Template talk:Infobox airline: Difference between revisions

Frequent Flyer Program

I think the text "Frequent Flyer Program" should be changed to something more 'airline-general' such as "Loyalty Program". Frequent Flyer is Qantas-specific as far as I know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.171.164.104 (talk) 04:41, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a pressing need to change it, as the term is widely recognized as generic. And it's definitely not Qantas specific: Delta's program was called "Delta Frequent Flyer" from it's creation in 1981 until it was renamed SkyMiles in 1995. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 05:25, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Ugly design

Anybody know why the design has been changed to a really ugly version - has this been discussed anywhere? Should it be reverted? MilborneOne (talk) 11:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The actual style changes were rather incidental to the code cleanup which took place, and can be reverted without undoing the whole lot. The test cases page has a comparison between the two styles. As far as I'm concerned the old design was "uglier" (on short infoboxes all the borders and colour rather overwhelm the content) but more importantly was arbitrary; the current version follows the recommended defaults of the {{infobox}} design, which have been widely copied throughout the encyclopedia's infobox templates, especially those for the aircraft project. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:05, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Just a note the original template does not appear following the test cases link ? MilborneOne (talk) 14:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I've moved the original styling to the sandbox, which is the version on the right. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Greetings, as an editor of many airline articles, I have some concerns about the infobox changes. While any code cleanup is good, and appreciated, the new appearance poses some questions:

• The title {{{airline}}} is changed to a nearly colorless background, whereas before it had a blue one; in the examples given here it is shown with an picture afterwards. In most airline articles, a clear-background logo is used, not a picture. As a result of the change, the logo and name now appear to be in one space (e.g. Air France, British Airways, Japan Airlines). Perhaps the title could be positioned to appear above the box, such as in Template:infobox company? Alternatively, some background color could be re-added, or the logo moved above the title, as in the sample shown at Template:infobox#Examples.

• The loss of boundary lines to different categories makes it more difficult to for the reader to distinguish the categories of information provided. Airline infoboxes often have multiple destination, lounge, city lists separated by <br/> and include multiple font sizes, boldface, bullet points, etc. While a clear infobox works quite well with single-line entries, airline articles usually have multiple entries (e.g. Air Canada, Continental Airlines, Emirates Airline). Boundary lines are a helpful visual aid; contrasting background colors could be used, but that would likely be too colorful. Perhaps some very light boundary lines?

• A more minor issue, but related to the boundary lines question, namely the merging of the IATA, ICAO, and Callsign categories with less separation between the two. The 3-letter IATA/ICAO codes are given equal space to the Callsign code, which can be a longer word, thus taking up two lines (e.g. Air New Zealand) - depending on browser/font size. But the symmetrical look also has its merits; perhaps a lighter gray could be used?

Anyhow, just some thoughts from a concerned airline article editor. Regards SynergyStar (talk) 19:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

It is the loss of both horizontal and vertical boundary lines that appears to be odd after years of editing airline articles. The loss of vertical lines and spacing in the iata/icao/callsign now appears odd as Synergy has commented (the old (right) testcase version is still not the same as the original template!). MilborneOne (talk) 19:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Acknowledging that any changes may take some getting used to, and the apparent need to harmonize infobox styles with others, the question still remains whether such changes make a discernible improvement. Perhaps a more modern look can be achieved, while maintaining the organization. SynergyStar (talk) 19:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The change required to re-add the lines is the addition of a single word (the additional "bordered" CSS class). As for the relative widths of the IATA/ICAO/callsign cells, I've corrected that, and in a way which actually allows for more column flexibility than in the old code. As for the merits of a floating title rather than one embedded in the table, I'm actually strongly in favour of the floating title style, but I thought I'd take it (relatively) slowly here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting the cell relative width. A floating title (I assume that means above the infobox, like the earlier infobox:company example) sounds worth a try IMO. For the lines, it's good to know that the coding is quite simple; also perhaps other options could be considered, for instance in Template:infobox#Examples there are colored cells (more updated look?). The IATA/ICAO/callsign cells, could they be separated; instead of one single block, perhaps 3 cells side by side? SynergyStar (talk) 23:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

A floating title, code dividers have been added, of course should a better coding solution be available, improvements can be made. Regards, SynergyStar (talk) 22:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

{undent} I think the now divided IATA/ICAO/callsign section and floating title has returned the infobox to a more acceptable version. The loss of the internal boundary lines may actually be useful, as it will discourage listing too many items (hubs, focus cities and destinations especially). I also think this template should be fully protected to avoid this situation in the future, but not until a final compromised version is reached. - Trevor MacInnis ^contribs 23:27, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Happy that it is a more acceptable design now that the IATA/ICAO bit has been divided, agree we should protect it as is. MilborneOne (talk) 10:41, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Good to hear that the fixes have met with your approval. Hopefully this represents a retention of the order along with some modernisation in the style. Just to note, the divider lines I added are white in color, given that other choices seemed to not work quite as well; and there were some coding changes made to achieve the borders (IATA/etc cells rearranged slightly) and floating title. I also updated the test cases to reflect the comparison between the two actual versions. Since the new infobox format, the IATA/ICAO/callsign links have been bolded, possibly because of the cell class. As for protection, I'd note that the page has been semi-protected to date. Should wiki adopt future infobox style revisions, this box might need to be available to be upgraded as well. Regards, SynergyStar (talk) 18:56, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Full protection is for the prevention of widescale disruption by vandalism, not to avoid offending editors' aesthetic sensibilities. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:33, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thought I will let you all know that I have made the relevant changes to the Template:Infobox Airline alliance to bring that infobox inline with the Airline infobox. Aviator006 (talk) 02:29, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, thx for harmonizing the two infoboxes. Regards, SynergyStar (talk) 05:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

defunct airlines - key people

with regard to 'key people' for airlines that no longer exist. what are the guides for who should be included? should it, like all other company infoboxes, include the senior execs at the time of bankruptcy? --emerson7 23:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest to list only the last CEO, all CEOs and/or the founder. The idea of mentioning two or three "important" key people from all over the history of the company seems unrealistic, because too subjective. Belgian man (talk) 12:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Caption to image

Currently there is no provision for a caption to the image. Presumably this also affects alt text for the image. Given the general guidelines on lead images in infoboxes etc, why not set the image size to a fixed size and provide for a caption and alt text? GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:37, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Not sure we need a caption when all that is normally in the image section is the airline logo, this also can cause problems with fixed sizes as some of the logos can be small gifs which look stupid if magnified to big. Can you have a default alt text that just says logo ? MilborneOne (talk) 16:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Caption might be useful in those pre-web cases where a logo is (for instance) displayed as part of an advertisement on a page. eg from an old copy of Flight but for most cases could be left blank. A default to logo for the alt text would be a little better than nothing at all. And fairly trivial to add to the template code ( "|alt=logo of airline" in the appropiate part). This is the guidance from WP:ALT "A helpful way to think about alt text is to imagine that the web page is a script for an audio recording, and that the page's alt text is the part of the recording that describes the image to someone who cannot see the image." GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Understood, I dont have a problem with your reasoning. MilborneOne (talk) 17:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Please don't default the alt text to anything. For purely decorational text, alt text can (and should) be omitted. In most cases this applies to logos. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

"purely decorative, that is, it has no function and is used only for visual formatting or decoration" is the text in the guidance on wikipedia but that text cites w3.org which actually says "if the image is used to create bullets in a list, a horizontal line, or other similar decoration, it is fine to have an empty alt attribute " and further down our guidance is a specific section which describes better what decorative images are (and I don't read it as including company logos in articles on the company) and says for decorative images we should add code so they are skipped. GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Spanish reference

Someone that can edit this page, please update the spanish reference which is broken. Actually it points to w:es:Plantilla:Aerolínea but the correct link is w:es:Plantilla:Ficha_de_aerolínea. Thanks!. --PabloCastellano (talk) 13:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Just a note: interwikis are placed on the /doc subpage that isn't protected, so you could have done it yourself. And this template is only semi-protected, so you should be able to edit it too (you are autoconfirmed). Svick (talk) 16:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC)