Template talk:Infobox aircraft occurrence

maps

I've implemented the vaguely standard mapframe in {{Infobox aircraft occurrence/sandbox}}. The current {{Infobox aircraft occurrence/testcases}} include a number of coordinates and therefore render maps.

Template Parameters tool report for this template shows 1,498 calls to the template with the coordinates parameter included. Search finds me 129 calls to both this template and {{location map}}.

This seems to match my general expectation that one of the basic questions the average reader can have when they see 'aircraft occurrence' is - where?

I looked for previous discussions on whether maps are necessary. In /Archive 1#Maps there were two positive comments in 2011, one in 2014, one in 2016, one in 2017. In /Archive 2#Maps there was one positive and one negative comment in 2020.

The 2014 one was a draft implementation in fact, but it was unceremoniously abandoned a few months later, seemingly by accident. Pity.

I find this history of interest in maps generally indicative of a broad consensus that we should allow for maps. But because there was one indication of dissent in the most recent discussion, I'm bringing this up here just in case. Well, five years ago, but still.

I've noticed that there might be a somewhat common issue with water incidents - in those sorts of cases, the mapframe might just show a bland blue map of water by default. I set the default {{coord#type:T}} to event, but if the occurrence happened far enough from the shore, the map will by default not show context. I don't know that we have a mechanism to automatically detect this situation and zoom out, sadly.

In those cases, it will be necessary to add e.g. |mapframe-zoom=5 or similar to zoom out and show some useful geographical context. This sort of a parameter isn't hugely well known among editors, but Wikipedia:Mapframe maps in infoboxes deployment has been going on for many years now, so I don't expect complete confusion. It's rather uniform and relatively straightforward.

Worst case, the onByDefault parameter can be dropped. --Joy (talk) 23:41, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

• Support, definitely, but with two modifications:

1. Move the map down, right after the Site parameter: it avoids clustering together unrelated images, beside being the most logical place where to put the map.
2. Omit the actual co-ordinates from the infobox (only leave them at the top of the article, next to the title), which are made all but redundant by the map itself. Omitting them saves one unnecessary line in an already elongated infobox.

Other than that, it looks pretty neat, thumbs up. --Deeday-UK (talk) 12:09, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

About the placement, sure.

The second part is not strictly related to the original proposal, and involves adding some code to edit the |display= value inside the coord tag, I've seen it elsewhere but haven't done it myself so that'll have to be a separate little project. --Joy (talk) 12:14, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Then what I said would mean using |display=title instead of |display=inline,title whenever a map is included in the infobox, so that the co-ordinates will be displayed only at the top of the article. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 19:13, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Yep, that works fine if you apply it to all the callers manually. --Joy (talk) 19:21, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

I went through most of Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in international airspace and made adjustments for those zoom issues. --Joy (talk) 12:51, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

In retrospect I think we want to override the default zoom provided by type = event, to zoom out further, because the typical aircraft accidents, both on land and on water, tend to be on very bland map tiles. --Joy (talk) 15:51, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation and Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 16:42, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

I also went through searches of hastemplate:"Infobox aircraft occurrence" hastemplate:"Location map" and hastemplate:"Infobox aircraft occurrence" hastemplate:"OSM Location map" and found a variety of blander maps that were easily replaced with this new functionality. --Joy (talk) 19:40, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

I am not sure that a map adds much value to the article, if anybody want to know were it is they can follow the co-ordinates link to loads of mapping options. MilborneOne (talk) 17:20, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

I've edited the documentation to clarify when display=inline,title should be used, as I mentioned above. --Deeday-UK (talk) 10:29, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

This is very harmful, Removing the coordinates from the infobox removes them from the embedded hCard microformat metadata.

This is explained in detail at Template:Infobox aircraft occurrence#Microformats, which applies to all Wikipedia's indoboxes for geo-locatable subjects, and I'm not clear why that was ignored. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:14, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing:, I'm not sure your point is correct: while the co-ordinates are omitted from the infobox, they are still displayed at the top of the article, with all the microformats still there, so I don't see how the template guidelines that you reverted can be 'very harmful'. If I've missed something, then please explain in detail. --Deeday-UK (talk) 23:41, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I see that now, and I withdraw my objection on that basis.

I still object on the basis that this is something that should be decided on a Wikipedia-wide basis, keeping infoboxes standardised where practical, rather than for a single infobox (or single topic); and certainly not from a discussion with only two people agreeing. Also because infoboxes are supposed to summarise key facts and the coordinates are a key fact. If I'm in the minority on that, so be it, but I'd prefer to see wider discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:24, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Oh, if you're referring to me as the second person, I was merely commenting on the technical topic of how to modify the coordinates template, but I don't actually think that removing the coordinates from the infobox is a necessarily good idea. It just wasn't my focus at the time, because I was more interested in figuring out the map thumbnail. --Joy (talk) 19:25, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

I was. So there doesn't appear to be any consensus for the change. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:29, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

On my talk page, Deeday-UK asks "So what do you mean that the matter "should be decided on a Wikipedia-wide basis": through an RfC or something else?"

Through wider, more centralised, discussion; with an RfC if necessary. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:51, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Should livery changes be mentioned in the caption for the aircraft involved?

After a few recent disputes, I was wondering if livery changes should be mentioned in the caption? I think they should be mentioned especially when the livery is completely different. Take for example Air Illinois Flight 710, where for the longest time it had an image of the plane in the green and blue livery, but it crashed in the red livery. I will accept not including "previous livery" in the caption if that is the consensus, but I think even if it goes that way, we should maybe carve out a exception for if there is no pre-crash image of the aircraft in the current livery like Air Canada Flight 797 and still seek to replace the image of the aircraft in the previous livery on the article. My proposal is maybe adding a rule in the caption section for the aircraft involved, in which it states that if the aircraft image is in a previous livery, the caption should have to mention it if there is good enough proof. Zaptain United (talk) 21:05, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I will ping editors if no one replies or it is someone who is involved with the dispute. Zaptain United (talk) 21:17, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

@Zaptain United, please don't start discussions on the same subject in two places at the same time; one is plenty. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 21:52, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Additional parameter

I'm currently working on expanding the article on LOT Polish Airlines Flight 703 and I've encountered a problem that involves the infobox. The flight carried 29 occupants, however newspaper articles conflict on whether two officers are either crew members or passengers. If we discard the officers, there would be 23 passengers and 4 crew members, however some articles state that the two officers were crew members, which would bring the crew count to 6, while others state that they were passengers, which would bring the passenger count to 25. I was wondering whether or not it would be possible to create a parameter (or variations of it) that would be able to address this issue, so a |Officers=2 sort of parameter. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 03:57, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

It makes little sense to introduce an infobox parameter that will be used in a single article. Why not just add a footnote to the figure (like Occupants: 29^[a]) and explain there the uncertainties about the crew member count? -- Deeday-UK (talk) 16:37, 23 February 2026 (UTC)