Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Airport destination lists

Arbor-treeish break

• This was already discussed just this year at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 60#RfC on WP:NOT and British Airways destinations, closed as clear consensus that these lists are not indiscriminate information and do not violate WP:NOT. It is wildly inappropriate to propose deleting longstanding, well-maintainted information across hundreds of widely read articles for the same tired reasons yet again. These are simple lists of destinations but without schedules or other details; they are not remotely a travel guide merely for having travel-related information. They instead provide the entire purpose of the airports with what businesses and markets they serve. The fact that it's informative and useful does not mean it's forbidden! Sourcing has significantly improved since recent discussions on these that have changed the previous practice of removing destination-specific sources after an announced route has begun. We should continue these improvements, not make the project worse. Reywas92^Talk 15:05, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  Sourcing has significantly improved – That's a shocking indictment of what the sourcing must have been like before. Here's how Aeroroutes -- apparently the go-to source for these lists -- describes itself :

  AeroRoutes is the successor of daily worldwide airline schedule/network changes from April 2022, independently owned Jim Liu ... Mainly based in Vancouver, Canada, Jim is an airline schedule nerd, started collecting airline timetables since 9, and has been staring at flight schedules via various platforms for almost 30 years ...

  That's what literally thousands of our articles are based on.

  And since we're here, let's look at some other "sources". For example, in the Atlanta Airport article, the Delta destination list is cited to this url . Now tell us please, Reywas92: where in there is the list of destinations to which Delta flies from ATL? Or -- oh wait! -- actually, the citation gives us an archive.org url ("archived from the original") . Please tell us where in there we look to find the list of destinations? EEng 15:25, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  All you have to do is click "Filter", select operated by Delta Air Lines, and select only Nonstop. Voila! There's your destinations! It's indeed verifiable, and the results are not required to be at a specific URL. But Delta does have PDF timetables, so we could also add and . We could also add other third-party sites like and , but it's nice that Wikipedia has this data links to the other airport articles and without ads. I mean, it seems you didn't know how to use Delta's website to find the info, so I think it's great that we compile it as a simple list. Again, past practice was to remove destination-specific sources with a route's starting date and then only citing the timetables, but as those are retained these thousands of articles will gradually improve. — Reywas92^Talk 16:29, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  The need to use the airline or a avid plane watchers blog explemefies how these lists fail not only NOTGUIDE and also NOT#IINFO. Where there are dozens to hundreds of possible cities, in using them all with a majority of those based on such primary sourcing is a major issue. Masem (t) 18:21, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  There was already a large discussion that found these do not violate WP:NOT, and I don't care to repeat this argument. There are also industry databases and other types of sources that are usable, but airline sources are perfectly verifiable as well. There is nothing wrong with primary sourcing either, as this is not going to be biased personal accounts. — Reywas92^Talk 18:36, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  As quoted from the RFC above, they don't violate NOT if they were sourced to independent third part sources. But they aren't, they heavily rely on primary sources. Masem (t) 18:55, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  Also… remember that consensus can change. Sometimes rapidly. Blueboar (talk) 20:14, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  All you have to do is click "Filter", select operated by Delta Air Lines, and select only Nonstop. – I thought you might say that. Problem is, when I do that it says "247 Cities Available from ATL", yet the article lists only about 200 cities. How do you explain that? EEng 16:59, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  The "247" is counting them incorrectly. If you select List view in the bottom left, it organizes by continent but under "Asia, Middle East, & India (3)" Seoul is listed twice and under "Europe (21)" Amsterdam, London, and Paris are listed twice, plus many more in the other sections. If our article does actually have any inaccuracies, that's a reason to fix it, not delete the whole concept from thousands of pages. Reywas92^Talk

  So you're saying that the airline's own website counts the cities wrong, but you know how to massage the data to get the right answer? How is that not in direct contradiction of WP:NOR, which forbids inclusion of any analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources? To repeat: you're telling me that the source has the wrong answer, but you know how to fix it. NOR requires that each statement in the article being verifiable in a source that makes that statement explicitly. Source material should be carefully summarized or rephrased without changing its meaning. You are blatantly thumbing your nose at that, and it appears that's what's going on in all these lists. EEng 19:13, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  WTF? Our article just lists the airports, it's not giving a specific number. I trust that the list of airports on Delta's site is correct, and it appears our list matches those. I'm NOT saying the source has the wrong answer, and nothing is being "fixed", as the question is where do their flights go, not how many flights are there. The Atlanta Airport article says that Delta flies from Atlanta to Albany, which is accurately verified on Delta's website, and not summarized or rephrased, certainly not changing any meaning, even if their route map system lists and counts it twice. In what universe is our article synthesizing anything by naming the cities? What unstated conclusion do you think the article is making? Seriously, what the hell are you accusing me of? I'm not putting any analysis in any article, certainly not one that makes a false conclusion. Simply excluding duplicates isn't even effing "massaging the data", it would be a simple count, here only on a talk page to explain why you don't know why the article might not be listing as many cities as they do. This is wildly out of line. — Reywas92^Talk 21:37, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  WTF yourself.

  • Following your instructions, the Delta website returns 247 "cities available from ATL", though the ATL article lists only 206 "destinations". You say the discrepancy is due to the website's 247 "cities available" containing duplicates. So I deduped the 247 down to unique airport codes, which resulted in a list of 230. That still doesn't match the 206 in the ATL article. How do explain that?
  • You also linked to Delta's flight schedule pdfs (domestic and international ). But concatenating those lists and deduping gives a set of 282 destinations, which doesn't match the 206 destinations in the article, nor the 230 destinations obtained by deduping the search result, which you specified, on Delta's website. How do you explain that?

  I repeat: how can you explain the fact that the ATL article doesn't match the very sources you recommend? EEng 05:16, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  What you're exposing here is that this content can only be created through original research by editors, requiring non-trivial judgement-calls about what is/is not listed, that are (at most) only valid for a few days since destinations served change so quickly. There is no single source in which this kind of information can be verified as a whole. FOARP (talk) 12:34, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Except the ATL article doesn't only have 206 listed for Delta, you also have to count Delta Connection. I cross-checked our list against Delta's and every single one except the suspended Tel Aviv is accurately verified on that page. So unless you have identified somewhere where Wikipedia is actually wrong, what exactly is the problem???? Cut the crap FOARP, I fail to see what judgement call was made on this page. — Reywas92^Talk 13:43, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Going to jump in as someone not involved in this particular thread and advise everyone to cool off. Cut the crap, WTF and WTF yourself aren’t phrases I’d expect to see in a civil discussion. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:45, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  The Civil Aeronautics Board was abolished in 1985, so what do you expect? EEng 04:34, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  the ATL article doesn't only have 206 listed for Delta, you also have to count Delta Connection – Uh huh. And how -- after we follow your directions to click "Filter", select operated by Delta Air Lines, and select only Nonstop. Viola!, and then (as you go on to instruct us) dedupe the results -- do we distinguish the "Delta" destinations from the "Delta Connection" destinations? EEng 05:31, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  Endeavor Air and SkyWest do publish their route maps so those can be cited instead, it's not like this is unverifiable. Or let's just combine those rows in the table just list them all as Delta! That's been proposed before but wasn't adopted. I don't care precisely how it's presented, but that's no reason for it to be deleted altogether. — Reywas92^Talk 14:38, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  We should probably have a RSN discussion about Aeroroutes but it seems like an unnecessary tangent here... Whether or not Aeroroutes is a RS doesn't seem to be relevent to answering the core question at hand because its still an open question either way. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:08, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  No, it's directly relevant. When material is inappropriate, it usually inappropriate in multiple ways. The fact that editors maintaining these lists are forced to scrape the bottom of the sourcing barrel, because there are no independent, reliable, secondary sources for them, is further evidence of the un-WP:DUE nature of those lists. EEng 19:13, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  Thats begging the question, you never established that editors were forced to use that source they could simply have been lazy or mistaken. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:17, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  That Aeroroutes is used so heavily on these lists is a good sign that it wasn't out of laziness or error. Laziness or a mistake would br a reasonable interpretion if there were like one or two routes source to it while the rest were far better RSes. Masem (t) 19:33, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  There has never been a RSN discussion on Aeroroutes, it currently appears to be a source in good standing so its harder to fault anyone who uses it. Laziness is not out of the question... My experience with fansites is that they're generally used out of laziness, they're essentiall a shortcut which means you don't have to track down the actual sources/do the hard work of weighing weight. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:40, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

  Just doing a basic check on it against the tenets of what a good RS is meant to be shows that it is basically a single user blog with no editorial oversight. The person running it frequently just uses schedule changes on flight databases as a means to report a route change, but thats a level of trivality we shouldn't be operating at as an encyclopedia. So it should not be considered reliable for these articles, certainly not for trying to summarize destination lists from an airport. Masem (t) 12:14, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Agree, this is literally a blog run by a company that does airline industry events. "Not independent" hardly covers it. FOARP (talk) 12:30, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Now at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#AeroRoutes and Airlineroute. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:06, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and one of the features of encyclopedias is that they contain a lot of information which most people consider stupid or boring. I, however, think it is good when there is information in an encyclopedia article, so I resist with manly firmness the perpetual attempts to remove it. Especially if there has been a consensus not to! jp×g🗯️ 05:10, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Just as an example of how bad the sourcing has gotten… these are some of the articles where I stripped out the unsourced routes, and lo and behold they’re being restored without any sources being added. Why is this blatant disregard for WP:V tolerated? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 07:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

And yet another ANI - WP:ANI#IP editor on airport articles. Is it really worth keeping these tables when this amount of disruption is going on, good or bad faith? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 10:13, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree these should be removed for multiple reasons, WP:NOTGUIDE, no independent WP:RS, the WP:OR aspect that sometimes crops up etc. Lavalizard101 (talk) 10:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

There is no OR aspect here, these are very straightforward facts. These sources are perfectly reliable, no one has ever identified how these would result in wrong or biased information because of the type of source. A simple list without details is not a travel guide, as established by clear consensus at WP:NOT. — Reywas92^Talk 13:46, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet due quote from the previous rfc closure in 2023. Most of the sourcing is not independent/secondary, the OR aspect is claiming that its WP:DUE to include these tables based entire on primary sources. There is also OR that can occur when updating to remove no llonger served destinations. As for the clear consensus at WP:NOT archive 60 that was about TWO list articles, not the issue at hand. Lavalizard101 (talk) 14:21, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

That's not what original research means.... there is no synthesis or analysis of anything to draw unsupported conclusions. You don't need sources to prove a negative since the articles do not say where the airline does not fly. You not liking the sources used does not mean this is original research, not to mention the improvements seen to add more sources. The previous discussion was clearly about the whole topic with those just as examples and commenters understood it as such. Obviously if consensus had been found against those articles, that would have been used against every other one, not actually limited to them. — Reywas92^Talk 14:43, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Except per the rfc independent, reliable, secondary sources are required, most of these are built on primary sources, its got nothing to do with me "not liking the sources" and everything to do with policy and the rfc requiring independent secondary sources. Heck if it were up to me personally most airport articles would be gutted down to just a secondary sourced blurb on history and maybe 2 or 3 paragraphs on facilities and operations. Lavalizard101 (talk) 14:55, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

If you believe that independent secondary sources are required, why don't you add them? They're not difficult to find, at least for western countries. Just look in the biggest newspaper where the airport is located. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:13, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Per WP:BURDEN its not on me to find independent sources. It is on those who want to include the information to find said independent sources. Lavalizard101 (talk) 20:26, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I’m going to jump in here and say that these lists definitely do involve OR. This is particularly the case when an entry is removed without any positive announcement that the route is no longer being served, only it no longer being listed. Additionally, usually the table is compiled from a bunch of different data at different dates, and then presented as being the routes served on date X. FOARP (talk) 22:40, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Then you don't understand WP:OR - facts "for which no reliable, published source exists." Almost if not every air route will be announced and available somewhere. SportingFlyer T·C 12:25, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Combining multiple sources to create a conclusion otherwise not covered in whole by RSes is aa SYNTH issue. Masem (t) 15:09, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but "X is a destination.^[1] Y is a destination.^[2] Z is a destination^[3]" is not "a conclusion" within the meaning of WP:OR. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

“X is terminated”, “Y is seasonal” is OR unless the links actually say that, but they almost never do. Additionally "This is a list of destinations served on DATE.^{[Reference from date years before DATE]}" is clearly OR. FOARP (talk) 06:56, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

No, the examples you give are clearly {{failed verification}}.

If we have "This is a list of destinations served on DATE^{[ref from years before DATE]}" but we could have "This is a list of destinations served on DATE^{[new ref from DATE]}" – and someone just forgot to update the ref when they updated the list – then it's clearly WP:NOTOR. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

It clearly is OR when they're saying "these are the service offered on DATE" and the list is in fact a list of services that were possibly planned and/or listed on their website at some point, often years before. FOARP (talk) 07:03, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

I’m officially lost in this weird splinter argument, but I suspect what’s being described is WP:SYNTH rather than OR… either way, it is rather straying from the point. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 07:17, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

All SYNTH is OR. It can't be SYNTH without also being OR. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:45, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

"Then you don't understand WP:OR" - That's a pretty bold statement. Let's see how it pans out...

"Almost if not every air route will be announced and available somewhere" - Ah, so here's where I've got to stop you because this is, I'm afraid, factually inaccurate. The majority of airline routes are sourced either to RoutesOnline, or to AeroRoutes, or to Airlineroutes, or to the airline website, or to literal flight tracking data. Not to announcements about the opening of routes in the media or even really any announcement at all. And whilst new routes are seldom announced in the media (because they are opened and closed all the time) still less is the closing of a route likely to be announced in the media.

Instead what typically happens is this:

1. Someone goes to the website of airline X and sees that they are selling tickets from PLACE to OTHER PLACE.
2. They update the list of destination to include this, citing the website.
3. Someone checks the website of airline X some time later and sees they are not offering tickets from PLACE to OTHER PLACE.
4. They update the list to say the destination is now terminated.

This is just straight WP:OR, since no source ever said that the route was flown in the first place, nor does it not being listed any more mean that it is actually certain to be terminated. FOARP (talk) 15:15, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

How does that process (which I agree is bad) actually prove that "no source ever said that the route was flown in the first place"?

See Wikipedia:These are not original research#Not present in the cited source, but is present in other sources. OR is when no source in the entire world says that. OR is not when someone checks an airline's website and makes some guesses. That can lead to OR, but if you do that, and the local newspaper – unknown to you – says "Whatever Air terminated their flights to Destination X", then that's WP:NOTOR. That's just bad sourcing practices. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:15, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

That is shameless sophistry propped up by a not-a-policy, not-a-guideline essay. When when someone checks an airline's website and makes some guesses, that's OR, and if an article relies on it to make an assertion, then that article incorporates OR. If someone later finds a newspaper containing that assertion, and substitutes that newspaper into the article as the citation for that assertion, then the article no longer incorporates the OR. But the OR is and was OR.

In any event, I do hope we can agree that under now circumstances can articles rely in any way on someone checks an airline's website and makes some guesses -- whether or not we can agree on what exactly to call that. EEng 19:51, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

The actual policy says that OR = no reliable source in the entire world. To quote the policy: the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article.

A plain reading of the words in the policy indicates that finding a newspaper containing that asserting and substituting it – though a desirable action that should be strongly encouraged – does not change the facts. That fact never was OR, because the newspaper source existed—even though that OR-disproving source wasn't previously cited in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

No, OR=you came to the conclusion without sources yourself. Just because your conclusion matches sources later found doesn't make it not OR as you yourself didn't use those sources. (Note I use "you" in the sense of a general "you" I am not accusing anyone here of OR directly). Lavalizard101 (talk) 09:59, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

That's not what the policy says. I encourage you to read the policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

@Lavalizard101, WP:BURDEN "is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution". Note the absence of the word "independent". Note the presence of the word "an", as in "one", not "WP:FETCH me an endless supply of sources until you convince me that it's good enough".

Read the footnote in BURDEN: "Once an editor has provided any source they believe, in good faith, to be sufficient, then any editor who later removes the material must articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia (e.g., why the source is unreliable; the source does not support the claim; undue emphasis; unencyclopedic content; etc.). If necessary, all editors are then expected to help achieve consensus, and any problems with the text or sourcing should be fixed before the material is added back."

BURDEN is more limited than some editors believe. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I meant WP:ONUS not WP:BURDEN and its not my requirement, the previous rfc concluded with independent secondary reliable sources being the requirement. Lavalizard101 (talk) 14:42, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

@Lavalizard101, ONUS doesn't say anything about it not being on you to find independent sources. ONUS is about finding consensus, not about whether one editor gets to tell another one "No way, it's your job to do all the boring work, because it's not on me to find independent sources." WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Establishing consensus for inclusion includes finding the citations that support the material for inclusion. These are just two different aspects of the same thing.

If you want to include something, you have to find the cites to support it. We have discussed, at great length, the problems with relying on airline websites, blogs, and press-release announcements of future plans that may not have happened or may be for flights that are already cancelled. FOARP (talk) 07:07, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Consensus doesn't always depend on citing sources. If it's WP:CHALLENGED, then yes, you have to add sources, but consensus might depend entirely on other questions, like "Should this actually be in the lead?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:56, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Your essentially doing the "it's your job to clean up our mess" routine that has gotten people blocked in the past. I don't even edit airport articles, I came in as an uninvolved editor to provide an outside perspective. Lavalizard101 (talk) 09:53, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't edit airport articles either, but I'm hoping that you will learn to use the relevant WP:UPPERCASE. Here's a quick comparison:

• WP:ONUS means you (not the other editor) have to start a discussion that results in consensus to include your content, or your content gets removed.
• WP:BURDEN means you (not the other editor) have to cite one source, or your content might get removed. Note that it's limited: other editors can't tell you to WP:FETCH an endless string of sources. After you do your best, it's now everyone's job to figure out how to do the best thing by the article.
• WP:CHALLENGE means I don't think you'll be able to find that one source, so I'm planning to remove your content.
• WP:MINREF is the list of situations when an Inline citation is actually required by policy. Note that it's less than "always".

WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:06, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• I think it's worth mentioning that the 2025 RFC was explicitly about two individual pages (not pages in general) and was, put charitably, a fairly odd RFC question combining two unrelated pages. It did not make clear any specific consensus about these pages in general.

No, we definitely should not be carrying such lists without independent secondary sourcing demonstrating that it is WP:DUE to list this. This secondary sourcing should not be simply airline industry aggregators. And even in that case, the list should be restricted to major routes to prevent it flooding the page. Anything that does not meet these criteria should be removed.

The same thing goes for airline destination lists BTW, which are overwhelmingly WP:NOTCATALOGUE violations. FOARP (talk) 12:27, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• There seems to be a large majority here against these lists. Count me in that majority: destination lists on both airport and airline pages violate WP:NOTGUIDE and very rarely have acceptable sourcing. All I'm seeing in favour of keeping them are WP:USEFUL and WP:EFFORT arguments. What's the next step? An RFC here on VPP? Rosbif73 (talk) 12:45, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  I’ve no idea what the process looks like - my inexperienced thought would be that surely this discussion, if consensus has been reached, that would be sufficient? But more experienced editors would probably be best to chime in here, like @EEng or @AndyTheGrump Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:56, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Another person who voted at the WP:NOT RFC making the same arguments that were in the minority there. The next step would be a review of the close of that discussion, not starting a new one. — Reywas92^Talk 13:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Exactly. This looks a lot like WP:FORUMSHOPPING and failure to WP:DROPTHESTICK. The RFC was well-attended (and not by me, incidentally, but I certainly support its findings) and came to a definitive conclusion that airport destination lists do not violate WP:NOT. There should not be another RFC on the same question so soon after the previous one.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:56, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Given I was literally pointed to this venue during an ANI discussion, I fail to see how forumshopping is applicable. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:12, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Except that we're dealing with the sourcing issue for the majority of these lists, where the last rfc found they were okay as long as the sourcing was based on third party sources, which is not the case. Masem (t) 16:50, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I think the destination tables (and maps) should go from the airport articles. Other than all the arguments above about what Wikipedia is about, it's missing one major item. Flight destinations are not properties of airports, they're properties of airlines. The articles are about airports and airports don't operate flights. Airline articles can have destination lists, but they actually are not relevant to the airports. Airports are locations where airlines operate to perform flights, they're not the flight operators. London Gatwick doesn't fly to JFK. Narita airport doesn't operate any flights to Sydney. The airlines do. Once the aircraft, operated by the airline, leaves the airports terminal airspace it has nothing to do with the airport. Airports and webpages of them may provide info on these flights, but that is on behalf of the airlines that are paying to avail themselves of the airport services and facilities, not the airport itself. Canterbury Tail talk 15:33, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

By this argument, it would make sense to have a list of airlines operating at an airport, not destinations? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable to me. Take the example of a shopping mall. It's fine to list the stores that make up the mall. However what we're doing with airport articles is listing the products those individual stores sell, which is not what we're supposed to be doing. Canterbury Tail talk 15:45, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Even for a shopping mall a full directory of store would be inappropriate because those can change quickly (look how fast Spirit Halloween can be set up in available space). Secondary sources would most likely identify the archor stores, and any unique stores but the full listing fails the point of how we are writing for the long term/ ten year view. Masem (t) 16:48, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

That's incredibly reductive and destructive of what airports are for and how informative Wikipedia can be. I don't go to the airport to fly on British Airways, I go to get to London. I look at the big board of where flights are coming from and going to, which provides a lot of context about how the airport works as a transportation hub. Listing the destinations shows which airlines have a major presence at the airport compared to the ones that only go to from spoke to hub. Only naming the airlines doesn't show the reader to what extent the airport serves different markets for long- or short-distance and holiday or business passengers. Destinations give context for how the airport may serve locals, visitors, or passengers in transit. Listing the destination airports does that without the need for any synthesis or original research by just providing the basic, straighforwardly verifiable information to the reader. An airport is not merely a big building. Many airports do in fact work closely with the airlines in determining routes, since they influence the airport's growth, services for the community, how other airlines may choose to fly there, and how facilities like immigration checkpoints are used. In Indiana the state government even provided incentives to get flights from Indianapolis to Dublin and previously Paris , so don't pretend these are purely airlines making independent decisions that have nothing to do with particular airports. This might be its only flight to Europe, but it's much more neutral to just list all destinations rather than pick and choose to name only those that are "major" and have articles like these. Saying destinations from an airport are irrelevant to the airport is absurd when they're actually integral to the article. — Reywas92^Talk 16:51, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

You are trying to explain a use scenario for these lists that flat out violates NOTGUIDE, and certainly doesn't make sense to use compared to the airlines site or any flight search site directly. We are not here to help one plan their travel, we are trying to describe an airport in an educational context. Identifying major operators using that airport, and summarizing destinations reported by secondary sources does that, but not trying to document every route in and out of the airport. Masem (t) 16:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I said nothing about planning travel, and one would be an idiot to plan travel using these basic lists, as there are no schedules, prices, or other details that you would find when searching Expedia or an actual travel resource. I think it is quite educational to see how an airport is part of a global network even when I have no intention to go there. Still, information being "used" in a certain way does not make it a travel guide or forbid its inclusion. We have the advantage over the airline's site or flight search sites of being concise and compact, easy to read, ad-free, comprehensive, and with wikilinks. NOTGUIDE refers to content like this I just removed yesterday, or this and this with a how-to tone. I use Wikivoyage a lot too and know the difference in what belongs here or there, both in content and style, though I certainly do use Wikipedia to plan travel too! I just consulted List of National Historic Landmarks in North Carolina and Asheville, North Carolina#Arts and culture to see if I should visit any of these places on my upcoming trip there, but that doesn't make them forbidden travel guides either. — Reywas92^Talk 18:06, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Landmarks do not change significantly, once a landmark it remains such barring destruction of it. So documenting landmarks of a locale is fine considering the permanence of that info, as long as we are using appropriate independent sourcing as to what makes a landmark. That's a far cry from airport connectivity, which can change at any time. Sure, Delta isn't going to bail out of Atlanta any time soon, and that certainly can be documnlent as a broad description, but whether you can fly from Atlanta to smaller regional east coast airports will vary greatly and doesn't make any sense to try to track at that level, as it doesn't help understand delta or ATL. Masem (t) 19:17, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

And that's the beauty of Wikipedia! If something changes, we can update it! There are many, many editors who contribute to these articles, and I've never seen evidence that they are regularly incorrect or out of date. — Reywas92^Talk 14:42, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Updates that likely will remain relevant in the long term make sense. Making updates that could vanish at any time does not make sense, that's unnessary effort and busywork. Masem (t) 15:11, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

"I've never seen evidence that they are regularly incorrect or out of date" - feast your eyes on List of Vistara destinations. An entire list of destinations for an airline that... doesn't fly. FOARP (talk) 14:50, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I was specifically talking about airport destination tables, not airline lists. That page does still accurately say the airline merged and their routes were terminated, so there's still nothing incorrect about it at all, even if that's perhaps not the best format. — Reywas92^Talk 03:06, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

The same could be said about any train station, since whether passenger rail is available at all, and if so, which destinations it leads to, is a property of the railway service, not a property of the station itself. Train service could be started, expanded, reduced, changed, or cancelled at any time. New rail companies could be created, and old rail companies could cease operations.

And yet we don't say "Making updates that could vanish at any time does not make sense". Instead, we say "you're a volunteer, and if that's how you want to spend your time, then it's no skin off my back". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:30, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Our articles about railways cover railway lines, not railway schedules. Railway lines are relatively stable and not going to disappear tomorrow. FOARP (talk) 22:01, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Our articles about train stations (a physical node in a transportation network; equivalent of an airport) include every railway operator (equivalent of an airline) at that station plus every destination they have a direct connection to (equivalent of an airport destination).

See, e.g., the FAs Chinatown MRT station#Services, City Hall MRT station#Station details, Daglish railway station#Services, Dhoby Ghaut MRT station#Services, not to mention the existence of the {{Adjacent stations}} template, whose sole purpose is to provide a list of which stations have direct connections to a station. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

And how frequently do these services change? In the UK for example, it’s a maximum of twice a year because that’s when the timetables change. As for adjacent stations… that only ever changes if new lines are opened or lines are closed, which is less than once per year. In other words, it can be generally assumed that such information is highly stable. Airport destinations however are highly UNstable as airlines can add, remove or change their schedules at any time during the year, and frequently do. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 22:45, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Does it matter? I don't recall any policy or guideline that says information that changes frequently is unsuitable for an encyclopedia. For many small airports, changes to destinations are rare. I just checked one: It's had flights to the same two destinations for over a decade. By comparison, your twice-a-year railway changes are really quite unstable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:57, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

"I don't recall any policy or guideline that says information that changes frequently is unsuitable for an encyclopedia".

WP:NOTNEWS -

"Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion and Wikipedia is not written in news style. For example, routine news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities, while sometimes useful, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inclusion of the subject of that coverage (see WP:ROUTINE for more on this with regard to routine events).

Our airport-destination lists, and even more so our airline-destination lists, are entirely based (in as much as they are reliably sourced at all) on exactly this kind of routine coverage. FOARP (talk) 07:19, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, and the airport is an enduring subject, so including information about the current state of the subject is entirely compatible with NOTNEWS. Compare, e.g., the Template:Infobox company parameter |num_employees: We expect to change that frequently. Nobody says that having up-to-date information is a violation of NOTNEWS just because it changes regularly. In fact, the first sentence of NOTNEWS, whch you didn't quote, says: In principle, all Wikipedia articles should contain up-to-date information.

And I think that when you talk about airport-destination lists requiring frequent updates, it'd be good to remember that this claim is only true at the larger airports. Smaller airports often go many years without a single change to the airport-destination list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:11, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

These tables include airline routes, not airline schedules...99% of airline routes are also pretty stable and won't disappear tomorrow either. — Reywas92^Talk 03:07, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

"99% of airline routes are also pretty stable" - We've got entire articles given over to the routes of airlines that launched and flopped within a few years. See, e.g., List of Play destinations. How on earth can that be described as "stable". The lack of stability is emphasised by 1) the requirement to give a specific date for the table (because if a specific date isn't given it's not even clear when it's supposed to be valid for) and 2) the endless updating that the tables require. FOARP (talk) 07:23, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't think WP:GUIDE says that information being useful is a reason why it must be removed. jp×g🗯️ 05:11, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Although personally I don't think maintaining exhaustive lists of airport destinations is a good idea, due to various reasons that have already been discussed, I don't agree with the reasoning about destinations not being decided by the airports. The network connectivity is a relevant property of a given node in the network, apart from how administration of the network and node are divided. isaacl (talk) 17:00, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Except that at a whim an airline can say "we're not flying to this destination anymore", wiping out that connection in the graph. It's a dynamic mesh, and for that reason we shouldn't be trying to document it's fine details that are subject to daily changes. Broad strokes are fine, and like if LA Guardia lost all routes to London I'd expect that to be covered to secondary sources to discuss major changes at the airport Masem (t) 17:12, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, as I stated I don't think maintaining exhaustive lists of airport destinations is a good idea, which is in accordance with your statement. isaacl (talk) 21:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Do you think you would understand an airport if you don't know how many places you could get to from it, and something about the qualities of those places? Do you really think there's no educational difference between "Smallville Airport, connecting only to Nearby City Airport" and "Midtown Airport, from which it's possible to go directly to four different airports" and "Major Hub Airport, connecting to most of the US"? Or even between "Smallville Airport, sole path to Seasonal Hop"? I'd think these would be important things to know, and a destination list conveys that information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:24, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

A single sentence conveys that information, no need for a table. FOARP (talk) 07:00, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't think a single sentence conveys that. Maybe it could, at a very small airport (and I believe I'm on record in past discussions as advocating for using prose when the list of destinations is relatively short). But If you were writing about Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, I think it would take a substantial section to properly describe its relationship to the air network, and even then, you'd have editors saying "You've listed 43 countries. Just make that a bullet list instead of a WP:SEAOFBLUE – no, on second thought, add a little more information and make that a table." WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I don't work in this area, but as a reader of those pages I find the lists useful and informative, and I feel that they are appropriate for Wikipedia. On the occasions I've mentioned the past discussions about this to non-editors, they seemed to agree. Take that for what you will.

More to the point, though, in the last two years we have had three big inconclusive discussions on this (two RFCs, plus one lengthy close review rehashing the first RFC) and ... we are where we were two years ago. As far as I can tell the number of airport articles with these tables is about the same as it was in September 2023. I don't think a fourth big discussion is going to change anything, except a lot more yelling and drama - this discussion already feels a lot more acrimonious and unproductive than the earlier ones were, and those weren't exactly pleasant. Andrew Gray (talk) 16:28, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I’ve spent many painstaking hours over several weeks updating the Clark and Manila Airport cargo destination tables — bringing them up to date with accurate and verifiable cargo route information. I removed outdated routes and added new ones, ensuring that each entry, both old and new, was supported by a Flightradar24 reference with available flight playback as evidence of regular weekly operations. I followed the WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT as directed by a Wikipedia administrator.

The reference guidelines in the cargo section state the following:

Sources: Because cargo airline schedules are often less readily available than passenger schedules, a reliable source should be explicitly listed verifying the service of each cargo airline.

• The best source is typically the airline's schedule listing a flight number of a cargo-only service to the airport in question. If an airline cargo timetable is available, it should be listed as a reference, with the reference including the direct URL of the timetable and the publication or access date.
• If a timetable is not available and no other reliable source explicitly states that the airline operates a cargo flight to the airport, each destination should be justified by footnoting a flight number. URLs for cargo schedule/status on airport websites can be used. For areas of the world with air traffic control tracking coverage (North America, Europe, Australia, and any flight flying through related airspaces, such as most of the North Atlantic and North Pacific), a flight number and a static URL of such a flight number (e.g. CPA095 on FlightAware within <ref></ref> tags) should be included so anyone can easily verify if the service still exists. For these types of references, the inclusion of an access date is particularly important. As far as I was aware, I was working fully within Wikipedia’s guidelines, only to have all of my work deleted in one sweep by Danners430. I opened a discussion on his talk page requesting that the changes be reverted, but he declined, stating the following:

  “I have to repeat though that WikiProject guidelines (which WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT is) don’t overrule Wikipedia policy, those being WP:RS and WP:V. My concern is that if this is the only reliable way to source these routes, then perhaps they shouldn’t be included at all.”

  My point is that before removing such a large amount of content, it would have been fair to issue updated guidance or clarification — which was not done. I followed the existing guidelines in good faith and was effectively penalized because someone later personally decided that flight-tracking references were no longer permissible. When it comes to cargo flight schedules, flight-tracking websites provide the most accurate and up-to-date information on real-time cargo operations. They are far more reliable than old press releases, which quickly become outdated and misleading. Without a flight number, it’s impossible to verify whether a cargo route is still active. By simply reviewing the provided flight data and playback, anyone can confirm the operation of each route. Every cargo flight that Danners430 removed was an active, scheduled service. I would appreciate it if Danners430, in good faith, could revert the changes he made until updated guidelines are established. Flight-tracking references are used across many other airport cargo tables. If they’re not being universally removed, then deleting only a few is selective and inconsistent.

Dootfish (talk) 19:07, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, but this Wikiproject guideline is basically telling people to do WP:OR. FOARP (talk) 22:43, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

What definition of "OR" are you using, if "the reference including the direct URL" is "OR"? It can't be the one in the OR policy, because "the reference including the direct URL" is clearly not a case of no source in the entire world ever publishing that information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:40, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

This is a preposterous standard for OR. OR is not "no source in the entire world ever publishing that information". OR is editors doing their own original research and using EN WP as an outlet to publish it, regardless of whether an independent, reliable source could ever have published it. The existence of, e.g., independent and reliable biographies of Winston Churchill, doesn't make using EN WP as an outlet to publish your own biography of Winston Churchill not OR.

And in this case it's very questionable whether there are an independent, reliable sources publishing the information that airline fans want EN WP to carry. Reliable, independent sources rarely (if ever) provide a complete listing of all the destinations of an airline at a specific date. Instead these listings are typically cobbled together by editors out of individual bits of coverage, often just from the airline website and blogs like Routesonline/aeroroutes, stretched out over a period of years. FOARP (talk) 07:58, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, preposterous or not, it's the standard that's actually in the Wikipedia:No original research policy. May I invite you to read it? Here's the first two sentences and the footnote, for your convenience.

Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. On Wikipedia, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists.^[1]

1. By "exist", the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article. Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy—so long as there is a reasonable expectation that every bit of material is supported by a published, reliable source.

This footnote has been in the policy for almost 15 years now. I've underlined the words that I think you'll want to pay particular attention to. (Someday, we should probably add a link to Wikipedia:Published in that footnote. But it's obviously not urgent, since it's obvious that Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:27, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

The burden of updating wikiproject guidance to be in line with global P&Gs is wholly on project members, not the wider community. Editors should not be editing mainspace based on principles that are not in accordance with P&Gs. JoelleJay (talk) 01:44, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

• This is a fundamental mis-understanding of WP:NOTTRAVEL, which is supposed to allow us to remove things like restaurant entries or tourist destination lists, presented in travel guide format, from cities and tourist destinations such as hotels. Lists of airport destinations are encyclopedic - many airports discuss the first routes from the airline in prose, and the intent is reference, not to help someone actually select flights. Also, there have been four ANI requests as a result of these lists, but all four of them involve the petitioner - surely the easier thing would just be to topic-ban the petitioner from editing airports? SportingFlyer T·C 21:11, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Because someone gives a darn about the fact these destination lists are, by and large a mess and very poorly sourced? Very good, very good. How about no. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 21:27, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT should have been updated or withdrawn before mass deletions of airport destination data were carried out. Many editors invested significant time maintaining that information, and the situation could have been managed with greater consideration and diplomacy. Dootfish (talk) 21:59, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT is actually irrelevant to all of these discussions. That is a Wikiproject page that has no say, control or authority over the content of any mainspace pages. It's just a suggestion that some likeminded editors have put together and carries zero weight. It even says at the very top "Remember that you're in no way obliged to follow all, or even any, of these guidelines to contribute an article." Wikiprojects don't have a say, they're just a means of editors in certain areas to collaborate and communicate, nothing more. Canterbury Tail talk 22:32, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

  Many editors need to follow policy and remember that if they follow Wikiproject guidelines instead their additions may be removed. CambridgeBayWeather (#1 deranged), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 00:27, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  I've never had any problem with their reliability - many different users gnome-update these lists, and they really aren't difficult to source or verify at all. SportingFlyer T·C 02:18, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  So, just to be clear here, the Wikiproject guide:

  - tells you to go to a flight tracking website (raw data ripped straight from stuff input by the airlines at best).

  - tells you to list flights numbers (how do you know CX95 is a regular flight? How do you know it’s a cargo flight? How do you know CX95 is always that route? I mean I used to fly CX250 fairly regularly and they don’t change much, but they can).

  This is the very essence of WP:OR in primary sources. FOARP (talk) 06:08, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  This was precisely my point when removing those sources - at best, they’re WP:SYNTH. Flight tracker websites show you a history of when that route has been operated… but it tells you nothing about the state of the route. For all we know the route could be temporary, one-off, or a charter… but editors are using these sources to unequivocally state they are scheduled routes. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 06:17, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  It's not OR or SYNTH if any source in the whole world says that. OR doesn't mean that you dislike the cited source; OR means nobody anywhere has ever published it (including non-independent primary sources). If you don't want Cathay's flight from Boston to Hong Kong sourced to a flight tracking website, then replace with this better source: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/08/21/logan-adding-direct-flight-hong-kong/Sr2OSM0gxeAEQrUGJtEvVI/story.html

  While you're there, https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/02/04/new-nonstop-flights-from-logan-which-will-you-try/Dc6aKAMVCQaDqXDqZrKWHP/story.html covers eight other destinations from Logan. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

  If a timetable is not available and no other reliable source explicitly states that the airline operates a cargo flight to the airport, each destination should be justified by footnoting a flight number. URLs for cargo schedule/status on airport websites can be used. The project explicitly says to use flight tracking websites to source flight numbers that are not verifiable as representing continuing services. JoelleJay (talk) 16:15, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

  I'm concerned about the destinations, rather than the flight numbers. I can imagine that people who are interested in airlines find the flight numbers especially handy, and presumably that was their motivation for suggesting them, but I'm concerned about whether Cathay flies from Boston Logan to Hong Kong. No matter what anyone has (or hasn't) cited for the fact that this airline flies between these two destinations, the claim that this airline flies between those two designations is not, and can never be, WP:Original research, because proper reliable sources definitely exist for that claim. Those sources exist in the real world (←the main concern of the OR policy) even if nobody has actually WP:CITED them yet (←not a relevant factor when deciding whether to condemn the material as OR). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:02, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

  The individual facts are supported and yes, would not fail OR, but it is the agglomeration of this information in a form that no other reliable source documents airports or airlines to this degree that is original research. It would be like having a list of the most number of balls pitched by pitchers in baseball; certainly for individual pitchers you can likely find those numbers in sports alamnacs, but the collection in that fashion would be a novel invention for WP's purposes.

  We do know that independent, third-party sources do give broad overviews of routes and destinations, and that should be included, but going beyond that creates problems from the OR standpoint. Masem (t) 00:07, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

  See the counter-example below. Reliable sources actually do contain comprehensive lists of airlines and destinations. (I've not looked to see whether independent reliable sources do the same.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

  And in case this isn't clear: If any reliable source in the whole world does this, even if it's not an independent reliable source, then it's not OR. Feel free to complain that it's "bad practice" or "subpar sourcing" or whatever else you want, but don't call it OR if any reliable source (including any non-independent+self-published+primary reliable source) publishes lists like these. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:22, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

  This is just totally wrong and entirely your own head-canon version of what EN WP's rules around OR actually are. See particularly WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE - "Even with well-sourced material, if one uses it out of context, or to state or imply a conclusion not directly and explicitly supported by the source, one is engaging in original research". When editors list flights as "terminated" based simply on them no longer being listed on the airline website, they are doing exactly this. FOARP (talk) 08:07, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

  See the exact quotation from the policy in my comment above. This is not just my "head-canon". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:30, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

  Finding some examples of flights currently cited only to flight trackers where appropriate sources do happen to exist somewhere is entirely irrelevant to the point of this thread, which is about the fact that using flight numbers from flight tracker websites as sole sources for routes is clearly OR, and that the wikiproject explicitly endorses using those sources when no other reliable source explicitly states. JoelleJay (talk) 01:12, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

  I thought the point of the thread was to promote the POV that "airport destination lists...are huge, unwieldy, very dynamic and largely unsourced or difficult to source" that "would be better replaced with text".

  I doubt that I'm understanding your point. The airport (as nearly as I can tell) that's closest to the Geographic center of the United States is Kearney Regional Airport. It has one destination, which is the Denver International Airport. This is currently cited to a document at https://www.regulations.gov. But you're saying that if the contents of the ref tag instead said "UA 5057" or "UA 5074" (they appear to have two flights to Denver each day), then all the other reliable sources in the world would magically disappear?

  Because having all the other reliable sources that contain this information disappear is the only way that there could be no reliable sources—anywhere "in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online"—and no reliable sources anywhere in the world, even if that reliable source isn't "currently named in the article" is what we require to say that something is OR.

  I don't think OR is a complicated concept, so I'm not understanding why you think this is OR. Here's the basics:

  • Not OR: Somebody cites an unreliable source when they ought to be citing the local newspaper article about United re-starting service (a reliable source)
  • OR: Somebody cites an unreliable source and no other reliable source in the entire world has ever said anything about this.

  Because the local newspaper wrote about United flying from Kearney to Denver, the claim that United flies from Kearney to Denver cannot be OR no matter what source is cited in the Wikipedia article. It can be all sorts of other kinds of wrong, but it cannot be OR (specifically). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:52, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

  You're setting a standard for OR where it's only OR if there isn't any source that could be used. That's totally illogical. It's still OR when an editor does their own original research (for example, comparing versions of a company website and using it to say that services no longer listed are "terminated") and uses EN WP to publish it, even if there's a source buried somewhere that they could have used instead (which, BTW, typically isn't the case for most "terminated" services). The existence of someone else's research somewhere doesn't make OR by a Wikipedia editor not OR.

  If you write your own biography of Winston Churchill and try to cite an article about Winston Churchill to it, that is still OR even if independent, reliable biographies of Winston Churchill exist. FOARP (talk) 07:35, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

  See the exact quotation from the policy in my comment above.

  I agree that comparing versions of a company website and using it to say that services no longer listed are "terminated" is inappropriate. But if that comparison happens by chance (and I give it low odds) to align with what's published in a reliable source, then it's not actually OR. If someone can cite it properly, it's not OR. It's just WP:Glossary#uncited. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:32, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

  I am obviously talking about the topic of this specific thread, the wikiproject guidance endorsing performing OR, as should be evident by my and others' repeated quoting of that guidance. Your example is completely irrelevant. JoelleJay (talk) 14:44, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

  "many airports discuss the first routes from the airline in prose" is acceptable Saying that "Heathrow Airport opened in 1946 with the first flight to someplace and the first non-British aircraft arrived from foreign parts. (some really good source)" in prose is how it should be but Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations isn't a good thing. But at least they didn't try and add a map. CambridgeBayWeather (#1 deranged), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 00:16, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  The fact they're "isn't a good thing" is incredibly subjective. I probably use these sections more than any other on Wikipedia as reference information. SportingFlyer T·C 02:19, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  There isn't a single place on WP where it's considered kosher to source massive lists of services almost entirely to the companies that provide those services, and blogs. FOARP (talk) 14:27, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  It may well be but that's the same impression I'm getting from editors who wish to retain the lists. I see little discussion as to how policy requires or permits the lists. Most arguments for retention seem to come down to liking them. CambridgeBayWeather (#1 deranged), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 15:05, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  The sections are encyclopedic reference material, and we've just required verifiability in the past, with discussion about what sort of sourcing is required changing over time as the evergreen nature of these discussions evolve. SportingFlyer T·C 17:15, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  How does this source (literally Jim Liu's personal blog) "verify" that American Airlines is operating a "seasonal" service from Heathrow to Phoenix-Sky Harbour? But that's what the Heathrow destinations list says it says.

  All it says is that it's cancelled for this winter (having previously not been cancelled for this winter), not that this is going to be recurrent thing. It's also far from sure that it's be back in March.

  Similarly how does this source (again, Jim Liu's personal blog) verify that the London Heathrow - Bodrum service is "seasonal"? Actually how does it verify that the service is presently even operating? And if the list is not supposed to be accurate for the present date, then, considering these schedules change month to month, what date is it supposed to be accurate for? The sources range in date as far back as 2019 and as far forward as for next year. FOARP (talk) 21:16, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

• Remove this information and prohibit further addition – This information is poorly sourced and difficult to verify. The more significant issue, in my view, is that its significance from an encyclopaedic perspective is never addressed. There may be instances where the addition or elimination of certain aeronautical routes is encyclopaedic, but these will appear in reliable, secondary sources. Wikipedia is not a guide; it is also not an indiscriminate mass of information. If a reader seeks information on the service provided by any aeronautical firm, he would be better served by inquiring with the company directly. Wikipedia cannot offer up-to-date, accurate information, and it ought not attempt to do so. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 01:55, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
• Suggestion: Just having a bit of a think about what has been discussed so far, and the various options discussed. I'm well aware doing nothing is still on the table, but if something is done what about this - Remove the tables in their current form, and replace with an "Airlines" section for airlines which currently serve the airport. This should be easily verifiable through a combination of primary and secondary sources. Then, add a sub-heading for notable routes - ie routes which have received significant media coverage, or which are notable by being in the news for other reasons (such as celebrities regularly using it, or incidents etc.). This wouldn't be an exhaustive list, but rather a bulleted list where each route has a short piece of prose establishing notability - for example, "Regularly used by members of parliament to travel to X"; "involved in Air Example Flight 123, which crashed en route to Incident Airport"; "Cancelled and reinstated multiple times in 2024 due to conflict in Antarctica" - obviously each with relevant third party sourcing. If the notability of a route is questioned, WP:BRD could apply, and this could be easily mentioned in any updated Airport guidelines or in an invisible comment. Thoughts? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 07:53, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  I can get behind this suggestion. – robertsky (talk) 12:09, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  Re "I'm well aware doing nothing is still on the table", given that this was already formally discussed earlier in the year, with a consensus that the airline lists do not violate policy, "doing nothing" is the only outcome that an informal discussion such as this one can hope to achieve. We're here to discuss it, not to make actual changes. If you want this to be a concrete proposal if some sort to Deprecate the lists, then a fresh RFC would be required, with a neutral question and clearly setting out what change is proopsled. Until that is done, the RFC stands, and this thread can't overrule it. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 12:16, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  Point me to the policy that says an RfC is the only way to gain consensus. And indeed, users such as @Rosbif73 are starting to consider creating such an RfC. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:22, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  I think you should be topic banned. All of the ANIs you mentioned involved your conduct, and instead of getting into another evergreen fight about this, it would remedy the disruption the easiest. SportingFlyer T·C 12:26, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  Then instead of throwing aspertions about, open an ANI (The appropriate venue for behavioural concerns) and make that suggestion. Otherwise you're simply being, in my humble opinion, uncivil and don't like the fact that action is being taken to improve the verifiability of a currently problematic area. I await the thread with popcorn in hand. I will not be further discussing my conduct, which if you look at those four ANIs was never agreed by consensus to be problematic, in this or any other non-ANI thread, as they are not the appropriate venues. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:37, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  Furthermore, this suggestion is terrible, as you are suggesting that routes need to be notable as opposed to verifiable, which is not a standard we use for reference data anywhere else on the website. SportingFlyer T·C 12:27, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  That's fine - I have no objection to your voicing such an opinion, as it's through discussions like this that consensus is formed. We don't all have to agree with one another (if we did the world would be a very boring place). However, going by the number of other editors on this thread that appear to agree that something needs to be done, I don't think we can really dismiss the idea outright. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:39, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  "you are suggesting that routes need to be notable as opposed to verifiable, which is not a standard we use for reference data anywhere else on the website" - Requiring that list-items be notable rather than just verifiable is a very common solution to long lists, widely used. See, e.g., WP:LISTCRITERIA. It's literally the number-one method listed at WP:CSC.

Meanwhile the method currently used (listing everything that is regarded as verifiable) is number 3 at WP:CSC, and the way it is presently done using blogs and company-websites goes explicitly against the requirement that "The inclusion of items must be supported by reliable sources". Doing it based on flight-tracker websites is straight WP:OR of the most blatant kind. FOARP (talk) 14:25, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

WP:LISTCRITERIA only applies to stand-alone lists. The page it sits on is literally titled that. Lists within articles don't seem to ever have been held to such a high standard and I think if they were to be, we'd end up having to throw out vast reams of information from the project much of which, like the airport destination list, has a fairly clear encyclopedic purpose in understanding the topic. One explanation for this may be that no encyclopedia before us has ever gone into the level of detail that ours do, so many of the lists we have in articles, which are quite proper when considering the topic as a whole, don't exist in their entirety anywhere else. This includes discographies and filmographies on actor/singer bios, lists of appearances by sports people etc. Sourcing that each entry exists is necessary, but sourcing the list as a whole apparently not.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:36, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

If we are collecting information on a form not previously used in any reliable sources, we shouldn't be doing that as a matter of SYNTH. And while standalone list inclusion can be subject to notability, all lists, standalone or not are subject to NPT#IINFO. Masem (t) 15:41, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Category:Lists of airline destinations still holds something like 156 stand-alone list articles. We managed to get that down from 400+ at one point, but as far as I am concerned that's still 156 too many. FOARP (talk) 16:14, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

You realize your opinion of wishing to removing perfectly verifiable reference material significantly lessens the usability of this site for others, yes? SportingFlyer T·C 17:08, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

"perfectly verifiable reference material" =/= stuff ripped from blogs, airline websites, flight trackers, and pure conjecture about what flights are and are not "terminated", "seasonal" and so-forth. FOARP (talk) 20:57, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Masem, I believe the complaint is that we're collecting information in a form that is used in other websites. What some editors want is proof that this form is used in certain/special kinds of sources – excluding all primary sources, excluding all non-independent sources, excluding all sources that automatically import their information directly from airlines or public/government sources, etc. Perhaps an appendix in a scholarly paper or a book doing exactly the same thing would be grudgingly accepted, but nothing that's easy for editors to find on the internet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

The form here I'm talking about is an exhaustive list of all destinations an airport or airline serves, which outside of databases is not something covered by RSes. Those sources will broadly cover major routes, and the inclusion of major new routes is generally available from RSes too. But when the exhaustive list is built with heavy reliance on databases, first party sources, and blogs, that begs if the full collection of that information is encyclopedic. Masem (t) 21:05, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

We're making a list of all destinations an airport serves ...and you don't think that the airport's own website (a reliable though non-independent) has that list?

Here's a Wikipedia article with a list of airlines and which destinations each flies to: Des Moines International Airport#Airlines and destinations

Here's the airport's website with a list of destinations and which airline flies there: https://www.flydsm.com/passengers/flights-and-travel/nonstop-destinations

It even verifies claims that certain destinations are seasonal.

I'm all in favor of using better sources, but I really don't think we can claim that no reliable source provides a complete list of which airlines serve which destinations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:08, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

1. I get a 403 on that link. LOL.
2. I can see this August 2025 version on internet archive, which isn't fully legible.
3. The archived page tells you that "Some nonstop routes may be offered seasonally, so be sure to check with individual airlines when booking your travel.", which is to say that some of the services listed may be seasonal but not listed as such and it is the passengers job to check which - this is not a total listing and disclaims being accurate.
4. If this page exists then why on earth is our Des Moines airport article cited to references dating back to 2011?

FOARP (talk) 07:49, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

When you click on a destination to expand the details, it provides seasonal status. For example, the first in the list is Austin, Texas, about which it says:

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)

http://www.austintexas.gov/airport/

Book Flight: (link to Allegiant Airlines)

Explore Austin, Texas, and experience outstanding food, live music and culture. Allegiant Air offers direct flights from Des Moines to Austin. View your flight options! *This is a seasonal route.

When you have a reliable source saying "This is a seasonal route", it cannot be a violation of the OR policy for a Wikipedia editor to write that this is a seasonal route.

For your question #4, why is any article out of date? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:37, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

We have editors in this thread saying that we are the only website providing this info in this format. JoelleJay (talk) 16:20, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

While WP:V is a requirement to include information, it is not a guarentee that that info is required to be improved as all other content policies come into place, here been multiple facets of NOT. There's clear agreement above that routes that are not sourced to independent third party RSes should not be included to avoid these lists from becoming a travel guide or to avoid indiscriminate info Masem (t) 15:16, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

This isn't any sort of information which would appear in a travel guide! That's one of the easiest parts of NOT to refute here. This information would be found in specialty airline publications. The Aircraft Year Book of 1930 for instance published route information as reference along with aviation business and engine design, among other things. Further, this is clearly discriminate information. SportingFlyer T·C 17:13, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

The intent of NOT is not explicitly cover all poosible things we are not, so while may argue a list of airport destinations does fall into the specific hole that NOTGUIDE says in text, it's definitely a problem in the spirit of what that section is about. And it is indiscriminate info because there is no long term value to a list of destinations that can change on a whim. Masem (t) 17:22, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

No, the intent of NOT is to make sure that we remain an encyclopedia, not something else. Also, there is nothing indiscriminate about maintaining lists which are up to date - there are many places where we do this on the site, such as sports squads. SportingFlyer T·C 18:26, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

The members of a sports team during a given season have the permanence of information already documented in RSes, but here we have separate pages for each team by Season to do that, we don't keep a current roster on the main page of the NY Yankees, for example. Changes in the roster are routinely documented in independent sources. So thats just not a good comparison. Masem (t) 18:36, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

"we don't keep a current roster on the main page of the NY Yankees" New_York_Yankees#Active_roster ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 18:45, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

That then probanly should be removed in favor of just linking to the 2025 season page. Masem (t) 19:44, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

But to add, we know you can find the roster summarized in multiple RSes, there us zero synthesis used here. We are still doing a ton of synthesis in creating airport destination lists, which no source fully documents in whole. Masem (t) 19:51, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

To be even more blunt, we are not sourcing our roster for the New York Yankees to some random ball fan's blog, still less are we saying that players are "terminated" because we didn't see them at the last game, or "seasonal" because they won't be back playing for the next few months. FOARP (talk) 21:22, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

You're wilfully mis-representing the sourcing here. Routes starting and stopping frequently get covered in reliable media, similar to sports transactions. SportingFlyer T·C 23:35, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

We're asking about the whole of the airport destinations without having to combine sources or weigh on first-party sources. Yes, secondary RSes frequently talk about major route changes, but combining all those to try to justify listing out every route is not supported without engaging in SYNTH Masem (t) 00:06, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

”Routes starting and stopping frequently get covered in reliable media,” - so you won’t mind only listing those services that actually get reported in reliable, independent media?, rather than Jim Liu’s blog and a blog run by a company that does events for airlines? And also not putting stuff in that the source doesn’t actually say (eg “terminated” just because it’s not listed any more, “seasonal” just because it’s cancelled for the next few months)? FOARP (talk) 06:07, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I still don't see the problem with listing routes with primary sources if that's the only way to ensure the information is completely correct, but the vast majority of sources are going to be reliable and independent. Implementing that standard is just going to create more conflict. Plus, the major route announcements which have just happened from US carriers have been clearly reported. SportingFlyer T·C 16:46, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

"the vast majority of sources are going to be reliable and independent" - The vast majority of sources cited right now are airline websites and Jim Liu's AeroRoutes blog. FOARP (talk) 19:37, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

As a relatively new editor who has been updating airport destination tables for only a few months, I have to admit I’m quite confused about which sources are acceptable for use. I was initially advised to follow WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT when editing — but now I’m being told that it’s no longer valid. Then I’m directed to follow various other Wikipedia policies, each saying something slightly different. It’s no surprise that new editors are confused when even experienced ones can’t seem to agree on the guidelines.

It would be far better to revise WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT (or create a new, unified version) that clearly outlines what types of sources are permissible that align with Wiki's main guidelines. This should then be posted prominently at the top of every airport destinations section with a clear NOTICE. A simple, consistent explanation of what is and isn’t acceptable would make things much easier for editors at all experience levels. For experienced editors or administrators to delete large amounts of route data without prior notice is not a constructive approach and has understandably frustrated many editors and users. A better method would have been to place a notice at the top of the destinations section, requesting the removal of outdated sources, the addition of updated citations for each route, and clearer guidance for editors on what changes were required. Overall, the gung-ho approach was poorly received and generated significant backlash from editors across the Wikipedia community, especially when the vast majority of editors were making revisions in good faith. Dootfish (talk) 22:14, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

So, a few things here:

1) I'm not an elected representative of the Wikipedia community or anything (hey, wait a minute, I am kind of) but the community extends way beyond the airline project and involves many more people than its members, and I feel fairly secure in saying that most of the community is not OK with building entire list-categories almost entirely out of self-published blog information, and we have never been unclear about that. That's one of our most basic rules and has been for at least 22 years now.

2) I'm sorry if airline community members have made a big thing out of WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT to you and you are now discovering that it is in fact not very important. I was also once a noob here and also found the rules quite perplexing at first, but as a cut-and-keep how-to on this Wikipedia has (in order of importance) policies, guidelines, explanatory documents, and essays, and along side these it has a manual of style. WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT is confusingly described as a "style guideline", which as this explains are essentially essays - that is to say, they are the lowest level of guidance that Wikipedia has and can be ignored. They do not in any way, shape, or form trump established guidelines, still less policy.

3) Another thing we do here on EN WP is discuss things. Like, a lot. So this is something we've discussed many, many times and come up with some conclusions about. As far as I am aware the Airline Project members have usually been made aware of those discussions by a notification on their talk page, but of course it is quite likely and understandable that new project members haven't seen those notifications. FOARP (talk) 12:43, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

• Comment on sources - Just a comment also on some of the sources being used, I'm not sure that even the reliable ones are being used properly. They're sources of an announcement of a route, and perhaps evidence of the ability to book a route, but this isn't the same as the route actually flying. Plenty of route are announced but never end up flying due to poor demand. I don't think we're covering for that and there is an assumption that because a route ends up on a database somewhere, there's an actual plane flying actual paying passengers on that route which the sources don't prove. Canterbury Tail talk 21:47, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

  It gets worse. An announcement of a plan to fly the route is used as evidence that the route is being flown, but then when it is found that the route isn't being flown this is used as evidence that the route was flown but is now "terminated". 100% this is OR. FOARP (talk) 07:26, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

• Next steps - The discussion has quietened down a fair bit over the last few days, so I think it's worth asking the question what the next steps should be. Certainly to me it would appear there's a fairly large voice speaking against the inclusion of these lists, so I don't think letting it lie is really the best option. What do we think? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:22, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

  Lists of airline/airport services are lists of goods and services offered by a business that change regularly (e.g., monthly), and should be correct for a specific date, with sourcing for that date. Where the list is a stand-alone article, the items listed should be notable under WP:LISTN/WP:NCORP as a group for that date. Any lists that can't fulfill this requirement should be deleted. FOARP (talk) 22:10, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

  Is there enough here for a consensus? I'm not 100% sure either way... If there is, I don't envy the conversation closer! Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:31, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

• Question. I've read through this as it's been ongoing and I skimmed through it again overnight. One thing stands out. The proponents of keeping the lists don't seem to be addressing the hundreds of smaller airports. They only seem to be talking about larger / busier airports. Smaller airports that have scheduled flights may not have websites and the start / stopping of a route isn't announced in a press release or a newspaper. The only way to find these is to use the airline schedule. What steps will be taken to ensure that these airports will have regular updates or even a source at all? CambridgeBayWeather (#1 deranged), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 21:11, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

  Just as an example of what happens with smaller airports, here's a diff from today removing a route for which we had an announcement of a new route for summer 2025 cited to a reliable source, for which the editor now claims the airline "removed nonstop [...] did not launch in 2025 and will not launch in 2026". The edit summary includes a link to the airline's timetables page. Searching on that timetables page for the route in question returns results, but with no indication of termination. Admittedly, the durations given for the next few days are slightly longer than expected for what ought to be a short hop and seem to suggest that this route now involves a connection somewhere, but this is not explicitly specified in the cited source. The editor may be right, the direct routing may have ended, but it's totally unverifiable and typical of the problems that affect all of these lists. Rosbif73 (talk) 15:07, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

  @CambridgeBayWeather, I think smaller airports are the easiest to find information about starting/stopping/changing routes. I've posted several in this discussion, and I've not yet failed to find a local newspaper article about this when I've looked for one. (Hint for anyone who wants to try: find the local newspaper's website, and search it directly.)

  My feeling from this thread is that it's the opponents who never address the hundreds of smaller airports. It's all "too many changes, destinations change practically every single day!" – and the sound of crickets echoing in the silence when I give an example of a small airport whose sole or very short list of destinations hasn't changed for over a decade. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:43, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

  Have a look at https://nunatsiaq.com/ and https://www.nnsl.com/, our two newspaper organisations. You can't recreate flights for Nunavut using those. The only source is the airlines themselves. It's worse for cargo flights. This week Buffalo Airways did their general freight run using a C46 and last week the same run using a B732 both with different flight numbers. Summit Air comes her weekly using an AT72 with freight for the North West Company, but not always the same plane, so different flight numbers, and sometimes it's not a freight run but just a fuel stop. There's no source for the Summit as it's a contract and they don't do general freight. It's difficult to source the smaller airports as they don't always have websites. CambridgeBayWeather (#1 deranged), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 15:27, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• No! I detest this modern phenomenon of legislating article content from the Village Pump: it should be figured out at the articles themselves. If some airports are too small or too large to have a reasonable list of their destinations, then fine, but there is virtually no situation where it makes sense to dictate what articles can or can't have in them in a discussion here. There is no way that a discussion at the Village Pump about 8,000 articles at the same time is going to be smarter than a discussion that takes place at any of those articles individually. jp×g🗯️ 05:14, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

  Right, but there is precisely and absolutely zero chance of this being discussed at 8000 individual articles at the same time. By all means if an RfC is opened we can request a bot place a notice on the talk page of every airport article, but we're not having 8000 individual discussions. I'm sorry if the "modern phenomenon" of centralising discussions about multiple articles doesn't work for yourself. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 09:45, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

  100% agree. I think a lot of the problem people have with VPP discussions is:

  1. People in a project become highly invested in things being a certain way. Other project members disengage/drift away or are overruled.
  2. Other people disagree with this, but it's impossible to implement any change in a forum where a handful of the same people showing up each time is sufficient to stymie change, so they make an appeal to a VPP RFC.
  3. The VPP RFC comes back with a resounding response of "LOL, wut?" from the wider community when presented with what the people in the project decided.

  We saw this particularly in the list-of-all-Olympians case. Members of WP:OLYMPICS might not be able to come out straight and say "actually it would be a bad idea to have a list of 160,000+ contextless names, we understand that you've put a lot of work in to this, but this is actually exactly what we've been saying for decades that Wikipedia should not be", but VPP contributors can come out straight and say that in a WP:SNOW outcome. FOARP (talk) 10:50, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think it'll be discussed on 8,000 articles because if the opponents were to show up with their standard complaint of "It's too big! It's too many changes! My watchlist is flooded by you airport fanboys!" at most articles, they'll just get laughed at, because the number of destinations will be fewer than five and the number of destination changes in an entire decade could be counted on your fingers.

  I think there's a good case to be made for saying that the very biggest airports don't need to contain comprehensive lists, just like University of Oxford#Notable alumni needs to say "Notable alumni include three Fields Medallists, two British kings and at least fifteen monarchs of eleven other sovereign states (including five reigning monarchs), twenty-eight British prime ministers, and thirty-five presidents and prime ministers of nineteen other countries" instead of naming them each one by one. The articles about the very biggest airports might do well to provide a summary, like "Destinations include every country in Europe and North America, plus 17 countries in Asia and 12 in South America" instead of a comprehensive list.

  But just like most schools don't have such an abundance of high-profile alumni, most airports are quite a bit smaller than the very biggest ones, and a list of destinations is neither a maintenance nightmare nor unencyclopedic.

  I mean, if you're looking at Kearney Regional Airport#Airline and destinations, do you really think it's necessary to exclude the name of its sole destination, for fear of cluttering up the article with a table containing just three (3) words? Is it a terrible maintenance burden to have that in the article, without needing a single edit for years at a stretch? Do you really think it would be better to write a sentence that says something like "Destinations include the nearest regional hub, by the main airline at that hub", just to avoid saying "United" and "Denver"?

  I'm not convinced that this is a one-size-fits-all situation. While 8,000 separate discussions might not be needed, maybe a little less "my advice for Heathrow Airport should apply to tiny rural airports, too" would be helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

  Keep in mind its not able getting rid of the destination lists, but pruning these lists to what can be sourced to independent, third-party sources. Most small regional airports are going to have this type of sourcing (most likely more local than national in coverage) that explain what major hubs you can easily get to, and that's great, we want that. But at the same time, mention of every regional airport that a major hub flies too would likely be excessive, and instead, this would be better served to explain the major airlines that use that airport (and likely listing the other major hubs that those airlines use), and the broad area that their flights serve, like LAX serving several trans-pacific flights to Hawaii and many eastern Asian destinations.

  The goal is to think about how one would describe how an airport functioned far in the future, potentially after the airport long closed. If Atlanta's airport eventually shut down one day, it would still have been known as a major Delta hub, for example, that aspect doesn't change. Or for a regional airport, even something like Kearney, that it existed to primarily connect to only one major airport, would still be significant. Masem (t) 12:47, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

  Why is everyone who disagrees always a "fanboy" on here? I didn't even know airlines could have "fans". ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 15:24, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

  Turbofans? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 19:10, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

  It is a form of ad hominem that is not always recognised as such. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 13:36, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that there are wildly differing opinions, and there's no real consensus here, So I feel like an RfC is the only way to go here. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 17:41, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

RfC

Potential RfC question

Given the withdrawal of the above RfC, here's a stab at an alternative formulation drawing on the points made in the discussion above:

Are details of all airlines offering service from an airport, and all destinations served by each airline, acceptable content (i.e. not covered by WP:NOT) in airport articles?

• 1: An exhaustive table of current destinations for all airlines is acceptable in all cases, even if some destinations are verifiable only in primary sources.
• 2: An exhaustive table of current destinations for all airlines is acceptable provided that all destinations are cited to reliable secondary sources.
• 3: Details of airlines and destinations should be summarised in prose; tables should be excluded.
• 4: All such details should be excluded.

All suggestions and improvements welcome. I have included option 1 only because it represents the status quo in many airport articles, though I'm not sure we should be explicitly encouraging anything that goes against usual sourcing requirements. Rosbif73 (talk) 15:06, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

I would prefer the 3rd option. It is exactly what is needed for such articles. Kingsacrificer (talk) 18:05, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

You’ve beaten me to it - but I’m in no way complaining! I would strongly be leaning towards option 3, with option 4 a second choice.

The problem with options 1 and 2 is that I simply cannot find a reliable way to source whether a route is *currently* operating - you’ll get press releases at the beginning and end of some routes, but there’s no reliable way to verify that the route is actively being flown. FR24 is one that’s occasionally used, but it’s WP:SYNTH in that there’s nothing to say explicitly that a route is operating, and airline booking pages are ditto synth as airlines may take flights off sale for a plethora of reasons - and most don’t necessarily mean the route has formally been cut.

Right now we have the situation where routes are added to tables, often using Aeroroutes (now deprecated) as the only source, then they stay until someone can find a press release or news article stating that the route has ended… and especially since Aeroroutes is now deprecated, the list of available sources has suddenly shrunk significantly to the point where removing such tables is really the only way forward, through either options 3 or 4 as listed here. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 18:13, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

If you want to verify that United flies between Newark and Charlotte, you can absolutely check United's website to see its schedule. If the route were to be cut, you would not need an affirmative source saying so, since the article would simply not need to list the route at all – articles do not have to prove negatives. If a route has ended, that doesn't need Aeroroutes or any other source, it can just be removed. Flights are rarely flown with unpurchasable tickets, nor do they go untracked by FlightAware and other services. You are attacking a subset of perfectly usable sources to undermine the entire concept and shift the goalposts, yet no one has ever shown that there's actually an intrinsic issue to this information. Our editors are diligent and know how to verify things, and there is no evidence that these tables are full of false information because it supposedly can't be verified. What is truly the issue here, besides a general complaint that you don't like certain sources? It's certainly not that our articles are just wrong all the time. Occasional imperfections with timetables and certain websites – which can be used in combination – do not invalidate the entire concept, or how else does an entire industry operate?

I'd also note that the use of "exhaustive" is biased against the destination lists – why not "comprehensive", "informative", or better yet no adjective there? Moreover, option 2 is absurdly restrictive with "provided that all destinations": If an airport has several routes that are sourced in detail yet one is not particularly newsworthy (perhaps the oldest one without recent, easily findable sources!), why in the world would that invalidate the entire table? Or why would that one be removed, leaving an incomplete article?

A requirement for secondary sources, which "contains analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis" is utterly unnecessary for something as straightforward as "Airline flies here to there". I agree that we should supplement airline- or database-type sources with third-party sources wherever possible, but a restriction to "secondary" sources is unnecessary and inappropritely biased against this concept and is not applied to any other type of information on the project. See Wikipedia:Independent does not mean secondary. Secondary sources should be included to show an full article topic's notability, but it is never broadly required for individual, non-controversial items within a section. Third-party sources help in reliability, but "analysis" in secondary sources is an unnecessary requirement that falls outside of generally applicable policies or "usual sourcing requirements", designed against this content. Reywas92^Talk 20:09, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

The problem is that if content is sourced, then either you need a new source to verify that the existing source is no longer valid, or the existing one needs to have updated to show the route being cut. Otherwise (and this happens frequently) anyone could just remove the sourced content willy nilly, based upon their own research or knowledge. The way this has typically been handled in the past is editors just put a link to the news article stating the route has ended in the edit summary - on airport articles it’s done frequently, usually well, but occasionally well—sourced routes are simply deleted with no explanation or source. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:32, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Just a couple of examples recently - , and . All are well sourced, and are removed without explanation. Where an explanation is provided, it's nothing more than BA cut route. Without a source, that's simply original research... so yes, a source is needed to remove sourced content - otherwise I could simply remove any route I felt like without explanation. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 14:43, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

That's not how our sourcing policies are written. Information that is not in an article does not require an inline citation. If you thought that was wrong, then you should take it up on the talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:09, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Ok, so by that logic I could go into any article and remove sourced content…? The sourcing policies don’t cover that, but it would be almost instantly reverted as vandalism… Danners430 _{tweaks made} 04:52, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

@Danners430 Yes, you can absolutely go into any article and remove sourced content, so long as you provide a reason. Commonly it's for BLP reasons (typically WP:BLPCRIME or WP:BLPNAME), but, for something less controversial, I literally spent the better part of my morning removing sourced content from Okapi because it looks like WP:CITOGENESIS magicked a common name into existence. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 05:00, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

It does raise a concern though if we pivot back to the topic at hand - if we have a route listed with a valid and accurate source, and another editor comes along and removes it simply saying “the route isn’t flown anymore”. There are no sources that you can see that verify this, and yet there exist sources that state the route IS flown… Danners430 _{tweaks made} 05:04, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

GLL's correct: Please do remove information that you know (with certainty) to be wrong. Outdated information is a particular problem in some fields (including, but not limited to, high tech, politics, and medicine) and we'd often prefer to have nothing than to have wrong information.

How often are you truly unable to check whether a flight is scheduled? Imagine that you have a source from 20 years ago saying that Flight nn123 is flown from A to B. You have an editor saying that's no longer true. Even if you can't find "a source", you can ask Mr Google about nn123 flight status or go to the airport's website and see what it says, or go to the carrier's website and pretend that you want to book a flight. While you can't WP:CITE search results, you can actually use search results to figure out whether the removal might be an honest mistake or if it's probably true. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

For clarity – please do not !vote yet, this is NOT intended to be an RfC. It is a preliminary discussion to determine the best wording for a future RfC. Rosbif73 (talk) 18:23, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

One suggestion for an amendment - for option three, add the caveat that even the prose should be sourced, and that details would be “fleshed out” following conclusion of the RfC. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 18:32, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

About wording the question: By referring to "details of all airlines", the RFC question is implying that this is WP:TRIVIA. One of the goals for an WP:RFCNEUTRAL question is that reading the question doesn't make the OP's POV obvious, and since @Rosbif73 voted against the consensus in an RFC on this subject, this trivializing wording has the potential to cause avoidable drama. In fact, to avoid any drama about "taking another bite at the apple" and WP:Forum shopping (don't like the answer you got in an RFC on the policy's talk page? Well, try again on the village pump!), it might be better if someone else handled any RFC. But if he wants to continue, then that needs to be re-phrased.

The options make me think that Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent, and I suspect that WP:INDY, rather than WP:SECONDARY, is what's wanted. In particular, compare these three sentiments, and decide which one you want to be asking about:

• I would only include this information if it is verifiable (←click that link) in something other than the airline or the airport's own website (e.g., ordinary article in the local newspaper).
• I would only include this information if it is verifiable in a source that discovered this information without consulting the airline or the airport (e.g., the journalist constructed a list of destinations by interviewing passengers instead of contacting the airport's media office).
• I would only include this information if it is verifiable in a source that provides an analysis of this information (e.g., compare/contrast with a nearby airport, statement of why this destination is important to the local economy or residents).

The absence of background is another potential problem. Earlier this year, both List of British Airways destinations and Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations were declared to be compatible with WP:NOT. There have been half a dozen significant discussions about this during the last decade, including multiple RFCs. Only one of them ended with a consensus that this information is inappropriate, and it largely got overturned soon after. So again: to avoid any drama about "taking another bite at the apple" and WP:Forum shopping, the OP for any RFC really ought to address what's allegedly changed in between all these previous discussions and now. Otherwise, we're at risk of a backlash that could result in WP:NOT getting a new sentence that explicitly endorses this kind of list.

I also think that you need to pick a couple of examples and sort through what's intended. For example, to name some examples that have already been discussed, consider Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations (dozens of airlines, hundreds of destinations) is very different from Des Moines International Airport#Passenger (nine airlines, 35 destinations) from Kearney Regional Airport#Passenger (one airline, one destination). Maybe we need a different approach for the the busiest airports than for the tiny ones. Additionally, Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists are different from a section inside a larger article. So think about what you actually want to achieve, and write it out. Maybe you'll write "We should have deleted List of British Airways destinations when we had the chance, but I don't mind a paragraph in an article about smaller airports, as long as it's prose instead of a list." Maybe you'll write "Because we have List of British Airways destinations, and it's the biggest airline out of Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations, there's no need for a table in both articles." Maybe you'll write something else. But you should think about what's reasonable and realistic in a variety of cases, instead of fixating on the 5% of busiest airports and then writing something that would apply to 100% of airports, when the considerations for other airports are completely different.

About the bigger problem: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a volunteer service, which means that even when a discussion concludes with a consensus that X should happen, that doesn't mean that anyone will actually volunteer to do X. If we want independent sources in certain parts of articles, then we need to encourage volunteers to do this. I see more yelling than I'd like to see about how nobody else did it, and "I" shouldn't have to, because doing boring work like finding appropriate sources is somebody else's problem. RFCs should not be seen as a mechanism to force other editors to do work that I'm unwilling (or feel too important) to do myself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree that "comprehensive" would be less polarising than "exhaustive", and "all" should probably be avoided. And lastly, despite being one of the main discussion points above, perhaps sourcing is a red herring and should be left to P&Gs; removing sourcing aspects from the RfC would hopefully avoid derailing the wider question as to whether we want these tables or not. Here's a second stab at a question:

Is information about the airlines offering service from an airport, and the destinations served by each airline, acceptable content (i.e. not covered by WP:NOT) in airport articles?

• Option 1: A comprehensive table of airlines and destinations is acceptable.
• Option 2: Airlines and destinations should be summarised in prose; tables should be excluded.
• Option 3: The preferred format for this information depends on the number of airlines and routes, with a summary in prose preferred for large airports.
• Option 4: All such information should be excluded.

As suggested, it would probably be preferable that the RfC be asked by someone uninvolved. Volunteers for further refining the wording and posting the RfC welcome! Rosbif73 (talk) 07:00, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

I've just come across Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 187#RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles which I must have missed at the time (though I see it is actually linked once above), which concluded it is clear that there is consensus that airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. There is not a consensus for wholesale removal of such tables, but tables without independent, reliable, secondary sourcing, and where such sourcing cannot be found, should not be in the articles.

This confirms that there's no point asking about sourcing, as we already have clear consensus to remove poorly sourced tables. Whether it is worth asking about tables vs prose is less clear-cut... Rosbif73 (talk) 08:56, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

To separate the concerns about sourcing vs whether we should have this at all, I'd add an explicit statement about sourcing. Here are some options:

• Open with "Is (properly sourced) information about the airlines offering service..." (I put "properly sourced" in parentheses to hint that this detail, though important, isn't the focus of this particular question. If you don't like it, then of course do what you think works better.)
• Add something like "Assume for the purposes of this RFC that the material in question would cite a reliable source in compliance with Wikipedia:Verifiability".
• Expand Option 4 to say "All such information should be excluded even if it is properly sourced."

Another option might be:

• Option 5: For large airports, these tables should become Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists handled as a WP:SUBARTICLE of the airport.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:23, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

• Bad Per WP:RFCBRIEF, multiple choice questions are bad. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:26, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

The original intention of airlines and destinations was to give some sort of history of the airlines that use the the airport and scope of destination rather than a current list. A bit like "Pan Am - served the transatlantic route particularly New York from 1900 to 1999" "Foo Airlines started the first service to FooLand in 1900" "Scruggs Airways was based at the airport from 1900 to 1999 with scheduled and charter routes to destinations in Europe" so perhaps this "History" option should be part of RFC. MilborneOne (talk) 12:06, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Good idea - that also ensures that only notable routes are listed. Only concern is @Andrew Davidson‘s very valid concern above… we’d be going the opposite way by adding even more! Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:16, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

You keep saying "notable routes" like there is clarity on what a "notable" route is. These aren't being held to the same standards as a stand-alone article. We just need to be able to verify the route to include it on the page. SportingFlyer T·C 14:46, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

And I’m sorry but I fundamentally disagree. This is why there are options 2, 3 and 4 here - I personally am of the opinion that we don’t need comprehensive lists of every verifiable route from an airport, especially larger ones. To me, a notable route is one that has received media coverage for reasons other than simply existing - for example, it’s been involved in a high profile incident, or has been covered by sources due to historical significance. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:03, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

What is going to be next? Metrosfan (talk) 01:23, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

To reduce this to a yes/no question as suggested, I guess we could eliminate the idea of totally removing all airline and route information, as it seems highly unlikely there would be many !votes for that. So it would boil down to asking whether the tables are encylopedic, and if not then remplacing them by a prose summary. Rosbif73 (talk) 09:30, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

I’d be in support of that Danners430 _{tweaks made} 10:08, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Replacing the tables with a prose summary is totally removing all airline and route information. How do you even summarize content that's not in the article. It's easy to verify that an airline has flights on ten airlines to fifteen countries on three continents when they're all listed, no so much without a table verifying them. This is just destrying huge amounts of valid content on thousands of pages with no workable replacement. Reywas92^Talk 17:09, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Reywas92, your reply highlights one of my concerns with this one-size-fits-all approach. If you look at the table in Kearney Regional Airport#Airline and destinations, which is:

More information Airlines, Destinations ...

Airlines	Destinations
United Express	Denver[1]

Close

then here's how I summarize it in prose: "United Express provides passenger service to Denver.^[1]"

See how easy that was? Any editor do that. Most of our airport aren't Atlanta or Heathrow. Most of them would be easy to summarize. Since I found the example of Kearney by looking for the one closest to the geographic center of the US, I'm now looking at List of airports in Kansas. It has seven (7) airports with commercial passenger service. Six of them would be easy to summarize in a single sentence. Even the second largest in terms of passenger enplanements only has one airline serving it and two destinations. The largest, which is Wichita (home to Learjet and other fabled names in flight), has ~880K passenger enplanements a year.

Looking through those stats, I see that Durango–La Plata County Airport has a quarter million enplanements a year, with basically two airlines (or four, if you prefer to count United separately from United Express, etc.) and four destinations. I'd bet that a Wikipedia editor could write that in two sentences.

Rogue Valley International–Medford Airport, with half a million enplanements a year, has five (or six) airlines and 10 destinations. That's a bit trickier, but a determined editor could do it. Half a million, BTW, appears to be the cutoff between "small hubs" (>500K) and "non-hub" (<500K) US airports.

Eastern Iowa Airport, with three-quarter million enplanements a year, has five (or eight) airlines and almost 20 destinations. That's reasonable to present in a list, though an ambitious editor might manage it in prose.

Piedmont Triad International Airport, with almost a million enplanements a year, has five (or seven) airlines and 15 destinations. That's less than Eastern Iowa, and again, a list feels reasonable but not absolutely, unavoidably necessary.

If we set the cutoff between "Use prose" and "Accept a list" at "Use prose for small airports (less than 250K enplanements per year; consider a list or table for larger airports", then two-thirds of our articles about US airports would get plain old prose, and it would be easy to do it. If we set the bar a little higher, then it might take a bit more work for airports with 300K or 400K passengers, but it would still only take a few sentences. No content would be "destroyed" or "removed" by this recommendation, and it's no more difficult to verify a short list of destinations in a table vs the same short list of destinations in a sentence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Having another thought though… look just below at the Recall discussion - which uses multiple choice. I’d say let’s stick with the multiple choice option. I’d also ping the editors elsewhere in this discussion. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 14:20, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

There are certainly plenty of precedents for successful consensus-building multiple-choice RfCs. I'm not convinced about the 10 options in the Recall discussion, but four ought to be feasible (and we could probably cut it down to three, in that totally removing all traces of airlines and destinations seems a very unlikely outcome). But, as has already been mentioned, it would probably be preferable if the RfC is posted by someone uninvolved (which excludes me and @Danners430). Rosbif73 (talk) 15:06, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Makes alt to post RfC

For legal reasons that’s a joke…!

What about @FOARP? It was him that suggested I yeet my first, rubbish, RfC attempt into the void before it caused more harm than good… Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:10, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

RFCs totally do not have to be posted by someone uninvolved. Where did that idea come from? FOARP (talk) 15:26, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Are we going to go ahead with this then? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 01:28, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

I expect to be rather busy off-wiki for the next few days, but feel free to use or adapt my proposed question if you wish. Rosbif73 (talk) 08:16, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

High profile incidents have little to do with routes though. It's not particularly relevant that US Airways Flight 1549 was going to Charlotte, nor that Jeju Air Flight 2216 was coming from Bangkok. How exactly would this be done? These are usually already listed in the relevant accidents and incidents section, and incidents are about a single plane, not the many planes that serve passengers every day. While there are substantive sources on a variety routes, it would be original research to decide which ones to include and why since they cover different aspects. You're proposing going from deleting the simple and straightforward work that's always been done to something more complex, and it makes for a shitty, incomplete, and less cohesive article to leave out routes, perhaps even among those with the most daily flights and passengers, that are significant yet less newsworthy since they've been mainstays for so long. Many airport articles do mention some major historical flights like first intercontinental route, but this would remove vast amounts of important relevant content, as it's the network as a whole and the relative presence of different airlines that's significant as well. Moreover, other users have deleted prose coverage on such significant flights since they're essentially redundant to the lists. Without the lists, I know you're not going back to restore those items to thousands of history sections. Ans as Sportingflyer said, individual items in an article – here just single words in an table – do not have to provide notability, a concept that is really only used for whether article topics as a whole should have standalone articles. Reywas92^Talk 17:09, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

What's the point of having an RfC anyway? Half or more of the lists/tables have already been deleted. List of Germanwings destinations was redirected today after having been on the site since 2005. Now there's one sentence sourced to the Germanwings website: "Germanwings served more that 130 destinations across Europe". ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 15:34, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Because at the same time there are tables like the one at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport that are very poorly sourced, and editors that are fighting tooth and nail to keep it that way… Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:50, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

No one wants them to be poorly sourced, it's a lot of information maintained over many years that is gradually being improved. This is not unverifiable or shown to have widespread inaccuracies. That article having references that are dead is not justification to remove entire sections from thousands of pages. Why are you fighting tooth and nail to delete beneficial information? Reywas92^Talk 17:15, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not going to continue arguing with the user that believes I should be topic banned for following WP:V. If you believe they should be kept, vote as such in the RfC. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 17:17, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

That's not me, I never said you should be topic banned... Reywas92^Talk 19:57, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Ah my apologies, I mistook you for another edit. I fully retract that statement. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:00, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Then why is there so much pushback when editors try and "clean" these tables to bring them up to the Verifiability standard expected? Right now, many of these route tables are, quite simple, a sourcing mess. In terms of DFW, I didn't remove sources because they were dead - I removed them because they didn't verify the content. I need to go back when I have time and energy (thanks real life) and re-review that edit - partially to list the reasons why, and to verify for my own sanity that I didn't mess up. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:05, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

There are two different types of table involved:

1. Destination tables on airport pages, which is what we've been talking about here. The current consensus for these is unclear, hence the proposed RfC.
2. Destination tables on airline pages or standalone subpages. Many of the standalone ones have indeed already been deleted or redirected pursuant to prior consensus; the situation for the integrated ones could also do with being clarified.

Rosbif73 (talk) 16:33, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Just wanting to highlight the amount of unsourced and poorly sourced churn there is... this is from just one day (yesterday GMT), and only what I caught on my watchlist, which is only around 200 airports (a fraction of the number of articles in the project): [ Danners430 _{tweaks made} 17:35, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Seems like a standard editing issue. I don't propose eliminating an entire topic on thousands of articles because IP addresses don't know appropriate editing procedures. Reywas92^Talk 19:57, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

In one day, approx. 3% of airport articles (based on 6 edits out of a sample size of 200, that being the number of airport articles on my watchlist at the time) had unsourced content added? That's an awfully high number... Also remember this entire discussion originally started when the community (quite understandably) got fed up of the number of ANIs being opened regarding users that were persistently adding this content to articles. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:05, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Here's the thing, your second and third links on Newquay Airport and Gatwick Airport was an IP accurately noting that the Eastern Airways route was suspended, as the airline had suspended all of its routes. By reverting the edit, you made the article wrong. Sure, the IP didn't add a new source, and a different user subsquently deleted the insolvent airline altogether. Your fourth link on Agadir–Al Massira Airport does have a source, albeit not a good one. Yeah, it's also not great that {{Citation needed}} is on 618,000 pages, {{More citations needed}} is on 415,000 pages, and {{Unreferenced}} is on 97,000 pages, but there's a reason we generally keep (but tag) unsourced information: it was usually added in good faith, can still likely be verified somewhere, and contributes to this work-in-progress encyclopedia. Just because you can remove unsourced information doesn't mean you always automatically should, especially when it's uncontroversial and straightforward, or can be verified with general sources. I do appreciate your vigilance in watching these changes, but things being changed without the best citations is still a standard editing issue, not a reason to delete sections altogether. Reywas92^Talk 14:20, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm going to bullet point my response here because you've raised a number of points.

• First, WP:Verifiability not truth will explain this better than I ever could. However, the editor must still include a citation. By reverting the edit, I restored it to the last sourced version.
• Fourth edit - yes, they had a source, no it wasn't reliable. It shouldn't be getting added without a reliable source.
• Citation Needed, More Citations Needed and Unreferenced are templates designed as a plea to editors, requesting more sources be added. WP:Citation needed templates do not excuse citations - the sources are still required. When I remove deprecated sources, I leave behind a template instead of simply removing the content wholesale, because the editors weren't to know when they added the content that the source would later be deprecated. However, content that simply doesn't have a source simply shouldn't be there in the first place. There have been occasions in the past (notably with the user Wibwob) where other users informed me they were actively adding sources, so I would hold off on removing content. But content that's been there for far too long without sources, and no sign of improvement? Sorry, but yeet until such time as sources can be found.
• Finally, I included these examples of edits for exactly that reason - simply as examples, to illustrate the problem that exists. The reason this whole debacle started originally was because the community was tired of continuous back and forth at ANI over the sourcing of these tables, and quite rightly encouraged me to start this discussion. If this amounts to nothing? Then we carry on as usual, and we simply have to suck up that these disagreements will happen. However, if we fundamentally change how we deal with routes on airport articles, perhaps we can eliminate this fighting from ever happening...

Danners430 _{tweaks made} 17:33, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Just a heads up, I have started a new discussion on whether Aeroroutes is a reliable source because i am feeling that there are things missed out that werent mentioned in the first one, for those who want to join the discussion to mention on if its a reliable source feel free to do so, the discussion is at WP:RSN#WP:AEROROUTES Metrosfan (talk) 23:19, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Some distinction is needed based on the airport size. It would be absurd to list all airlines and destinations for a major airport, but if a small airport served by just one or two airlines is deemed worthy of an article this information is valuable and should be included. Zero^talk 00:03, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

The reason for every policy and guideline is to make Wikipedia better. As a bit of an avgeek, I frequently find myself consulting these lists. Because they're almost always in collapsible sections, they don't really deface the article, and the editors who maintain them don't generally seem to be interested in working on anything else (as evidenced by the poor state of the History sections of most airport articles), so they don't soak up too much editor time. I therefore don't think the effort of removing them is worth it or would significantly improve Wikipedia. The main reason these tend to end up at various three-letter-acronym discussion venues is the atrocious sourcing, which I can't argue against. Perhaps we could look into an edit filter to prevent edits to destination tables without citations? JustARandomSquid (talk) 13:39, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Just as a note, they're not collapsed by default (which would be against the MOS anyway), so they are a rather large (depending on the airport of course) sea of blue - WP:OVERLINKing is rife, and yes the sourcing is atrocious. As for a time sink... just have a look at my recent contributions and you'll see that currently yes, they are a huge time sink because of the amount of poorly sourced edits that go on. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:47, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

They are usually the only content in "Airlines and Destinations" sections, so if you're on mobile, for example, they are effectively collapsed by default. As for the atrocious sourcing, ideally we'd find a way to force the avgeeks that toil away on these tables to improve it. JustARandomSquid (talk) 14:28, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

That's only mobile though - on desktop, they're not hidden and indeed shouldn't be per the manual of style. For sourcing... I would argue that's already been tried - the last RfC on this topic explicitly said that only routes verified with a third-party source should be included in these tables... and that's obviously not working. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 14:44, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

I think it's working just fine. It's not as if the information is wrong, it's not as if the information can't be sourced, gnomes frequently update it, it's encyclopedic... you've come to your own conclusion that because you think it's not working, it's not working, and there have been multiple ANI threads over that issue. SportingFlyer T·C 13:47, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

The fact there have been umpteen ANI threads are evidence that it isn’t working - the sourcing is, by and large, a disaster… and the editors at ANI were there because they were persistently making unsourced changes. Indeed this very thread was created off the back of one of these ANI threads. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:53, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

"Only mobile" is a clear majority of readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:20, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

As someone who has no particular interest in the topic of aviation in and of itself, what I expect when I open the "Airlines and destinations" section is something along the lines of "Flights from Small Airport are primarily commuter flights from Small Airport to Large Airport 1. Before the introduction of Thing reduced demand in Year, Large Airport 2 was another regular commuter flight destination. It is also the only air transport link to Tiny Airport. The announcement that Airline 1 would no longer offer Small Airport as a destination was met with dismay by the Small Airport area community, who said [quote]. Since Year, Airline 2 is the only passenger airline that routinely flies from Small airport, though Airline 3 has it as a destination for cargo flights."; being presented with a table full of, essentially, raw data is the opposite what an encyclopaedia should be doing, which is summarising the information.

I will also point out that no-one is stopping you (i.e. anyone saying the tables should be kept) from setting up a site of your own with all that minutiae and putting a link in the External links section for the people who are actually interested in it. Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 04:35, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm just going to be doing some thinking aloud here. Looking at the discussion here it seems to me that the consensus is very much in favour of removing these tables. The main issue is what is to replace them with? Your example is for a (your words) "Small Airport". These are the airports where these tables aren't an issue: easy to maintain, small and unobtrusive, arguably more so, in fact, than a prose summary. The large airports are the ones causing problems due to their tables' size, which can't be summarised in prose like that, or at least not in any way better than a table that still gives useful information. (Open to changing my mind on that one, of course). Also, to get philosophical, in a way these tables are a summary of information — rarely are full destination lists published anywhere, so instead the people who maintain these lists are compiling information from different sources (without necessarily citing them though) into this one table. WP:NOTDB is to stop you from just copy-pasting statistics from wherever into articles without rhyme or reason, but we run into an issue when Wikipedia itself is independently accumulating info arguably in violation of WP:NOTDB, because it can't be replaced with a prose summary of the information found elsewhere because this data might not exist elsewhere. JustARandomSquid (talk) 07:53, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I used a small airport to keep my example short and because I'm not interested in writing 500 words about the airlines and destinations of an actual airport. I guarantee that the information in the tables can be summarised in prose format, because I do exactly that almost every time I write a technical report.

My advice is: if I was unable to see the tables (maybe I'm blind, or I need to look at something else, whatever) what would you tell me about the information? Are there a lot of airlines, or only a few? Are there any patterns in the airlines, such as "only major airlines fly there", or "except for X airline, most airlines that fly there are low-cost/cheap flight airlines"? The same thing applies to the destinations. Are there a lot of them, or only a few? Is it technically an international airport but you can only get flights to two or three other countries, or something more like Heathrow? How is airport A different to airport B, or similar to airport C? Essentially, tell me (i.e. the audience) what the table is telling you; translate it for me, tell me what it means. Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 09:44, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Fair enough, fair enough. The only issue then becomes (and I'm not trying to be combative here, apologies if that's how I sound) where do you get this information from? You can't summarise the table that is no longer in the article, and you can't get it from an airport's list of destinations served from it because that would be interpreting primary sources. You'd instead have to find a source saying "except for X airline, most airlines that fly there are low-cost airlines", which would probably actually make the sourcing worse, at least short-term.

Also, has anyone considered spinning these tables off into their own list articles, like is done for large airlines (though I know not everyone likes that either)? At least that would fix the ugliness issue, if not the sourcing. JustARandomSquid (talk) 10:04, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

There’s nothing inherently wrong with using primary sources in Wikipedia policy. The third party sources thing for these route tables were specifically for the route tables - if we vote to remove them and replace them, there’s no reason we can’t also say that primary sources are fine for the prose. Indeed, I would argue they’d be some of the best sources, given they’ll aggregate all the information into a single source.

Given Rosbif is away, I’ll formulate all of this into a new RfC shortly. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 10:16, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

We couldn't rely on a primary source route list for statements like 'X is mostly served by low-cost airlines' is what I meant. JustARandomSquid (talk) 10:26, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I think WikiVoyage would be a good candidate as a place for the tables. They seem to have articles with some airline and destination information for most international/major airports, but they don't appear to have many articles for the smaller/domestic airports; airline and destination tables might be a good starting place for those articles. Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 10:59, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

It certainly fulfills the spirit of "What Wikipedia is not", by exporting such information to WikiVoyage. Perhaps we could even leave an inter-wiki link to the WikiVoyage page when removing the tables here? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 11:15, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

An interwiki link is a must, otherwise the tables will be back at the end of the day and we'll have more ANI threads with avgeeks complaining about their favourite tables being slaughtered. JustARandomSquid (talk) 12:03, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Just a quick thought… such an external project already exists - WikiTravel… Danners430 _{tweaks made} 08:11, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I've checked this already and neither Wikivoyage nor Wikitravel have articles specifically for airports. There are a few exceptions on Wikivoyage for the largest, but the 'Flights' section sends you, I kid you not, to Wikipedia's John F. Kennedy International Airport#Airlines and Destinations. JustARandomSquid (talk) 08:16, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps we need to export the existing routes lists to WV and remove them here then? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 08:22, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

The English Wikivoyage community has previously discussed this and doesn't want them, because they don't have the editor base to update them. They are happy that the English Wikipedia maintains these lists instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:55, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

@Danners430: You mean Wikivoyage? WikiTravel is owned by Internet Brands. Jasper Deng (talk) 08:18, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Note to self… quit Wikipediaing before coffee! Danners430 _{tweaks made} 08:21, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

OK, hopefully the final draft of the proposed RfC before we go ahead... I've reformatted the question to take into account the broad consensus that something should be done, but please do pull be back if you think it's too far.

How should the issue of sourcing be handled in Airport destination tables?

• 1: No action required. Keep current guidelines regarding destination tables and their sourcing, which say that all entries on destination tables must be sourced with reliable secondary sources.
• 2: Replace large destination tables (eg. those with greater than 20 destinations) with a summary in prose, referenced to reliable primary or secondary sources. Smaller destination tables may be retained with reliable secondary sources.
• 2a: As option 2, but excluding primary sources.
• 3: Replace all destination tables with summaries in prose, referenced to reliable primary or secondary sources.
• 3a: As option 3, but excluding primary sources.
• 4: Export destination tables to WikiVoyage, and replace them with a summary in prose on EnWiki, referenced to reliable primary or secondary sources. Link to the WikiVoyage page in See Also.
• 4a: As option 4, but excluding primary sources.
• 5: All such information should be excluded. [Note - happy to remove]

Any thoughts? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 11:26, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

As for exporting to WikiVoyage, that would only be for airports large enough to have entries there? That then seems to me like a sub-option of 2 where instead of removing them they go to WV. That being said, I don't often venture outside of enwiki, so how would this even work? Do they want these tables?

Also, is the last option even necessary? Is anyone actually going to vote for articles on airports to not include any information on who flies there, possibly the single most important thing about an airport?

(P.S. there are multiple options number 4, are you sure that coffee was strong enough, tee hee) JustARandomSquid (talk) 12:16, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Negative; more coffee required (but fixed). I agree nobody will likely vote for option 5, indeed I won't either... I mostly included it for the sake of a full range of options, but could remove if necessary. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:38, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

WikiVoyage doesn't want them, and it's a logical fallacy anyways considering travel guides do not contain this information. SportingFlyer T·C 13:39, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

If WV don’t want them then it really begs the question why we’re hosting them… Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:45, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Because it's encyclopedic information, not travel guide content! Because we have the editors who are interested in reading and updating this content and they don't! That's insane to to include that as an option here when none of us are Wikivoyage editors, many airports don't have their own pages there, and they don't want this. Reywas92^Talk 15:27, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Going by the contents of this discussion, many editors disagree that it’s encyclopaedic. This is why we’ll have this discussion at the RfC - genuine request, can we restrict ourselves to deciding what should be in said RfC? Happy to remove the reference to WV, which was added after the discussion above with @JustARandomSquid and @Tosca-the-engineer. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:49, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

And going by the contents of this discussion, many editors agree that it is encyclopedic, or at least that it frequently can be written in an encyclopedic way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Well, they lost that discussion at WT:NOT just this year already. Quit forum shopping and reopening things that have been discussed many times already. This has been in the encycopedia for decades and there is not a good argument that it's not encyclopedic. Reywas92^Talk 15:03, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Again, even approaching to propose excluding primary sources, when "primary" sources technically include news coverage, is total bullshit. "Secondary" sources may have analysis and synthesis, which is not necessary for straightforward facts of who flies where. There is no ban on primary sources anywhere else in the encyclopedia, but rather when they may include personal experiences, opinion, or bias, they should be used carefully with attribution. That's not a concern here. Airline or industry sources are not unreliable or introducing "novel interpretations" for this content. Morever, a requirement that results in some destinations listed but not others makes no sense. The fact that we have found a "secondary" source about a new route but not one that's old doesn't mean the old one should be excluded. Reywas92^Talk 15:27, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

The last RfC, which you’ve been so eager to preserve, establishes that secondary sources are a requirement to include routes in a route table. Are you now saying that RfC is wrong? Looks like a new RfC is required after all… Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:47, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Welllll.... since you asked...

The fact is that a lot of editors (and therefore a lot of editors participating in that RFC) can't actually tell you the difference between an independent source and a secondary source. So it's entirely possible that the community's view is "only include this if the route was, like, in the news or something. I don't want it if it's just one some guy's website" ("independent") rather than "only include this if someone published an analysis or critique of this route, like an industry group writing about why this destination was important to the local economy" ("secondary"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:03, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

That’s not where my critique lies, but rather that airline route maps and airport route maps are being used - I don’t think any reasonable editor would call them secondary sources. Perfect example is a revert @Reywas92 themselves did last night at Detroit Metropolitan Airport which was (apparently) based off the existing source, which is the airline’s own webpage. I’m not arguing on individual articles about secondary sourcing specifically because this RfC is open, but that would really go against what the last RfC agreed on. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 06:13, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

If you don't want to risk a result that could really go against what the last RfC agreed on, then you need to not ask about sourcing in the first place. See my long comment below to see how to separate the two concepts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:13, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm not risking any result here - and doing so in an RfC would violate the neutrality policy for RfCs. What I say above is merely pointing out that I'm not enforcing the previous RfC while it's being disputed, for the sake of not causing more drama and friction. I'm merely enforcing basic WP:V instead of also enforcing the use of secondary sourcing. I give the example above to show that it's not just a misunderstanding of what secondary sourcing is, but that blatant and obvious primary sources are also being used. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 07:21, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Two comments:

• A map is a source like any other. It would be silly to say that you can use the words on an airport's website but not a drawing/map on an airport's website, when the words and the drawing say the same thing.
• If you open an RFC asking folks to weigh in on sourcing, then you risk having the previous RFC discussion on sourcing being overturned.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I've said all along that that RFC showed that there's a widespread misunderstanding of the difference between secondary and independent sources and how both are used, and you are continuing that misunderstanding in the proposed options. I support adding independent sources to the tables, but we should not have incomplete lists either just because the news doesn't cover short or longstanding routes or because it will take time to improve this content on so many pages. Still, this information is not unverifiable, and non-independent sources are also acceptable to verify additional routes. But now you just want to delete the tables altogether. You have still not presented what exactly "summaries in prose" would entail or how (or by whom) they would be written when the content being summarized is deleted. It is better to simply present the information rather than remove it and think that a couple sentences of the number of airlines is an appropriate replacement. Reywas92^Talk 15:03, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm not going to continue arguing with you any more except for one, very simple, point - content on Wikipedia must be sourced. This isn't a WikiProject thing, it's basic WP:V. So if there are no reliable sources available (forgetting types of sources here), then the list must be incomplete, as we cannot be adding unsourced material. That is the end of any further discussion I will have on that point. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:36, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Nope. See WP:Glossary#verifiable and contrast with WP:Glossary#cited. Content is verifiABLE if you are ABLE to check it against a reliable source, including a reliable source that is not currently present in the article and that you have to find yourself (e.g., by spending a couple of minutes in your favorite web search engine). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:23, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

My thoughts on option 2: suggest changing the "eg, those with" to "for example, those with", to make it clearer that it's an example only, because I nearly missed that detail in my first read-through.

On option 4: suggest replacing "WikiVoyage" with "another site", and adding a note/message with some information about options (maybe just link to: wp:Alternative outlets and mw:Hosting services and wikibooks:Starting and Running a Wiki Website) because I know if I was the one being told to "export to another site" without any mention of what my options actually are, it would feel an awful lot like I was being told "Pack your bags and leave, you aren't welcome here." Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 14:43, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

OK, I think it's better just to remove any mention of WikiVoyage... moving content to another project can be discussed at that project. Also - the reason I've separated the primary and secondary sourcing options is because the more recent RfC explicitly calls for secondary sources to be used... which isn't being followed very well.

How should the issue of sourcing be handled in Airport destination tables?

• 1: No action required. Keep current guidelines regarding destination tables and their sourcing, which say that all entries on destination tables must be sourced with reliable secondary sources.
• 2: Replace large destination tables (eg. those with greater than 20 destinations) with a summary in prose, referenced to reliable primary or secondary sources. Smaller destination tables may be retained with reliable secondary sources.
• 2a: As option 2, but excluding primary sources.
• 3: Replace all destination tables with summaries in prose, referenced to reliable primary or secondary sources.
• 3a: As option 3, but excluding primary sources.
• 4: All such information should be excluded. [Note - happy to remove]

Further thoughts? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 19:32, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I think you need to keep option 4 in place, but I think you should make it more obvious what that means. Something like "For example, Kearney Regional Airport has exactly one airline (United Express) flying to only one destination (Denver, Colorado), and editors should be prohibited from mentioning either the airline or the lone destination anywhere in the article".

The point of that isn't that we expect people to support it; the point is to jerk them out of their mindless assumption that since complaints about "other volunteers wasting their time" and "flooding watchlists with constant changes", that every airport affected by this decision is huge.

I don't think that mixing "lists" with "sourcing" is helpful. It's a double-barrelled question, and you end up with people "opposing lists" because they're actually opposing primary sources, etc.

Splitting them, then, leaves you with two separate questions, approximately on these lines:

(A) How shall we present information about destinations in articles about individual airports? Assume for the purposes of this question that all information will be cited to appropriate reliable sources.

1. The destination tables are fine (or I don't care, so default to what we've been doing for 20+ years).
2. Split very large destination tables into separate articles. For example, the large table in Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations would become a List of Heathrow Airport destinations, with a {{Main}} hatnote and a brief summary in the article about the airport. Such lists would normally be considered notable because airport destinations are discussed in independent reliable sources; any that weren't would be merged and redirected back into the airport article to WP:PRESERVE the information.
3. Replace large destination tables with a summary in prose that does not mention most individual destinations by name. Smaller destination tables may be retained (or not, as editors of that article choose). For example, the large table in Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations would be replaced by a paragraph saying that it has dozens of airlines and hundreds of destinations in dozens of countries; Wikipedia would no longer contain information about the individual destinations. However, Eastern Iowa Airport#Airlines and destinations, which lists less than 20 destinations, would be left alone (unless editors of that article preferred a different approach).
4. Replace every destination table with a summary in prose. For example, Durango–La Plata County Airport#Airlines and destinations has a small table listing two airlines and four destinations, and that would be replaced by two sentences naming the two airlines and four destinations.
5. All information about destinations should be excluded. For example, Kearney Regional Airport has exactly one airline (United Express) flying to only one destination (Denver, Colorado), and editors should be prohibited from mentioning the airline, the lone destination, the number of airlines, and the number of destinations anywhere in the article.

(B) How shall we source information about destinations in articles about individual airports? Choose all that apply. Assume for the purposes of this question that the presentation/formatting question has been settled satisfactorily, and that each destination will have an inline citation.

1. Require the highest possible standard for sourcing any information about airlines and destinations, e.g., a scholarly analysis of how an airport's destinations affected economic development of the surrounding region. We need a barrier that discourages editors from adding accurate and verifiable information about airlines and destinations to airport articles.
2. Ban sources that get information from the airlines or airports. Websites that download route information directly from airlines, government reports that rely on what airports tell them, news reporters who find information on an airport's website or who ask questions of an airline's PR staff (but not those interviewing only passengers or disgruntled former staff), scholarly journal articles that analyze data collected by the airport, etc., are all tainted by non-independence.
3. Require that editors only use sources that are both free of any direct financial or other COI-based relationship with the airport and that also provide analytical content about the destination ("independent and secondary"). For example, this could be a comparison of two airports in a magazine, a report from a university professor analyzing all the airports in the country, or the local newspaper saying that _____ is first/newest/biggest/best destination from that airport. This would exclude, for comparison: simple, factual descriptions in magazines; most government data collections; and news articles providing straightforward facts; it would also exclude comparisons or analytical reports produced by any airline or the airport.
4. Require that editors only use sources that are free of any direct financial or other COI-based relationship with the airport ("independent"), but don't require a full-blown analysis of these simple facts. For example, this could be any article in a magazine, any scholarly report (unless written by airline or airport employees), any article in the local newspaper, and collections of data by scholars and government agencies. It would exclude all sources written or published by any airline or the airport.
5. Require that editors only use sources that provide analytical content about the destination ("secondary"), but don't worry about whether the source is affiliated with the airport. For example, this could be a comparison of two airports, a report analyzing all the destinations, or an article saying that _____ is first/newest/biggest/best destination from that airport, even if written and published by an airline or the airport (e.g., a report from the airport recommending that the government give them permission to add a new destination). This would exclude, for comparison, sources that provide only simple, factual descriptions and collections of data, even if written and published by an independent source.
6. Use the ordinary standards for reliable sources when citing information about destinations. This can include non-independent sources (e.g., destinations listed on the airport's website, because that self-description is WP:ABOUTSELF content) and primary sources (e.g., WP:PRIMARYNEWS reports about a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate a new destination).
7. Require minimal standards for reliable sources. If the information appears to be accurate, then any plausible-looking inline citation at all is good enough.
8. Prefer non-independent sources (such as airport websites and airline websites) because they are more likely to be accurate and up-to-date.

I'm not convinced that you need to be asking both of these questions, but I am convinced that you shouldn't mix them together in a single question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:10, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I'd be generally in support of this, with the exception of a couple...

• (B) 1 - this to me would go against the spirit of Verifiability, as we don't need to cite cite that the sky is blue... but perhaps that's just an opinion that I hold, and therefore it is a good option for the RfC so that it can be discounted?
• (B) 3, 4, 5 - I get the feeling this would unecessarily complicate things for editors if one of these were decided upon... It's not difficult to explain the difference between Primary and Secondary sourcing on a WikiProject guidance page which editors can be pointed to if necessary. Personally, I think for the RfC we should cut these down to two options: Primary and Secondary sourcing to be used, or Secondary Only with the extent to be decided after the RfC.
• (B) 6 - isn't this the same as option 8 to a point? It's essentially "just apply normal WP:V standards". Also, the problem with "prefer" is that it's not a requirement, it's a preference... my experience has shown that this results in editors reverting valid content because it doesn't meet this preference, which in essence turns it into a requirement. If we did use phrasing like "prefer", we'd have to be abundantly clear that it's not a mandatory requirement, and editors using independent sources shouldn't be reverted, and editors should look to replace the citations with non-independent ones when one is found instead of removing the content that was added.

Right, enough brain wracking... I need more coffee! Danners430 _{tweaks made} 07:41, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• (B)1 would impose a higher standard than we use for even contentious matter about BLPs and medical content, but maybe it's what some editors want.
• (B)3 is what the previous RFC chose, so if it's unnecessarily complicated, then we've already got unnecessarily complicated.
• (B)6 and (B)8 differ in that (B)6 prefers independent and secondary sources but will accept non-indy, and (B)8 prefers non-independent sources but will accept indy ones.

My suggestion is that, unless your goal is to overturn the sourcing statement from the prior RFC, that you just don't ask question (B) at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:29, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

It’s not my goal at all - indeed I couldn’t care less… it was just a suggestion made by other editors. Happy for us to leave B out altogether. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 06:53, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree, mixing the presentation and sourcing aspects in a single question doesn't seem like a good idea. I'd ask the presentation part first, on the assumption that usual sourcing P&Gs will apply. If the consensus is to replace at least some of the tables with prose, the sourcing of individual destinations will become less critical anyway.

One further thought: perhaps we should mention explicitly that the WP:AIRPORTCONTENT guidelines will be modified if the consensus is for anything other than the status quo option. Rosbif73 (talk) 09:38, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Very good point - this is essentially an RfC on that very guideline… although I’m not sure what else would need to be updated to make it more binding? As many editors have rightly pointed out, WikiProject guidelines are just that - guidelines… but an RfC (please correct me if I’m talking more pre-coffee gibberish) is more authoritative…? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:05, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

(The usual jargon is to call a WP:PROJPAGE an "advice page", to avoid confusion with the real {{guideline}} pages.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:30, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm a newbie editor. I followed WP:Airport Content for some time but was told by Danners430 that it wasn't valid, and contravened wiki's main policy guidelines. He deleted the whole cargo sections I updated on Clark & Manila Airports which took me weeks to update with very accurate airline data from Flightradar24 which aligned with the current WP: Airport Content cargo guidelines. My question is will the new WP:Airport Content you're going to update be valid, and align with wiki's main policy guidelines? I followed the rules in good faith before, then had all my hard work deleted in one swoop and that seriously pixxed me off!! Dootfish (talk) 13:06, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

It's certainly the intention, and I daresay it was the original intent when the current guideline was written. Everything can be flawed, even Wikipedia policies - that's why we work together to fix those flaws and improve our guidelines and policies, and I hope you'll be able to assist in that Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:20, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree @Danners430 might not've been maximally courteous here, but I'm going to have to side with them on this. It's not your fault of course, but that part of the WikiProject guidelines that you cite is the most egregious piece of waffle I've seen in quite a while on Wikipedia. Literally driving a bulldozer through the pillars of Wikipedia. The idea that you can build a massive table of data citing a computer's automatic interpretation of some radio waves is a massive middle finger to, at least WP:NOR, if not the very idea of an encyclopedia as a tertiary source. This isn't even purely on principle, I can think of a metric ton of ways this could go wrong off of the top of my head. How do you know this wasn't just a one-off series of chartered flights to transport some specific load? How do you know the plane wasn't wet-leased to someone else and you've only listed the operating carrier as flying there? Not to mention it's against the RfC that explicitly required secondary sources. JustARandomSquid (talk) 13:51, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

From a newbie editor reading this wiki policy discussion on airports, I really feel like the experienced editors on here totally over-complicate everything. It's no wonder newbie editors have no fxxking clue what they're supposed to be doing. Your aim should to be able to make it as simple as possible for editors to update the airport destinations tables with easy to follow guidelines. All you need to do is to agree to amend the current WP: Airport Content guidelines and make sure they align with wiki policy. Then readily promote the new guidelines by placing a link and a note to all editors on all major airport destination tables. Dootfish (talk) 17:42, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Could it be that everything seems to be overcomplicated because writing an encyclopaedia with 7 million pages is, in fact, complicated?

"All you need to do is to agree to amend the current WP: Airport Content guidelines and make sure they align with wiki policy"

Nothings stopping you from discussing this. You're here to write an encyclopaedia, not follow rules.

Anyway, done! I've gone and removed the part of the rules that I think are against policy. That's the beauty of Wikipedia. JustARandomSquid (talk) 21:41, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

The WP:AIRPORTCONTENT guidelines probably need to be reviewed anyway. For example, in §Passenger it says "Note that the overlinking guidelines do not apply to tables", which I'm pretty sure isn't the case... Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 13:50, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

To be fair, the MoS says "Other mentions may be linked if helpful, such as in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, and hatnotes." JustARandomSquid (talk) 13:54, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Those tables are a huge sea of blue right now, which is ridiculously hard to navigate. I’ve held back from applying OVERLINK specifically because the guidelines are there and I can’t be bothered with even more drama, but if we decide to keep the tables the it really needs sorting. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:59, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

You should keep doing that, because WP:SEAOFBLUE doesn't apply to links separated by (usually) non-linked punctuation and (always) ref tags. The point of SEAOFBLUE is not aesthetics ("my eyes!"). It's just about the practicality of figuring out whether the article has one link to Minneapolis and another link to Saint Paul, Minnesota, or if it has a single link to Minneapolis–Saint Paul. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

If we're quoting the MOS, it also says "Links may be excessive even if they are informative. For example, because inline links present relatively small tap targets on touchscreen devices, placing several separate inline links close together within a section of text can make navigation more difficult for readers, especially if they have limited dexterity or coordination. Balance readability, information, and accessibility when adding multiple links in one section of text." Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 15:03, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Here's a thought for simplicity... I agree your Section A is good and doesn't need changing - what about if we replace Section B with a simple yes/no question for now which is something along the lines of "Should information be sourced as per WP:V and WP:RS, or are additional restrictions required?" - keep it simple for now, and if people decide that we need to revisit sourcing requirements that can be done later in a separate RfC once the table format is agreed upon. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:50, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I really think the right answer is to ask Question (B) some other month. Or even some other year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

OK, so let's forget about the section about sourcing for now, and focus on the route lists. I believe the only thing left to discuss before the RfC is what options 3/4 would look like, as in work out what a summary in prose would look like.

My suggestion is as follows:

1. Start with a brief summary - eg. Wikipedia Airport is served by sixteen airlines, and has services to 16 countries / 3 continents. The latter would be flexible, and depend on the available sources. Primary sources such as the airport website would generally easily verify this.
2. Next, have a summary of route development, where this can be verified, including info such as when airlines start flying from the airport, significantly increase their service or cut services. eg:
   In 2019, Scottish Airlines started flying to Wikipedia Airport, with a service to Edinburgh.[ref] Subsequently, this service has expanded to include other Scottish cities.[ref]
   In 2020, English Airlines started serving Wikipedia Airport, with services to London Gatwick and Birmingham.[ref] The airline subsequently cut services, instead preferring to fly to Wikivoyage Airport.
3. Finally, where this can be sourced, have a list of statistics, such as that found at Tri-Cities Regional Airport#Statistics. Many articles already have this, and they are generally well sourced. It would help highlight how important/unimportant the airport is, especially if they can be developed further such as by adding graphs etc.

I've obviously been very frugal with my examples here, but I believe this could be used to easily generate well-written prose summaries, and they could be easily sourced. Thoughts? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 16:58, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Do we really need to give detailed examples? If so, we shouldn't impose "restrictions", because editors should follow the sources. (I love your hypothetical airport names.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:51, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I don’t think we need to impose any restrictions, indeed that’s why I didn’t propose any. I was just answering @Reywas92’s very valid point that we didn’t discuss what the phrase “summary in prose” actually meant. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 19:57, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

You wrote in step 2 that you wanted to restrict to when airlines start flying. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:11, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Good point - I’ll amend that… I have to be honest, with hindsight I’m not sure why I said that. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:27, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

I like it. Some articles (Darwin International Airport for example) already have most of that that info in prose form anyway, it's just been put in the History section instead of the Airports and destinations section. ― Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 01:07, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Exactly, and it would cut down the sourcing requirements from “every route” to just the additions in prose, which would be recommended to be significant changes such as above. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 07:13, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

How can you pretend that's a good thing? Sure, by deleting swaths of valid information you need fewer sources, but that's not an improvement here! How about a rule that you're not allowed to remove any table content unless it's also in prose? Reywas92^Talk 18:08, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

"How about an extremely niche rule that'll never be useful except to prove a point to my opponent in this argument" is not very convincing lol JustARandomSquid (talk) 18:35, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Tosca-the-engineer, except, no, it doesn't! Yes, a selection of the major international routes are in the history section, but most routes are not mentioned at all – Danners DELETED a lot of accurate content, so right now the article misleadingly suggests there's only six airlines when in reality there are 12 airlines with a lot more destinations! Readers are better served with a complete and concise list of routes than a wordy and complicated history section that only has a portion of routes. Moreover, no one actually wants the minutiae of just when each airline started its first route, nor is it realistic to expect editors to convert formats like that. — Reywas92^Talk 18:01, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

And do you know why said routes were deleted? Because they had zero sources, which goes against both WP:V and WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT. And it's worth saying that this is the sort of discussion that's best reserved for the RfC itself, because right now we're discussing what form that should take - we're not discussing the outcome. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 18:05, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Which part of WP:V are you talking about? Certainly not the part that says Whether or how quickly material should be removed for lacking an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article, since that indicates that you shouldn't necessarily remove uncited information. Can you provide a quotation from that policy that says you should (NB: not "may") remove that information? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Last time I’m saying this - I am not discussing conduct here. If you want to report me for bad conduct, ANI is thataway. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:07, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm not asking about your conduct. I'm asking about which sentence in the policy you believe is being violated by a statement with "zero sources". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

"Readers are better served with a complete and concise list of routes than a wordy and complicated history section that only has a portion of routes."

In a vacuum, I'm inclined to agree with this statement. JustARandomSquid (talk) 18:12, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

So why don't you actually contribute and add some damn sources? You are not making the project better by reverting verifiable information and deleting swaths of content like this. WP:V does not actually require everything without sources must be deleted immediately, since this is actually verifiable. Reywas92^Talk 18:16, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I’ve already mentioned this to you once, but please remember WP:CIVIL. I am not discussing my conduct at this venue, again as I have said multiple times. If you have such a grieving dislike of me, then take me to ANI. Other than that, no further discussion on my conduct. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 18:18, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

But it is within their rights to remove the information (very much not saying they should, though) JustARandomSquid (talk) 18:37, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I restored the content you deleted on the Darwin article with sources – it's verifiable, uncontroversial, straightforward information that does not need to be removed on the spot. Reywas92^Talk 18:40, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

And yet the majority (not all - thank you for those) are using Routes Online and Aeroroutes which are WP:SPS, as discussed at WP:AEROROUTES - could you please replace those sources? I don’t want to partially revert yet again, but they aren’t reliable sources. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 18:44, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN requires the person adding or restoring information to supply one (1) source that they (not you, not the rest of the community) believe is reliable. Once they've done that, BURDEN does not support removal of the material for being uncited (because it isn't, and BURDEN is about wholly uncited information, not about poorly cited information). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Anyway, once again we’re getting off topic - happy to continue discussing this on the relevant talk pages, but to get back to the topic under discussion here… do we have any other suggestions to amend the RfC before it’s started? And again, that’s not to discuss what we think should or shouldn’t be the outcome of the RfC, it’s to discuss the question to be asked. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 18:48, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Can you remind me what the current iteration of the question would be? I'm finding it a bit hard to follow this discussion to be honest JustARandomSquid (talk) 18:52, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I don’t blame you, it’s why I’m trying to bring it to a close… I’ve posted it again below - it’s based on @WhatamIdoing’s suggestion for an RfC question, along with a note about what “summary in prose” could actually look like. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 19:00, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Any more for any more, or should we go ahead with the RfC based on @WhatamIdoing’s section A, with a comment about prose based on the above? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:15, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

So will you be writing all of these prose sections, or just continuing to delete accurate and verifiable changes on sight? Reywas92^Talk 18:08, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

How shall we present information about destinations in articles about individual airports? In all cases, content must be verified by reliable sources.

1. The destination tables are fine (or I don't care, so default to what we've been doing for 20+ years).
2. Split very large destination tables into separate articles. For example, the large table in Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations would become a List of Heathrow Airport destinations, with a {{Main}} hatnote and a brief summary in the article about the airport. Such lists would normally be considered notable because airport destinations are discussed in independent reliable sources; any that weren't would be merged and redirected back into the airport article to WP:PRESERVE the information.
3. Replace large destination tables with a summary in prose that does not mention most individual destinations by name. Smaller destination tables may be retained (or not, as editors of that article choose). For example, the large table in Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations would be replaced by a paragraph saying that it has dozens of airlines and hundreds of destinations in dozens of countries; Wikipedia would no longer contain information about the individual destinations. However, Eastern Iowa Airport#Airlines and destinations, which lists less than 20 destinations, would be left alone (unless editors of that article preferred a different approach).
4. Replace every destination table with a summary in prose. For example, Durango–La Plata County Airport#Airlines and destinations has a small table listing two airlines and four destinations, and that would be replaced by two sentences naming the two airlines and four destinations.
5. All information about destinations should be excluded. For example, Kearney Regional Airport has exactly one airline (United Express) flying to only one destination (Denver, Colorado), and editors should be prohibited from mentioning the airline, the lone destination, the number of airlines, and the number of destinations anywhere in the article.

"Summaries in prose" could broadly take this form (not fixed and not in the scope of the RfC:

1. Start with a brief summary - eg. Wikipedia Airport is served by sixteen airlines, and has services to 16 countries / 3 continents. The latter would be flexible, and depend on the available sources. Primary sources such as the airport website would generally easily verify this.
2. Next, have a summary of route development, where this can be verified, including info such as when airlines start flying from the airport, significantly increase their service or cut services. eg:
   In 2019, Scottish Airlines started flying to Wikipedia Airport, with a service to Edinburgh.[ref] Subsequently, this service has expanded to include other Scottish cities.[ref]
   In 2020, English Airlines started serving Wikipedia Airport, with services to London Gatwick and Birmingham.[ref] The airline subsequently cut services, instead preferring to fly to Wikivoyage Airport.
3. Finally, where this can be sourced, have a list of statistics, such as that found at Tri-Cities Regional Airport#Statistics. Many articles already have this, and they are generally well sourced. It would help highlight how important/unimportant the airport is, especially if they can be developed further such as by adding graphs etc.

Danners430 _{tweaks made} 18:59, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Content-wise, except maybe removing option 5, I'm ok. Unless anyone with more experience writing RfC questions has any suggestions on style, that's fine, I think. JustARandomSquid (talk) 06:22, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

― Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 07:25, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm not convinced about stating affirmatively (in option 2) that [s]uch lists would normally be considered notable because airport destinations are discussed in independent reliable sources. Firstly, it isn't a given that a particular airport's destinations are discussed in a way that would pass WP:NLIST. Secondly, even if a given airport's destinations do pass NLIST, this option assumes that they also pass WP:NOT (which is the main question under discussion).

How about grouping the options:

1a: status quo, destination lists pass NOT

1b: status quo but with separate articles for large tables if and only if they also pass NLIST

2a: large tables fail NOT and should be summarised in prose, small tables are ok

2b: all tables fail NOT and should be summarised in prose

(with full wording closer to what you have, of course). Rosbif73 (talk) 15:30, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

While I wouldn't be opposed to this, I feel like it somewhat changes the question being asked, so I'd like to hear from others before we go ahead with this or stick with the previous option. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:32, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

There are two facets to the question: should we have such lists and how should we present them. My reasoning was that !voting 1 or 2 answers the first and !voting a or b answers the second. Rosbif73 (talk) 15:47, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I see your point... I'd be happy to go with that suggestion, but again I'll hold off until tomorrow just to let others have their say.

On a somewhat different topic, should the RfC be held here, or back at the main VPP page? I'd still be pinging anyone who contributed to this discussion, as the move to this page likely nuked their notification subscriptions. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 16:55, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

hold the RfC on the main page, for people that haven't seen this discussion. (also because this page already requires a fair amount of scrolling on mobile) ― Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 09:07, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Not just mobile… but Wilco - I’m just waiting on the discussion below playing out, as I’m still not convinced rosbif’s revised question is better as it seems to muddy the waters… Danners430 _{tweaks made} 09:11, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

I prefer the un-grouped version, because it would help keep the discussion on-topic. ― Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 09:23, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Fair enough (if you think we should avoid focusing on WP:NOT in the question). I do however strongly feel that we should either remove the sentence in option 2 starting Such lists would normally be considered notable because airport destinations are discussed in independent reliable sources, or change it to Such lists may be considered notable in their own right if the airport's destinations are discussed as a group in independent reliable sources (per WP:NLIST). Rosbif73 (talk) 09:52, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

No objection at all to that. Would you be happy then if I posted the version being discussed with that amendment, along with the explanation of what “summary in prose” could look like (collapsed under the RfC)? I’ll ping everyone who contributed to this thread. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 10:03, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

I recommend against focusing on WP:NOT in the question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:43, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Again, we just had a discussion earlier this year closed as clear consensus that these lists are not indiscriminate information and do not violate WP:NOT. It's inappropriate to suggest they don't pass it or restarting that again. Regarding option 2, I don't think anyone has ever recommended splitting these, so why suggest that now? — Reywas92^Talk 18:20, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Replacing tables with prose was the main alternative suggestion that seemed to garner plenty of support in the lengthy discussion above, and could potentially offer middle ground in this long-running polarised debate: there have been numerous RfCs over the years that have reached opposing conclusions as to compliance with WP:NOT. Rosbif73 (talk) 09:22, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Do we have a list of those RFCs? (I somehow formed the impression there weren't actually very many RFCs, and the argument was mostly "The RFC say that, whatever other faults may exist, it's not actually indiscriminate" vs "Yeah, well, we deleted a bunch of individual lists at AFD last year" – meaning that it's not RFCs on both sides.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

There have been a lot of discussions, but not many formal RFCs. These are the RFCs I found:

• (2016) Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airports/Archive_15#Request_for_comments_on_the_Airlines_and_destinations_tables
• (2017) Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airports/Archive_17#RfC_about_references_for_the_"Airlines_and_destinations"_tables
• (2021, withdrawn) Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_167#RfC:_Ariport_destination_tables, (part of this discussion)
• (2023) Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_187#RfC_on_the_"Airlines_and_destinations"_tables_in_airport_articles (see also the closure review request)

There have been a few RFCs on similar topics, such as

• (2018) Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_140#Should_Wikipedia_have_and_maintain_complete_lists_of_airline_destinations?
• (2017) Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Airports/Archive_16#Request_for_comment_on_terminal_information_in_airline_and_destination_tables

― Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 08:09, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

It looks like the RFCs on this subject have all ended with a consensus to retain the information/tables and improve sourcing. This doesn't seem like "reached opposing conclusions" to me. The trend I see is towards being more strident about the importance of sourcing compared to a decade ago, but that's not unique to airline destinations.

The 2018 RFC appears to have resulted in the deletion (or merging) of about 55% of the "List of ____ Airline destinations" articles (i.e., it claims 444 such articles existed then, and I see 198 pages in Category:Lists of airline destinations now). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

But they all must be deleted. People have invested too much time into this debate to let anything stand (sunk cost). ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 19:06, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

I think we've discussed enough now - time for the RfC itself... Danners430 _{tweaks made} 19:08, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

@Danners430, there seems to be an RFC at WT:NOT on a similar subject, and I think we might want to wait a few days to see whether that could get closed early. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:15, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Oh interesting… I might meander over there Danners430 _{tweaks made} 19:18, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. I hope you'll comment (it's a narrower and weirder question than this one), but even if you don't, it's a good opportunity to figure out if there are any problems we could avoid in this one.

The usual rule is that RFCs should normally be allowed to run for at least a week, but I am somewhat hoping that at approximately 7 days and 1 minute, someone will suggest that that RFC could be ripe for early closure. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Comment: I haven't read this extremely long discussion and the RfC I've opened is definitely not an attempt to override anything that has been planned here. To respond to @WhatamIdoing, per WP:RFCEND, I would like the RfC to run for the full 30 days, a fortnight at a minimum. WP:DESTNOT was allowed to run for about a month before being closed by a non-admin, despite being a very contentious topic. I have requested for the new RfC to be closed by an uninvolved administrator, to make sure everything is as neutral and fair as possible. Any RfC that takes place after, as a result of the discussion here, will be separate to the current one. 11WB (talk) 22:21, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

@11WB, closing requests should be made at Wikipedia:Closure requests, but it's customary to not make the request until an RFC has been open for at least a week (exceptions exist) and until the discussion has died down. Most RFCs get most of their comments during the first few days. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:43, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

The whole subject is so contentious, I don't think there is a length of time everyone will be happy with. 30 days is probably the safest length of time. 11WB (talk) 22:48, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

I would normally recommend that editors consider ending an RFC if there have been no comments for a few days. And, of course, if it's WP:SNOWING, especially if the person who suggests an early closure is on the "losing" side. This is addressed in the FAQ at the top of WT:RFC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:56, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Happy to discuss this elsewhere. Typing on this thread lags my device. 11WB (talk) 22:59, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Sure, feel free to leave a note on my User talk: page if you want to talk to me, or at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment if you'd like others to join. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Post-WT:NOT RfC proposals

OK, I'm still holding off on opening this RfC due to the ongoing RfC at WT:NOT - however, that discussion and another related discussion at WP:RSN are bringing forth a number of calls for a broad RfC, which this was intended to be. I'm proposing therefore that when this does eventually go ahead, we include multiple questions, as per User:FOARP's suggestion. I'm also, and I apologise for this, reintroducing the concept of WP:NOT into the RfC, due to the comments left by editors at the existing RfC wishing to have a broader discussion on the subject. However, I've tried to incorporate this into the existing agreed-upon RfC format in such a way so that the options remain the same. As always, I'm very much open to suggestions here - and while I personally may hold an opinion, I feel that my duty as the person constructing this RfC is to ensure that everyone's views are heard and incorporated (indeed, it's RfC policy!).

Airport destination lists: Do they violate WP:NOT, and if not then how should they be presented, what sources are acceptable, and what's required to remove routes?

A. How shall we present information about destinations in articles about individual airports?

Background: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Airport destination lists.^[a]

1. Does not violate WP:NOT - the destination tables are fine (or I don't care, so default to what we've been doing for 20+ years).
2. Does not violate WP:NOT - split very large destination tables into separate articles. For example, the large table in Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations would become a List of Heathrow Airport destinations, with a {{Main}} hatnote and a brief summary in the article about the airport. Such lists would normally be considered notable provided that the airport destinations are discussed as a set in independent reliable sources; any that weren't would be merged and redirected back into the airport article to WP:PRESERVE the information.
3. Large destination tables violate WP:NOT - replace large destination tables with a summary in prose that does not mention most individual destinations by name. Smaller destination tables may be retained (or not, as editors of that article choose). For example, the large table in Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations would be replaced by a paragraph saying that it has dozens of airlines and hundreds of destinations in dozens of countries; Wikipedia would no longer contain information about the individual destinations. However, Eastern Iowa Airport#Airlines and destinations, which lists less than 20 destinations, would be left alone (unless editors of that article preferred a different approach).
4. All destination tables violate WP:NOT - replace every destination table with a summary in prose. For example, Durango–La Plata County Airport#Airlines and destinations has a small table listing two airlines and four destinations, and that would be replaced by two sentences naming the two airlines and four destinations.
5. The concept of destination lists violates WP:NOT - all information about destinations reachable from an airport should be excluded. For example, Kearney Regional Airport has exactly one airline (United Express) flying to only one destination (Denver, Colorado), and editors should be prohibited from mentioning the airline, the lone destination, the number of airlines, and the number of destinations anywhere in the article.

More information "Summaries in prose" could broadly take this form (not fixed and not in the scope of the RfC: ...

"Summaries in prose" could broadly take this form (not fixed and not in the scope of the RfC:

Start with a brief summary - eg. Wikipedia Airport is served by sixteen airlines, and has services to 16 countries / 3 continents. The latter would be flexible, and depend on the available sources. Primary sources such as the airport website would generally easily verify this. Next, have a summary of route development, where this can be verified, including info such as when airlines start flying from the airport, significantly increase their service or cut services. eg: In 2019, Scottish Airlines started flying to Wikipedia Airport, with a service to Edinburgh.[ref] Subsequently, this service has expanded to include other Scottish cities.[ref] In 2020, English Airlines started serving Wikipedia Airport, with services to London Gatwick and Birmingham.[ref] The airline subsequently cut services, instead preferring to fly to Wikivoyage Airport. Finally, where this can be sourced, have a list of statistics, such as that found at Tri-Cities Regional Airport#Statistics. Many articles already have this, and they are generally well sourced. It would help highlight how important/unimportant the airport is, especially if they can be developed further such as by adding graphs etc.

Close

B. Are lists of airline services required to cite secondary, independent, reliable sources?

Background - current guidance at WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT reads airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE, which is a summary of this RfC. However, this is resulting in incomplete lists due to many independent sources turning out to be unreliable due to unrelated reasons - for example Aeroroutes and WP:RSN#Flightconnections, Flightradar24 and FlightsFrom - reliable to verify airline routes?^[b]. The question therefore is whether we should drop the requirement to use only independent, reliable, secondary sources to permit the use of primary sources, such as airport/airline websites/press releases?

1. No change - keep the requirement for routes to be sourced with independent, reliable, secondary sources, and remove primary sources from destination lists and summaries
2. Permit primary sources - drop the requirement for routes to be sourced with independent, reliable, secondary sources, and permit the use of reliable primary sources such as airport/airline websites/press releases. WP:RS will still apply.

C. Is it Original Research to say that an airline service that was previously announced but is now no longer listed, with no statement saying it has been terminated, has been "terminated"?

1. No. Routes can be removed at any time by anyone if there is no source available stating the continuity of the route.
2. No, but... Routes can be removed at any time by anyone, but the remover must provide evidence in some form as to why they have removed the route (eg. a link to the booking page showing it no longer being available).
3. Yes. Routes should only be removed if they are unsourced or there is a reliable source stating that the route has ended.
4. Yes, and require references for continuity - Routes should be sourced with sources that show the route's continued operation, which therefore can also be used to verify the route's termination. WP:RS still applies.

Danners430 _{tweaks made} 11:20, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

This is far better than anything I've seen on the issue, kudos! Personally, I think that WP:NOT has been discussed ad nauseum, however there are going to be editors who appreciate the opportunity to weigh in on an in-depth RfC like this one. I don't know when the NOT RfC will be formally closed. I would recommend having a period of up to a week before starting this one, as otherwise some might feel fatigued. I've gotten a sense of weariness from others regarding this whole issue, so hopefully (though nothing is set in stone) this closes it for good. 11WB (talk) 11:38, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, personally I also agree that the NOT question is long in the tooth... but there are a fair few editors that commented on your RfC that wanted to see a broader RfC on the topic... so that's why I've added it. Like I said above, I tried to incorporate it into the already-agreed upon question in a sympathetic manner, so that it can try and satisfy both sides of the fence. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 11:40, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks again for taking this forward. I'll simply repeat/adapt my previous comment that in question A option 2, it would be better to say that Such lists would normally be considered notable in their own right provided that the airport's destinations are discussed as a set in independent reliable sources.

I also worry that asking all three of these questions in a single RfC is liable to confuse matters, à la WP:TRAINWRECK... Rosbif73 (talk) 12:42, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

I think I must have missed your comment - I'll amend A2 just now!

As for combining the questions, that was @FOARP's recommendation... they felt that if we split them into multiple RfCs, people would (quite understandably) get frustrated at repeated RfCs on effectively the same topic. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:44, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Just a thought - perhaps splitting it up slightly, by having separated discussion and voting sections for each of the three questions, would help focus the discussion? It would effectively become three "sub-RfCs", but without holding three separate RfC independently... Another option of course could be to hold three separate RfCs, just at the same time and in the same venue - one above the other. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:49, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

I'd like to agree with @Rosbif73, except that "discussed as a set" is a concept that editors basically don't have a shared understanding about. Editors take differing and sometimes extreme views of what that means. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:01, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

This seems to be a good compromise between smooshing all three issues together (and ending up with not-very-satisfying answers to any of them), and holding three entire separate RfCs (and everyone getting thoroughly sick of talking about it). My only question is: how would voting/answering work? Just put A4, B1, C2 ? (*reads further* oh, putting the votes/answers in separate sections sounds good) ― Tosca-the-engineer (talk) 13:44, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Aye, just have one heading with a bit of background (links to the discussions, previous RfC etc.), then three sub-headings - one per RfC header. That way everything’s separated but kept together Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:51, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

@Danners430, thanks for giving this so much thought and work. I’ll share now that I think the draft above could be improved in clarity as to what you are proposing and what the implications would be. It reads a bit like you want to revisit the NOT question. It also reads like you are proposing sourcing criteria that is already on this project page.

I appreciate your attempt to be neutral, but I think you’ve gone a tad past neutral and entered into murky territory. It should be crystal clear what the resulting action would be should your proposal achieve consensus.

I hope that’s helpful feedback. Dw31415 (talk) 18:26, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

I have to admit I fail to an extent to see what you mean? I wonder perhaps if what’s needed is a better explanation of the specific problem being discussed, that being the terrible sourcing of these lists, and editors having a desire to remove them as a result… would this help? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 21:03, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

@Dw31415, the feedback you've given actually represents how former RfCs (such as the one I set up) were put together. @Danners430 has done an impeccable job of including many different issues in one post. They have take on feedback from @FOARP, @WhatamIdoing, and previous responses given in RfCs such as WP:DESTNOT. This talk page, which is coming up to two months old, is proof they have done their best to make sure this RfC is as respectful to the issue as is possible. They have included NOT because that is the primary area of disagreement among editors regarding these lists, however also included sourcing, which is actually my main area of concern. @FOARP's recent AfDs tracked serious sourcing problems. I don't know any way that this proposal could possibly be improved beyond what has already been put together. 11WB (talk) 21:16, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

@Danners430, thanks for considering. I’ll see if I can put it more coherently later. In the meantime I’d say @WhatamIdoing is very experienced and respected so if you’re following their guidance you’re probably in pretty good shape.

I’m an incrementalist, so I’d recommend you pick specifically at what you think is the weakest content (or case). Be specific about whether you are proposing change to a guideline or specific articles.

Remember that it is your RfC (I think that’s the way it’s leaning) and you should be confident that you’re proposing a clear, actionable change that will improve WP.

Thanks again for all the work on this. Dw31415 (talk) 22:13, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

About B:

I hesitate to frame the question as keep/drop the current state, as what we really want to know is "what it should be" rather than "how it should change". I'm also concerned that editors don't really understand how other editors will interpret their responses. I suggest:

1. Clarify whether you're talking only about Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists or also about WP:EMBEDDED lists. We might want "SIGCOV SIRS" for a stand-alone list but not for a sentence/list/table in an article.
2. Ask about the characteristics of the sources separately. Do editors really need secondary sources (e.g., analytical pieces)? Independent sources (e.g., local newspapers, national government agencies)? Do they agree on what those mean in practice? For example, will they accept a local newspaper article announcing the new route (independent+primary)? A local newspaper article that analyzes why the new route is important (independent+secondary)? A peer-reviewed scholarly paper written by an airport employee about the effects of various routes on the local economy (non-independent+primary)? A list of destinations reachable on the airport's website (non-independent+primary)? A list of destinations reachable on the local Chamber of Commerce or tourism board website (independent+primary)?
3. Consider presenting the question as a comparison to ordinary rules, instead of a comparison against the 2023 RFC. This would mean asking something like this: "If an article about an airport has a ==Section== containing information about destinations that passengers can fly to, should that information be cited according to the normal sourcing rules (which, e.g., permit some use of non-independent and primary sources), to a higher standard, or to a lower standard?"

WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Another way to ask about sources would be to give several examples (e.g., newspaper article, flight tracking website, airport website, etc.) and ask which ones are acceptable to support a given type of information in an article. The idea appeals to me because it would be super practical for future editors, but I think it would add too much complexity to an already multi-part RFC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:12, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I'll go away and have a think about this when I'm not mid-meeting at work :-) Danners430 _{tweaks made} 10:53, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

OK, given it a bit of thought - how about the following as a replacement for section B:

B. What sourcing standard should be applied to cite airline routes?

Background - at present, guidance for airline routes is that airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. This guideline does of course differ from normal Wikipedia policy, which states that primary sources are perfectly acceptable, provided they otherwise meet WP:RS. On the other hand, requiring secondary sources does ensure that each route is in itself notable. Therefore, what should be applied for routes? Note - this question applies equally to standalone airport route list pages, and route lists embedded into airport articles, however some options would only apply if it's decided to keep full route tables in question A.

1. Allow all reliable sources (WP:RS applies with no alterations)
   • This would include an airline's own website, press releases, and an airport's own website.
   • Note - this would not apply if it's decided to remove full route lists and only summarise routes, as summaries would require notability to be established.
   • Excluded sources:
     • Unreliable sources per WP:RS
2. Allow all reliable sources, with exclusions
   • As with option one, this would allow the use of an airport or airline as a primary source; however, only press releases or announcements would be permitted - an airline's dynamically-updating route map or an airport's destination list would be excluded with this option.
   • Note - as with option 1, this would not apply if it's decided to remove full route lists and only summarise routes, as summaries would require notability to be established.
   • Excluded sources:
     • Unreliable sources per WP:RS
     • An airport's destinations map or list
     • An airline's route map
     • An airline's booking page
   • Explicitly included sources:
     • Airport press releases
     • Airline press releases
3. Disallow airport and airline primary sources
   • Normal WP:RS applies, however the airline and airport in question cannot be used as primary sources.
   • Excluded sources:
     • Unreliable sources per WP:RS
     • Any source from the airport(s) in question
     • Any source from the airline(s) in question
4. Require secondary sourcing (news only)
   • This means only news articles published by independent news outlets are permitted, meaning that media reports must be used, such as newspaper stories or articles on news websites.
   • Announcements made by, for example, government agencies or local community groups would be excluded in this option, as would any websites that republish or reformat data from airlines (eg. websites dedicated to finding airline routes or flight trackers) and travel agencies.
   • Excluded sources:
     • Unreliable sources per WP:RS
     • Any source from the airport(s) in question
     • Any source from the airline(s) in question
     • Announcements from government agencies
     • Announcements from local community groups
     • Announcements, articles or pages from airline data aggregator websites (such as Flightsfrom)
     • Announcements, articles or pages from booking or travel agencies

Thoughts? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 16:06, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I really think we need to keep RFC questions to a single sentence. This is far too complex. FOARP (talk) 13:40, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

I feel like there are competing suggestions here from yourself and @WhatamIdoing - not that that's a bad thing, just something that needs to be figured out :-) Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:44, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Agree with FOARP that this is too complex; I fear it would be WP:TLDR territory for many editors. In any case, my personal inclination (despite the concerns that have been expressed about RfC overload) would be to ask this question only after consensus is reached on whether we should continue to have destination lists at all. Rosbif73 (talk) 15:01, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm open to all three options - those being the simpler question asked above, the expanded question B, or asking questions B and C separately after question A... I personally don't know what the correct solution is. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:06, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that RFC questions need to be limited to a single sentence, but I do think that asking three complex questions in the same RFC is suboptimal.

I'm also concerned in question A about the Double-barreled question: For (e.g.,) #4, "All destination tables violate WP:NOT - replace every destination table with a summary in prose", you are asking me to agree to two separate things. What if I agree with one and disagree with another? What if my actual POV is that destination tables never violate NOT, and I think we should replace them with a summary in prose purely for stylistic reasons? Or that only some destination tables violate NOT, and I think we should replace every destination table with a summary in prose because tables are awkward to read on a smartphone? How do you expect me to vote? "A4, except not the first half of it"?

I think the NOT stuff should be removed, and whoever suggested it to you should be told that they are allowed to give their own reasons in their reply (e.g., "A4 because I believe saying that United Express flies from this little airport to their Denver hub in a table is is a NOT violation, but saying the exactly same thing in a sentence isn't"). Or if they want to have another go at "Is every single one of these a NOT violation?", then that should be a separate question/separate RFC.

(If any decides to have an RFC specifically on whether airport connection information is a NOT violation, then I suggest forcing editors to deal with reality [because left to their own devices, Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions]. That means a question that sounds something like this:

"Kearney Regional Airport#Airline and destinations contains an airline destination table that lists all of the airlines offering scheduled passenger service at this airport, and all of the destinations reachable via nonstop flight from the airport. Some editors have objected to including this information because the lists are too long, too complicated, and change too frequently. Here is a copy of the table in its entirety:

More information Airlines, Destinations ...

Airlines	Destinations
United Express	Denver[1]

Close

It has not changed since 2018.

In your opinion, is naming the lone airline and its sole destination an example of "indiscriminate" information? Does this look like a travel guide to you? Is there anything in this table that makes you think that these are facts that Wikipedia should not have at all?"

Suggested responses include:

• Of course there's nothing wrong with that.
• Of course there's nothing wrong with that, though that might not be true for larger airports.
• Of course there's nothing wrong with that, though that is definitely not true for larger airports.
• There's nothing wrong with having those facts in the article, but I'd rather see it written as a sentence instead of a table.

) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:33, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Quick note about "Require secondary sourcing (news only)": Newspaper sources aren't all secondary, and "only news articles published by independent news outlets are permitted" means no scholarly sources or books, which I suspect is an unintended effect. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

OK, I've given this some thought... I think it's worth the risk to have two separate RfCs, one after the other - Only the RfC on the inclusion of destination lists initially, for the sake of simplicity. It may well be that the outcome of that RfC means the question about which sources to use becomes redundant - if we decide to summarise in prose, then the use of secondary sources to establish notability becomes inherent... the question is only really needed if it's decided to keep some or all lists as lists.

With that in mind, I'll post a (hopefully) final draft of the RfC below shortly. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 21:53, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Hopefully final draft of the cut-down RfC...

Airport destination lists: Should airport articles list full and complete lists of destinations reachable from the airport, or to what extent should they be curtailed?

Background: Airport destination lists have been a reasonably heavy point of contention in recent months, due to the poor (in many cases) sourcing of these lists, and the constant churn of content being added and removed, often without reliable sources. It got to the stage at one point where editors in this ANI thread were so tired that comments like Not a month goes by that we don't get a report here of some cosmic struggle over lists of destinations reachable from various airports. were left. As a result, a discussion was opened at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Airport destination lists.^[a]

As a result of that discussion, the following options were developed as ways forward for airport destinations lists. Note that in every instance, WP:V still applies, and routes must be sourced with reliable sources. Additionally, if it is decided to retain some form of destination tables, it is my intention to have a further RfC to agree upon sourcing requirements for these tables.

1. Airport articles should contain comprehensive lists of routes flown from that airport (or I don't care, so default to what we've been doing for 20+ years).
2. Split very large destination tables into separate articles, and retain smaller destination tables in airport articles. For example, the large table in Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations would become a List of Heathrow Airport destinations, with a {{Main}} hatnote and a brief summary in the article about the airport. Such lists would normally be considered notable provided that the airport destinations are discussed as a set in independent reliable sources; any that weren't would be merged and redirected back into the airport article to WP:PRESERVE the information.
3. Replace large destination tables with a summary in prose that does not mention most individual destinations by name. Smaller destination tables may be retained (or not, as editors of that article choose). For example, the large table in Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations would be replaced by a paragraph saying that it has dozens of airlines and hundreds of destinations in dozens of countries; Wikipedia would no longer contain information about the individual destinations. However, Eastern Iowa Airport#Airlines and destinations, which lists less than 20 destinations, would be left alone (unless editors of that article preferred a different approach).
4. Replace every destination table with a summary in prose. For example, Durango–La Plata County Airport#Airlines and destinations has a small table listing two airlines and four destinations, and that would be replaced by two sentences naming the two airlines and four destinations, and larger airports would have longer, potentially multi-paragraph summaries.
5. The concept of destination lists violates WP:NOT - all information about destinations reachable from an airport should be excluded. For example, Kearney Regional Airport has exactly one airline (United Express) flying to only one destination (Denver, Colorado), and editors should be prohibited from mentioning the airline, the lone destination, the number of airlines, and the number of destinations anywhere in the article.

More information "Summaries in prose" could broadly take this form (not fixed and not in the scope of the RfC): ...

"Summaries in prose" could broadly take this form (not fixed and not in the scope of the RfC):

Start with a brief summary - eg. Wikipedia Airport is served by sixteen airlines, and has services to 16 countries / 3 continents. The latter would be flexible, and depend on the available sources. Primary sources such as the airport website would generally easily verify this. Next, have a summary of route development, where this can be verified, including info such as when airlines start flying from the airport, significantly increase their service or cut services. eg: In 2019, Scottish Airlines started flying to Wikipedia Airport, with a service to Edinburgh.[ref] Subsequently, this service has expanded to include other Scottish cities.[ref] In 2020, English Airlines started serving Wikipedia Airport, with services to London Gatwick and Birmingham.[ref] The airline subsequently cut services, instead preferring to fly to Wikivoyage Airport. Finally, where this can be sourced, have a list of statistics, such as that found at Tri-Cities Regional Airport#Statistics. Many articles already have this, and they are generally well sourced. It would help highlight how important/unimportant the airport is, especially if they can be developed further such as by adding graphs etc. Note - any individual routes that are specifically listed in a summary, should be sourced with reliable secondary sources, sufficient to satisfy WP:NOTABILITY.

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Danners430 _{tweaks made} 22:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I think that "The concept of destination lists violates WP:NOT" should be removed from #5 as well. It's the double-barrelled question problem again (What if someone believes that all information about destinations reachable from an airport should be excluded, but WP:NOT is irrelevant to their rationale?).

Other than that, I think it's ready to go. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Is the (or I don't care, so default to what we've been doing for 20+ years) intended to be part of the final text? People who don't care probably won't !vote ;-) and the 20+ years bit doesn't come across as very neutral. How about replacing this parenthetical with "(i.e. the status quo for most airport articles)"? Rosbif73 (talk) 07:31, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I agree, this biased text needs deleting before any rfc can take place. It's certainly not neutral in anyway whatsoever. Dootfish (talk) 13:13, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

That's fair enough - ironically it's the opposite of my personal view! It was intended to be somewhat dismissive, as there will (completely understandably) be editors who think the RfC is a waste of time and nothing needs to change - which is a completely legitimate view!

What about Airport articles should contain comprehensive lists of routes flown from that airport - No change required, carry on with what we've always done. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:17, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

...I don't understand this @Dootfish. @Danners430 has worked exceptionally hard, with multiple rewrites to make this RfC as neutral and well-written as possible. Perhaps an alternative way of saying 'I don't care' would be using the word 'indifferent' instead? 11WB (talk) 13:19, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Just because I've worked hard doesn't mean it can't still be improved :D If I didn't want constructive feedback, I wouldn't be posting here and I'd just post the RfC...! Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:20, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Of course! I was just confused as to where the bias is, as to me it doesn't read that way. 11WB (talk) 13:29, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Lol I was confused at first too, given my personal view (which is pretty clear if you read the first few paragraphs of the original discussion) is that these tables should be nuked from orbit - but personal views are one thing, and a balanced RfC for the community to discuss is another. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:46, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I'd keep the parenthetical comment short and sweet: "(no change)" or "(status quo)". And let me reiterate @11WB's point: thank you, @Danners430, for your hard work on all these rewrites and your patience with multiple iterations of suggested changes. Rosbif73 (talk) 13:37, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Airport articles should contain comprehensive lists of routes flown from that airport (No change)? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:43, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

The problem with just "no change" or "status quo" is that people may have different ideas of what that means. But in combination with the bold text (as in Danners430's suggestion), I think it would be okay.

@Dootfish, is your objection to "default to what we've been doing for 20+ years" that you don't want RFC participants to know that's what we've been doing for 20+ years? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:05, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

@Danners430, just a quick note to say that I was thinking about this today, and that I really like your sentence that Additionally, if it is decided to retain some form of destination tables, it is my intention to have a further RfC to agree upon sourcing requirements for these tables. I think that's important. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Aye, I think it’s a good compromise solution - make the intent clear from the start. The issue at hand is the inclusion of destination tables, specifically because of the state of sourcing in them. So the intent is to discuss what needs discussing in terms of these tables - first do we want them in their current form, and if we do then how should we source them. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 19:25, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

I think some editors don't actually care about the state of sourcing in the tables. They're bad because they're inherently bad, and they'll stay bad even if every entry is supported by an independent newspaper article and a government report analyzing it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Well put it this way… even if nothing changes at all in terms of policy, the sourcing will improve - I’m actively working to remove the unsourced content in these tables. So if they don’t care, they’ll be forced to - because after all, WP:V is fundamental policy. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 21:48, 5 December 2025 (UTC)