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)[reply]

  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Yep, that works fine if you apply it to all the callers manually. --Joy (talk) 19:21, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Notified: Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation and Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force. Aviationwikiflight (talk) 16:42, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
@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 [1] can be 'very harmful'. If I've missed something, then please explain in detail. --Deeday-UK (talk) 23:41, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

Could we move the mapframe and coordinates to the bottom of the infobox?

I think especially when there are already images of aircraft wreckage and the aircraft involved, adding the map makes it more cluttered. Maybe move the map to below the fatalities, injuries, and survivor numbers? We could have another dark blue box where it says location then put the map below that. How about this proposal? Zaptain United (talk) 02:05, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think having a new blue header called Location at the bottom of the infobox with the map and the coordinates would make it look better. Zaptain United (talk) 02:08, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense to me, though placing it underneath the Site description as advised by @Deeday-UK also seemed fine. Would we move the Site to the bottom then, too?
I was thinking of adding the blue "Location" header too (I left room for it, commented out), but the corollary was that we'd have to add a blue header for the next few data points, the Total fatalities etc. How would we call that section? Maybe "Impact"?
Should we make the impact section be above location? --Joy (talk) 07:14, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose moving the map further: the Site is one of the most important pieces of information of any event – that's why it's close to the top – and putting the map next to it just makes the most sense. Yes, this infobox is getting crowded (for good reasons), but I don't see how moving the map at the bottom could improve things, even worse with yet another blue header that will make the box even taller. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 07:34, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean the map frame is already making the infobox longer. We could add a blue header called Site or Location with the location, coordinates, and the map being in it. It doesn't have to be at the bottom of the infobox. Maybe, include that header between the occurrence type and aircraft like it currently is, but add a a new blue header or we could move it on the bottom. I just think a new blue header would be good for the map. Zaptain United (talk) 02:39, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Let's introduce changes incrementally, shall we. Let's add the map first and see how it goes down with the wider community. Adding a new header or section can be done at any time, with a single change to the template source code (by anyone with enough privileges to do that). -- Deeday-UK (talk) 09:27, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The maps have been live since October 19. I'm not sure how do we gauge the interest of the wider community. Maybe some posts to WP:VP? (It's already posted to WT:AATF.) --Joy (talk) 14:21, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would like to note one thing for maps. For articles that don't have coordinates in the infobox such as China Airlines Flight 006 and Olympic Airways Flight 411, a map is still displayed that often doesn't make sense (on the Olympic Airways article, the marker is nowhere near Athens which is where the incident happened, for instance). There should be a way to disable the map entirely or have it not show when there are no coordinates. RandomInfinity17 (talk - contributions)
    The reason those maps don't make sense is that the coordinates locations don't match the captions - in one case it says the site is near San Francisco, but the marker is near Tijuana; in the other case the site is Athens, but the marker is near Samos. These problems should be addressed on a case by case basis - maybe showing a map doesn't make sense at all, but also maybe the description simply needs to be made consistent. --Joy (talk) 13:28, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mapframe caption

I recently added a default mapframe caption to the mapframe here. Did NOT realize that this was a new addition (I'm working across multiple templates at the moment). I have mocked this change up in the sandbox and it can be viewed in the testcases. All this does is add a caption to the mapframe that says "Interactive map of name" (Name will be usually be the page name). If this is desired for this mapframe it can easily be added by copying the code from the sandbox. Obviously if the mapframe gets moved down as per the above discussion, the caption would go with it. Also note that you can always override the caption by specifying |mapframe-caption=Caption on the given page, which currently works as well. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 04:19, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A caption can be useful. Not sure that specific example is though. When I read "Interactive map of TWA Flight 800", I think a few things. It might be the flight path taken by TWA 800; it might be some kind of interactive map with locations and labels showing me information. But the current map in the example is just a single dot on the map. The map is also barely "interactive" in that I can move the map and that's it. So yes to captions, probably no to a default caption if that is the best we can do. Gonnym (talk) 17:07, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A caption that reads "Interactive map of <PAGE TITLE>" is rather useless, if you ask me. It's pretty obvious that what the reader is looking at is a map, and it's understood that it will be about the site of the event in question, coming right after the Site parameter. Plus it's not that interactive either (it's just a clickable image, not unlike any other image on WP).
I don't have a problem with adding a map caption feature to the infobox, but the default value should be blank. I would expect the vast majority of articles not to require any map caption. In those rare cases where there's something non-obvious about the map (idk, a map with more than one pin), then a caption may be added. -- Deeday-UK (talk) 19:01, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Infobox_aircraft_occurrence