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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paragliding fatalities

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. There's clear consensus, with which i ageee. If this list is not unencyclopedic, nothing is. I do agree with a comment below that that main article on the sport is written in non-neutral terms, almost promotional. I may give it some copyediting. But a fork like this isn't the way to deal with it. DGG ( talk ) 22:47, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Paragliding fatalities and injurious incidents

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NOTE: Article was moved to Paragliding fatalities Joefaust (talk) 21:00, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Article and AfD started at the title in the header; they have since been moved to the title in the note above and data below. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:04, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Paragliding fatalities (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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This article is essentially a non-neutral WP:POVFORK of Paragliding. WP:UNDUE says we shouldn't give a particular issue more prominence than it deserves; here, we're giving prominence to paragliding deaths by giving it a whole article. Currently on Talk:Paragliding involved editors are trying to work out how to include summary information on all paragliding fatalities, and that's all we should include. We do not have articles like this on other sports. I know, WP:OTHERSTUFF isn't a good argument, but it helps show why this is a POV-fork and not just an intent to add more information to Wikipedia. Finally, one could also argue that trying to have a massive list of every fatality goes beyond our purpose as described in WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:38, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I find it strange that those in favour of keeping this page seem to be making a general statement that I simply see as untrue. They refer to a page full of links to news articles (which I believe is not allowed in itself) as "data", which it is not. 88xxxx (talk) 07:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Consider seeing the citations as citations where the tally is verifiable; such is WP urged. The tally is the data; the citation goes to best known verifiable realm. Joefaust (talk) 00:33, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Aviation-related deletion discussions. The Bushranger One ping only 02:54, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, but change name to just "Paragliding fatalities". I do not see POVFORK. What POV is being forked? Above, the "forking" is mentioned, but not what the "fork" is. It seems that paragliding is beginning to have some yet incomplete encyclopedic presentation in WP, but has not yet simply presented the fatalities in the activity. WP does have articles that show the fatalities of defined activities. What good does it do to neglect the simple knowledge of the raw facts of fatalities in an activity?

WP has, just for a small sample:

Imagine WP giving a rich give of Paragliding, but neglects to give the basic data of the fatalities in the activity; that would seem to be a monstrous irresponsible scene. Each fatality raw data point could hold for later researchers in society a kernel of information that might save lives; teachers, instructors, scientific statistical analysts, participant pilots, societal agents, equipment manufacturers, materials scientists, inventors, designers, etc. could benefit from the initial data to produce their interpretations fitting their needs; they would thank WP for being a provider of knowledge that could be studied to get more information. Notice that the intended article is not an interpreter of the fatalities, does not analyze as investigator, does not have a space for judging good, bad, or otherwise. Just tallies and best source of the tally marks. Whereas WP has articles where complete fatalities are recorded of defined activities, even those announcement could be error, as new information might come to those articles that change their tallies; that is the nature of information and knowledge over such broad-based activity. The LINKS matter: They are available for some data points over a hundred links; but those are not collected nor posted; only one or a couple of links that best express the data point is recommended. Such is not against WP guides as I understand it; indeed WP guides seem to demand that high quality links be used to support statements. When some contributor finds an improved source link, then a bump can be made: in better, off not so good source. AS TO EVERYTHING: Because of the nature of the article and its own statement: "incomplete" is the scene, not everything. Doing best possible would be a service to readers. Joefaust (talk) 04:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • COMMENT:, but change name to just "Paragliding fatalities". Commenting on the challenge of EVERYTHING. Fatalities is not everything. Everything about paragliding would be functionally impossible to put in WP. Even everything about those who died would be functionally impossible to place in WP. Rather the mere death tally is the topic resource barely so others have a bridge to their interests. Prominence deserved? The literature survey shows that fatality question is important to participants and the families of the lost participants; the same literature shows that organizations and manufacturers and sellers of gear are caring about the fatalities. Without life, the activity stops. What does the matter deserve? To be available or not to be available; no interpretive prominence; let the readers decide for themselves what the information means to their lives. Joefaust (talk) 04:32, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Everything is bad The main article Paragliding is very much both promotional and how-to-do in tone, obviously written by fans, if not salespeople for the manufacturers of the equipment. Sorry if that sounds like "assume bad faith" but that's what the tone of the article says to me. It really makes WP look bad. On the other hand I would normally vote to delete this article since it's just a list of raw data, and obviously also included with a POV purpose, in this case to warn people of dangers barely mentioned in the other article. It would be better to delete this one and put some solid info on fatalities in the other article. But still the problems with the other are far far worse than the existence of this one. Borock (talk) 06:46, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I believe this statement to be utter hogwash. The main paragliding page does not read as promotional material either for the sport or for particular manufacturers of our equipment. Nowhere in the entire page could I find the name of any brand or equipment manufacturer or references to them, for example. A brief look at the section headings and their contents show the paragliding page to be a well thought out overview of the sport, it tells the reader what it is, how one goes about it, what is involved for participants, what types of equipment are used, etc, etc. It provides a reasonable introduction to those with a general interest in paragliding, or the reader who would like to understand what it is, from the outside looking in, so to speak. 88xxxx (talk) 10:26, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To User 888xxx. 1. Please refrain from calling good faith notes of fellow contributors here as "simply hogwash", as that kind of attack seems to lower the tone and purpose of this discussion and might be against WP talk-page guide. 2. The article on paragliding lacks considerable amount of topics that may be cured; a very narrow POV about the realm of paragliding is expressed in that article; but such is a matter elsewhere. 3. AS TO the topic of this present discussion, one contributor mentioned a suspicion against WP:NOTMANUAL: I just read:WP:NOTMANUAL. "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal". Well, the article on bare fatalities (forget the injuries, there is a hope by at least two in the discussion) at hand does respect that guide. The article is not a manual, not a guidebook, not a textbook, and not a scientific journal. So, the article can be kept on that point. Joefaust (talk) 00:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:28, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your completely right. The comment, however, was complete Nonsense. If I'm not using the approved language for saying that I think someone is talking rubbish please advise how I can do so without offending 3rd parties. 88xxxx (talk) 23:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The contributor gave reasoned on-topic remarks; such manner and way is with sense, not nonsense, even if you disagree with the sense and reasoning.Joefaust (talk) 00:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yet again, I'm at a loss for words. I said: "The comment was complete nonsense". User "joefaust" says "such manner and way is with sense, not nonsense, even if you disagree with the sense and reasoning." Surely, if I disagree with the sense, isn't it rather obvious (literally) that I think it's nonsense? No sense = nonsense? I'm losing the will to live here, it's like dealing with a child. WP admins, please put a stop to this! 88xxxx (talk) 03:36, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or Merge to the main article on paragliding, which fails be of neutral point of view at present, and makes repeated assertions such as "it is accurate to say that paragliding can be a very safe sport" while blaming any injuries or fatalities on "pilot error." "Catastrophic injuries in sports and recreation: causes and prevention" says "Paragliding, if not a dangerous sport, is definitely a most risky one." "A minor misjudgement can be catastrophic." "..of paragliding crashes, 26% resulted in severe injury, and 8% of the pilots suffered fatal injuries." (page 429) "Fundamentals of aerospace medicine" analyzes paragliding accident modes and says (pp 663-664). "Fifty-four percent of the injuries left the pilots with persistent functional disabilities and complaints." This included numerous spinal injuries. Yes, they are mostly due to "pilot error," but they should not be glossed over and minimized. There would be no need for a "content fork" or this stand-aline article if the main article on paragliding were made NPOV rather than the present promotional tone. Edison (talk) 17:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You misquoted above. Your source says "Paragliding, if not a dangerous sport, is most definitely a risky one." rather than "Paragliding, if not a dangerous sport, is definitely a most risky one." (and for some reason cites a hang glider study to support that). Anyway, I don't think anybody involved in the sport would dispute that it is a risk sport. That's why it appears in the extreme_sports template. Jontyla (talk) 20:14, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The treatment of the dangers of paragliding in WP should be similar to the treatment of danger in other extreme sports (with the possible exception of things like BASE, which is approaching 2 orders of magnitude more dangerous). If this is not respected then WP cannot be said to be neutral on this subject. This article appears to have been created (and Paragliding edited) with the intent of making paragliding seem more dangerous than it is, and more dangerous than other air sports (notably hang gliding, whereas the statistics show the reverse is true). Just for reference, a paraglider pilot has roughly 3 times the risk of being killed in a paragliding accident as they have in being killed in a road traffic accident (I've put the citations and justification for this in a proposition in talk:paragliding). Jontyla (talk) 20:14, 7 October 2011 (UTC)— Jontyla (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
COMMENT: On matters just mentioned by Jontyla: Notice that you made an exception for BASE jumping; and a statement that was firm about orders of magnitude; citation is requested. On neutrality: it may be appropriate to clean up lacks in other articles; lacks in other articles do not logically force non-neutrality when an article is neutral and appropriate; going to possible immature articles for models does not seem helpful when WP is after building mature good articles. On the "making ...seem" guess, such does not apply to my contributions; I have good faith to neutrally show the fatalities of a sector of sport paragliding according to WP guides of verifiable knowledge and reference to best known level without excess; each contributor will be called to do similarly. The statements you just made has me feel like you have all the advanced statistical analysis conclusions over the matter; including those results with good citation is something to look for in your contributions. I wonder if the statisticians had available the worldwide sport paragliding fatalities as their starting point. I await your contributions along these lines. Keep, not merge; link from a sub-section Paragliding (sport), and and also link from a sport sub-section in Paragliding to such. Your car statement are interesting; good citations would be more interesting; I cannot take the matter just at the writing of the numbers. Joefaust (talk) 23:09, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
to JoeFaust: Citation for base jump stats? Try Base_jump#Fatalities. As for the PG and HG numbers, as I said above, I included citations in the proposal I made in talk:paragliding. Jontyla (talk) 00:53, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
COMMENT: Jontyla states "the statistics show the reverse is true" but there are no statistics presented on the page being discussed - only an incomplete list. It is not rational to make an argument using statistics vs. a tally, either here, or on Wikipedia Paragliding, where it is done extensively, or throughout the paragliding universe. A serious problem with the so-called statistics being presented by the paragliding enthusiasts in this argument and elsewhere is that a proper basis to create valid statistics does not exist for paragliding so any claims made in regard to such statistics are a fiction. For instance, to derive a ratio of fatalities per 1000 participants it is necessary to know how many participants are flying paragliders and how many participants have been reported killed. Determining the number of participants is extremely difficult, both nationally and globally, because there is no mechanism in place to reduce the annual total of experienced pilots and students reported by the training schools, where such numbers are sometimes reported, by the number of students and pilots who quit or are injured or killed. To complicate matters further, the number of paragliders actually flying is unknown because the usable life of a paraglider is shorter than all other aircraft, causing them to be retired, and most manufacturers have not released production numbers. Worse, the collection of fatalities and accidents is not conducted in a responsible manner by the sporting organizations. They often collect only the fatalities and injuries reported (and many go unreported) within their own country among their own countrymen, leaving other distant parties with the responsibility to report or fail to report incidents suffered by visitors, which are often the larger segment. This chronic under-reporting has been used to the advantage of paragliding enthusiasts in their safety arguments for many years. It was only when an individual from outside paragliding took it upon himself to publish referenced reports of fatalities and injuries that it was demonstrated that the safety argument for paragliding was fabricated. His argument and his list are here http://www.cometclones.com/mythology2011.htm . I bring this to the attention of Wikipedia editors and administrators not to hope it will be included in a topic, for which it is admittedly inappropriate, but rather to warn them that they are being played on this page by Paragliding Forum members with thousands of highly opinionated posts in their history which have attempted to demonize, ridicule and minimize any mention of possible problems with paragliders or excessive accident rates. Nopara (talk) 02:12, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To Nopara: I said the citations were in a proposal I'd made on the talk page to update the (locked) page, not the page itself. I've now added a subject heading so than it can be referenced directly; Proposed_Change, thought since you have already commented on it you have presumably already read it.
As to your arguments about the French statistics being invalid, they do not hold water. The suggestion that they should include non FFVL members is a bad one. The whole point of their usefulness is that they compare a known population (FFVL members) against the death rate within that population, thus giving a good index of the risk. If deaths of people outside that population were added it would degrade the statistical validity.
Your suggestion that the FFVL artificially inflate the population by including everyone who has ever flown PGs has at least the merit of not being logically false, though unfortunately for your arguments it is factually false. The FFVL uses its current membership list; that is everyone who has shelled out the €74 for that years membership, which should mean that there are relatively few who are no longer in the sport - not enought to seriously effect the stats.
Your suggestion that deaths are not reported to the FFVL is probably false. The police investigate all such deaths on French soil and I believe (though I'm not certain) that the FFVL, as the recognised controlling body of the sport, will automatically receive copies of those reports. FFVL officers will typically be directly involved in the investigation and in any case there is a culture of reporting major accidents to the governing body to help in identifying and correcting emerging dangerous trends. The FFVL includes in its statistics accidents of its members which occur outside France, and in any case most French pilots do most of their flying in their home country (which is not true for some other nations).
My statement that this data supports the premise that HG is more dangerous than PG is, contrary to what you say, supported by the study I cited, though only weakly due to the very low numbers. Going to the same source for data for the three years 2006-2008 show 3+1+1=5 deaths from HG and 8+8+10=26 deaths from PG, but there are 21 times as many PG pilots as HG pilots in the FFLV. That means even excluding the 'black' year for HG of 2006 HG is more than twice as dangerous as PG, and taking all three years into account it's around 4 times as dangerous.
You state "It is not rational to make an argument using statistics vs. a tally". This statement suggesting that a tally or list of accidents is more useful than statistical data beggars belief by its lack of understanding.
Jontyla (talk) 14:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
COMMENT: The citation give information on target; best known citations for a death in a subject activity is strong information at such level. Very encyclopedic; with such knowledge a host of types of readers will have the potential to derive benefits for the sport, its participants, and the society that embeds the sport. Joefaust (talk) 00:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: Actually a large number of the refs cited in the article are forums and other sources that fail WP:RS and especially WP:SPS. It makes the whole list of little value even if the list were not WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The subject of paragliding safety is worthwhile. Personally I quit flying paragliders after just about everyone I know, including my instructor, had been killed flying them, but this needs to be a section in Paragliding that cites data and reports from reliable sources, not an indiscriminate list like this made up mostly from non-reliable sources. - Ahunt (talk) 12:15, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
COMMENT: I just was noticed by someone here in a post remark that one is to post the word "KEEP" as prefix just once, while prefixing other comments with COMMENT. Accepted. But WP says this process is not a vote process, if I read correctly, but a consensus of advance wikipedians after a reasonable display of struggle over WP guides and policies. In any case who will correct the excessive "votes"; we each could clean our prefixed position. Joefaust (talk) 00:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
COMMENT: If there is any move to "vote" then I ask politely that Jontyla place a full disclosure of all the posts that are occurring at his forum that he mentioned that may go against the WP:CANVASS. I do not the appropriate avenue for you to disclose such to WP admin; is it here? Such might be affecting this work. Joefaust (talk) 00:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"my forum"? I don't run any forums nor am I an admin or moderator on any. If you are referring to paraglidingforum.com, of which I am an ordinary member (as is JoeFaust), then another forum member posted a topic about these discussions, I posted a reply saying, in effect, if you have a view then contribute but don't all pile in and swamp the discussion. At the suggestion of a third forum member I added a reply suggesting that the moderators hide the topic, with which the original poster concurred, and which I believe has been done. Whether I should have supported hiding or not is a good question. Many PGF members would likely be interested in these discussions, are knowledgeable about the subject and would probably wish to contribute. In addition it would show quite how fringe the views of Joe and NoPara are. However, PGF (being far and away the major online discussion group for PG related subjects) has over 20,000 members and many hundreds of highly active posters, so the result might have been chaotic. For reference, I know of three PGF members posting here, myself, 88xxxx and JoeFaust. Jontyla (talk) 00:53, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • COMMENT - completely fails WP:NOTLINK: "Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files", "Mere collections of external links or Internet directories.". Non-encyclopedic article. End of. 88xxxx (talk) 23:18, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
COMMENT: This was already brought up. A citation per person's death is not a "mere" collection; the article is not even close to being a directory. The article is of a type that one could hardly be less effective to fulfill the making of a knowledge bridge to a chance to make the world better on the matter of concern; do not let the sportsperson's experience in the sport go unreviewed by people that may advance the sport by virtue of WP's gift of knowledge.Joefaust (talk) 00:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
COMMENT: About the WP:NOTLINK matter. I am under the understanding the citations with links in them are treated different from sets of links that are not citations. The article as started has only citations for the tally marks; the tally mark is the content that is cited. Differently would be just putting a list of links in say "External Links" or "See Also". WP rather requires that the content matter of articles be cited. The article could expand to prose: John Doe in Country at Date crashed and died reportedly from the crash at Site. Citation. Or refraining from such: place a tally content and cite; let the reader see the tallies and totals per year; if they want more or need more, they go to the citation source. Which way would be best? The prose short remarks or the tally by nation? Joefaust (talk) 00:23, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Appears to be WP:OR on paragliding fatalities. A lot of the source material is web forums and other dubious sources. If we can find actual statistics published by reliable groups, that might be more reasonable, but a country-by-country breakdown is obviously WP:INDISCRIMINATE. A basic summary of "number of casualties" in a line or two could be merged, but that information isn't in these sources, and adding up all the data from a huge variety of sources that might have different methodologies or classifications is clearly original research. SDY (talk) 01:50, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
COMMENT in support of article. * The proposal that there might be a reliable resource for worldwide "statistics" over the fatalities just may be answered only in some far future time. Yet the best source of the fatalities just might be those sources that name the deceased pilots. Those speculative future agents will have the knowledge that WP could present in the article; they would thank WP for providing the knowledge over which they might work their statistical analysis. A best citation per human being that died in a specified sport sector seems to be the least note that an encyclopedia could give in these days of digital access. Click and one gets to best-yet source. WP may be bold and not have to wait for some future agent. FAI is not doing the job. No one national org in paragliding/hang-gliding appears to be doing the job of worldwide presentation of the fatalities and best click-to information. The article carves out a defined sector, faces that sector, and gives best-yet source for the tally marks. Either directly link to the best-performing researcher on the matter or do as the article does: fatality cited to best known source of information. Easing prose could be added: "Known so far are ### fatalities in Nation in 2005" etc. The best known research source for the subject holds the raw sourced material of fatalities AND holds his theories; the theories are being contested and examined in the sport; those who disagree with his theories and those theories themselves are separate from the singularly best collection of fatalities and citations for those fatalities. A Paragliding (sport) article or section in another article that neglected best resource just to carry out an avoidance of that resource's theories would neglect giving readers the best-yet bridge to the fatalities. WP could serve in one or several articles. The present discussion faces an article that would give just focus on the fatalities sans linking to just the site of that researcher. Should FAI or some other researcher presents, will they give link to best-yet information about each fatality yet known? WP could be with this article now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joefaust (talk • contribs)
It's still raw data without any interpretation from a reliable secondary source. We could nominallycome up with our own interpretation, but that's also not what we do here. SDY (talk) 20:01, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete on grounds of OR - the numbers have been created by finding accidents and enumerating them, which means that methodology is suspect. I note that while its seems to be indiscriminate on one hand, on the other, it omits most nations of the world and limits itself to a period of only four years. The topic of safety should be covered in the main article in the first place - and spun off only when the usual spin-off circumstances dictate.GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:11, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Some apparent fans of paragliding have disparaged the data on injuries and deaths as being unreliably sourced, from "web forums" and the like. Please do not misrepresent sources. I cited above a book published by a university press, and a medical textbook, both clearly reliable sources. The reliable sources do not have to be cited in the article for an article to be kept, they only have to exist. It's always fun to see the single purpose accounts popping up at AFD. Edison (talk) 19:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

COMMENT and NOTICE: Editor 88xxxx in this discussion group has started an article that has been moved to a name close to his start: Hang gliding fatalities As yet the contents seems identical to the article we are here discussing in AfD, so it seems appropriate for one of us to mention this other article's start, as perhaps such new article would come under the same scrutiny as we presently have going. I have done some following editing in that new article in an attempt to incorporate some of the guides learned in the article we hereon are discussing. The starting of that article went against the WP guide: "AfD participants should not circumvent consensus by merging or copying material to another article unilaterally, before the debate closes." Joefaust (talk) 21:00, 8 October 2011 (UTC) Joefaust (talk) 21:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that there was a Hang gliding fatalities page, but it was deleted by request of the original author (G7). If, as you say, that page had content identical to this page, then perhaps he agreed with you (and the many other users above) in that it broke WP Guidelines and deleted it. As original author of this Paragliding fatalities page, I would urge you to do the same. 88xxxx (talk) 02:43, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
G7 could give his or her own reason why the deletion was made. I saw the content and to me it seemed that it was a copy-paste of all the citations in the Paragliding fatalities article; I edited the intro before the deletion by the starter; I edited the intro to fit the citations in the body; just maybe the G7 account saw that the copy-paste from another article broke some WP policy. Who knows? Putting up your guesses is fine, but it does not tell us the rationale of the G7. Was G7 you 88xxx?
Hang gliding fatalities involving hang gliders with TCF was started to complement the Paragliding fatalities article; together they cover almost all forms of hang glider machines with no overlap when one respect the current introductions as of this moment.
This page should be deleted, of this I have little doubt. There are simply too many ways it breaks the WP rules for it to stay. Should the WP admins decide, for whatever reason, not to delete it then we need to propose that this page be renamed Hang gliding fatalities involving hang gliders without TCF if we wish to be accurate. I just thought we should take note of this now lest we forget, although I am confident we will all be spared this time consuming exercise when the admins do indeed delete this page. 88xxxx (talk) 16:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete has no real content and it is not really an article on fatalaties just some out of context statistics created by original random research. An explantion of the safety record could be made in a couple of sentences in the main paragliding article but nothing here worth keeping. MilborneOne (talk) 12:29, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I started this entire controversy in April or early May of 2010. I believed then, as I do now, that to present such a happy face on safety in paragliding when faced with such a large list of fatalities was unethical. Wikipedia editors were asking for citations. I provided them. It is particularly appropriate to provide the other side of an issue when NPOV is lacking. A high level discussion about how to correctly present references could well be in order, but arbitrary deletion of all references and changes without discussion from May 2010 forward is a political action which has no place in Wikipedia. When the fatality list for 2009 was arbitrarily deleted without discussion, I posted this on May 19, 2010:

>I am aware that the paragliding community does not wish to allow a fully cited paragliding fatality list to be published on their Wikipedia Paragliding How-To as it exposes the pervasive myth of paragliding safety. The associated, cited reference to the official British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association observation that SIV training is counterproductive was also removed (without comment), apparently to preserve the likewise pervasive myth that training and skill make a difference. As the removed fatality list clearly illustrates, sudden collapses and uncontrolable, nose-down spiral dives continue to kill pilots across all skill levels, including the very best, the most famous and most accomplished. The list itself stood for 19 days. I find it curious that the Wikipedia UberEditors state, under the Safety heading, "This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2009)" Over 100 citations were removed, along with the fatality list and BHGA reference. This is perhaps a sad commentary on the Wikipedia universe. Or perhaps the truth will come to light. To me, the most important aspect of any sport is the fatality list. The term "sport" implies a significance of skill level. But in paragliding, the ugly fact that half the people getting killed are getting killed by the failure of their equipment is being kept hidden. I realize that I am not pursuing this agressively enough to do justice to the Wikipedia vision but I must admit, I posted the list primarily for my own verification: to see how long it would stand. Now I have the list but the readers of Wikipedia don't.Nopara (talk) 03:42, 19 May 2010 (UTC)< The verification to which I refer was an investigation of Paragliding Forum members seeking out web discussions and arguing ad infinitum against any information that presented paragliding in a bad light, regardless of truth. Nopara (talk) 06:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it the list you are referring to exists on the private "cometclones" website. This seems the perfect place for a list of uncited news articles related to paragliding deaths. Not in an encyclopedia. 88xxxx (talk) 08:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - User:Nopara - as a former paragliding pilot I happen to agree with what you have said here, even the most experienced pilots get killed flying paragliders because of inherent problems with the nature of the craft itself. There should be a treatment of the safety issues in Wikipedia. That said, this article we are discussing here is not the way to to do it. Even it it were complete it would still tell readers virtually nothing beyond raw numbers. What is needed is a proper section within the Paragliding article that cites at least several safety studies of fatalities and that shows cause factors, all properly referenced to reliable refs. - Ahunt (talk) 11:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Ahunt - As an active paraglider pilot for the last 25 years I have been to three funerals of paragliding friends - two died of cancer and only one died paragliding (as it happens doing something really dumb, aerobatics near the ground). I agree with you that even experienced pilots get killed, but this is true of all air sports I believe. Very often they are killed by complacency. It's interesting that your personal experience has led you to agree about the dangers of paragliding (was this some time ago? Things have changed a lot since the early days). Statistically speaking, nowadays it appears to be significantly safer (on an annualised basis, as far as fatalities go) than general aviation (which I believe you are involved in). This came as quite a surprise to me. However, don't get me wrong, I don't consider paragliding as safe, it's just that many other common things are nearly as, or more, dangerous, but we tend not to focus on the dangers. When you are reflecting on what would be an appropriate piece about safety in the paragliding article, I would suggest that you also consider that same structure in general aviation and other adventure sports pages, since what is appropriate for paragliding is also appropriate there. Jontyla (talk) 17:04, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - not that it is really all that relevant to this deletion discussion, I was paragliding between 1991 and 1998. My instructor was killed paragliding as were about another half dozen or so people I knew or admired in the sport. I quit in the end because I worked for a helicopter company that regularly carried paraglider pilots to mountain launches and had a lot of exposure to the sport, with some of its pilots and lodge managers involved in paragliding. After a number accidents involving employees the company forbade any of its employees from paragliding anymore. To the point though I agree that all air sports/recreational flying articles here need to discuss safety, but as I noted above they need to do this by citing studies and their conclusions, not by attempting to list accidents and drawing their own conclusions. While not perfect the section Homebuilt_aircraft#Safety is an example of this sort of approach. - Ahunt (talk) 18:31, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I've been proposing something roughly equivalent for the paragliding page Talk:Paragliding#Proposed_Change. If you feel like taking a look then your input would be welcome (if you've got the time and energy then you could contribute to Talk:Paragliding#Revert_to_prior_version too). Jontyla (talk) 20:09, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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