being linked. I suspected that it's frequently being used in the #1 or #2 sense, which you seem to be arguing shouldn't be an article, or perhaps I've misunderstood your position slightly, but here's the results from a random sample:

Planform #4
Human-powered_transport unclear, probably 2
Aviation 2 (presumably a hang glider type thing)
Combat_engineering 3
Wing_loading 4
Llanishen 4
Birdman Rally 2

I got bored at this point but the range of usage is clearly fairly wide. There's well over 500 links to glider, and it's clear that a fair percentage of them are, if we use the definition #3 incorrectly linked. The implication would be that many users who search for glider every day (about 500 on average) are looking for #2, not necessarily #3 or 4.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, one more:

Vertical_stabilizer #4 but the text said sailplane(!)

- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:56, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the links you've pointed out, I find a couple of very different results –

Planform #3 – almost all fixed-wing gliders have high aspect ratio wings, not only sailplanes.
Human-powered_transport #3 – it is, after all, in a section titled "fixed-wing aircraft" and, by contrast, is set off from a section on rotary-wing types.
Aviation (link has changed – the context was Armen Firman's glider) 2 (agree)
Combat_engineering 3 (agree)
Wing_loading 4 (agree, but note that that the writer specifically qualified this as "modern gliders". I can't think of a modern glider that is not a sailplane. Can anyone else here?)
Llanishen 4 (note that this link has changed in the meantime) - #3 British wartime gliding activities included training on primary gliders and and operating transport gliders (has since been revised to clarify)
Birdman Rally 2 - (agree, but has since been revised to clarify)

I fail to see evidence that many users searching for "glider" are expecting to find information on flexible-wing machines. --Rlandmann (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Any way you cut it ~3 out of 7 is just under half. That implies that over 200 of the references are using it in the general sense; which probably means that about 30-40% of people are also using it in that way. What are you going to do, go through well over 500 articles and correct or leave each and every one? What about the people that want to know about gliders in the general sense? How does the wikipedia serve these guys? Are there no general principles or general discussions of general gliders to be had? What about the more obscure types of gliders like gyrogliders are you going to disambiguate to those as well in each and every case? It's just not practical to go with #3, and I don't think it's a good idea.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:14, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a an article about gliders, I would say that in general useage nobody call a hang glider or flexi wing just a glider. Most gliders are sailplanes so I didnt see what was wrong with the original article, although it is difficult to tell it has been mangled so much. Link to Hang glider and Paraglider in intro is all that is required dont need a separate article on sailplanes. Remember this is a general encyclopedia and the article titles should be what the audience expects. If an unpowered fixed-wing aerial device with a fuselage flies past they would say look a glider the term sailplane in general usage is normally restricted to sports gliding. MilborneOne (talk) 21:02, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find there's two questions here. Do we want or need a general article on gliders? and what article should appear when you go to glider. They're not the same question.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:35, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Both articles are now in a mess and apart from the confusion caused by the split there are inaccuracies in the pre-existing facts (which are unreferenced). The Glider (disambiguation) page covers gliding animals, paragliders and hang gliders etc. which is how it should be, the link is at the top of the article as a hatnote. My view is that this article (Glider) should concentrate solely on soaring un-powered fixed wing aircraft with three axis controls. There is no need for a separate sailplane article as it is just a different word for exactly the same thing, this can be explained in the lead paragraph. I note that the Motor glider article uses an official definition in the lead as I suggested earlier. The Shuttle on approach to land and any other fixed-wing aircraft suffering an engine failure is technically a 'glider' at that time, this could also be mentioned in passing. I notice that Gliding, a featured article, has been proposed to merge with sailplane, I also disagree with that, gliding is the act or sport of flying a glider, sailplanes are objects.

I can see a problem with linking a troop carrier like the Waco Hadrian or the Shuttle to Glider as it is obviously wrong, we could get round this by creating a short article like Gliding (flight) to explain.

The glider/sailplane problem stems from the advent of the word 'sailplane' whenever and whoever coined it many years ago, I for one would like to see where the term began bearing in mind that this is not Wiktionary. It is important to agree the way forward and fix the mess quickly, I would be willing to work on the 'Glider' article to correct and reference the facts, removing very obvious WP:OR and WP:NOTGUIDE sections at the same time. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 01:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You say:

There is no need for a separate sailplane article as it is just a different word for exactly the same thing, this can be explained in the lead paragraph.

Sorry, but that's not what the article says and it isn't in general true. Something called a sailplane is sometimes also called 'glider'. That doesn't mean that all things called gliders are sailplanes. All lions are cats, but not all cats are lions. Right? That's historically been the primary structural problem here. And it's particularly acute because sailplanes aren't even the most historically important sort of glider; for many hundreds of years hang-gliders were the only game in town. And one problem is that this is poorly reflected in the old article because of this structural issue in article layout.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:36, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My view is that this article (Glider) should concentrate solely on soaring un-powered fixed wing aircraft with three axis controls.

You're agreeing that the split was a good idea then. The old article was schizophrenic, and that was a problem.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:36, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First and foremost Glider must be separate from the sport of Gliding which is already a big enough subject on its own and a featured article. 'Gliding' is also the official name for the sport given by the FAI. I think that this has been accepted, judging by the lack of further debate, though there has been no concession. What has not been universally accepted is that the term 'glider' has a specific very common meaning in aviation and is used by the FAI, though it also has a more theoretical meaning. Since there is a common usage of term, the glider article should be more than just a disambiguation page. This is consistent with many other Wikipedia articles, eg type in Bomber and you will find the main article on the main meaning, but there is a link to other meanings if you want to find out about suicide attackers or Grenadiers. In the case of glider, the uncommon theoretical meaning can be quickly referred to in the opening paragraph. Few people will be confused or disappointed to find that there are also links to hang gliding and paragliding in this introduction. If interested in either of these types, they will not want to wade through material about the other types of unpowered aircraft. At present the unfinished revamp of glider is trying to combine information on gliders, hang gliders and paragliders in one article. It ends up by being too general or irrelevant to a reader trying to find out about one type. The one exception is the comparison table which I completed in hang gliding and which has now been reproduced in glider. Instrumentation, markings, landing, launching and manufacturers are all different. The article also contains gaps if paragliders and hang gliders are to be covered here in addition to their own articles. The present glider article is neither one thing nor the other. The recent changes may not even make sense to a purist and reduce the usability of these articles for the majority of readers. In summary, the scope should be as it was on 1 December 2008. JMcC (talk) 09:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One further thing 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)[reply]

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 here. 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. This article now has a tautologous name and so it should be moved to something like Unpowered aircraft. JMcC (talk) 09:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry on which one of these pages was a consensus reached to move the articles around ? MilborneOne (talk) 11:06, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There never was a consensus; User:Wolfkeeper just did it. While radical changes were being made, it was impossible to judge whether the outcome would be beneficial, so it was best to leave it alone until the dust settled. Now the changes have subsided, I posted my evaluation of the net result above. I intend to make the changes that I have proposed above if there is general agreement. The effect of these changes will be to retain the extra article about unpowered aircarft that Wolfkeeper has created, though under a more logical name and without duplicating the glider article. Finally glider will once more be the name of the article that is currently called 'sailplane'. JMcC (talk) 17:33, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK thanks for that sounds like a reasonable plan as these recent moves and edits have made a right mess. MilborneOne (talk) 17:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Moving sailplane to 'glider' is a thoroughly rotten idea. What happens then is that people will continue to link to the wrong article. Phrases like 'minority' hide the fact that it's a lot of links, it's a big minority, people have won elections with that kind of minority; well over 200 currently, and more in future that go to completely the wrong place. That's because you've been attempting to define 'glider' as (for want of a better term and this term is at least accurate) 'sailplane'. By placing the article at sailplane users and, as or more importantly, editors are alerted to the fact that it is and was not ever a general glider article. But I'm not in any way hung up on that particular term. What I'm hung up on is the article name being accurate.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:39, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to rename it to something else, fine. Not glider.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:39, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is, there's a big difference between an archetype which is what people usually think of when a word is thrown at them, and what they would agree something is correctly and precisely defined as. If I say 'surgeon' you probably think of a guy wearing a mask and surgical gloves, but a female surgeon is certainly still a surgeon. In this case a sailplane style of glider is an archetype that is commonly thought of, but this is just a specific example.

IMHO archetypes make lousy scopes for an article of any given name. An archetype is always more commonly considered, but not the most useful encyclopedic definition in nearly all cases.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 00:00, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Misnamed

Read the article, ask the question: what is the article about? A: Gliders. Q: What type of gliders? A: Sail planes. This article is misnamed, reducing its utility and that of related articles.Mavigogun (talk) 07:06, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Popularity of glider articles

[1] Space_Shuttle has been viewed 97713 times in 200811.
[2] gimli_glider has been viewed 17998 times in 200811.
[3] Glider has been viewed 17255 times in 200811.
[4] Paper_plane has been viewed 11528 times in 200811.
[5] Gliding has been viewed 9202 times in 200811
[6] Hang_glider has been viewed 3848 times in 200811
[7] Paraglider has been viewed 1468 times in 200811

FWIW articles on non soaring gliders seem to be quite popular both individually as well as in aggregate. - (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, Paragliders and Hanggliders ARE soaring gliders... which speaks to the point at hand- the renaming of sailplane to glider is counter utilitarian, and has lead to the counter intuitive classification of all non-sailplanes as unpowered aircraft simply to accommodate this POV naming convention. I move that we rename both pages- this to sailplanes, a second to gliders in general- and if anyone sees a need to distinguish unpowered aircraft or winged unpowered aircraft or blue unpowered aircraft or yellow bi-plane unpowered aircraft, then let them have at it.Mavigogun (talk) 07:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed.BoKu (talk) 18:01, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Errm, what is 200811? The Gimli Glider is not a glider, and is outside the scope of this article. Mjroots (talk) 21:12, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

200811 is November 2008. MilborneOne (talk) 21:21, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

LEAD

The lead is very poorly written. Apart from being completely unreferenced, it also strongly implies that the article is about unpowered aircraft such as the Gimli glider and the Colditz Cock, which as far as I can tell it doesn't in any way except some historical relationships.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now, it's been edited extensively and no longer matches the rest of the article!- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:06, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to move this article to somewhere else, and move unpowered aircraft here

I propose that this article is badly named, as it confuses the issue with 'unpowered aircraft'.

The general name for unpowered aircraft is 'glider' and most people use the term glider in that way (although they frequently think of sailplane if you say glider to them, but from polling a few people around me they will nearly always agree that a hang-glider, paper aeroplane and paragliders are correctly termed gliders also.)

I therefore claim that this article is in the wrong place- the most common use of the term is for 'unpowered aircraft', and I propose to move it to either sailplane or glider (sailplane) or anything other name that people wish fixed wing soaring glider anything.

This was changed to the current structure by a couple of people, but it doesn't seem to me that it was clearly a consensus change, and the scope of the article in the lead seems to have devolved towards being a general glider article since then, so we need to establish this either way, so the lead can be reasserted back as a sailplane encyclopedic WP:LEAD or the general glider article moved here.

Therefore, please comment here in the normal wiki way, so we can as best we can, establish the consensus position, is the definition of a glider: sailplanes or is it simply any unpowered aircraft? I suggest MOVE or KEEP and explain your reasoning:- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 10:46, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just to note a number of aircraft desribed in the unpowered aircraft article are not gliders (space shuttle, X-15 etc) so should not really be moved. It is this article that really need to be re-scoped not shuffle everything else around. MilborneOne (talk) 11:48, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that NASA's Space Shuttle orbiter is usually considered to be a glider aircraft, but its not all that important- more important here, rescoped in what way? There aren't that many ways to rescope 'glider' that don't make it about unpowered aircraft or sailplanes are there? If it has essentially the same scope as unpowered aircraft, then 're-scoping' is either a de facto a move, or a content dupe.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes a knot requires... scissors. I think it productive to MOVE the content of this article to 'sailplane' -perhaps with the parenthetical (glider) attached to it. Such a move will allow for the structuring of a general article on gliders. I suggest that the discussion here be limited to the move/keep question- and not the needs of any related pages; those issue are best addressed at their respective talk pages (such as the possibility of renaming and restructuring the unpowered aircraft article). Understanding that the moves are intertwined, I suspect that a comprehensive assessment of the merit of all the related changes might be divisive to the point of paralysis at this juncture/venue.--Mavigogun (talk) 14:35, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK perhaps Wolfkeeper could make his proposal clearer before any move of unpowered aircraft is discussed you need to move (or rename) this article to something else and we should vote on one proposal at a time. It was an non consensus shuffle of the pack that caused a lot of the problems on these articles in the first place. I dont have a problem with a sailplane article apart from the fact that it is hard to define, this could be created (if we have a definition of sailpane) and this would then leave this article to discuss the different types of glider (as defined in the intro). I think the sticking point would be the discussion of non-powered aircraft in this article. In case it is not clear I do support making these articles clearer for the general reader to understand. MilborneOne (talk) 16:08, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I see it, the problem here is an ontological one, as different participants are using differing criteria to decide which chunk of knowledge should be mapped onto an encyclopedia article titled "Glider". The fundamental difference of opinion is whether a functional definition alone should determine the scope of the article (which appears to be Wolfkeeper's position), or whether (and to what degree) the actual usage of the word "glider" needs to be considered.

This difference of position is perhaps most dramatically illustrated by the question "Is a paper plane a glider?" If we accept the idea that a functional definition alone should determine the scope of the article, then the answer must be "yes", and the article should cover paper darts just as much as it should cover a modern competition sailplane.

One problem with this approach is that encyclopedia articles are not exclusively (or perhaps even primarily) concerned with describing functionality; they relate the historical and social contexts of their subjects as well. Without these elements, we're left with dictionary definitions. A paper airplane and a modern competition sailplane have a connection to the extent (and only to the extent) that they both glide – a characteristic that they also share with flying fish, lizards, and squirrels – but nothing in the way of historical or social context. As scope becomes broader, the article tends to become less meaningful and starts to become a collection of descriptions of barely connected things.

I reject the idea that functional definitions alone should determine the scope of encyclopedia articles. --Rlandmann (talk) 00:18, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hang gliders are the history of gliding, for centuries they were the only type of glider, and they are still the most common crewed unpowered aircraft. Are you, or are you not saying that it's your opinion that hang gliders are not gliders, because that is true in a 'functional definition' (sic) and that you intend to impose this view on the wikipedia?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 00:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wolfkeeper writes: "...Hang gliders ... are still the most common crewed unpowered aircraft." Cite? BoKu (talk) 00:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I'm not sure about some of the claims in that first sentence. The first gliders that we know anything reliable about date from the mid-19th century. Whether previous apparatuses are best described as gliders (and if so, what kind?), ornithopters, parachutes or kites (or whether they existed at all) is far from certain. To claim that "for centuries" hang gliders were the only type of glider seems to be a difficult claim to sustain; but I would be delighted to see the proof.

Of the mid-to-late 19th century pioneers, Lilienthal's creations were hang gliders, albeit with fixed wings and sharing little with modern flexible-wing devices. Pilcher also built a hang glider modelled after Lilienthal, but his other gliders were configured as airplanes, as where the creations of all the other 19th century gliding pioneers that I know of. Indeed, the first glider that we know anything about, Cayley's, was of this configuration. I therefore can't agree that "Hang gliders are the history of gliding". If anything, Lilienthal's choice of the hang-glider configuration was an anomaly that wouldn't be seriously revisited for nearly a century (which is not, in any way, to belittle the monumental importance of his work).

Finally, I'm not sure that hang gliders are or ever have been the most common crewed unpowered aircraft; I've had a quick look to see if I could find some figures, but with no luck so far. If you're aware of them, could you please point them out?

I'm not sure what you're actually asking in the second sentence. In my opinion, a hang glider is a glider; I don't think anyone has disputed that.

Where your opinion and mine may differ is whether the scope of the "glider" article should be based on a functional definition alone; or, put another way, which of the four possible meanings of "glider" that we previously discussed should be encapsulated in this article.

While I feel sure that the word "impose" was selected for its negative connotations, unless we are writing articles on one specific, individual person/object/location, we make these sorts of choices regarding scope. There's nothing sinister about it; it's an essential part of knowledge representation. --Rlandmann (talk) 01:27, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course we make these sort of choices. The question ultimately it seems to me, what the right scope for the readers of the article name is likely to be. If for example, they may, as you agree wonder if a hang glider is a glider, or ask what a glider is at all, then they could reasonably expect it to be covered by glider, and if it is not, then that can then that can raise the contrary expectation that it is not in some way a glider. The article [8] is glider as it was before I began any editing and had many issues such as these. Was that article encyclopedic really on glider or sailplane? If I go to any article, I personally expect it to be definitive and encyclopedic on that entire subject, not pick one common corner. There is only one glider article in the wikipedia, and there is only one wikipedia on the internet, should we really be using a restrictive definition? This isn't about merely functional definitions, it's about definition; and there should really be no argument possible about it.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So, to clarify your position, are you proposing that this article should also cover flying fish, squirrels, and lizards? And if not, why not? --Rlandmann (talk) 02:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also don't know whether I agree with your position that a major or sole function of an encyclopedia article is to define; I'll have to think more on it. My expectation of an encyclopedia article is that it will describe and explain. Perhaps there is also a prescriptivist/descriptivist difference in our stances as well. --Rlandmann (talk) 02:26, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Move of unpowered aircraft to Glider

Oppose - the move of unpowered aircraft it is an official term for such aircraft and can include aircraft not generally considered to be gliders. MilborneOne (talk) 16:08, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A precise definition often includes things that are not generally considered to be something, but in fact technically are. The question is not necessarily about the borderline cases, it's largely about the non borderline ones. Is the Gimli glider a glider? Is a hang glider a glider? Is a paraglider a glider? Is a paper aeroplane a glider? I think most people would say yes. These things were not, and are not covered by glider in any meaningful way, and are not borderline cases. Nor is any of the physics or general principles of gliding covered. The article lead and the article body of glider currently do not match well. The article lead in the wikipedia is supposed to scope the article, and the article is supposed to follow that. The article lead is supposed to be a summary of the article, to follow the general lines of the article. This also is not happening.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also have not seen a widely accepted 'official term' for glider. Do you have a good reference?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - You have seen an official term for 'glider', I provided it earlier in this miasma from the ICAO definition, you rejected it as 'they are wrong'. I could provide the EASA definition of a glider but I can't be bothered. The Gimli Glider is a popular term for an airliner incident which would be apparent on clicking on the link. As a matter of interest I have soared a Slingsby Tandem Tutor for over an hour from a flat site. In the meantime the articles are suffering greatly. There is no need to reply unless you feel compelled to do so. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 01:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

- - For the reasons I gave, legal definitions are, I think, rarely satisfactory. I personally would be much happier with a general text book definition or another encyclopedia. In the wikipedia we always have multiple definitions available to us. We have to form a consensus as to which, if any, definition we are going with. And which should be used has never actually come to a vote; and there's been a whole bunch of poorly executed reverts and some people other than me that are clearly not happy.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 01:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is that vote and we should be able to point to it afterwards if it is well done. And I think that it's a question of what is best for the readers of the wikipedia, not what we prefer or all the people we work for, or is best for some governmental agency, or the type of glider we think is the best or are proud of having flown the most.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 01:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see that you were compelled to reply. Just for the sake of clarity can you confirm that you reject the ICAO definition of a glider? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 02:06, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly don't reject it. If we used it to scope the article, I think it would cause lots of problems, it's not intended for that, they certainly didn't write it for us. I wouldn't in any way be opposed to it being mentioned in the article body for example. It's how that particular body defines that word for their purposes.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you perhaps elaborate on "lots of problems"? If we can talk about those, we might get closer to the heart of the matter. --Rlandmann (talk) 02:38, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit conflict) I find that a very strange answer, as a relatively experienced editor on Wikipedia I rely on government agencies, manufacturer's information and respected printed references for my information. All we have here is your personal opinion which I simply don't agree with. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 02:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Laws are written to make enforcement easy and for miscellaneous political subtleties. For example in the EU there's a legal definition of 'banana'. A banana has to have a certain degree of curvature to be allowed to be called a banana. It turned out that some species of banana, that are botanically bananas, weren't wished by the majority of states to be imported into the EU, so they wrote the law in that way. Another example, if you go to the Network Neutrality article there's various definitions of Network Neutrality, but the consensus seems to have been that the legal definitions were probably not a good idea to use. In fact I can't think of any article that is on a general topic (rather than a legal topic) that relies on the legal definition as a primary definition of the topic. There probably are some though, but strangely, I have neglected to read every article in the wikipedia as of yet.12:18, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

What in fact normally happens in my experience when we care about these things is that we the editors collect as many definitions as possible and try to come up with a consensus as to which one or combination of all of them we should use for the article that is most aligned with the purposes of the wikipedia.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:18, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What we want is the Wikipedia's ancient policy: Wikipedia:GOODDEF:

"A definition aims to describe or delimit the meaning of some term (a word or a phrase) by giving a statement of essential properties or distinguishing characteristics of the concept, entity, or kind of entity, denoted by that term." (Definition)

A good definition is not circular, a one-word synonym or a near synonym, over broad or over narrow, ambiguous, figurative, or obscure. See also Fallacies of definition. - (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:13, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the policy you've just cited specifically indicates that a definition can be overly broad. In exactly the same way that you believe that the article as it stands uses an overly narrow definition, others here find what you're proposing to be overly broad. --Rlandmann (talk) 22:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that a definition is only really convincingly overbroad if it covers things that cannot be the thing being defined, and overnarrow if it fails to cover things that may reasonably be considered to be so. So if you say effectively 'gliders are sailplanes' then you're being overnarrow. If you say 'internal combustion engines are engines with combustion in a confined space', then most steam engines would be, by this definition, internal combustion engines, which would be clearly overbroad (since they have confined combustion). Part of what we do here is to define things, we're not a dictionary (which in general has multiple distinct definitions of a word), but we do define things in encyclopedias. And that's why I get upset when I see articles that IMO are unencyclopedic by being too narrow.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Move Glider to Sailplane or something else

Oppose - the move of this article, although I would actually agree with Wolfkeeper it does need a serious overhaul. It should explain the different types of gliders (as defined in the intro) which should each then branch into their own article for more detail. MilborneOne (talk) 16:08, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - We have already gone through this. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 01:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately we did not have a vote, I'm searching for clarity if any is to be found.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 01:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Among the 'fact' tags that have now been scattered is one beside the assertion that most unpowered aircraft are used for sport and recreation. The world governing body, the FAI, states that there are hundreds of thousands of pilots of unpowered aircraft who fly for sport and recreation. I would be interested to hear of another application that has even 1% of this number. The terminology that is used should be that of the world governing body for over 99% of all unpowered aircraft. The academic definition that all unpowered winged aircraft are strictly gliders is a lesser consideration. However I agree that the article needs a serious overhaul. It is now muddled and inaccurate. I am concerned that some editors are happy to leave an article in this state, while claiming to have made progress. JMcC (talk) 10:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was always muddled and inaccurate. If you can reference it, go right ahead. Otherwise unreferenced material can be removed at any time.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support At its current location it pretends to be what it isn't- a general article on gliders.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edits

The article seems to be acquiring some well-meaning but misinformed amendments. I had thought that the scope had been settled in Wikiproject Aviation. What is worse is that factual errors have now been added, as well as some illiterate capitalisation. While editing of this quality is occurring, it is pointless intervening. JMcC (talk) 00:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, if you intend to revert edits as you have done before, we wish to have your comments.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 00:33, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See above. JMcC (talk) 10:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More to point: edits that you anticipate to be contentious should be discussed here before instigating so as to maintain cohesion, order, civility; editing of greatly contrasting quality is a defacto element of this venue- if such is beyond your tolerance, you would do well to find another venue. Better yet, contribute: learn to elevate the material and the knowledge of your peers in constructive ways- and be willing to learn, adapt and truly collaborate. Language is a growing, morphing, subjective thing- rigidly adhering to a tradition/perspective is futile at best: nominating the the thoughts of others as too dumb to be worked with is annoying at best.--Mavigogun (talk) 06:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that contentious edits should be discussed here. That is why I think it is pointless making any further changes until the scope has been agreed. However I think the phrase "Language is a growing, morphing, subject thing" helps make my point about literacy. JMcC (talk) 08:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ad-hominen attacks such as I find you commonly make are rather unwelcome in the wikipedia.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very true; but you would also do well to remember that advice yourself, Wolfkeeper! :) --Rlandmann (talk) 22:27, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cite? BoKu (talk) 23:43, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry BoKu – was that directed at me, or at Wolfkeeper? --Rlandmann (talk) 07:06, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Create a new Sailplane and other articles for glider types

~~Support~~ - the creation of a separate article for sport gliders assuming we can define what it is. We would need to create an article article for Gliders that are not Sailpanes like for example the Slingsby Tandem Tutor and Hang Glider is not a proper article (it talks about the sport not the aircraft) which is the same problem with Paraglider. MilborneOne (talk) 16:08, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - Remove support, only because following Jmcc comments, I now believe that the only real home for gliders like the EoN Primary and Slingsby Cadet etc is under Glider, which is where most people would expect to find it. Still support an article on Hang Glider and Para Glider that discusses the hardware not the sport. MilborneOne (talk) 10:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is an intimate relationship between what something is (hang glider) and what something does (hang gliding). I think that hang glider and hang gliding are highly related and right now are probably better off left merged, but the article could do with adding more on hang glider's construction and properties and that would probably eventually force a split, so I don't feel particularly strongly about it at the moment, but creating/splitting off an article on hang gliders now would be fine with me if you have enough material.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 23:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Both Hang glider and Paraglider are currently redirects to the sport articles, they should have their own articles detailing the design and development of these aircraft. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 01:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - this is the only sensible way to go, the article at glider must cover all gliders. You could call the article something different, I'm not hung up on the name, it just can't be simply glider.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:22, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There are two propositions here, not one. One is to create a new article called 'sailplane'. We have discussed this ad nauseam. 'Sailplane' is the uncommon name for a fixed-wing three-axis unpowered aircraft, and I therefore oppose. However I am in strongly favour of creating three separate articles on hang-gliders, paragliders and gliders. There are many differences and trying to describe three different types of aircraft in one article will create confusion. Nevertheless these unpowered aircraft are similar in their use of rising air, except wave lift. Some people may be unable to distinguish gliders from hang gliders and so a comparison of these types of unpowered aircraft is useful, but this should not be a pretext for making this article on gliders a general description of all three types. This was the reason for the comparison table appearing in the article on unpowered aircraft. JMcC (talk) 10:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC) & JMcC (talk) 12:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying then, Jmcc, that there are only 3 kinds of gliders, that model gliders, gyrogliders, paper aeroplanes and the space shuttle are not gliders?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:45, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It depends whether an academic definition rather than the practical one is used. JMcC (talk) 13:33, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well I'm not sure that there's really a difference, but it seems to me that, if as you say, it depends, then we really need to cover both under the umbrella of 'glider'; and ideally mention the animals as well. We could consider moving 'sailplane's to glider (aircraft) (or sailplane), that way we get a general definition that points everywhere; not a disambiguation page, but a full article on gliding flight articles here at glider.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:07, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your latest comment has illustrated why we are having this disagreement. I believe that there is a big difference between an academic definition and a practical one. 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." Most people would not expect to type in the purist word: 'sailplane' to find the article about gliders. If they wanted to find out about hang gliders, they would input that instead. We are not creating a taxonomy here. JMcC (talk) 17:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, sailplane and the general term glider are a name clash, which is covered under the Wikipedia:NAMECON guideline. It currently states: "In some cases, a subset of a general entity may be commonly known by the general entity's name. In most cases the wikipedia article at that name should be the more general, less common entity."- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:55, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure you can make a non-consensus change to NAMECON and the quote it here as part of your argument!! MilborneOne (talk) 23:29, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen exactly this same issue 4 times so far, and every time it went the same way as I described in the guideline. I don't personally believe that in the long run it can go any other way in the wikipedia; we're already seeing this in the lead.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 00:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Wolfkeeper's tactic is unacceptable. I am beginning to suspect that he is not susceptible to reason. JMcC (talk) 00:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

JMcC: this space is for collaboration on the related article; disparaging comments directed toward other users are not acceptable in this venue- desist from making personal attacks.--Mavigogun (talk) 05:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you disagree with a principle that is intended to help the wikipedia with naming clashes, by all means raise it on that page and we can discuss it there. Nobody has so far.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 00:34, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Wow - I hadn't seen that little addition to NAMECON. Wolfkeeper, can you see how some of the people you're talking to here might see that move as somewhat disingenuous? I'm very surprised and a little disappointed. I've removed the addition to NAMECON for the time being. --Rlandmann (talk) 03:14, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, I wanted a wider audience for the discussion, you guys seem to be talking on behalf of users without talking to users, so I raised it on the policy page, but there were essentially no comments, I raised it on wiki-en, but again few comments. I thought it to be better as a guideline. Hint for people not bothering to understand the wikipedia: guidelines are ... guidelines; this discussion is not bound by them.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:37, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One of the fundamental problems inherent in Wikipedia is a form of Warnock's Dilemma – it is difficult or impossible to interpret silence with any certainty; therefore anyone who becomes involved with creating content here on anything more than a very casual basis ends up "talking on behalf of users without talking to users". This holds equally true for you as it does for everyone else participating in this discussion. This is a systemic and insoluble problem, and we simply have to acknowledge it and move on.

Furthermore, comments like "hint for people not bothering to understand the wikipedia" are not helpful. Please try to keep the discussion civil and collegiate. Other editors may disagree with you or disapprove of your actions for reasons other than being stupid or lazy. --Rlandmann (talk) 22:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have never claimed either, but in my experience I get the most opposition from people who only think they understand what an encylopedia is but have failed to read the core policies carefully. But I don't claim perfection for myself either.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To me, his implies that you believe that there is One True Way of interpreting policy and of interpreting how the myriad of policies around here fit together. Is that the case? --Rlandmann (talk) 03:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Even if there were One True Way, it wouldn't matter because it would have to interact with the publications on the subject of the article. But oh look, there's practically no references in this article; and you haven't actually bothered to do stuff like actually check for undue weight, for example what NASA (who presumably are notable) defines a glider to be, that kind of thing. You haven't actually done the work. To me that implies that you don't give a shit about the policies anyway, while accusing me of some kind of God complex. So, it's an essay, unencumbered by having to do anything other than cherry picking references that support your position, while ignoring any other position.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry - I didn't understand you reply; perhaps you mistook my question for rhetoric? It was not – it was a genuine request for information. So, are you insisting that there is only one correct way of interpreting Wikipedia policies and the way in which they interact?

Second question – how are you privy to what I have or haven't been spending time on?

Third question – wherever have I cherry-picked references to support a position. Could you please point out where I have done this?

Please keep your language civil. --Rlandmann (talk) 06:56, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But that aside, I would like a reference to there being a difference between "an academic definition and a practical" definition of glider.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An academic definition starts by classification, so all members of the cat family are given the same family name for cat and then sub-divided. The practical definition calls the average domestic tabby a cat, even though lions are also cats, though a little larger. You are right that the Space Shuttle might be thought of as a glider, but if people were to look up the Space Shuttle, the word glider would not be their first choice. Similarly when people see a hang glider that is just what they call it and that is how they look it up, not via a taxonomic hierarchy like a zoologist. OK, some people would not recognise a glider, just as some would not know the capital of France. I also admit they are sometimes called sailplanes. However this is rarer and is not the terminology that is used by practitioners of the sport or bodies such as ICAO or FAI. I hope that helps. JMcC (talk) 00:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Case in point: HG pilots typically refer to their gliders as 'kites' or 'gliders' or 'wings'- and sailplanes as... 'sailplanes'. The general public most definitely is indifferent to the naming conventions used by practitioners- just as practitioners of these sports are indifferent to the convention used by practitioners of other air sports. If we forsake naming conventions of the practitioners in favor of GP associations, we risk degrading the content- example: cliff launching a glider would no longer be referred to as 'launching' but 'jumping' -as that is what the vast majority of the GP call it. When considering what path to take on forming a consensus regarding the naming convention, we need to acknowledge these conditions- but not be slavishly ruled by them. Frankly, we are at this juncture because the previous incarnations did not work for some groups/view points; finding a path that we can all walk will require adjustments of expectations by... everybody. Perhaps we should each try to solve the problem from the perspective of the conflicting view? -we might come up with more innovative/useful solutions...Mavigogun (talk) 07:58, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right. I withdraw my suggestion that the name used by the practitioners should be a key element of this decision. They are a small minority of the users of Wikipedia and we should be aiming for the names recognised by the majority of users. However this principle reduces the importance of the word 'sailplane' even more. Furthermore my point about the cat still stands. JMcC (talk) 10:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You certainly have some sort of point with your cat point- the article there is 'house cat', which is an example of a specific usage, rather than a general one (felid) for a general name. On the other hand, the house cat is almost certainly the most numerous kind of cat in the world, by an enormous margin, so having that in place is fairly reasonable, and the 'brand awareness' is massive. But I don't think that extends to glider in the same way. As I understand it the most numerous glider is the paper aeroplane, and while it is common for people to think of sailplane style gliders if you throw glider at them, they'll readily admit that it has a much wider meaning, and they'll look at you like an idiot if you ask them whether a hang glider is a glider, and I forget where I saw it, but hang gliders are supposedly more numerous than sailplanes. There's also the point that we're supposed to be encyclopedic which has connotations of generality and comprehensiveness. I think having house cat at cat is comprehensive enough by their sheer overwhelming numbers, but sailplane at glider isn't really cutting it.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The cat/felid distinction is a good one; however, the question as to how many hang gliders exist today (or have ever existed) versus how many sailplanes exist today (or have ever existed) is something of a red herring. (I would, incidentally, be very grateful if you could track down the source of this claim.) The fact that "cat" is about the domestic cat has more to do with the fact that the word "cat" (when used in an unqualified way) primarily has this meaning for most English-speakers, whether or not they have or have ever had a cat. In the same way, I believe that the word "glider" (when used in an unqualified way) primarily means a sailplane to most English speakers; an opinion that you perhaps share.

Furthermore, we appear to agree on the need for generality and comprehensiveness in an encyclopedia. Our opinions appear to diverge as to whether this generality and comprehensiveness should necessarily be encompassed within the one article. I suggest that it needn't be. I think that it would be a conspicuous gap in coverage if Wikipedia did not contain an article on hang gliders. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that the article entitled "glider" – a word that I do not believe is commonly extended to refer to hang gliders – should be the place to cover them. --Rlandmann (talk) 07:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well I'm just off to the gliding club to tow some glider pilots in their gliders using a glider tug, I will be watching out for hang gliders and paragliders whilst airborne. Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 08:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Naming is based on what people normally call things. It is not based on a classification scheme unless you are an academic such as a zoologist. I grant that an object sometimes has the common name because it is most numerous, but sometimes it has the name because it existed first. (Hang gliders and paragliders are relatively new.) I have moved my unconstructive whinge about editing further up the page to avoid detracting from this discussion. JMcC (talk) 11:50, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that Wolfkeeper is making contributions elsewhere and has not responded to what I consider to be clinching arguments. May I suggest that we consider the discussion on the scope of this article to be closed, with the conclusion that gliders are fixed-wing unpowered aircraft that are mainly used for sport and recreation? JMcC (talk) 16:03, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest that your arguments are very poor indeed, and that you have no chance at all of winning this argument long term? For example, the CAA define hang gliders to be gliders. There are enough exceptions to the definition of glider given by the various bodies that only a very general definition is sustainable here.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:11, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Glider means: (a) a non-power-driven heavier-than-air aircraft, deriving its lift in flight chiefly from aerodynamic reactions on surfaces which remain fixed under given conditions of flight; (b) a self-sustaining glider; and (c) a self-propelled hang-glider;

Self-propelled hang-glider means an aircraft comprising an aerofoil wing and a mechanical propulsion device which: (a) is foot launched; (b) has a stall speed or minimum steady flight speed in the landing configuration not exceeding 35 knots calibrated airspeed; (c) carries a maximum of two persons; (d) has a maximum fuel capacity of 10 litres; and (e) has a maximum unladen weight, including full fuel, of 60 kg for single place aircraft and 70 kg for two place aircraft;

I think a lot of people would call a self-propelled hang-glider to not technically be a glider, but a microlight style powered aircraft, but nevertheless that is what the legal definition is.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:32, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Following John Maynard Keynes's philosophy, the short term is acceptable. JMcC (talk) 19:26, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you mean by that, but well, if you're calling this discussion in particular, then it is currently formally 2 votes to 1 against for creating a sailplane article, and the proposition is carried.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:54, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that my 'support' is for separate hang glider and paraglider articles only, the question was multiple choice and ambiguous. I further note the use of the CAA legal definition now to define a 'glider' where official definitions offered by me were dismissed earlier in this discussion. The paraglider article does already carry information on the craft and the hang gliding article is also short enough to comfortably contain information on the machine should editors wish to add it. I fear that the 'seriesbox' in these articles while a good idea in principal is causing problems. Like navboxes and comparable aircraft in 'see also' sections these are open to editor's differing opinions as to what exactly should be contained in them. I was interested to see how Wiki:de deals with this 'problem'. The current interwiki link from our glider article goes to 'Gleitflugzeug' [9], a very short article that gives the definition of hang gliders and paragliders. The first line literally translated says 'under gliding aircraft one understands this generally as 'Segelflugzeug'. Our interwiki link is currently pointing at the wrong German article. There is no English interwiki link back, the only interwiki (to Swedish) points to a short article on non-soaring or troop carrying gliders. Segelflugzeug, 'sailing aircraft', [10] points of course to the only German definition of a Glider, there is no discussion on the talk page about the article being named wrongly. I note that this article has a section on 'gliding airliners'. The English interwiki from there correctly links to this (Glider) article IMO. While this discussion rumbles on the problems in this article remain unattended to. Just to be crystal clear I support the title, intent and contents (once corrected) of 'Glider' remaining as they are with a reference to the alternative but lesser used term of 'sailplane' (as it already does but I would bold the word 'sailplane'). I wondered if this was a trans-Atlantic usage issue but I have flown gliders in the US (California) and the local pilots were calling these machines 'gliders' there as well, same in Australia where I have also flown gliders. I sincerely hope that this discussion ends soon in order to concentrate on improving the article. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 21:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your position and the CAA definition differ, considerably. The CAA is at least a notable and reliable source. We also have various definitions by NASA[11],[12] 1902 Wright brother's Glider[13]. Really, calling a sailplane simply glider is slang more than anything else.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 01:18, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No acknowledgement of a reversal of thinking, you are now quoting official definitions which you dismissed earlier? I am not particularly fussed about official definitions either but I can assure you that the roughly 10,000 licensed British glriouslyider pilots would consider your description of 'glider' as slang as very strange indeed, even offensive, as would holders of a US Glider pilot license. Unfortunately as silence implies consent I am forced to return here virtually every day to repeat the defense of not changing the Status quo, I note the line in that article 'Arguing to preserve the status quo is usually done in the context of opposing a large, often radical change'. Whoever wrote that was on the right lines. I note no intervention from WP:Third [14], one editor's opinion can not be 'considerable disagreement' surely? I can only guess that anyone visiting here from that request chose to walk on by. I request that an admin closes this descending spiral of a debate, archives all 75kb of it and starts a new header entitled 'How to improve this article' before we fall off the end of the talk page. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 02:19, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever, but I'm not going to let this article suffer from undue weight due to sailplane pilots or any other editors attempting to redefine common words. If the article doesn't get properly sourced soon, all unsourced material will be removed.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:17, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Remove what you like especially the unreferenced WP:OR section on comparisons. If you remove any text it is still there in the edit history and I and other editors can restore it with an appropriate reference. I fail to see that a glider pilot calling their aircraft a glider is 'undue weight', just plain very common English usage, nothing more. Far from letting the article 'suffer' I intend to improve it, barring any changes being reverted and the article being moved to a title that many editors disagree with including myself. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 03:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The FAI don't even specify in their definition of 'glider' that it has to be rigid wing, only fixed wing. This means that the FAI consider hang gliders to be gliders.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:03, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hang gliders and paragliders are clearly defined elsewhere in the sporting code and so it is safe to conclude the FAI do not consider them to be in Class D or DM. Hang gliders and paragliders always have the prefix 'hang' or 'paraglider', whereas gliders are unqualified. You have to bear in mind that the word 'glider' for the FAI was defined in 1930. When they encountered hang gliders and paragliders, they probably decided they would not change the existing definition, because at first the newcomers were just peculiarities and might have been just a short term fad. It may have simplified life for the purposes of categorisation if they had made a different decision, but they didn't. JMcC (talk) 00:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure your interpretation is incorrect. Just because they're defined elsewhere doesn't mean that they don't also fall under Class D open. You also have the history backwards, hang gliders, gliders incapable of soaring and flexible wing gliders are the older type. Gliders capable of soaring are a relatively late invention- unless you count models, which you don't seem to.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 07:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are right that the definition is very general. However this does not mean Class D Open class refers to hang gliders, which are another class. Open Class gliders are typically 25.5 metres as opposed to 20 metre two-seater class, the 18 metre class, the two 15 metre classes and the even smaller World Class. Open Class are the really big beasts - the biggest is the eta at over 30 metres. Open Class does not mean all gliders; it just means there is no upper limit on span. Caley's glider was not foot launched though it had a flexible wing, but did not soar. Lillienthal was also undoubtedly flying a hang glider, but I do not recall that he soared either. After Otto, things went quiet in hang gliding until the invention of the Rogallo wing. However at the Wasserkuppe meets in the 1920s were soaring gliders. The world record was over 200 kilometres by the early 1930s. I suppose it depends what you mean by 'late invention', but I am unaware of hang gliders soaring before the 1960s. JMcC (talk) 18:39, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Late invention... as in more than a thousand years after the first gliders. And hang gliders aren't defined by having to soar. And I'm really very sure you can enter an open class competition or record attempt with a soaring hang glider, I mean, you'd very, very probably, but not definitely lose, but it would be a valid entry; I think I've heard of cases where that sort of thing has happened. And that's still the problem I mentioned with using legalistic attempts to define words- the guys writing the rules don't care about stuff like this, because they're writing them for a particular purpose- and that purpose isn't writing an encyclopedia.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Give us a break

The term 'whatever' is how my teenage children address my requests to them, in the case of the future of this very important article we should take it more seriously than that. I am at a loss as how to end this diatribe despite reasoned and referenced arguments. I have known a glider as a glider since I was about eight years old, forty years later nothing has changed. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 04:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'Whatever' is dissmissive without assessing specific merit- in effect, inflammatory; however, the only difference in this instance is that the dismissal was directly declarative- there has been plenty of non-declarative dismissals of reason by several parties here, me thinks.

As for your loss: you might start by abandoning a position based on personal/emotional attachment to a perspective you've held 'since...about eight years old'; earlier, you expressed personal offense at the use of sailplane, and the likely hood that 10,000 other British pilots would likewise be offended by the use of the term. Offended- as though the term was demeaning. Other statements were expressions of frustration and not reasoned -rather they were akin to a school yard taunt, such as 'Well I'm just off to the gliding club to tow some glider pilots in their gliders using a glider tug,'; considering the context and your audience, this amounts to the aforementioned diatribe.

Frankly: as long as both sides adhere to a 'this is the way it should be' attitude, how can we expect anything but gridlock? Nimbus/Wolfkeeper, have you considered a solution that would be satisfactory to the other? What could that be? I too would 'like a break'- from blatantly partisan positions being mascaraded as unassailable constructs of well referenced reason. Rationalized partisanship will not prevail.Mavigogun (talk) 07:13, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Of course we are assuming that one side or the other will eventually graciously back down after accepting the superior intellectual arguments of the other. I will therefore continue as if this is possible. Can we at least agree on what is the theoretical basis for deciding the name for any article. As I understand it, Wolfkeeper believes it should be based on cladistics. Nimbus, myself and the RegentsPark (see below) think it should be based on the common name. Are there any other bases (regulatory bodies, participants etc) that should be given as much weight in this decision, if so what are they? (To explain my reference to Keynes above: he said "In the long run everyone's dead".) JMcC (talk) 10:45, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest we include 'format of greatest utility' to the criteria for assessment of a naming convention. Utility to who? Roughly: the general public, intimates of various air sports, and the scientific community (aeronautical engineers and the like). On what basis do we value editing for which group? Should any edit have merit for all groups? Is that possible? Perhaps. We seek to not deplete the substance of the article by editing for what is most commonly believed; editing is not to be performed on the basis of individual anecdotes or Google hits. At the same time, editing for strict adherence to scientific scripture posses a barrier to access for some users, and (I believe) reduces the practical utility of the article: witness the catch-all monster the unintuitive unpowered aircraft has become.

We could continue to argue abstractions -perhaps (eventually) productively- however, I begin to believe it would be best if we just field a number -perhaps a LARGE number- of candidate names and see if we can't find something that works for all concerned.

For your consideration and amendment:

glider (disambiguation page), to include:

glider (sailplane)
gliders (aircraft- general, types, category, family, what?)
gliding animals (to be directed to Flying and gliding animals)

It's not perfect. Help make it work.Mavigogun (talk) 12:46, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why not use all the time and effort spent on these discussion on leaving this article as is but improve it to cover the defined types of glider (unpowered heavy than-air aircraft including sailplanes, hang glider and paraglider). Make a better hang glider and para glider article. Time and effort better spent I think. MilborneOne (talk) 13:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that the greatest good for the greatest number probably excludes definitions from the regulatory bodies and practitioners since they are not the main users of Wikipedia. It is what most people call these objects that counts. I simply contend that when shown photos of a glider, a hang glider and a space shuttle, most people with an opinion would name them as 'glider, 'hang glider' and 'space shuttle'. They would not search in Wikipedia for these using a classification scheme. If you take an article such as Jerusalem, there is an article for the main meaning and a disambiguation page. This is because there is a widely used and original meaning, and then many others such as the hymn, which are common but not greater than the original. This should be contrasted with Plane, where there are multiple meanings of similar weights. Mavigogun's scheme does not have a main article for the main meaning. While I also agree with MilbourneOne that this is all very unproductive, merely conceding to attrition sometimes produces some sub-optimal results. Wolfkeeper is purely using an academic classification basis, which is not used by the general population. JMcC (talk) 14:01, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, here's an idea. How about you stick to WP:RELIABLE sources, not engage in WP:OR and actually use citations, and don't remove fact tags without properly citing material? Which bit of verifiability not truth don't you understand?????- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care if what you say is true, under the rules of the wikipedia, I don't have to.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One of the references was admittedly sloppy. It required to user to explore the site to find the definition. This has now been corrected. However, not even featured articles require citations for every sentence. For example, can we just accept that there are not tens of thousands of other gliders out there being used for applications other than sport and recreation? Proving that there are not, as with any negative, is very difficult. JMcC (talk) 14:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation.[1] The source cited must clearly support the information as it is presented in the article.[2]

Since most of what you write seems to be uncited, and in many cases actually false, it seems likely to me that quite a lot of it will be challenged and removed.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 11:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Writing anything that is false would be regrettable and we must avoid this. Please give me a list of the "many cases" and I will gladly correct them. My talk page would be better place to post it to avoid cluttering up this page with such a long list. I suppose every sentence in every article needs a citation, but please be patient; it could take a while. JMcC (talk) 13:48, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Third opinion

Since someone requested a third opinion from an ignoramus on matters specific to aeronautics - here is my uninformed third opinion. I've always thought that the term glider refers to a plane like object (what you call 'sailplanes') that is attached to an airplane and then launched from it. Of course, anything that glides is a glider but I have always assumed that the collective term only applies to the things you call sailplanes and not to the generally gliding object. If someone asked me, "have you seen the glider?", I would look up at the sky for an airplane like object gliding along. I have not come across the term 'sailplane' before, not even in the overdose of Commando comics that, much to the despair of my parents, I consumed as a child. --Regents Park (bail out your boat) 09:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I agree with you. We just need evidence that your opinion is representative of the general population. JMcC (talk) 10:45, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to go along with the third opinion, I wouldn't have called for a third opinion if I wasn't prepared to follow it. I think you're collectively making a strategically bad decision though, trying to go with a narrow definition/scope of the glider article seems to be difficult, and I don't think that so-called 'ignoramus's would have any problems with a clear, general definition. Without a clear scope, this article will never fly well and true.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:58, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV policy considerations vs scope of glider

NPOV seems to constrain and determine the scope of this article:

A Wikipedia article must have one definitive name.[4] The general restriction against POV forks applies to article names as well. If a genuine naming controversy exists, and is relevant to the subject matter of the article, the controversy should be covered in the article text and substantiated with reliable sources. Otherwise, alternative article names should not be used as means of settling POV disputes among Wikipedia contributors.

A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. The article might cover the same material but with less emotive words, or might cover broader material which helps ensure a neutral view...

All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles, and of all article editors.

My interpretation of this is that the article needs to cover 'broader material' i.e. all widespread interpretations of the term glider.

By usage this seems to be at least:

all completely unpowered aircraft
all aircraft that soar
flexible wing unpowered aircraft
normally powered aircraft that fly unpowered
aircraft that take off under power then glide
aircraft that can sustain themselves with power, but mostly glide
aircraft that broadly take the form of unpowered aircraft but which are equipped with power (e.g. powered hang gliders)

I think these are general usages that would be extremely easy to source.

Probably also rotary wing gliders, but I haven't found any specific reference to that, but it might be usefully considered a special case of 'all completely unpowered aircraft'.

I did wonder whether mammals and birds can be considered gliders, but I found few references to that in practice (although I did find one talking about an enormous extinct bird being referred to as a glider on a BBC website, this seems to be an exception.)

I did wonder whether the noun glider can be causally related to the verb gliding but it doesn't look like that's a common linkage; I found no evidence that a glider is simply anything that glides when I checked a few dictionaries. OTOH the same logic that I've followed here suggests that the gliding article needs to cover birds and mammals, there is extensive use of that term with regards those animals. A quick glance at the article suggested it would be surprisingly easy to add that in with hardly any extra material or rewriting needed; but that's by-the-by.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I still believe Wolfkeeper is giving undue weight to an academic classification scheme and not what everyone knows to be gliders and what everyone calls them. Wikipedia has a categorisation scheme to deal with hierarchies. Using the names to reinforce this system is unnecessary and counter-productive.

Let us consider the principles the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). (The neutrality guidlines seem to me at a tangent to what we are trying to do - naming an article. Granted we must be neutral, but were are not trying to decide between Burma and Myanmar with all the political baggage that would accompany the decision.) JMcC (talk) 18:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but that's wrong, I made that mistake for quite a while as well. The determining factor here is first policy, then guidelines. NPOV is policy and says that the article has to cover every notable point of view on the topic meant by the title.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We have to "determine the common name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject". Your criteria, categorisation and technical meaning, do not feature in this requirement. "As a rule of thumb, when choosing a name for a page ask yourself: What word would the average user of Wikipedia put into the search engine?" Perhaps, just possibly, someone who wanted to know about flying squirrels just might enter 'glider' into the search box but I doubt it. Even then they should not be too disappointed to have to go to a disambiguation page. However I expect many more people looking for information about gliders would have difficulty of thinking of another word. Similarly people wanting to know about hang gliders would just type that in.

OK I have to prove this, so I just walked over to my bookshelf. Dictionaries are not useful guides in my opinion as they give every single possible meaning of every word. No weight is given to any meaning and the importance that we give to these other meanings of the word 'glider' is where we differ. In an article like Jerusalem there are other meanings and associations, but in Wikipedia these are given lesser weight and so these are dealt with on a separate disambiguation page. I therefore contend that we have to decide if 'glider' applied to rigid wing unpowered aircraft is the predominant use, comparable to the predominant use of words such as Jerusalem. As I understand your argument is that the word 'glider' is comparable to plane. This has many possible meanings and none has been thought to be predominant.

My one hard copy encyclopaedia, the MacMillan single volume edition, defined glider as "light fixed-wing engineless aircraft". Hang-glider was a separate and unrelated entry. No other meanings were given for glider. No doubt other encyclopaedia's will give other definitions, but this is not the only determining factor.

Other verifiable sources are the FAA^[1] and FAI^[2]. The FAI is the governing body for air sports, covering at least half a million pilots of unpowered aircraft. If there are as many other applications for gliders other than air sports, I would like to know what they are. I therefore believe the FAA's & FAI's definition should carry some weight, but again this is not the only factor.

The naming guidelines then say that we want to maximize the incidence that people who make a link guessing the article name, ie it is what everyone normally calls these objects. (Again, categorisation and technical definitions are not given as a basis.) Using a full formal name requires people to know that name eg glider (aircraft), and so they have to type more. If people normally call flying squirrels, 'gliders', then I would have to concede. However I do concede that technically hang gliders are gliders, but that is not what people call them. By analogy CDs are records, but say record to anyone, and they think of vinyl. When CDs came along, they were given a different name, just like hang gliders. The original name stuck to the original object. If you want a collective name, you have to come up with an inelegant name such as 'recording media' or 'unpowered aircraft'.

Google hits are said to be an unreliable test, but they do give an indication. However I counted 16 references to rigid wing unpowered aircraft in the first arbitrary 50 results from a Google search on 'glider'. There were a few unexpected references to computing and some to the World of Warcraft but no other subject came close to 16. The mammals called 'sugar gliders' also featured, but they are not known just as gliders. People expect to see horse as the main use and when it is used with another word as in vaulting horse, this is a subsidiary matter. The first reference to a hang glider was hit number 51. The word glider was prefaced by 'hang'. I searched through the articles on hang gliders and could not find instances where they were just called 'gliders'.

The Wikipedia test on almost 1000 links can also be used. Again it is unreliable, but gives an indication. I admit going through some of these links to see where 'glider' was used and correcting these. Almost the only instances where I had to correct the link, was where the word 'glider' was used in WW2 military articles. Anyone clicking on glider in one of these would have been taken to gliders in general rather than the military variety they wanted. Changing these links does not weaken my point because military gliders are just very large gliders, ie rigid wing unpowered aircraft. As you might guess, almost all Wikipedia articles referring to gliders refer to rigid wing unpowered aircraft.

I will continue to look for even more reliable sources that defines what everyone thinks of when they hear the words, 'glider', 'hang glider' and 'paraglider'. The ones I have found so far confirm the current scope of the article and do not support the more general and academic meaning that Wolfkeeper proposes.

Finally, the renaming the featured article Gliding is even more difficult to justify. By analogy, let us take the word Climbing. There are a multitude of creatures that climb but if you check the Wikipedia article, you will find that it is the recreation that is given prominence. OK, 'gliding' is also a present participle that could be applied in general to many things, but like 'climbing' it is a word that has one highly specific meaning that could not be confused with anything else. Gliding was due to be an Olympic sport in 1940. Renaming it is as if someone had suggested that Fencing be renamed because it might be confused with the objects in my garden. JMcC (talk) 18:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's policy that's active here, not that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) guideline. The naming contention guideline only comes in when you have things that are distinct, fencing the sport and fencing around your garden are a good example- you would find no definition that covers them both. For things that overlap like different sorts of gliders, then it's just NPOV. If you read the policy carefully, there's no real ambiguity about this.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is not how I read the guidelines. Please try to refute my arguments. JMcC (talk) 19:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, we are bound by policy. The guidelines are not binding. However, if we take the FAA reference then it makes an incredibly clear distinction:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) defines a glider as a heavier-than-air aircraft that is supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against its lifting surfaces, and whose free flight does not depend on an engine. The term glider is used to designate the rating that can be placed on a pilot certificate once a person successfully completes required glider knowledge and practical tests.

Another widely accepted term used in the industry is sailplane. Soaring refers to the sport of flying sailplanes, which usually includes traveling long distances and remaining aloft for extended periods of time.

This is completely consistent with the naming that I have been encouraging. We earlier covered the FAI definition of glider, which wasn't consistent with your preferred definition of glider either.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

File:K21 glider.jpg

Common name: glider

It is indeed fortunate that the article already reflects the legal definition used by the FAA and the FAI. The references to the FAA and FAI are to show that when they have to distinguish the types, they call them gliders, hang gliders etc. The legal definition and the categorisation are lesser considerations. We do not have to be concerned with the diplomatic niceties of places like Macedonia. Wikipedia tries to avoid conflicts with the rest of the world such as copyright infringements and diplomatic incidents, hence NPOV policies. We have a much simpler decision. The most important criterion is what everyone would call each object to look them up - basic stuff really, ie what is common name to call each of the objects in the pictures. I hope that you will give with an open mind the common name to each of these, not the name to fit in with your academic classification scheme. You should then name any other single subject that is so popular, that people would type in the word 'glider' and be astonished that they have found an article on aircraft. JMcC (talk) 10:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The neutral point of view is that all aircraft described in unpowered aircraft are gliders. The common name guideline of the wikipedia takes place after you have built the article and scoped them according to NPOV. The unpowered aircraft article is under the scoping rules of NPOV a content dupe of this one, and the two must be merged in accordance with wiki policy which is non-negotiable and expected of all articles, and of all article editors..- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be simpler just to delete unpowered aircraft. This article was only created to satisfy Wolfkeeper. It is a portmanteau article with the impossible task of covering many disparate aircraft in one article. The Wikipedia categorisation scheme is a more effective mechanism for grouping. If Wolfkeeper thinks unpowered aircraft duplicates other articles such as hang glider, then it should go. I agree with this, it does not contain anything which is not or could not be contained in other articles. JMcC (talk) 13:19, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good so I will begin merging it with this one then.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By giving the legal definition, the current article meets NPOV by describing the controversy, even though the controversy is only with one person. I fail to see why your view is neutral and mine is not. JMcC (talk) 14:04, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The current glider article introduction is approximately neutral, however this neutrality is not reflected well in the body. I certainly don't claim to have a neutral view, in the wikipedia nobody really has to have a neutral view, but we are striving for a neutral article. It's a dangerous sign that you think that the article should reflect only your view; the article is supposed to appropriately reflect all 3rd parties views about what glider is, rather than wiki editors, and the natural way this works is that people add views in where they discover that they have been missed.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:24, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wolfkeeper had made major scope to this article while discussions were still underway and before consensus had been reached. Nowhere is there any agreement in this talk page that material on hang gliders and paragliders should be put into this article. Wolfkeeper has not established any reason for creating one giant article on all types of unpowered aircraft however disparate. It would be more appropriate for information on hang gliders and paragliders to be in their own articles. Wolfkeeper's unilateral changes to the long established scope of the article have therefore been reversed until a resolution can be achieved. JMcC (talk) 17:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As an editor of the wikipedia you are bound by the NPOV policy as with everyone else; and your argument that 'discussions are underway' is not a valid reason to deliberately create a non neutral article, even as a revert.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:16, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In addition your comment above is highly inaccurate, as I made no absolutely no change to the scope of the article, nor did or would I ever propose to merge the hang glider and paraglider articles here.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to merge with unpowered aircraft

Support in part only The article, Unpowered aircraft, is of marginal use and perhaps could best to be eliminated. However I am opposed to a merger of all its material here. Any new material on hang gliders that is not already in the article on hang gliding should go there. Similarly any new material on paragliders should go to the article on paragliding. I hope that this at least would seems logical enough to anyone. There is no point in having these two articles otherwise. The section on forces could be usefully included in this article, though I will at some point change the diagram to one showing a glider in profile rather than NASA's paper dart. It is difficult to tell whether any of the early flights were controlled or even involved a glide. I therefore propose that a statement to "See Early flight" is made so that the reader can evaluate the relative merits of early aeronauts. The history of gliders starting with George Caley up to and including military gliders can be moved here. The part of the history from the point that the Rogallo wing is invented, can be transferred to hang gliding and paragliding if it is not already duplicated there. The rest of the material on unpowered aircraft is academic classification. I could argue that it should be retained because it might be a useful jumping off point in the category box, but I am not going to passionately argue for its retention. JMcC (talk) 18:06, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support in part only. What he said. --Rlandmann (talk) 20:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've AFD'd the article you can discuss it there. I've also raised your repeated abusive editing and avoidance of WP:3RR on WP:ANI. I expect they'll simply ban us all, or ignore us, but quite frankly, you two at least deserve suspensions. The wikipedia is not yours, you do not WP:OWN either article, your opinions on this or that are irrelevant. You're supposed to go with reliable sources, instead you are simply making it up as you go along. This cannot, and will not continue.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:19, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hope that no-one gets suspended for having a discussion. I am happy to open up the debate so that more people can make a contribution. JMcC (talk) 10:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) BTW, this article in The New York Times refers to the pilot of the US Air plane that crash landed in the Hudson as certified as a glider pilot, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. No mention of sailplanes in that article. --Regent's Park (Boating Lake) 18:30, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Having come here after seeing the posting at ANI, I'd like to weigh in on the issue. First, Wolfkeeper, I'd suggest backing off on the rhetoric. There's no need to get uncivil, and I know that when consensus seems to be going against your viewpoint it can be frustrating, but part of the art of getting along on this project is the willingness to back off rather than get angry when consensus goes against a particular viewpoint, no matter how passionately held.

One aspect that, unless I missed it, has not really been emphasized is that "glider" carries with it a very specific legal definition in the U.S. (from a U.S. Federal Aviation Regulation point of view; I don't have a set of JARs so I don't know if they mirror the FAA on this). That definition, from FAR 1.1, "Glider means a heavier-than-air aircraft, that is supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against its lifting surfaces and whose free flight does not depend principally on an engine." It might be helpful for the sake of clarity to actually include this definition in the article, IMHO. In addition to this, in the U.S., in order to fly a "glider" (as defined above), one must have a pilot certificate that includes a "glider rating", according to FAR 61.5.

It seems to me that what is really needed here is the realization that we're getting caught up, to a large extent, in semantics. Pending the input of someone knowledgeable on JAR viewpoints, it seems to me that this article should address primarily aircraft that are legally designated as gliders and which require a glider rating to fly. This the article generally does already, with links to separate articles on such narrower subjects as "sailplanes", "paragliders", "motorgliders", etc. We don't yet have, that I'm aware of, at least, a separate article on "rocketgliders", but it might be instructive to realize that SpaceShipOne is registered with the FAA as a "glider" (see the link to the tail numberN328KF ). So where does that put the article on "unpowered aircraft"? Seems to me that it should principally cover flying vehicles that are both unpowered and not subject to the FAA requirements for certification as a "glider", a category which would include such things as hangliders. AKRadecki^Speaketh 20:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We dont' have a sailplane article at the moment. It's a redirect. Using the US FAA definition of glider is NPOV, so better global coverage is required. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 05:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We did because we had a fairly huge section in the article. That actually may be neutral (which is why I did it that way), since a lot of people specifically refer to glider as that, whereas there are plenty of other overlapping meanings of glider also, also covered.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:20, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Partial merge support the unpowered aircraft article should still exist, since there are non-glider aircraft that are unpowered. A rewrite of that article to be an overview would be good. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 05:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's still the problem we have no known definition of what does or doesn't go in unpowered aircraft. Really IMO, aircraft covers it about as well as we have known sources to do right now.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:20, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Types of gliders

I've just removed (for the second time) a "types of gliders" section added against what appears to be consensus. I'd just like to double-check my understanding of the situation, though. Could I please get a show of hands regarding those who think that any of the following should have a paragraph (or more) in this article? (NB, some did not have sections recently, but have come up in discussion so far; are there any that I've missed?) --Rlandmann (talk) 12:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hang gliders

N --Rlandmann (talk) 12:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N JMcC (talk) 13:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Y I don't think we have a choice under NPOV/FAA/FAI/NASA definitions. (summary style)- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N Hang gliders aren't certified as gliders with the FAA. This is an example which should go in the "unpowered aircraft" article. AKRadecki^Speaketh 15:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article isn't called 'certified glider', it's called glider. Do you have a reference that if it's not certified then it isn't a glider?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you effectively claiming that Otto Lilienthal never actually flew a glider, because it was uncertified and a hang glider?

N --Regent's Park (Boating Lake) 15:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Qn: do we have a notable, reliable source that says they're not correctly considered gliders; if so we should quote that in the article.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would think that the opposite question would be true: do we have a reliable source that says they are correctly considered gliders, based on the established legal definitions of gliders. AKRadecki^Speaketh 17:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for example, Introduction to Flight By John David Anderson[15] calls Lilienthal's machine both a hang glider and a glider.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And hang gliders do seem to me to self evidently meet the FAA definition.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How? They're not certificated aircraft. AKRadecki^Speaketh 16:38, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

True. But where does it say that that definition only applies to certificated aircraft? You know, if there's a convention or a guideline or whatever that says that hang gliders are not gliders, then I just want to see it. The fact that you guys seem to be of one view on this suggests there may be one?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:44, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Whether or not it's deliberate (and I'm still willing to AGF that it's not) there's a subtle game of linguistic cups and balls going on here, stemming from the fact that glider has both a generalised, theoretical sense of "a person or thing that glides" and a more specific, common meaning that (today) is practically synonymous with "sailplane". That a hang-glider is not the latter is self-evident. However, Wolfkeeper seems to be insisting that someone here produces evidence that a hang glider is not "a person or thing that glides", which, of course, nobody can. But that's never been under dispute anyway. The only question has been whether which of these two meanings should be encapsulated in the scope of this article. --Rlandmann (talk) 05:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Um, no. I did claim the general at one point, but searching indicated that it does not seem to be due weight. That a hang glider is a glider does seem to be due weight. It's also very evident that saying that a 'glider' is simply synonymous with sailplane is undue weight to sailplanes- there's a lot of important historical and current gliders that aren't sailplanes; and this is a core problem with the current body of the article, and looking at the current voting most people agree.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 09:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's also another point here, there's a feature of English where you get snobby grammar nazis who try to impose particular usages onto the language to show you're 'brought up right' or whatever. So, according to them, while a hang glider is a glider, it's not a 'proper' glider, but if you push them to make them say what it is that makes it not a glider, there's nothing there behind it. And I'm not saying that anyone here is being snobby, more that we're a victim of those kinds of people. The other point is that the wikipedia is not a dictionary we're not about word usages, we're about central concepts, ideas etc. We're more about the FAA definitions than the common English usages, the Wikipedia isn't really about linguistics.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 09:24, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) My apologies if I've misstated your case. Are you now arguing that the word "glider" refers collectively both to "sailplane" gliders and to hang gliders? --Rlandmann (talk) 08:52, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite that strongly. The article probably needs to cover both POVs; that it is and isn't- with references.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 11:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can you point out some reliable sources where the word is used that way? --Rlandmann (talk) 20:10, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Genuinely I'm finding it very difficult to find anything that says a hang glider isn't a glider, although some don't seem to say one way or another, and some are at worst ambiguous. I trucked over to google books and found The Sports Writing Handbook By Thomas Fensch glider: motorless aircraft that depends on gravity and winds for flight (seems to cover HG), Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary Hang Glider: a kitelike glider... How It Works By Marshall Cavendish Corporation Hang glider: "lowering the pitch control to speed up the glider" New Scientist‎ - Page 728 The internationally accepted definition of a hang-glider is: "a heavier than air fixed-wing (ie not rotating) glider capable of being carried, foot-launched .... These were just the first I found. I found absolutely nothing that pointed the other way, at least when I searched on "hang glider".- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you read back, you'll see that's not what I asked; in all but one (the Sports Writing Handbook) of the cases you've just cited, the word "glider" is used to refer to a hang glider only when the context of "hang glider" is already established. (And again, we're seeing the "cups and balls" effect here. We're simply not going to find any source that says that a hang-glider is not a "person or thing that glides"; but that's not what we're looking for)

In the case of the Sports Writing Handbook, we would need to know what the writer understands by the word "aircraft" before we can know what he means by the word "glider". Taken at face value, a hot-air balloon fits his definition of "glider", but I'm sure that it's not what he had in mind! :)

So, the question remains, do we have any reliable sources that use the word "glider" to collectively refer to "sailplane" gliders and to hang gliders? Examples would include a source that discusses gliders where it's clear that both types of aircraft are being referred to, or an encyclopedia that groups "sailplane" gliders and hang gliders in under one entry, or a piece of air regulation, legislation, or sporting codes that groups these different types of aircraft in under the generic term "glider".

Everything I've seen so far suggests that when used without further qualification, reliable sources consider a "glider" to be only one of two things: "any person or thing that glides" or a "sailplane" and its historical antecedents. But never sailplanes and hang gliders collectively. --Rlandmann (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nah. A hot-air balloon is not gravity powered. And it beggars belief that everyone in the publishing chain is that clueless to not understand the idea of aircraft. Even small children would have a decent stab at defining an aircraft. Try again.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, NASA is generally considered to be a reliable source (as is the FAA definition which in no way at all excludes hang gliders): [16], this text defines what they think a glider is, and gives multiple examples including sailplanes, paper aeroplanes and hang gliders. So yes we do have sources that work this both forwards and backwards; and no sources that exclude hang gliders for any reason.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The NASA reference you've just provided is a splendid example of the broad, theoretical sense of the word "glider" as "any person or thing that glides", even a paper aeroplane, so it doesn't really help us here, although it would be an excellent source for an article that we're still lacking - gliding as a mode of flight as opposed to gliding as a sport.

The FAA defines hang gliders and gliders entirely separately.--Rlandmann (talk) 23:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Point of fact, they define sailplane separately also.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where? FAR1.1, Definitions and Abbreviations does not include a separate definition of sailplane. For FAR purposes, especially certification and licensing to fly, they are defined as gliders. AKRadecki^Speaketh 16:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The glider handbook does pretty clearly state that they are not the same though.[17].- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I note that you're also claiming that it is 'theoretical'. You'll need to point to me where it says that the wikipedia should not have any theory in general articles like this one. I'd like to see that, that would be an interesting guideline.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since we apparently agree that "any person or thing that glides" is too broad a scope for a useful or sensible encyclopedia article, we therefore return to the original question. Rather than trying to find definitions of "glider" that can be construed to include hang gliders whether this was the sense intended or not, can we find any reliable sources where the word "glider" is used to refer collectively to sailplanes and hang gliders (when not taken in its broadest sense of "any person or thing that flies"?) --Rlandmann (talk) 23:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's a world of difference between any 'thing that glides' and a 'fixed wing aircraft that glides'. The latter is how the FAA defines it, and how I consider the term for this article. You appear to be using OR to try to force a different definition than the FAA. You asked for a reference that hang gliders are considered gliders, I gave it; and the NASA definition and usage is compatible with the FAA in every way so far as I can tell. If you're not using OR, then you can give me one or more excellent references that hang gliders are not gliders.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To reiterate (it has been mentioned, me thinks...): using the diction adopted by legal entities- such as the FAA -as a definitive source for this enterprise is folly; the concerns of the FAA are very different from our own. At times (always?) the FAA pointedly doesn't refer to Hang Gliders as Aircraft- because they would then be required to regulate them as such- which they have no interest in. Just an illustration.Mavigogun (talk) 12:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is the key point; from the FAA's point of view, certificating hang gliders is a whole bunch of work for them, and they don't gain much, they're more interested in passenger travel. But they don't actually redefine 'glider'; that's a word that has been in use for perhaps hundreds of years, and it doesn't mean simply 'sailplane'.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question to Wolfkeeper: as far as I can see, you're relying on this document as your evidence that the FAA considers a hang glider to be a glider, correct? Can I ask how much of the document you've read? --Rlandmann (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The handbook is predominately concerned with the type of gliders that the FAA certificates. So what? Does the lack of certification mean that something stops becoming an aircraft? The Wright flyer never had a certificate, neither did Lilienthals (hang) glider. Does that mean they're not aircraft? Does Lilienthal's glider suddenly stop being a glider when the FAA was invented? If I built Lilienthal's glider today, what kind of aircraft would it be? You can't be serious about any of this, you're simply stonewalling, and this is covered under WP:POINT.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 07:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please drop the ad hominem; it's simply not helpful. For whatever it's worth, for the last few weeks, I've suspected you of exactly the same thing that you've just come out and accused me of.

If you've now read the handbook that you're citing, you will know that it is exclusively concerned with conventional, rigid-wing gliders. The sentence that you're relying on to support your opinion of what the scope of this article should be is only possible if you strip it of all context. I AGF that this was purely an honest mistake.

You also seem to be making an appeal to etymology in suggesting that the meaning of the word "glider" has remained stable for the last century or so, when that is blatantly not true. Do you have any reliable sources that call Lilienthal's or Chanute's aircraft "hang gliders" prior to the 1960s? (ie, several decades after the fact)? --Rlandmann (talk) 08:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I read it already. The point is, they don't exclude it. There's probably a thousand ways to define 'glider', and their definition self-evidently includes it; just simply adding 'rigid' to the definition would be sufficient to exclude it or mentioning a faired cockpit. But they didn't. The point is that many, many other reliable sources in the aggregate, very roughly about 1 time in 10 or so, talk about hang gliders specifically as gliders; and hang glider sources talk about them as gliders even more often.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm not particularly concerned with the definition of hang glider except in so far as it impacts on the definition of glider. And to that end for example the 1911 EB refers to the unpowered aircraft flown by the WB as a glider[18], but I suppose ultimately it really doesn't matter what Lillienthals glider was called at the time, today it's termed a 'hang glider' as well as 'glider' in multiple notable, verfiable sources, and the wikipedia is being written today. How is calling for due weight disruptive? Calling for undue weight as if it was due weight without a single source is disruptive. Stonewalling is disruptive. Editing by a certain editor when they have a vested point of view, so as to exclude other points of view, is disruptive. It doesn't matter what the most common usage is; what matters is what the due weight is.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 18:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So you believe that it's fine to take a single sentence from a document several dozen pages long, attribute a meaning to it that it completely at odds with the context that you've just removed it from, and then use that as "evidence" to support your view? I simply can't agree with that use of evidence.

Again, please cease the ad hominem and comment on issues rather than attempting to attribute motivations (quite wrongly) to editors. Just because you have completely failed to win me (or anyone else, apparently) over to your point of view does not constitute "stonewalling" or a "conspiracy" or the activity of a "cabal". It could just be that your position is incorrect and your attempts to justify it are not very convincing. --Rlandmann (talk) 20:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, I believe it's wrong to take the set of sources about what a glider is and use it to misrepresent that to the readers of the wikipedia; to literally take Stephen Colberts quote:

Stephen Colbert states that he doesn't believe George Washington had slaves, but "If I want to say he didn't that's my right, and now, thanks to Wikipedia", Colbert taps his keyboard, "it's also a fact."

I mean we're literally defining what a glider is in the wikipedia, and you guys don't seem to feel that you need to bother with being accurate, that you can misrepresent the aggregate of sources and avoid certain facts.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, this whole discussion is and was a farce, and I've known it from the beginning, and you're getting annoyed because it's becoming increasingly clear. You're trying to simply vote on what a glider is. You're not looking at sources, you're not trying to decide what the due weight of all the sources is, you're trying to say, 'I don't care what the sources say, we're going to vote' and a straight head count at that. As in no. As in hell no. We're not in Stephen Colbert's wikiality, unless I let you get away with this bollocks. And I'm just not going to.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 03:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Paragliders

N --Rlandmann (talk) 12:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N JMcC (talk) 13:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Y I don't think we have a choice under NPOV/FAA/FAI/NASA definitions. (summary style)- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N Not certified gliders. AKRadecki^Speaketh 15:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N --Regent's Park (Boating Lake) 15:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Qn: again, is there a notable, reliable source that says they're not correctly considered gliders?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And again, inclusion is based on sourced data. We don't exclude based on sourced data. Just because I don't have a reliable source that says Mel Gibson isn't a wombat, doesn't mean that I include a statement in his article that says he is. AKRadecki^Speaketh 17:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think if there's RS's that say he is a wombat and there's no undue weight, that that position is held by a significant number (not necessarily a majority), then you're forced to include it by NPOV; as well as any contrary views (if there are any).- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 11:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That these are accurately considered gliders is unbelievably trivial to source.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

N Unless so big that it carries an N number! AKRadecki^Speaketh 15:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N --Regent's Park (Boating Lake) 15:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Radio-controller gliders

N --Rlandmann (talk) 12:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N MilborneOne (talk) 12:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N JMcC (talk) 13:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Y I don't think we have a choice under NPOV/FAA/FAI/NASA. (one sentence) - (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N AKRadecki^Speaketh 15:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N --Regent's Park (Boating Lake) 15:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Flying squirrels and other animals

N --Rlandmann (talk) 12:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N MilborneOne (talk) 12:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N JMcC (talk) 13:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N I looked, but found only a few sources that specifically refer to animals as gliders, nor do the common definitions cover them. The term is (to some degree probably irrationally) avoided to reserve it for aircraft. The same is not true for 'gliding' however, where there's massive use. I think a neutral view is to not include them.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N AKRadecki^Speaketh 15:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
N --Regent's Park (Boating Lake) 15:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Sailplane" gliders

Y I don't think we have a choice under NPOV/FAA/FAI/NASA. Most of the article could cover this, or summary style would be OK.- (User) Wolfkeeper(Talk) 13:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Y The aircraft to which Wolfkeeper refers as 'sailplane gliders' are already the subject of the article. Reference in the 'glider' article to the less common name 'sailplane' and a redirect page from 'sailplane' to 'glider' should be retained. I think there should be a mention of hang gliders and paragliders in the intro as now, and the comparison table should also be retained. JMcC (talk) 13:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's likely to be problematical under WP:lead guidelines, unless the lead claims that hang gliders and paragliders are not in any way glider and can support that with RS, the scope of the lead and the scope of the article are supposed to be the same, with the lead a summary and definition.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Y Obviously, since they are certificated as "gliders" by the FAA. AKRadecki^Speaketh 15:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually they're specifically defined as sailplanes by the FAA as a particular sort of glider.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Y --Regent's Park (Boating Lake) 15:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Y --Rlandmann (talk) 20:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rotorgliders

Y One sentence even if you just say that they're usually not considered to be gliders.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Y JMcC (talk) 13:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Y with Wolfkeeper's stipulation. AKRadecki^Speaketh 15:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Y --Rlandmann (talk) 20:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rocketgliders

Y one sentence- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Y - ~~generally~~ often a subset of model gliders. ~~On this logic every subset of paper glider, would also require a mention in this article.~~ JMcC (talk) 14:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Um... I hardly think that a manned aircraft is a subset of a paper glider! AKRadecki^Speaketh 15:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Um... space shuttle?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the pre-Wolfkeeper days, the Space Shuttle was mentioned in one sentence as a technicality. First time I have heard it classified as a rocketglider and 'glider' is not the word that most people use to look it up. JMcC (talk) 15:34, 20 January 2009 (UTC) & JMcC (talk) 18:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Y I had originally suggested this tongue-in-cheek because SpaceShipOne is registered/certificated with the FAA as a glider. If the definition of "glider" is to include the legal FAR1.1 definition, then at least a mention is logical. Presumably, SS2 will also be registered as a glider. FWIW, even though it never had an engine, the Boeing X-37 would probably fall in this category. AKRadecki^Speaketh 15:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Y --Rlandmann (talk) 20:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

So, glider is not simply a sporting term, and any attempt to define it as such here is incorrect.

For some reason you guys actually seem to think that hang gliders aren't gliders and you are actually trying to edit the wikipedia to make the encyclopedia say that.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:04, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wolfkeeper has made some points and Jmcc150 has answered on a number of user talk pages instead of here, perhaps it time to move to some kind of formal arbitration as it appears neither side is willing to listen to the other and we appear to have circular arguments. MilborneOne (talk) 20:07, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, are you agreeing with Jmcc150 that the term 'glider' only refers to a sports aircraft. Because that's what the article currently says; he's edited the lead to say it only refers to sports aircraft, there's these other aircraft but they're not really considered, in the wikipedia's eyes to be gliders at all, and none of the body actually talks about them. And that's due weight is it? If that's so we need another article that actually agrees with.. you know.. the FAA, CAA, NASA and most decent aviation books that aren't written entirely about and giving undue weight to one aircraft. Or hey, perhaps it's just me, maybe you're right NASA and me don't know what they're doing. I mean they're only a glider manufacturer, so what do they know?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry you are constantly repeating the same argument in different venues and dont appear to see the concensus above. Rather than keep repeating yourself when anybody comments I would suggest you take it to some form of arbitration. MilborneOne (talk) 22:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see absolutely no consensus as defined by WP:CONSENSUS, and I'm sure that that's because there is none; in particular I see no neutrality at all. Which bit (any bit at all) of that policy are you claiming to have been followed above?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 00:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, from both the show of hands and the comments, I see a clear consensus, with the lone exception being Wolfkeeper. Seeing as "consensus" ǂ "unanimity", I don't see the problem. I don't like alienating any editors, but Wolfkeeper, at some point it's generally best to bow out gracefully. Heaven's knows that "consensus" has gone against what I'd prefer to see multiple times around here. AKRadecki^Speaketh 18:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wolfkeeper is seriously misrepresenting the position of those who disagree with her or him. I'm still willing to assume that this a good faith, honest misunderstanding.

To be accurate, consensus only occurs when people stop editing. What we have above is termed a 'poll' and as WP:CONSENSUS states:

New users who are not yet familiar with consensus should realize that polls (if held) are often more likely to be the start of a discussion rather than the end of one. Editors decide outcomes during discussion.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:05, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No-one has ever disagreed that a hang glider is a glider, for a sufficiently broad definition of "glider". The point of contention is and has always been how broad a definition of glider should form the basis for this article.

There are several, overlapping meanings attached to "glider" in different sources. Some examples follow, but there are sure to be shades of meaning in between even these five:

	Scope of definition	Examples	Example sources	Notes
1	Any person or thing that glides	Aircraft, squirrels, paper planes, glider pilots, underwater gliders	Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English (sense 2)
2	Any person or thing that glides through the air	Aircraft, squirrels, paper planes, glider pilots	?	Wolfkeeper's original position, as I understand it
3	Any aircraft that glides¹	Hang gliders, paragliders, primary gliders, cargo gliders, sailplanes	"Forces on a Glider" – NASA	Wolfkeeper's current position, as I understand it
4	An aircraft with a rigid fuselage that glides²	Primary gliders, cargo gliders, sailplanes	Air Sports – Norm Goyer, McGraw-Hill	Current consensus position
5	A sailplane	Sailplanes	Glider Flying Handbook³ – FAA	Original scope of article
¹There's an ambiguity around the word "aircraft" as well. Taken broadly enough, it could be taken to include such things as toy or model aircraft (as Wolfkeeper does), but that doesn't seem to me to be a common use or understanding of the word. ²Sources that limit themselves to this definition typically also "grandfather in" early hang gliders like Lilienthal's and Chanute's, but specifically not modern hang gliders. ³This source contains a single sentence that could be broadly interpreted along the lines of meaning 3 above, and a paragraph that explains the technical distinction between a pure glider and a sailplane. However, for the rest of the text, it uses the word "glider" to refer specifically to sailplanes.

I don't think that there's any contention (even from Wolfkeeper, who in the past has agreed that this is the "archetypal" glider) that senses 4 and 5 capture what most people are talking about most of the time when they use the word "glider" without a qualifier, or what they understand when they hear or read it.

I (and perhaps others here) therefore believe that meanings 4 and/or 5 are most consistent with the principle in WP:NAME that article names "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" and moreover, that this name is "optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists."

Other articles with scopes that are far more limited than what they could be include cat, moon and fork. Similarly, "Car" redirects to automobile (when many other wheeled vehicles are also called cars) and "cow" to cattle (when the females of many other mammals are also called cows). There are sure to be plenty of other examples were a commonly-used narrow definition takes precedence over a broader, theoretical definition.

I also feel it's worth pointing out that despite Wolfkeeper's characterisation of these discussions as "a farce", her or his own definition has narrowed during the course of the debate, and the consensus position seems to have broadened. The gap between the differing opinions has definitely grown smaller. --Rlandmann (talk) 14:08, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, even if you agree that cat is analogous people (i.e. you and Jmcc150) have gone to the extent of removing felines altogether and merging it with Carnivora! Basically the 'La la la I see no other felines except house cats' defence!!!! Lions- they're not felines, they're carnivora! Tigers? Nope. but that's OK, you have a consensus!- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:05, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's simply not true; the article has always retained references to hang gliders and paragliders, as checking the revision history will show. Can you point out one revision where references to other gliders have been removed "altogether"? (As an exercise in contrast, you might also see the degree to which cat refers to other felines, moon refers to other moons, or any of the other articles I mentioned earlier refers to their broader, theoretical subsets – far less than this article has ever contained about gliders in the general sense).

Speaking only for myself, I would consider a paragraph about other types of gliders (sense 3 above) to be still within due weight, but not the level of detail that you insist on inserting. Such a paragraph would actually give other types of more weight than they generally receive in Reliable Sources that describe gliders in an unqualified sense.

Finally, mocking people who don't agree with you is not very helpful and unlikely to help build consensus. Please remain civil. --Rlandmann (talk) 08:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration

In case we decide to follow MilborneOne, I have drafted something. Please feel free to edit this, though perhaps Wolfkeeper will wish to draft his own statement. I would be inclined to add eventually the three photos, if we go along this route. It seems that we would run the risk that an arbitrator, unaware of Wolfkeeper's behaviour, will try to reach a settlement by making still further concessions in the hope that this will appease an aggressive editor. I do not know which is the appropriate body to use so your opinions would be appreciated. Perhaps in the main Aircraft Talk pages as per the suggested procedure for dispute resolution.

Draft submission

There is currently a dispute about some titles of articles in the field of Air sports. I would appreciate opinions, but first I should give some background, but please bear with me.

Gliders were used in the development of aviation, such as by the Wright Brothers. However an activity developed in Germany in the 1920s that at first involved gliding as far as possible but then gliding quickly developed into sport that exploited rising air allowing flights over hundreds of kilometres and eventually thousands . In the 1930s achievements in competitions and records came under the umbrella of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). This is the wordwide governing body for all air sports. Gliding was a demonstration sport at the 1936 Olympic Games and was scheduled as a full sport for the 1940 Games.

In the 1960s and 1970s hang gliders and paragliders were developed. People still called the original gliders 'gliders'. In much the same way, records are still objects made of vinyl, while CDs were given the new name, even though technically CDs are records. Similarly hang gliders and paragliders are technically gliders, but in common parlance, they were, and still are, given distinct names. (Americans also use the word 'sailplane' but less often.) Consequently the FAI still calls the sport of flying gliders: 'gliding'. It refers to foot-launched craft as 'hang gliders' and paragliders' and their respective sports as 'hang gliding' and 'paragliding'. Competitions such as the World Gliding Championships and World Hang Gliding Championships are also named in this way. The names of the sports are therefore clear. A consensus on the aviation pages agrees, but just one editor does not, preferring a technical definition.

You can make a case that technically any machine that is heavier than air and flies without power is a glider. This would include airliners with engine failure and model paper aeroplanes. However in the Wikipedia:Naming conventions, the name that is used is what people would expect to see when they look up a word. Thus if people want to see hang gliders that is what they type. Although it is not the major source of evidence, a search engine produces far more hits relating to conventional gliders than any other uses of the word, including hang glider. It is accepted that some words have multiple meaning, but it would be contrary to Wikipedia's policy if articles with a principal meaning, such as London, were always reduced to disambiguation pages.

Similarly the verb 'to glide' involves many activities such as dancing. It most commonly means the descent through the air, often smoothly and so could even include flying squirrels. However the present participle has a very specific meaning, namely the sport of using rising air in a glider, as defined by the FAI. In much the same way, climbing is an article on sport in Wikipedia, even though plants and animals also climb. The FAI still regard gliding as a separate sport from hang gliding and paragliding. The national authorities are inconsistent in their groupings, though the FAA for example when it has to distinguish types in its instruction manuals, refers to gliders as gliders.

One user insists that 'glider' includes stricken airliners, even though they are not certified for this, and that gliding includes the activities of squirrels. He, I assume he is male, is persistent, often forceful in his language and in a minority of one among the people who edit articles on aviation. He has appeared more than once on the Administrators pages for tendentious behaviour and edit warring. We have held votes to reach a consensus but he persists in going against it. Attempts at compromise have been made by recognising the strict technical definitions in the opening paragraphs, but this does not satisfy him. Currently he is constructing a duplicate article with which, I guess, he hopes to replace Gliding. Gliding was a featured article in 2005 and will disappear as a result, if he succeeds. Some suggestions about the right way to proceed would be appreciated. JMcC (talk) 08:37, 5 February 2009 (UTC) & JMcC (talk) 11:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW the thing you're forgetting is that I'm not the one abusing my editing privileges to restrict the scope of the wikipedia; I don't actually have any plans at all to merge gliding and gliding (flight). That would presumably be something that you would do in my position since you're projecting that on me, and I note you've done similar things before.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The wikipedia has overlapping articles all the time, for example, we have aircraft and Concorde. You're the ones trying to remove articles that cover gliders, while simultaneously trying to define glider = sailplane and gliding = (only) a sport. That doesn't work here; you are not allowed to remove POV that you don't agree with when it is well referenced.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your reassurances about gliding (flight). As you said yourself, gliding is a good article. My concern was that you were creating a duplicate that went beyond its title. My understanding of gliding flight, as opposed to the sport of gliding, is that it is a gradual descent. The meteorological phenomenon of rising air, although relevant to gliding as a sport, is not relevant to a mode of flight. By adding sections on rising air, it therefore seemed that an article overlapping gliding was being created. However I am grateful for your clarification. I am also grateful to Rlandemann for his cool analysis when emotions were running high. JMcC (talk) 15:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Soaring can be defined as: "To glide in an aircraft while maintaining altitude." although I would add 'maintaining or gaining altitude' and can be considered to be the interaction of a glider with certain meteorological conditions. It is not simply meteorological conditions; and it is highly relevant to this mode of flight; powered aircraft can almost never do it because their sink rate is too high even if they have a similar L/D. And soaring cannot really be considered independently of gliding. It also points to a difference between an unpowered aircraft in the 'aircraft that is unpowered sense' and a glider- a glider is in fact powered by meteorology, towing and potential energy, and sometimes engines as well (the latter usually for relatively short periods).- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You miss my point. The title of the article implies is about gliding as a mode of flight, ie a gradual descent, not about soaring. If an article is needed, then it should be called something else. JMcC (talk) 16:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

General articles are not usually on a single completely indivisible topic, they cover highly overlapping synonymous ones to aid the understanding of the user. If you always try to use a very narrow definition for things then encyclopedias become practically unusable. Jet engine is not on turbojets only; although we could make a strong case that that is the only true meaning (tm), no it's about everything from water jet engines to scramjets. Some people probably don't think that a water jet is a jet engine, but that is how it is usually referred, it is an engine powered by a fluid jet, as with other jet engines.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to create another article called glider (aircraft) which would more or less cover the common points of all gliding aircraft, but last time I did that you and Rlandmann abused your editing to remove it and descope it completely to the point that we ended up with an article that cannot be referenced. If I create that article are you planning to abuse your editing privileges again? - (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:08, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure that another article on this would add much apart from duplication. There is some common history with Lilienthal, the use of rising air, the same law of physics apply, but, as I have said before, the common features of a range of aircraft, ranging from a 850kg aircraft and a man on a parachute are otherwise limited. The comparison table illustrates that nicely. As more information is added about each type, it risks becoming an article that tries to cover everything in one article, whereas separate articles would be clearer. (There was an article called Lift (soaring) which covered the meteorological phenomena of rising air, but this has been re-named.) Consequently I would like to know more about the proposed contents of yet another article. I do not see it as an abuse of any privilege to query this. JMcC (talk) 15:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is just a completely unfounded worry. First we need a place to put the history of gliders, secondly we need an encompassing article that covers all gliders not just sailplanes used for sporting purposes. Even the history and using subarticle style on the many different sorts of gliders would fill an article. I'm sure there's common material that can be moved around as well, but that's not necessarily why we do this, and I think the common material is much less than you would suppose- the article must cover briefly every glider type, as well as the many different highly overlapping definitions of what gliders are.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the title should be the [History of gliders]. After that an "all encompassing article" implies to me that everything will be included, again. I am pleased to hear that the common material is even less than I supposed, because I thought it was minimal. Is there more than a list of types, with definitions, similar to Unpowered aircraft, plus the laws of physics (repeated from Gliding (flight)) and perhaps the comparison table? JMcC (talk) 16:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I remind you that you are bound by WP:AGF to not read anything more into my attentions than what I have stated. I have no intention of creating duplication of material. All encompassing is different from actually including everything-it is only that it is covered by scope- but of course we would refer out to where detailed descriptions of things are. Exactly what goes where is an editorial decision that ultimately is consensus based and will doubtless vary over time. I merely note that a summary style article is likely to be easily big enough to constitute a valid article, particularly with the history which sits uncomfortably everywhere else in the wikipedia. If we run out of space we can of course summarise the history into its own article, but I doubt that that will happen in the near term.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was assuming good faith. I was just clarifying what you propose. On another tack, your inclusion of the use of rising air in the new article Gliding (flight) seems to me that you are writing about a sport, not a mode of flight. We clearly have a different understanding about what the term "gliding flight" means in aviation; it is not the same as gliding the sport. I know you have brackets around flight in your title, but the implication is the same. When any pilot engages in "gliding flight", the aircraft is descending through the air. Since the article is categorised as aviation terminology, the use of the term should be unambiguous and clear, and it should be about aviation terminology. JMcC (talk) 19:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's not a sport, since soaring is used far more by birds than for any manned purpose(!), and birds are specifically covered by gliding (flight).- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is worth adding that I am still not happy about the title of the proposed article [glider (aircraft)]. It is a little like having an article called [boat (ship)]. OK there are sauce boats, but boat is almost always sufficient to define a floating object. JMcC (talk) 08:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, names are always a tradeoff, unpowered aircraft is far too broad, to the extent that you are successful in claiming that glider=only sports gliders of the sailplane variety then simply glider is unavailable. Right now there is no top level article that covers and discusses the main types of gliders, only articles on each of the individual subtypes and an article on the flight mode. Unless you're suggesting we shouldn't have an article at all because you claim we don't have a perfect name for it?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 12:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When we were discussing the deletion of Unpowered aircraft I felt that such an article would have little in it. It seems that the common aspects such as laws of physics could be in an article called 'glide' and the description of rising air in an article called lift (soaring), which has now been renamed. 'History of unpowered flight' might also be created. (I chose this title because I am not sure whether the ancient flight were parachutes, kites or hang gliders.) After that we are mainly listing the types and perhaps comparing them. I am not sure that such an article greatly adds to the total of human happiness. Consequently in my opinion, it is not worth doing unless we can think of a non-confusing name. A perfect name may be difficult, but this does not mean we should settle for a tautologous name instead. JMcC (talk) 18:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A tautology is when you say the same thing, not different things, flight and gliding are not the same thing, one is a subset of the other, and the use of 'flight' here correctly suggests generality. If we are talking about accurate naming, gliding should be gliding (sport) or gliding (sailplane), and perhaps you would argue that the article should be deleted until a better name than the current one is found, but I simply point out that the wikipedia is only ever a work in progress, and that in any case articles are not about their title, they are about their scope which can at best, only be suggested by, and be compatible with their title. I therefore completely disagree that article names are primary considerations before creating articles; the scope of the article is far more important, and an article on all forms of gliding (flight) of which gliding may be considered a subarticle is perfectly reasonable scoping.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 13:41, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A suggestion

As far as I can see, there is a problem with the scope of gliding articles. I can currently see several articles which I think should be re-organised:

Glider Which is about sailplanes
Gliding Which is about sailplanes and replicates most of the same material
gliding (flight) Which is more general, but replicates most of the same material
Sailplane Which is a redirect to glider
Unpowered aircraft Which is more general, but replicates substantial material about sailplanes
Soaring Which is a disambiguation stub

May I humbly suggest that all of the above be deleted/merged into the following structure

Glider (Aerodynamics): Containing a quick overview of all gliding objects descending at an angle limited by L/D, history incl. Lilienthal, and small sections with "see main article" of: Sailplaning, Hanggliding, parasailing, military gliders, sugar gliders, unpowered landers.
Gliding (Sport): Containing fixed wing sport soaring material
Soaring (Aerodynamics): containing the material from the current soaring article

The existing articles could then be redirected:

Glider --> Glider (Aerodynamics)
Gliding --> Gliding (Sport)
gliding (flight) --> Glider (Aerodynamics)
Sailplane --> Gliding (Sport)
Unpowered aircraft --> Glider (Aerodynamics)
Soaring-->Soaring (Aerodynamics)

Please don't bite! AKAF (talk) 13:05, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the aerodynamics part of glider (aerodynamics) would imply that it's only about aerodynamics, a study of the flow of air past a glider.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:25, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that I disagree, just that there are plenty of pages in Category:Aerodynamics which aren't purely about aerodynamics. For instance:

I think maybe this would be a clean break between the group which wants all L/D flying objects and the group which wants only sailplanes. Without worrying about the exact naming, would this split suit what you want to put in an article? AKAF (talk) 15:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aerodynamics is primarily concerned with the motion of air whereas glider and gliding and flight are concerned with the motion of vehicles and animals. It's almost exactly the same difference between talking about ships or talking about the sea.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:51, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AKAF, thanks for the suggestions and the spirit in which it was made. Moving material about the aircraft themselves to the article about the sport would produce an article that was too big. Gliding is already above the limit (or near to it). This is one of the principle reasons for splitting glider from gliding. It also seems easier to categorise an article about a type of aircraft and another article about a sport. I am puzzled about the need to move Gliding to Gliding (sport). It is not as if the name 'gliding' is suggested above as being needed for another purpose. Gliding as a sport is the main use of the term, and so would be like moving London to London (city) when the word London was unused. Wikipedia naming conventions state that the title of an article should be based on what people would expect to see when they type in the name. I have contended that the appearance of an article about the sport would surprise few people. There is already a link to other articles at the start pointing to other meanings. I have no problem with information about the forces on unpowered aircraft and a definition of glide ratio being in an article called 'gliding (mode of flight)'. This would unambiguously describe what the article would be about. The present title 'gliding (flight)' does not clearly describe its contents. The suggestion that glider is moved to glider (aerodynamics) would leave useful information about gliders such as manufacturers, classes, markings, launching and instrumentation looking for a home. Both these suggestions would move towards a policy where every word with a major meaning such as Jerusalem, and other meanings would always become a dismabiguation page. If you still disagree, I would be happy to engage in a polite debate. JMcC (talk) 18:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC) & JMcC (talk) 10:07, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose we could move gliding (flight) to gliding flight, that seems to be a standard aeronautics term used when an aircraft is gliding.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:10, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both Wolfkeeper and Jmcc. I was hoping to get a compromise where nobody got to keep the current article names, because a lot of the debate appears (to my untrained eye) to be centering on who gets to be the owner of gliding/glider. I can fully see Jmcc's point about not needing to move, but maybe moving would be a way to keep everybody happy. The problem is that "glider" is a word having at least two fixed meanings, so maybe it would be good to just get away from the pitched battle over who gets to use the name and have neither. I see several themes at the moment:

Aerodynamics of gliding/soaring
Overview of all types of gliding/soaring/unpowered arcraft
History of sailplanes
Technical details of fixed wing sailplanes
Sailplaning as a sport

and my suggestion was to split these up into some kind of acceptable mix. For instance I don't see that someone who is interested in the aerodynamics of gliders is necessarily going to be interested in the legalities of FAA-certification or in what the clouds should look like for good thermals. One big problem which I don't like about "gliding flight" is that it doesn't really address soaring, which is an important part of the gliding sport. I also don't really see the big problem about referring to fixed wing gliders as "sailplanes", but I can see considerable opposition to this point of view.

I am also unhappy with articles such as hang_gliding which talk plenty about the sport aspects but no article exists about the aircraft itself. So, without talking about the article names, I'd like to see the following articles:

Overview article linking to different types of unpowered/low powered aircraft, something along the lines of the Train article (I can think of about 15 subsections to put in here, which should be enough for a article in itself).
An article about the sailplanes themselves, along the lines of the "Technical aspects" section of the Bicycle article. I think that the current articles are still very weak in this area, and maybe thus would allow some room for improvement.
An article about gliding as a sport, including licencing etc. I'd like to keep the current gliding article, but maybe shift off the launch methods section into its own article, since this is repeated material between articles, and breaks the rhythm of the article.
Launch methods. Just to help the rhythm and pace of the other articles
An article about glider history, since a lot of the early gliders didn't really differentiate between hanggliders and fixed wing gliders, it is a bit strange in the glider article.
An article about the Aerodynamics of gliding and soaring, for which no article currently exists, and for which the current coverage is very weak.

So, provisionally, I'd like to suggest the following names for the six articles:

Let me know if I'm warmer or colder here (voting accepted) AKAF (talk) 13:26, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One problem that I see is that when used in an unqualified sense, Reliable Sources use the word "glider" principally to mean an unpowered fixed-wing aircraft with some kind of rigid fuselage. Note that some hang gliders have rigid wings, but these are still referred to as hang gliders, or, when sources want to direct attention to their atypical construction, call them "rigid wing hang gliders".

There appears to be broad consensus that the glider article be broadened from its sailplane focus to include all gliders with rigid fuselages. Beyond that, Wolfkeeper is calling for it to be broadened further still to include things that are called gliders only in a sense so broad that few sources ever use it, and which when referred to directly are very seldom called "gliders" but which have their own names: hang gliders and paragliders. The English language partitions these aircraft off from other (rigid fuselage) gliders, and that is what should determine how we divide content.

There's also no reason why launch methods would need to be separated off from the aircraft that use them.

--> Gliding flight - Y fine by me
--> Fixed wing glider - N mixes hang gliders in with gliders. What sources do this?
--> Gliding (sport) - Y fine by me
--> Glider launch methods - N the articles on the different aircraft should cover their launch methods
--> History of gliding - Y fine by me
--> Aerodynamics of unpowered flight - not sure. We already have a really good article on unpowered rotary-wing flight at autorotation. Also, I think this could logically merge with gliding flight proposed above. --Rlandmann (talk) 20:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My preference would actually be to use the (less common) word "sailplane" for the article about the aircraft, because it is not subject to the other definitions sourced by wolfkeeper above. I in no way dispute that "glider" refers only to sailplanes within the glider-flying community, but perhaps a compromise is possible to keep the non-gliders happy. Just to reveal my own bias: I wish that there was more about the aerodynamics of gliding and soaring, and more describing different glider configurations, and I think it might be possible to make a set of articles which would make this easier. So I'll try the next suggestion:

--> Gliding flight
--> Sailplane
--> Gliding (sport)
--> Glider launch methods - I would still like to see this, but I don't love it enough to fight for it
--> History of gliding
--> Aerodynamics of gliders - I think there's a lot of theoretical stuff which could go here. Also trim theory, laminar wing discussions and flight in updrafts and shear lift. I think, though that this article could describe the aerodynamics of hanggliders and maybe even parasails without getting too far off track. AKAF (talk) 08:12, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not at all sure about an article on the aerodyanmics of gliders, there doesn't even seem to be an article on the aerodynamics of aircraft at the moment. I would have thought you would start with a general article.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

--> Gliding flight Y About the descent of birds, mammals, fish, insects and aircraft from the space shuttle to a stricken airliner
--> Sailplane N We have been round this debate already and reached a conclusion (see above)
--> Gliding (sport) N No reason has been given to support this suggestion. I contend the sport is the most common use of the word, and it should not surprise anyone if the sport appeared after typing the word 'gliding'. Although not definitive, a search with Google supports this assertion. Furthermore the intro to gliding already points any wanderers in the right direction, so there shouldn't be a problem at the moment. Naming articles in Wikipedia is not a matter of ownership but naming things in the most straightforward way.
--> Glider launch methods N There isn't that much to more to say though I can think of a few things if necessary. We would be getting close to being a manual rather than an encyclopaedia
--> History of gliding N. This is an integral section in each article on the air sports. Gliding, hang gliding and paragliding each have their separate histories and there is no overlap as sports. However the aircraft are different. I could just see a case for an article on the history of gliders, even though after the Wright Brothers, the histories of hang gliders, paragliders and gliders are also distinct and do not overlap. Lilienthal flew a foot-launched glider that may have had an influence on the Wright Brothers, so I suppose a case could be made. However I sometimes think that hang gliders were invented again rather than being direct descendants of Lilienthal's craft. No-one flew them again (as far as I know) after Lilienthal and Pilcher until the 1960s.
--> Aerodynamics of gliders Y Whole chapters, even whole books, are written on this. JMcC (talk) 18:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

mixes hang gliders in with gliders. What sources do this? Gee, I don't know how about: [19] and a long list of aviation textbooks. It's such an easy thing to source, and has been sourced before, how is it you keep 'conveniently' forgetting?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wolfkeeper's last move to sailplane was a bit precipitous. The problem is that Everybody wants to WP:OWN the word "glider". I would seriously request that the articles Glider and Gliding be redirects to something else to get away from this bloody wrangling about a stupid name. The reason for choosing names like "Gliding (sport)" and "Glider (Aircraft)" is to get away from this wrangling and get back to writing the damn articles. Here's what I would like to see:

Move all of the existing articles to other names, and break them down into smaller articles.
Improve sections on Aerodynamics, Glider types, and I'd be interested to see a more dedicated section on legality and licensing of different glider types in different countries. The flow and completeness of each subject needs to be improved, and as it stands, I am very reluctant to actually put any work into these articles.
Look at the articles that result, and re-assemble the whole back into about 4 main articles.

Naming articles in Wikipedia isn't the most important thing for writing a good article, and it breaks my heart to see the wrangling over a name, rather than article improvement. As an example, I could give you any number of references as to what is the most common use of the term shock wave, but at least half of them would be wrong. (I decline to say which half :-)) I am extremely encouraged by the consensus reached over gliding flight and Aerodynamics of gliders above (somebody say, if this is not the case), and I would hope that a similar consensus can be reached over the aircraft and the sport articles, because they have plenty of good material, and real potential AKAF (talk) 08:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate AKAF's attempts at conciliation and agree this discussion is causing much unproductive work. However no-one is talking about ownership, but the optimal naming for ease of use. There will always be grey areas and the point at which the commonest use is replaced by a disambiguation page will always be a matter for judgement. As I understand it, the first mechanism for agreeing on such disputes in Wikipedia are the projects, in this case WikiProject:Aircraft and WikiProject:Gliding. The judgements on naming were clear before Wolfkeeper's intervention, and, after some debate, had once more almost been settled. The final point is the definition of gliding flight. I hope if the debate on all the names is re-opened yet again, and major changes are proposed for these articles, that a posting is made to the project pages and to the talk pages of each of the articles affected. Not everyone reads this talk page, and I suspect one or two will have completely switched off. I could have responded to Wolfkeeper's posting on AKAF's talk page, but decided not to, because it would just add more heat than light. JMcC (talk) 11:32, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your kind words. Would you have a link to those judgements? I can't find them on the project pages, and I don't see the discussion in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Physics either. Although I can mostly understand where you are coming from, Wikiproject gliding is a very small number of glider-plane enthusiasts (4 of the 9 members have made no edits in the last 3 months). Although I think we all appreciate the enormous contributions of those enthusiasts, the way to get the whole selection of articles to be better is probably to involve more people. This will of course involve people outside the clique of glider-plane enthusiasts. The question is just whether you think you could live with a couple of strategic renames, if it'll keep people happy. In the example above, I wouldn't have been too unhappy about the renaming of shock wave to shock wave (aerodynamics) if it kept people happy and off my back. I'll admit that I can't understand why the name of the article is so important to you that it's worth all this fighting, but I'm doing my best to understand and suggest some potential compromise positions. Would you have a suggestion for a direction to go? Even some broad strokes for where to include the points where I have indicated above that I think the articles are still weak would be appreciated. I won't call your suggestions a consensus, if you're worried about that :-) AKAF (talk) 12:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I recall that there was one comment about terminology when 'Gliding' was put up as a featured article. The other reviewers did not support this and whether I agreed with this or not (I did), I had to go with the flow to get a FA star. This is over three ago and would take quite some rummaging in the archives to find it. This FA process taught me that any article that emerges from that review process has had a very good going over. The day of its appearance on the main page also produced some intensive scrutiny by a large proportion of Wikipedia's users on that day. I cannot recall any challenges since to the names of 'glider' or 'gliding', but for one at the top of this page in 2007. This may be inertia, or it may be an indication of general satisfaction, by all except Wolfkeeper. More recently the first batch of green ticks and red crosses above seemed to confirm the status quo about 'glider'. The Aircraft Project leader (not just Gliding Project) (RLandmann) supported this point of view. At one point Wolfkeeper seemed resigned to this collective decision, suggesting that instead he create 'glider (aircraft)', and thus leaving the existing articles as they were. I agree that the Gliding Project is too small to make this decision absolute. Consequently I would be happy to broaden a review by the whole aircraft project, if there is anyone can be persuaded to take an interest. I hope that this will bring in some additional knowledgeable people, who will be aware of terminology throughout the world, and who can see how each article would fit together. As you say naming is less important than content. However the name can be used to justify the content and so these are related issues. For example two articles have been proposed 'glider (aircraft)' and 'gliding (flight)'. (The latter has been created.) Further up you will be able to read why I think these ambiguous names create a risk of duplicating the existing articles, and so we have to be careful how we choose names. Obviously compromises are desirable in any disagreement. The question is to what weight to you give the views of just one persistent person. My regular analogy is that it would be a shame if someone insisted that London be renamed London (city) on the grounds of neutrality. If the change were made in the spirit of compromise, I doubt if anyone would be greatly impeded when using Wikipedia. However I would be a little sad that one person could change the status quo for 'London', 'glider' or anything else just by persistence until everyone caved in from exhaustion. My attachment is to the existing names is simply that these reflect the way Wikipedia does things and that is why I am resisting (not fighting). Wikipedia works by consensus and so unilateral action, and an attempt to change Wikipedia's guidelines to support the action, should always generate resistance. I should add that this is not the only article that has been subject to similar dogmatic attentions from Wolfkeeper. Furthermore in an effort to resolve this dispute, compromises have already been made. The introductions to both 'glider' and 'gliding' have long been amended to reflect every conceivable meaning in case anyone is in any doubt, and yet further demands are being made. Just how far without completely acceding to a solitary user's demands, should the majority (albeit small) go? Conclusively proving any point of view, such as the commonest use of a word, is very difficult. You can only ask people who have some experience to decide what would be the clearest arrangement of articles. We have tried on this talk page, with the score usually being one against. If Rlandemann would like to broaden the debate to a group of interested and knowledgeable people eg the whole of the Wikiproject Aircraft, I would be happy to summarise my thoughts for them. JMcC (talk) 16:50, 10 February 2009 (UTC) & JMcC (talk) 18:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I merely note that the body of this article doesn't reflect the lead, and the lead of glider has been deliberately slanted to refer only to sporting use of the term, and from a single reference. That's not nearly sufficient. I previously tried separating glider to sailplane gliders and general glider article, but you conspired to censor that view out of existence by inappropriate merging. I tried to enlarge the glider article to cover the subject, but you are continuing to abuse your editing to slant the article. The overall effect is to introduce considerable bias into the wikipedia, and this cannot continue, this is not a question of your definition of 'consensus' as opposed to WP:CONSENSUS. You should assume and expect that on matters such as this, where edit abuse exists, I will not give up, I never do.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:11, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Observation:

There are currently two articles on sailplane sports gliding (glider, gliding).

Really, in spite of what its lead says gliding should be about all aspects of a sport and the nature of that sport intrinsically includes the hardware used for that. That article needs to cover the entire sport. Right now glider is really a content fork of gliding as it talks exclusively about sailplane hardware which is only really used for sports uses. Clearly this is unacceptable. Even if there are space issues in gliding, this is still unacceptable, and there are plenty of other ways to resolve space issues than to engage in a content fork.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:11, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And so it goes on, filling up the talk page with repeated arguments. I feel as if we are in orbit. Somewhere in talk pages on one of these articles I have pointed out that the separation of sports equipment from the sport is common eg Yacht versus sailing, ski versus skiing, etc. I do not think Wolfkeeper's promise to go for ever are acceptable tactics. JMcC (talk) 20:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So far as I can tell, you're the only one that defines gliders only in sports terms, the poll above does not support this usage in any way.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the use of discussion is called 'achieving consensus'. I suggest you read the policy, Jmcc150, and attempt to actually follow it. (WP:CONSENSUS).- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have not edited the article while this discussion is occurring and suggest that Wolfkeeper also desists. I do not think that presenting a fait accompli is an acceptable tactic either until we have achieved consensus. JMcC (talk) 09:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What we can agree on

Let us see what we can agree on. If we can first dispose of these (hopefully) non-controversial topics, we may start to get somewhere. Willie Whitelaw used to start discussions with Republicans and Loyalists with "Can we agree it's Wednesday?"

Air sports
- Hang gliding - an air sport that uses foot-launched aircraft with a framed wing. Already exists
- Paragliding - an air sport that uses foot-launched aircraft with an unframed-wing. Already exists

These are both clearly defined sports with their own world championships, histories, training, associations and records. There are others, but can we leave that in abeyance?

Aircraft
- Hang glider - a type of aircraft. Does not yet exist as a separate article, but these types are an identifiable class on which to base an article. This should cover the invention and subsequent developments, structure/design, classes and instrumentation.
- Paraglider - another type of aircraft. Does not yet exist but with similar content to hang glider. Sufficiently different in history, FAI classification and structure to warrant a separate article. Likewise, there are others, but let us move on.

Aeronautics
- [Gliding flight] or perhaps [glide (aeronautics)] An aerial descent by insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and aircraft

Meteorology
- Thermal - rising warm air. Already exists
- Ridge lift - air moving up the side of a slope. Already exists
- Lee waves - standing waves. Already exists

There may be a case for restoring the article on all types of rising air. It could have a short summary of each type but otherwise it would largely be a duplication of the three above.

Does anyone have any problems with this so far? JMcC (talk) 12:14, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds A-ok to me. The current version of gliding flight also includes soaring flight, but I consider that a minor factor. AKAF (talk) 13:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(And thanks to Jmcc for helping to narrow down the areas of conflict. I'm really just not able to help when my talk page degenerates into a slanging match, so don't expect me to wade in) AKAF (talk) 13:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly don't agree that hang gliding and paragliding should be only about sports. Sports hang gliding and sports paragliding are subsets of these activities. Which isn't to say that there aren't sports uses of hang gliders and paragliders; but it's wrong to make the article solely about that. The problem is that the wikipedia doesn't consist of magazine articles. There's an expectation here that a title covers a topic encyclopedically. If it's an article only on sports use of X with non sporting uses (such as recreational flying) it should very probably be at X (sport).- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:26, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you make the articles here only about sports, then multiple bad things happen to the articles- suddenly sporting use only starts in 1920s or something, everything else is then potentially off-topic, and can be removed, and it's as if nobody flew gliders prior to that. Really that hang gliding is only a sport is not NPOV; you can find articles that do not describe it in that way, and it historically was not a sport, and I don't think it is solely that right now either. I admit though, that this is less of a problem for hang gliding and paragliding; but it's a really acute problem for gliders, which is where you are leading to since as a class they are used for things that simply aren't sports at all.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:26, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The articles that I proposed are distinct and the names should be non-controversial, except I guess you may prefer [Glide (aeronautics)] for descending flight. The advantages of the articles proposed above is that they do not overlap. As AKAF helpfully suggested, splitting the articles into the components is the way around the argument. As soon as anyone tries to construct composite articles, we will start arguing again. I have not yet proposed the name of other articles, to avoid getting bogged down. Please do not start anticipating what I may propose. Would you explain what other aspects of hang gliding and paragliding are not about the sports or the associated aircraft? Would you also define "encyclopedically"? My dictionary does not have it. JMcC (talk) 14:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopedic[20]: comprehending a wide variety of information; comprehensive: an encyclopedic memory.

People come here to learn about something in totality, to get an overview, they don't expect to have to jump around between articles because some editor somewhere got it into his head that some unnecessary word like sport "ought" to be in the article scope and forced multiple articles into existence.

And it really does matter.

Hang gliding seems to have existed since at least Otto Lilienthal, but sporting uses didn't start until the 60s or 70s. If somebody cruised into the article and took out Otto because his glider wasn't sporting, what exactly would you do about it? Perhaps you could argue (and I think you actually have) that the only sporting hang gliders were invented in the 60s. I personally find that a bad way to write articles. And even today with modern hang gliders, I think a lot of people just fly hang gliders for fun, they are not competing in any way. To the extent that hang gliding is not about competing, you've deliberately descoped the article; it's not encyclopedic.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 15:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Does your dictionary say whether everything has to be in the same encyclopedia or in the same article? The nice thing about hypertext is that it really easy to jump around. It is just as easy to click to another page as scroll down a jumbo article to the paragraph that you want. I do not think there is any danger about missing out poor Otto. Any article on the subject of 'hang glider' must mention him (and the sad, neglected Percy Pilcher). Lastly, we are into semantics whether a sport is competitive. In defining the scope of the article on hang gliding, I would be happy to extend the use of the word to recreation. I hadn't thought about excluding it. Have I answered your points? JMcC (talk) 15:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not just as easy. Hypertext is not a panacea for editors who haven't understood what an encyclopedia is, and blank-brained scoping of articles ends up with a whole bunch of overlapping articles with overlapping content. Then you move the overlapping content out into their own articles, and then you end up with even more articles, and in many cases that they are separate articles is often not defensible from notable sources. And really, encyclopedias have always more or less had hypertext from the get-go- they were deliberately laid out to make cross-referencing very quick, not as quick as clicking, but not that far behind.

That we are writing for an encyclopedia changes articles in subtle ways. These are not magazine articles. These are not book articles about a particular subset either. Internal combustion engine is not about car/truck engines. Rocket is not about just space rockets. Jet engine is not just about turbojets/fans. Steam engine is not just about piston steam engines. That's because this is an encyclopedia, and the readers expect us to be encyclopedic.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need AKAF's wisdom here to help decide what is an acceptable encyclopaedia article. I am following his suggestion about creating clearly defined articles, but you wish to create combination articles about multiple sports or multiple types of disparate aircraft, that are already covered in detail in their own articles. I believe an encyclopedia should be all encompassing, whereas you believe the articles should be. It boils down to what the subjects have in common. JMcC (talk) 17:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just for our education here, with the exception of the FAI, a sporting organisation specialising in sporting flight, who only under 'Definition of gliders used for sporting purposes in FAI Sporting Code' defines glider as a sports aircraft, who exactly is it you think defines the term 'glider' exclusively as a sporting term Jmcc150??? Because the FAA don't, I don't think the CAA does either, nor does NASA; and I'm not sure anybody else does. Who exactly?- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 20:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So far I have deliberately avoided the 'g' words so we could at least get some agreement on the easier parts. If we widen out the debate too quickly into naming, we will get lost again. Let us just work out what articles are needed and why. We can worry about naming later. Can we just concentrate on the point above? Do we produce combined articles? Do they risk overlap? What extra do they add that the individual articles do not? Is it appropriate to combine something about a sport and a type of aircraft, combine something about types of aircraft, or combine types of sport? How much should be in common before we do this? Perhaps even these questions are too early, until we have agreed my original list of proposed articles. Are they OK if I add the word pastime to sport, Lilienthal to the scope of the hang glider article? There is plenty to talk about without reviving the debate about the 'g' words just yet. JMcC (talk) 20:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, no. You appear to be consistently using both glider and gliding in a single, over-specific way related only to sports, and in fact only one sport, and then editing the wikipedia accordingly to exclude other POVs about what constitutes gliders and gliding in a way that is not supported by reliable sources.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:20, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If I may suggest: Any division will necessarily be problematic, since there is plenty of cross-propogation between the different types of gliders. I don't know about paragliders, but there's probably (?) plenty of common ground with steerable parachutes. With that said though, I don't see a problem with any somewhat arbitrary decision as to where the lines between articles are drawn so long as a good overview/indexing article exists. I think the gliding flight article is getting to be good, but I'd like to see a series of sections headed by a direction to the main article on the topic, with a 2-3 sentence description of the glider type. This would help with the navigation.

With that said, I do share Wolfkeeper's frustration to a limited degree, about what I also see an an excessive focus on sport gliding without encyclopaedic material on either the aircraft or aerodynamics. May I suggest that this whole argument would be easier if we could get a good article at gliding flight so there is a feeling for how the whole thing is going to hang together. I think all editors are to be commended for the later sections, which are coming together nicely. I still think that there might be room for a section on technical aspects, much as at Bicycle, with sections on materials, laminar wing design, navigation, etc, however I think it is most important to get the section Aircraft ("gliders") into at least a format where we can all see how its going to look. I would suggest using the formatting of Estonia#History (to name a completely unrelated article) as a guideline, although I think just two-3 lines and a picture of each type of glider (including animals) should be enough. Do you think this would be possible? I'm thinking of just a copy-paste of the leading three sentences in each article along with the leading picture, and a "Main article" notification. I say that also because I think that the leading paragraph in "Glider" as it currently stands is pretty good. Could you try to get (just the formatting) worked out, without worrying too closely about names? I think if that is done, we could start the discussion once more.

I will just state for the record that I think a main article on "history of unpowered aircraft" which includes all types from parachutes to possums would be nice. One could then just copy/paste the relevant paragraph into each article with a link to the "main article" on the history, thus preserving the flow, avoiding duplication but keeping the in-depth discussion of the relationships in its own article. I think that the discussion of the "double" invention of the hang glider, for instance, is exactly the type of think which it would be nice to have, but which doesn't really belong in any of the current articles. Just my personal preference though AKAF (talk) 10:11, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

AKAF May I take your points one by one.

Any division will necessarily be problematic, since there is plenty of cross-propagation between the different types of gliders. We have divided up the articles already at your suggestion and you agreed with it. Do you mean further division of these articles? Or do you mean any combination will necessarily be problematic? I must strongly query the assertion that there is plenty of cross-propagation between the different types of glider. They use rising air and they share the laws of physics (as we all do), but I am unaware of any cross-propagation between a man hanging from a parachute and an 850kg aircraft. The technologies, histories, associations and competitions are entirely different. I must ask you for some facts to back up your assertion.

gliding flight article is getting to be good Thank you, I wrote some of it. If we took a subject like the Napoleonic Wars or jet engines, it would be essential to have an article that summarised these large subjects. In contrast gliding (flight) is an article that covers three separate air sports and animal flight. It adds nothing, it merely duplicates. (The name is also ambiguous but let us defer that discussion.) It also diverges from the scope of the article to which you agreed above. I must ask you to explain what an additional article provides.

an excessive focus on sport gliding without encyclopaedic material on either the aircraft or aerodynamics I hope you will acknowledge that there is a need for an article on rigid wing gliders. What you suggesting is an article that would encompass all unpowered aircraft: gliders, hang gliders and paragliders. Again can we leave terminology until later. Can we agree there will be at least three pairs of detailed articles, without debating the names:

Aircraft, each of which is recognised by the FAI
- Non foot-launched unpowered flying machines (currently called glider)
- Foot-launched framed-wing flying machines (currently called hang glider and agreed by you as an article above)
- Foot launched unframed-wing flying machines (currently called paraglider and agreed by you as an article above)
Air sports, each of which is recognised by the FAI
- The sport/pastime of flying non foot-launched unpowered flying machines (currently called gliding)
- The sport/pastime of flying Foot-launched framed-wing flying machines (currently called hang gliding)
- The sport/pastime of flying Foot-launched unframed-wing flying machines (currently called paragliding)

The Aviation Project has been content to classify the aircraft as gliders, hang gliders and paragliders. Consequently it is entirely understandable that this article on gliders at present says little about hang gliders and paragliders. You would clearly like an article that combines all three types, but please do not hung up on the names.

Once more I have to ask whether there is a need for combination articles. There are only three types and three sports (we are not talking about the Napoleonic Wars). What would this add apart from duplication? Trying to combine different things in one huge article actually leads to confusion.

would be easier if we could get a good article on gliding flight As you suggested, AKAF, I think it is easier to work bottom up and see how the pieces fit together. I was taught to plan my essays by thinking of the individual parts and then putting them in a logical order.

sections on materials, laminar wing design, navigationThe materials are very different. Laminar wing design probably deserves an article. As you suggested AKAF, an article on the aerodynamics would be good. Having just given a two-hour lecture on the subject of navigation, there could be a need for another separate article.

There is already an excellent article called Early flight. One of my problems with the very early flights is the vague description and lack of evidence. It is unclear whether they were gliders, parachutes or just survivable crashes while wearing feathers. However we group these articles, I would be inclined just to leave out everything before Caley and merely refer to the Early flight article. JMcC (talk) 12:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see how you can honestly claim that gliding (flight) is about sports. I also do not see how you can honestly claim that a POV that gliders in general are only sports aircraft is in any way a neutral point of view.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:20, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the sentence again. There was a change about a minute before you edited. JMcC (talk) 14:26, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The glider article before your involvement described other rigid wing aircraft such as military gliders and the Space Shuttle. I do not think I have claimed otherwise. Please accept my apologies if I was not clear on this. JMcC (talk) 14:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the article that was there before I began editing [21] I do not find that that is the case; it mentions them in a couple of places but does not describe them as I would understand the term; and I do not think that any reasonable person would agree with your assessment.

It seems to me that that article really is an article about a sports glider only.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, I would like to move the current article glider to sports glider. That would IMO be far clearer, and would allow the article to be written more narrowly, along lines that Jmcc150 would be more than happy with. Right now, the article says it is on one thing, but really is on something different.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't heard the term before. Would you provide references? Anyway, I was trying to reach consensus about the scope of each article before we bothered about names. JMcC (talk) 14:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your suggestions Jmcc. By cross-propogation I simply mean that there will always be topics which could be put into either one of two articles. Steerable parachutes or paragliders was the example which I used, but I'm sure there is a similar blurred line between motorgliders and gliders, or between any number of weird and wonderful one-off aircraft covering the spectrum between hanggliders and sailplanes. My point was simply that The exact point at which the division is drawn is relatively unimportant, so long as the spectrum of articles contains all of the information. When dividing a rainbow into discrete colours, the exact point of the division is relatively unimportant, but if there's a bit missing then everyone's going to be unhappy. I think that a lot of Wolfkeeper's quarrel (and please feel free to correct me) is that not all of the information is there, and to be honest, I think we can all see a few bits which could be improved. Trouble is, it's difficult to see where to put those bits without having a good overview.

Currently I'm seeing 12 (or so) gliders in the gliding flight article. Could you explain what you mean by combination articles, I hope I've re-explained myself better above, but I didn't understand 100% what you wrote? I would like (1) an overview (currently called gliding flight, which I don't see as a combination, so much as a navigation guide to the whole cluster of articles. (2) History, which (I fully agree) would be a kludge. The reason why I would also like a history article, is that I see it as a different way to organise an overview. ie, by historical branching, rather than by current shape. This would render the glider articles to remain understandable if a large amount of cross-linking to ultralights or light aircraft happens, which is probably desirable in the technology, navigation, soaring and aerodynamics sections. If there's not enough for a full article, I think a section at the start of gliding flight would be nice, doing the same thing. I'm coming at this whole thing from the point of view of a flow of logic, rather than information, so stop me if you can see a problem.

As far as the sections are concerned, I agree in principle, but it would be nice to get away from FAI definitions. It's not that I disagree, its just that for an encyclopaedia, it would be nice to be as general as possible. But (and please bear with me here) the optimal page about "Glider" would contain information about all kinds of gliding aircraft. However in practical terms, this will always be dominated by sporting gliders. So I see a difference between the archetype article, which I don't see as being achievable in the short term, and the achievable article. I think Wolfkeeper is saying that we should behave as if this archetype were the actuality, and we are just waiting for a mad genius to write us an article at "glider" which includes all of these aircraft. I would say that this approach appeals to me aesthetically, since in the practical sense it just means moving the current "glider" article, leaving "glider" as a redirect, either to the new article or to gliding flight (I don't really think that it makes too much difference which). And then continuing the article which is currently at glider with no further disruption. AKAF (talk) 15:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not even a question of 'nice' to have an article on gliders, rather than one particular type of sports glider; it's simply NPOV- the wikipedia is supposed to give due weight. Right now, it's only giving any weight at all to one single type, and deliberately excluding major types like paragliders. Due weight is defined at the article level, not the level of the wikiepdia. Jmcc150's idea that you can sort of have a general encyclopedia but not a general article, is just wrong under the core values.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, AKAF, your comments are most helpful. You seem to recognise that I have a genuine point of view, even if it sometimes differs from yours.

Yes, there is an almost continuous spectrum of aircraft. We have used the FAI's dividing lines as the best we knew of, but is there another way of classifying them. Some sort of classification is needed because at each end of the spectrum they are very different, which is why I have resisted the approach of lumping them together. I think that such an article would have a problem in deciding when to stop its detail. It seemed to me that there could be definitions, the common laws of physics and the comparison table. However, even the use of rising air would have to be hedged because I do not know of any hang glider or paraglider pilots who have used wave-lift. The height records imply they do not. I find it difficult to judge to what depth would someone would want to read before going to one of the detailed articles. I am not so hidebound as to flatly refuse such an article, I just can't see it would be that useful. It would be more than a disambiguation page, but not a magnum opus. Later on you say there should be a general article on unpowered aircraft, and so I would like to hear what you think should be in it and to what depth.

Obviously there may be other gaps. I think I know enough to fill some of them, if someone points them out. That is why I tried to start with a basic set of commonly agreed articles. At this level of detail the gaps should show up. As you pointed out aerodynamics is one gap, though, as Wolfkeeper says, this would share many concepts with all aircraft. Nevertheless some of the techniques that are used in high performance glider design in order to reduce drag are fairly specialised. Starting from the top down is a different way I suppose, but writing a whole article just to find gaps seems a bit unnecessary.

One obvious gap that Wolfkeeper filled was the lack of an article to explain the flight of plummeting reptiles and similar creatures. As you say things should be kept as general as possible, so its digression to winch launching took me aback. I had assumed that you had concurred when you agreed a more limited scope in my first list of proposed articles. Have you changed your mind? I also think the air currents used by raptors were something that could have an article (actually there already is), and again an ornithologist would find winch-launching an odd thing to find. Consequently my adverse reaction to gliding (flight) was that it seemed that Wolfkeeper not only filled a gap, but created a parallel article by taking several bits from the gliding article. This is what I meant by a composite article. These do not add, they merely sample. It is this sort of article that is more likely to have gaps because there are different levels of information in the different articles. You clearly feel that 'gliding flight' is a step forward, whereas on the Administrator's Noticeboard you said "gliding (flight) Which is more general, but replicates most of the same material". I can't stop it happening, I can only point out the problems it causes.

"Currently I'm seeing 12 (or so) gliders in the gliding flight article". If I understand your comment correctly: I think that is because Wolfkeeper has pasted in bits from the other articles but hasn't read them for consistency in naming.

"but I didn't understand 100% what you wrote?" If I haven't explained something, let me know and I will try again. The problem is trying to get on with a normal life, so I have to write a cogent response almost at the first attempt. Consequently I have to apologise to Wolfkeeper who was upset when when I said 'describe' when perhaps I should have said 'mention'. He may have more time than I do.

"so stop me if you can see a problem"Nineteenth century aviation history is almost a self-contained topic for unpowered aircraft, hence my suggestion about using Early flight. Once the Wright Brothers stuck on an engine to their aircraft, gliders were old-hat and there was a long gap until Wasserkuppe. One might even contend that modern gliders emerged from the experience of building Fokker Triplanes rather than being directly descended from the Wrights and Lilienthal. There was an even longer gap for foot-launched aircraft for whom the history is quite recent. I would be interested to know if anything that Lilienthal invented was transferred directly to modern hang gliders. The hang glider was actually re-invented by Rogallo, Richards, Palmer and Dickenson. For example the pilot is suspended differently. It would therefore be simplistic to draw a Darwinian tree in a history article back to Caley. Obviously a timeline would be possible, though with essentially parallel streams.

"the archetype article, which I don't see as being achievable in the short term, and the achievable article" I am not sure what you are proposing here for a general article on unpowered aircraft. 'Achievable' sounds practical and so should always get my vote, though what it means here I do not know. However, before you have another go at explaining, would you read the last paragraph?

Lastly, I tried to get agreement on the articles that were needed, before we got bogged down with the names. I hoped it would get some parts nailed down, otherwise things keep on getting raised again when one looks at something else. Perhaps it was a forlorn hope, but I would just like to ask one more time. If names were not an issue, what articles would you like and why? JMcC (talk) 19:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am more than happy to assist in improving the article once the possibility of continual reversion and discussion passes. As a gliding instructor and glider owner I apparently have a 'conflict of interest' in this article although that is not how I read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. I also wonder why Template:Expert exists if its sole purpose is to attract editors to an article with a 'conflict of interest'. Before accusations of personal bias toward this article are raised I invite the reader to view any of the articles that I have created [22] and check them for neutrality and coverage. To suggest that experienced editors can not deal fairly with a subject they may have a passion for is not constructive, although I note that it does happen. In that case it is the job of follow-up editors to remove any unreferenced POV statements. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary beak

Hi Guys, Thanks for al the very positive work in the last little while. To answer Nimbus, I don't see being a glider instructor as a conflict of interest, simply as an interest. I think its important with this type of article to see it from several angles at once. This is for the very practical reason that it helps the prose and makes it easier for the uninvolved reader to get in touch with. Also every speciality has its own blind spots. As a professional aerodynamicist, I am all to acutely aware of mine when it comes to the practical nuts and bolts of making an aircraft fly.

I would suggest the following as a new structure:

A main article involving an overview of the articles in the unpowered aircraft group:

gliding flight - Which should remain pretty much as it is, hopefully expanding with extra sections. I think there should be a merge of material from unpowered aircraft. I would suggest that all new articles in the unpowered aircraft group be started in this article and eventually be spun off into sub-articles if there is enough material. I would be fascinated to have at least a section on glider navigation, and I think I've already made my other preferences clear.

Subarticles on fixed-wing sport sailplane gliders and the sport.

glider (sailplane) - This is to be a move from glider. I think there needs to be a link to gliding flight in the first sentence to keep everything organised. This is Jmcc's concession to Wolfkeeper
gliding - To remain as-is, if Wolfkeeper accepts, as Wolfkeeper's concession to Jmcc.

Subarticles on Hanggliding

Hang glider - Currently a redirect to Hang gliding. Will presumably eventually be an article.
Hang gliding - About the sport

Subarticles on Paragliding

Paraglider - Currently a redirect to Paragliding. Will presumably eventually be an article.
Paragliding - About the sport

There are other aircraft, but I think they all are agreed

Side-articles on Meteorology

Thermal - As-is. Would be nice to improve the cross-links though
Ridge lift - As-is. Would be nice to improve the cross-links though
Lee waves - As-is. Would be nice to improve the cross-links though

Redirects

I have just restored Glider aircraft to a redirect back to here, it was an illegal cut and paste copy. Please can users not keep changing and redirecting articles until a consensus is reached to change. It is messing up the article histories. Thank you. MilborneOne (talk) 15:48, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it would be a good idea for all editors to voluntary refrain from changing any Gliding/Glider/Unpowered aircraft articles while this discussion is ongoing. Thank you. MilborneOne (talk) 16:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This must be a new definition of 'wikipedia is not a bureaucracy' I wasn't previously aware of.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note, that the purpose of the cut and paste copying prohibition is to avoid people destroying attribution. GliderMaven appears to have developed it in his own user space and has had no other contributions.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you are right Wolfkeeper I only noted the comments on the related talk pages, seems strange that a new user of only two days develops a complete article on Gliders without noticing any ongoing disucssions. It still duplicates information in this article and should be redirected here without prejudice to whatever consensus is reached. MilborneOne (talk) 16:37, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what definition of bureaucracy you are talking about I have a job to protect the encyclopedia, I can either ask you all nicely or protect the articles from editing. I though asking nicely was better. MilborneOne (talk) 16:37, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Distinction between gliders and weight-shift control aircraft

[2] [23]

[1]

[2]