User:PeterWD/Sandbox

2016-09-25 Essay Commons:Category:Aircraft (xxxx)

1. Aircraft by registration

If the xxxx variable is an aircraft registration, the category should normally include:

• 1.1 Category:Aircraft by registration
• 1.2.1 Category:Aircraft registered in 'countryxx', or:
• 1.2.2 Category:Military aircraft registered in 'countryxx'
• 1.3 Category:'aircraft manufacturer/modelname'

However, aircraft registrations are often re-used, particularly for countries where the range of possible registrations is insufficient to cater for the historical or cumulative number of needed registration marks. Some notable countries this applies to are US, Canada, Germany, Australia. If the registration category (eg 'Aircraft (AB-CDE)') is already used at Commons for another individual aircraft, then that category should become the parent category, and the child categories (sub cats) should take the form 'Aircraft (modelname)', where modelname is abbreviated just sufficiently for disambiguation.

In order to find the relevant modelname, we can use either good aircraft recognition skills and/or search for a registration at the websites of aircraft registration authorities, or via search engines. Note that some agencies have unique rules, eg the US FAA online register records only latest registrations for active or deregistered aircraft, not registrations that have been superseded by another registration mark on the same individual aircraft. Aircraft deregistered before 1982 are not necessarily recorded, but many re-created records are being added to the deregistered database each week.

2. Aircraft by name

If the xxxx variable is a name displayed on, or given to, an individual aircraft, the category should include as a minimum:

• 2.1.1 Category:Aircraft by name, or:
• 2.1.2 Category:'aircraft modelname' by name, or:
• 2.1.3 Category:'aircraft manufacturer' by name

A decision needs to be made about which category should be primary for the placement of images, ie the aircraft given name, or the displayed registration. This depends on the most likely variable to be searched by most users. Bear in mind that the primary purpose of Commons categories is to allow a user to search for a candidate file (image, etc) for potential use in a Wikimedia/Wikipedia article, etc, solely by browsing the category tree structure. Note that non-existent categories (red links) applied to an image do not appear in the category tree, so they cannot be browsed to find images.