Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 4

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Featured article on main page

Delrina, an article on a Canadian software company, will be featured on the main page on 4 January 2006. The page will be subject to a high degree of vandalism on that day. Please monitor the page to help revert vandalism on that day. --24.83.90.98 19:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia in the Canadian news media

This is too good not to share.

Please see my comments on Talk:Stuart Smith. I tried not to gloat too much ... CJCurrie 22:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

District of Franklin

Hi! I'm not Canadian, but in disambiguation cleanup I came across information on a dab page about the District of Franklin that's not identical to that on the actual article page itself. I hoped this would be a good place to bring attention to it? Details are on Talk:District of Franklin. I'm not going back to check on that page, so if a Canadian could sort that out, that'd be great. (To draw my attention to that page again, if necessary, please use my user talk page.) Thanks. Neonumbers 11:19, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Richard Warman

Could someone please revert this page; I've already done so three times. CJCurrie 21:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Need help, going crazy...

Some anon user recently wrote up almost every TV series linked from the MuchMusic article, with the following problems:

  1. The writing is appallingly bad. (From French Kiss: "In addition to Canada's francophone population, MuchMusic of CHUM Limited operates a francophone music television station, Québécois MusiquePlus." And from The Punk Show, the redundantly redundant "the program exclusively features music videos of indie underground punk bands that are not mainstream." As opposed to what, indie underground punk bands that are mainstream?)
  2. None of them have either {{tvseries-stub}} or Category:MuchMusic television series applied to them.
  3. For programs that are a half-hour long, the person consistently just wikified the word half rather than the compound half-hour.
  4. When links to MusiquePlus are warranted, the person insists on referring to it as "Québécois MusiquePlus"; they even edited MuchMusic itself to call it that.

Could some generous soul kindly help me fix this mess up? Thanks muchly, no pun intended. Bearcat 05:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Harmonizing province templates

I think it would be pertinent to try and harmonize the various recently created {{province}} templates. I think that, as large footers, the fontsizr should be reduced to 90%. Also, we should decide on the presentation, order and content so that they are consistent with each others.

the templates are:

Prince Edward's Island and Newfoundland and Labrador will need one, and possibly the territories, while we're at it. {{BritishColumbia}} and {{Quebec}} follow a format similar to Country footers and list mostly subdivisions, however, the other templates follow a convention closer to that of the various US states footers.

I thought about it and have to conclude that the Us State style soundsmoreappropriate. However,it remains pertinent to condense the template and keep them as harmonized as possible. Any thoughts? Circeus 18:23, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a good discussion. The important thing is to determine what sorts of things belong: electoral districts? counties/municipal districts? cities? etc. And should they be all listed or should there be a simple link to them. Saskatchewan, for instance, has so many counties that it was recommended that a link to the list of counties be included on the template. In looking over the US state templates, I see that they vary greatly. Some list just the major cities -- it would be too full to list all the cities, I suppose. Although I am only guessing, but I think the purpose of the template is to feature a link page so that when someone lands on Podunk town, he can quickly check some particular info on the county, electoral district, nearby important/influential centers, and the province itself in which Podunk is located.

As far as formatting goes, I do like the consistency of the provincial flag and color provincial title as Alberta and Sask have done. Is it possible to make a {{Canada Province}} template and then build a province template using the "Canada Province" template? I haven't see a nesting of templates, but I haven't looked for them either. In that way, the "Canada Province" template would maintain consistency. Cadillac 23:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I dunno if a template would be ideal. If you look at the NS template we have counties, like everyone. But because we have three Canadian Regional Municipalities in the province we have a dozen town size communities and three city size communities that are not towns or cities anymore. So we have carefully crafted language to get around that. I think that what is important and how communities are referenced for each province will be sufficiently different that it would be hard to have common headers. I think some design principles are all we need here, because once the templates are done they are likely to be left unmodified for a long long time.WayeMason 00:41, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I think Waye explained very well why such a template would probably be a bad idea. Also, see WP:AUM
I was thinking: geographic regions (where appliable), most meaningful division (e.g. main division below provincial level), main cities+any apropriate lists. However, I do not believe that topic links are appropriate (they belong in a article series box, which goes at the top of articles).
As for formatting, the colors should be rather unobstrusive (in the same range of lightness and saturation as the country footers), though I don't much problem wih the hues. Text should be at 90% size for consistency with nearly all the footesin wikipedia. Circeus 00:47, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Also for the record, because I am a contrarian, I really like the centered, European style look rather than the US state look. I think its all great that Alberta's already looks like a US state but thats just not me. I would rather see the Canadian provinces be centered and less rigid than US states. (gotta go, What Not To Wear is back on... )WayeMason 01:43, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
What do you mean "centered european"? Examples please? Circeus 02:13, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I checked Germany, France, Spain, and England. Madrid Spain has nothing. But the others have large template listings of districts and cities. The difference from US states is that the European separate the districts from the listing of cities with two (or more) templates. Cadillac 02:34, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I missspoke, I meant the templates you linked to here Country footers. WayeMason 18:19, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
So, basically, you're in favor of centered footers copying the style of the country footers. the reason i switched position is that I though it much harder to present the content well with such a format, since there aremany different entities group, as well as lists to link. I will try to drafta proposal at my userpage Circeus 18:31, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I have completed a draft for the current existing templates at User:Circeus/oddities. Circeus 21:45, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so unless there is extra input, I will start implementing this at the end of the week. Circeus 01:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Given that the provinces and territories template and the Canadian legislatures templates are both centered I am still not sold on the idea of moving to a US state style model. Your changes as proposed are not in fact in keeping with many other Canadian templates. I am not saying I have a definitive list, but it does seem like we might not be going with the current trends if this change is implemented. WayeMason 18:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Given that the provinces and territories template and the Canadian legislatures templates are both centered The canadian template is centered because it's a country footer. I consider the only reason for the majority (because three were not) of them to be centered is that it's easier to code.
not in fact in keeping with many other Canadian templates Mind presenting other footer examples? The only I can think of off-hand are the Quebec subdivisions, which do better as a copy of the country-stylefooters,if only because they present only one type of information.Circeus 23:40, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
also {{Canada}}. WayeMason 11:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I do not consider {{Canada}} a quite valid example, as it is specifically bound by the country subdivision footers convention. {{canleg}} is a way to go about it, although I think it is too tall. I generally prefer the two columns, left-right system, and you seem the only one formally opposed to it. Still, feel free to alter the final version. Justmake sure the templates don't end up too big or inconsistent. Circeus 16:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

What the? School list templates

Would somebody be sokind as to investigate {{BbySchools}} and {{RichmondBCSchools}}. I stumbled on these while implementing the new canadian footers, and don't have time to dig in right now, but they look like straight TFD fodder. Circeus

Add {{WVSchools}} to that list

Nova Scotia Project

For those that are interested, please consider participating in the WikiProject Nova Scotia that is just starting up. Very much a work in progress, but gaining steam. WayeMason 11:39, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for being such a punster, but yes, a lot of steam ships did visit NS. CanadaGirl 11:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


Buhahaha! I think we need a logo for the project, maybe the Titanic going down, or the S.S. Atlantic. Heh. WayeMason 00:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

City of Toronto budget, 2004

I've been working on a Wikipedia article for the City of Toronto's 2004 budget in my sandbox here, however when I sum everything the "total expense" figures don't match the numbers provided in the City's news release PDF. I've double-checked things and I can't identify what may be throwing off the numbers. I wanted to ask if someone could please look the pages over to try and determine what I'm doing wrong - A user more familar with such financial data may be able to quickly spot an error I've made. Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you. Kurieeto 16:59, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Help no longer needed, I think I've got things fixed now. Kurieeto 22:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Canada Copyright

Template:CanadaCopyright (along with Template:AlbertaCopyright, Template:OntarioCopyright, Template:NovaScotiaCopyright) lost its TFD here: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Template:CanadaCopyright. So, the roughly 50 images that used the template will be tagged Template:nolicense and be listed on Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. --maclean25 07:04, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Political spouses

Quick question: Stephen Harper's wife has an article at the current title Laureen Harper. Every media reference I've seen to her today has called her Laureen Teskey, yet I can also personally vouch for having previously seen journalists refer to her as Laureen Harper. If she's normally known as Teskey, the article needs to be moved to Teskey. Is anybody able to clarify? Bearcat 23:28, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Update: since there was no discussion here and somebody subsequently edited her article to reflect her proper surname as Teskey, I've gone ahead and moved the article to Teskey. "Laureen Harper" will stand as a redirect, though. Bearcat 23:49, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
And then, the day after I did that, she went and asked the media to call her Harper ([1]). Hmmmmm, maybe that's their strategy — keep us all confused. Bearcat 19:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Her name is Laureen Harper, the Canadian Press confirmed this when her husband became Prime Minister in 2006.

Sydney Newman

Hello everyone. I'm not a Canadian myself — went there once years ago, though, lovely place — but I have recently been working on this article about a prominent Canadian, who had a huge influence on British television, particularly BBC television drama, which are two of my main Wikipedia interests. I'm trying to drive this article up to featured level — I rebuilt it from the ground-up a couple of months back, and have been making various tweaks to it since then. I'll be placing it on peer review soon — it doesn't have a picture at the moment, but will hopefully do so sometime tomorrow, after which I'll add it. If all goes well there it should be on FAC within the next week or two, but I thought I'd put a note about it here as, being a Canadian-related article, I thought some of you might be interested in taking a look and seeing what improvements might need to be made from your perspectives. Particularly, being a biography of a Canadian, there are some spellings which might need changing from the British English I wrote the piece in to Canadian English, I'm not sure. Anyway, I hope the piece is of interest. Angmering 19:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The Honourable, the Dishonourable, the Right Honourable and you

  • After all our back-and-forthing over the years...it turns out that the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies) explicitly states that honorifics such as "The Honourable" and "The Right Honourable" are not to precede the person's name in inline text on Wikipedia. We can say in the article that "as a former Prime Minister, Paul Martin is entitled to the style 'The Right Honourable'" — but we can't have the first line of the article begin "The Right Honourable Paul Martin". So I'd advise y'all to start cleaning. Bearcat 04:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
There has been a sort of agreement between various users that Canadian politicians and statesmen would retain their honourifics, as long as they do not become too excessive (ie. using His/Her Worship for mayors or His/Her Excellency for ambassadors). Please refer to administrators such as Homey or Proteus. Eddo 05:01, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Heh. Next thing you know it will be Elizabeth Windsor (nee Saxe Coberg Gotha), entitled to the style 'Your Majesty.' Legally the Mayor of Halifax is "Your Worship" and that is how he is addressed in council and official communication... this makes me laugh. WayeMason 22:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I think reached a bit of a compromise with Eddo before that as long as the honorifics were not excessive I could tolerate it - but as I recall none of us could find a reference in the style manual at the time so if the three of four or us had a "consensus" previously, it was reached without knowledge of what official wikipedia style was. IE there was no consesus to ignore the style manual - there was a consensus that in lieu of anything in the style manual honorifics would be tolerated as long as they were restrained and kept to relatively senior positions (eg Governors-General, Cabinet ministers etc but not mayors). I thought "His Honour the Honourable" in regards to lieutenant-governors was silly but i wasn't prepared to make it a huge issue as the number of articles at question was minimal.Homey 00:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I guess there are two questions we need to answer here:
  1. ) Given that Wikipedia has a "concensus" on the honorifics (in the manual of styles), should we abide by it?
  2. ) If not, what are the reasons?

For me, I don't care either one way or the other - as long as we can justify our answers and documents the answers as part of style manual (such as how China and Japan articles have their specialized standards, Wikipedia:History standards for China-related articles and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)) . This will allow other Canadian authors to have some consistencies in their articles. --Hurricane111 03:32, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

My opinion is that, Wikipedia is here to educate. I am a fouth year university student, and I find that many students look at Wikipedia to help explain tough readings or look up simple but trivial facts. Official titles such as His Honour the Honourable ___, Lieutenant Governor may sound formal, but it is fact. They represent the Head of State, and people might learn something from seeing it. I too agree that too excessive is bad, ie. His Worship the Mayor, or His Excellency the Ambassador. I think that the titles should be kept for the most senior, ie. Monarch, Governor General, Lieutenant Governor, Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers, Supreme Court Justices, Premiers. Eddo 04:09, 4 February, 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the educational value in adding honorifics unless our purpose is to educate people in the art of obsequiousness and sycophantry. It's important to be consistent and if Tony Blair's article doesn't open with Right Honourable I don't see why Paul Martin's should. Homey 03:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Andy you went way to far! Obsequiousness? It's called respect. You wouldn't go up to a Lieutenant Governor and say "Hi Iona, how are you?" In Canada we actually show respect towards people who hold office because they worked hard to get there. How is it an inferiority complex? Isn't it your own point of view that calling someone Your Honour is obsequious? Exactly how will people learn? A lot of young people visit wikipedia, and they marvel at all the little knowledge they learn. Why would you like to deny people that. I know a while back we removed all the His/Her Royal Highnesses and inserted an infobox like the guy below suggested. Instead of just going through the entire list of people that you edited and taking everything out, you could have but in the infoboxes. I don't have that great an editing skill, and I'm a busy university student, you're an admin, don't you feel you have some responsibility?

Eddo 19:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


Frankly, the educational value of Wikipedia is not particularly enhanced by referring to politicians by their full title at all times rather than simply acknowledging the title under an "honours" section. What you propose doesn't come across like an honest attempt to educate or to accord such figures their due respect — it really, truly just comes across like brownnosing to power. And it's not remotely comparable to a complete stranger walking up to Iona Campagnolo and calling her by her first name, either. You're conflating two issues which have no connection with each other. Bearcat 00:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I somewhat agree. Would it not be prudent to include only names in the leads for articles with an info/biobox, while listing honorifics (even ad nauseum) and wikifying them atop the infobox only? (The usual can still happen in article leads without a biobox.) This will also ensure clarity and reduce possible duplication. Thoughts? E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 03:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
My concern is that there should be consistency across different articles. E Pluribus Anthony's suggestion of keeping the honorifics in the infobox sounds like a fair compromise - it satisfies the manual of styles while address Eddo's concern. --Hurricane111 16:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Honorifics in the infobox are fine (or in the photo caption) but if there is no infobox or photo - no honorific. Homey 20:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

So, I think we've reached a compromise! I share H111's and other concerns regarding consistency; however, current guidelines may trump that. My proposal (with Homey's suggestion regarding expanded captions for mere pics) seems apt. Of course, articles with neither are a grey area that will grudgingly have to be dealt with. Now, if every article for a personality (biography) had a biobox – which I believe endured a vote for deletion recently – that would kill two birds with one stone, no? :) E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 20:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
To that end, I've edited the article for Paul Martin to dually address concerns noted above. I've simplified Mr. Martin's name in the intro/lead and (as above) have moved all honorific details/initials to the infobox. All titles are of reduced font size. This is by no means definitive, but is a start and reasonable compromise. I this is acceptable, perhaps I'll head on over to the template to update? Thoughts? Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 20:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
"You wouldn't go up to a Lieutenant Governor and say "Hi Iona, how are you?"
Well, I can think of one former politician who'd walk up to her and pat her on the bum:) I can't imagine many people walk up to her and say "Your honour, the honourable" unless they were trying to be obsequious.
On a similar note, there was an item by Jane Taber in the Globe & Mail during the election campaign which noted how horrified Jim Peterson was when his election signs came back from the printer with his name styled as "Hon. Jim Peterson". Peterson immiediately ordered thousands of stickers, the same colour as the sign, so they could be placed over the offending "Hon." lest any voters think he was full of himself. I don't know if the same thing would have happened in Britain which tells you a bit about the attitude Canadians have in general towards excessive deference through honorifics and the like. References to politicians as "the honourable" are relatively rare outside of official documents (and the floor of the House of Commons) - the only time I hear them used on the radio, in the press or in conversation is when someone is being sarcastic. Homey 23:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Buttock patting aside, agreed. Apropos, the current rendition at Paul Martin seems to be a fair compromise that enables us to have our cake and eat it too. If there are no (a even with just few) objections, I propose a similar arrangement (utlimately by adding appropriate fields in the actual template) for all such Canadian official biographies, i.e., those with bioboxes currently ... and perhaps beyond in time. Thoughts? Feedback is encouraged. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 02:31, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Which photo is better-suited?

The image on the left
The image on the right

The Henry Albert Harper article has two potential GFDL images of the statue at the base of Parliament Hill, just wanted to grab some impartial votes on which was a better image to use in the article, since the only two people discussing it on the talk page are us two photographers ;) We're all grownups though, nobody's feelings are going to be hurt, just want to know which better serves our encyclopaedia. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 08:37, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

  • I prefer the image on the left because it is easier to see the detail of the statue. The image on the right has the advantage of clearly placing the statue on Parliament Hill, but has the statue in shadow, so what you see is the parliament buildings, not the shadow. Ground Zero | t 13:27, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
  • As per GZ, I also prefer the left photo for that article. If only you could 'unperson' the poser at its base. :) E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 13:39, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
  • The image on the left could be improved by cropping the statue's "rock." When I first looked at the picture, my eyes were drawn to the statue then to the rock; but I think you want the viewer to see first the statue then the building.Cadillac 15:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Since the statue is not of Henry Albert Harper, I prefer the photo on the right. It's almost irrelevant what the statue looks like; what makes it extra special is that it's in front of the parliament buildings. Usgnus 19:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Left -- for same reason as GroundZero. I should add that both pictures show the "parliament buildings," so that need not be a consideration. HistoryBA 19:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I guess I just don't find the East Block as readily identifiable as the Centre Block. Usgnus 19:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Dictionary of Canadian Biography

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive24#Should_this_be_in_the_main_namespace - Would someone mind actually addressing this issue rather than shuffling things around and ignoring it? Dragons flight 03:15, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Shooting ranges in Canada

A quick note to ask for inputs for a new article branching off Shooting range. Specific countries are now addressed in this top level article, with inputs still needed for several countries, including Canada. Thanks! Yaf 22:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


Premiers of British Columbia

I've initiated my own project of expanding and improving the biographies of British Columbia premiers (so far I've done John Foster McCreight and Amor De Cosmos), some of which are woefully inadequate. A cursory sampling of the articles for other Canadian premiers reveal similar deficiencies of detail. I just want to issue a shout-out to anyone who'd like to help. Especially British Columbians. B.C.'s had 32 premiers, and I'm feeling a little daunted. Thanks! Fishhead64, 08:27, 08 Feb 2006 (UTC)

Controversial Canadian figures

With the Seigenthaler incident and the furor over politicians editing south of your border, some of the U.S. mess no doubt will spill over to you. As a result, we need help to make sure that various Canadian public figures are fairly and accurately represented. In particular, at the moment I have in mind Warren Kinsella and Rachel Marsden, although certainly more could come up. If people on this board could give the articles a thorough going-over, making sure that there is nothing libelous and that sources are documented for everything that might be remotely controversial, it would be appreciated. --Michael Snow 21:03, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Parliament Bio's Library of Parliament website

Check this out Parliamentry Federal Experience profile

Found profiles on the parliament site, for members who have never been elected or appointed --Cloveious 07:25, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

That is a bit bizarre but I don't think we can read these as putative Senate appointees (aside from Fortier). I doubt the webmaster of the parliamentary website has any inside knowledge from the PMO (and I really doubt Harper has any intention of appointing Orchard or Walker to the Senate). More likely the staff at the website are considering making bio pages for defeated candidates as well as past and present MPs. Homey 23:38, 13 February 2006 (UTC) They've starting doing this for several defeated candidates, including those of minor parties. Wonder where they got the idea. CJCurrie 23:58, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

My orginal thought was Senate appointments, but then I found the NDP Candidate. --Cloveious 06:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Most of the above ones are fairly notable. Peter White was a big player in the Mulroney government, Orchard for obvious reasons. They may be compiling a page of leadership candidates and top staffers who ran for office? - Jord 14:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Or otherwise notable people who have run for parliament unsuccessfully (Lewis Mackenzie?). I've never heard of James Walker though, who is he?Homey 17:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Shorthand Titles

Can I suggest that we remove the “Shorthand Titles” section that now appears on some Governors General articles. It seems that somebody imported this from the British pages, where it is used rather occasionally . On those pages it was arguably needed because Arthur Wellesley becomes known the Duke of Wellington for example. So on the Ed Schreyer article right now it has this:

  • Mr Edward Schreyer (1935-1958)
  • Mr Edward Schreyer, MLA (1958-1959)
  • Mr Edward Schreyer, MLA, B.A., B.Pd. (1959-1962)
  • Professor Edward Schreyer, MLA B.A., B.Pd., B.Ed. (1962-1963)
  • Professor Edward Schreyer, MLA, B.A., B.Pd., B.Ed., M.A (1963-1965)
  • Mr. Edward Schreyer, M.P., B.A., B.Pd., B.Ed., M.A, (1965-1969)
  • Premier Edward Schreyer, MLA, B.A., B.Pd., B.Ed., M.A, (1969-1977)
  • His Excellency The Right Honourable Edward Schreyer, C.C., C.M.M., C.D., B.A., B.Pd., B.Ed., M.A, (1979-1984)
  • The Right Honourable Edward Schreyer, P.C., C.C., C.M.M., C.D., B.A., B.Pd., B.Ed., M.A, LL.D, D.Sc.Soc. (1984-July 13, 2000)
  • The Right Honourable Edward Schreyer, P.C., C.C., C.M.M., O.M., C.D., B.A., B.Pd., B.Ed., M.A, LL.D, D.Sc.Soc. (July 13, 2000-Present)

I don’t think that it helps much. Would it help on the Harper page to know when he became Stephen Harper, BA, Stephen Harper, MA, MP, PC, and so on. I think that this is just a pretentious waste of space. Sorry. --JGGardiner 06:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this example goes overboard. I don't think academic and honorary degrees need to be mentioned in such detail, but I like to include dates for prenomial styles ("Hon." and up) and state-granted postnomials (but not MP, MLA). I have been doing some work in this regard on selected articles, but I haven't looked at Schreyer's. My suggestion for Schreyer:
  • Styled "the Honourable" for term as an executive councillor in Manitoba, 1969 to 1977.
  • Styled "His Excellency the Right Honourable" during term as governor general, January 22, 1979 to May 14, 1984; styled "the Right Honourable" for life after leaving office
  • Chancellor and Principal Companion of the Order of Canada for term as governor general; Companion of the order after leaving office.
  • Chancellor and Commander of the Order of Military Merit for term as governor general; Commander of the order after leaving office.
  • Canadian Forces Decoration, mmmm dd, 1979
  • Made a privy councillor (postnomial: PC), June 3, 1984
Indefatigable 15:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I think that would be better. Right now it doesn't provide the real context like you have included. For the obvious things, like MP, the dates are already listed in the article and some of the others don't have explanations. Plus I like the use of sentences. Quite a few of the GGs are like this. I just happened to notice Schreyer during the election. --JGGardiner 05:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Image:Scarborough, Ontario Location.png

This image is likely to be deleted soon. Can someone replace it with something like Image:Toronto Location.png?  Flag of Scarborough, ON, Canada  UTSRelativity (Talk)  15:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Done a few days ago ... take a peek! :) E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 22:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks!  Flag of Scarborough, ON, Canada  UTSRelativity (Talk)  14:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Considering the creation of an article on Canada-Caribbean relations

I'm considering finally-- going for the plunge and starting an article on Canada-Caribbean relations. I just wanted to drop a note here and ask if there's any objections to the naming- etc. or other things I should consider before doing so? In thinking to myself I would rather find out now, rather then see 1 month from now a 'vote for deletion.' *smirks* Don't laugh, I've seen it happen to others. ,-)

P.S. on the talk('discussion') page of Canada-Caribbean relations I also have a series of topics which I thought of off the top of my head, ofcourse all are underpinned within the Canada-Caribbean relations. BTW: I used the wording of 'Caribbean/West Indies' because the Bahamas aren't officially in the "Caribbean" but are in the "West Indies". However the term West Indies is considered somewhat archaic. CaribDigita 23:42, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a great idea. There is a long and important history there, as well as notable current ties. I also find that this is a subject that Canadians too often overlook. - SimonP 00:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Its true, there's lots of things that go on. I'm not sure if you remember former Canadian MP David Kilgour he made a speech [2] in December about Canadian-Caribbean relations as well just before he took his bow- out of politics. One of the things mentioned is the bid for Calgary 2005, he said 11 of the 25 votes were from Caribbean nations. The other thing is you can't really escape that whole relationship between the two regions I mean you can take it back to Paul Martin on the Canadian side, he was chided over his business ties in Barbados. And likewise the Barbados PM 1-2 years ago was chided over quietly appointing someone from Canada to be fully incharge of the Government owned Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation television station. Appearently someone got word of it and a dispute quickly loomed with one director claiming they had seniority- and should have been appointed as the next in line. etc. The government continued to state the lady from Canada had better credentials. [3], [4] It was a mess. Nearly brought down the government there too. ,-) CaribDigita 01:53, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Victoria

Right now, there are three articles on the city and the surrounding area with incredible overlap - Victoria, British Columbia, Greater Victoria, British Columbia, and Capital Regional District, British Columbia. The Victoria article contains lists of schools, neighbourhoods, recreational facilities and other things that are outside the municipal boundaries of the City of Victoria. And since Greater Victoria is more or less coterminous with the CRD, I'm wondering why these articles cannot be merged. Is there any protocol about this, or can I simply go in and fix things up accordingly? What do others think? Fishhead64

I think Greater Victoria should be merged into CRD, but the Victoria article can remain separate. Usgnus 19:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
If you think it'll be controversial, put Template:mergeto and template:mergefrom in the appropriate articles to set up discussion on one of the talk pages. Personally, I agree with Usgnus's assessment. Indefatigable 22:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Featured article on main page

Paul Kane, an article on a Canadian artist, will be featured on the main page on 1 March 2006. The page will be subject to a high degree of vandalism on that day. Please monitor the page to help revert vandalism on that day. --64.114.106.132 22:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Making the Canada article featured

To work towards making the Canada article better, some work has been started to find references for the information in various sections, and to comment on the images and find new ones. If anyone has some time, can you take a look at Talk:Canada and see if you can sign up for finding some of the references for some sections. Thanks -- Jeff3000 18:31, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Help on image needed

Image:AlanBeddoe.png faces deletion unless we can show that it is indeed in the public domain. It was taken by Jules Alexandre Castonguay of Ottawa, who worked until 1949. If we can show that it was not taken in 1949 (i.e., 1948 or earlier), it would be at least {{PD-Canada}}. If we can show that it was taken before 1946 (i.e., 1945 or earlier), it would even be {{PD-US}}. Can anybody help trying to prove either? Lupo 08:25, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


Ice Hockey Defenceman

Please note that User:Jeffness has said that he will change all spelling of defenceman to defenseman in NHL related articles, because it is the *North American spelling* (see talk:defenceman (ice hockey). Since most NHL players have come from Canada, this is seriously prejudicial. 132.205.45.148 19:25, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey: the issue resolved itself. You're a day late, nothing to see, move along. No need to make a political issue over it. ccwaters 20:37, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
No, the issue of the page move has been resolved. The issue of the spelling in articles is not. Jeff stated he'd change the spelling in NHL related articles to defenseman. 132.205.46.157 02:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Provinces template

This is frustrating. The template includes a box for official languages, leading to fruitless debates over what languages apply. The Ontario site has "English and French (in some areas)," Manitoba has "English" (its French as well), and provinces like BC and Alberta, which have no language legislation, have "English." I think the template needs to be changed to remove this box. Until then, I'm removing the language from the boxes in provs which have no offcial language(s) Fishhead64 16:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

  • French does not have official language status in either Ontario or Manitoba. The fact that there are francophones in those provinces is not relevant to whether or not they have legal status as official languages of the province — the only provinces where French has that status are Quebec and New Brunswick. Both Ontario and Manitoba make some effort to provide services to their francophone communities, but the language does not have official status in either province. I'd be willing to discuss removing the section from the template altogether, but I'm not willing to support adding inaccurate information to the box. Bearcat 19:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I have difficulties with the whole notion of "official language" being applied to provinces that have no specific legislation denoting an official language. This in itself is inaccurate and misleading. Lets look at the fact that French services are mandated in certain provinces: Does this mean that French is therefore an official language? A "quasi-official" language? Or does it simply mean exactly what the legislation says - that certain services shall be provided in French and English under certain circumstances? I'm for removing it from the template altogether. Who gets to make the decision? Fishhead64 20:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
In Alberta, there are more people who speak Ukranian than those who speak French. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people who spoke Mandarin or Cantonese in BC and a few other provinces than those who speak French. I think this feature needs to be removed altogether from the template. It could be used in the text for specific provinces. Cadillac 00:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually that is not true. French is by far Alberta's 2nd language, with over 200,000 people who speak it. Ukrainian is in fifth place after German and Chinese. See the 2001 Census numbers. However, I do agree that official should be removed from the template and dealt with in the text, as it has too many different meanings and interpretations. Luigizanasi 00:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
The language in which the government actually operates is a de facto official language even if none is specifically spelled out in law. (That's all "official language" means anyway: the language in which the government operates.) Thus, it's in no way inaccurate to say that English is the official language of British Columbia, even in the absence of a law mandating this. But it would be entirely inaccurate to say that French is, because the government of BC does not operate in French to any notable degree. Bearcat 21:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Time in Canada

new article, help appreciated. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll contribute Fishhead64 19:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
What exactly is the article. It's just a list now. Will it include history, etc.? --JGGardiner 06:32, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

"The" and the territories – discussion and poll on usage

E Pluribus Anthony has removed the "the"s before "Northwest Territories" in the Provinces and territories of Canada. Rather than engaging in an edit war, I thought of bringing it up here for discussion and possible resolution. For some background, you might want to check out the discussions Anthony and I had at Talk:Premier of the Northwest Territories, Talk:List of communities in the Northwest Territories, and Talk:Northwest_Territories#.22The.22. There are four options:

  1. Use "The" with both the NWT and the Yukon in accordance with a style guide published in the North (PDF file from the Northern Review), which states: "The Yukon and the Northwest Territories should be referred to with the definite article where appropriate: the Yukon or the Northwest Territories."
  2. Do not use the "the" for either territory in accordance with the Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage (ISBN 0-19-541619-8):
    • "Residents prefer Northwest Territories to ‘the’ Northwest Territories'. The preferred usage parallels usage for the names of provinces; that is, one doesn't say 'the Alberta'" (p. 342), and
    • "Though other Canadians often say ‘the’ Yukon', residents of this territory prefer that the definite article be dropped, indicating that Yukon is not just a geographic area like ’the North’, but a political entity like Alberta or Canada." (p. 532).
  3. Use the Northwest Territories and no "the" for Yukon as these seem to be the official names, as evidenced by their respective governments' web sites.
  4. As with other local differences in English usage, continue to use the style used by the first major contributor to the article.

Luigizanasi 07:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

  • I favour #1, along with the majority of northerners. I believe the Oxford guide is simply wrong in this case. I do not recall any debate in the NWT about the use of the article. On the other hand, there has been a debate in the Yukon, which is not settled yet. Luigizanasi 07:37, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I might have used the third myself but the first seems fine also. I could see dropping the "the"s on a list but to do so in the text sounds awkward, such as in "land that had been part of Northwest Territories". --JGGardiner 07:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm personally in favour of omitting the "the" in either case. —Nightstallion (?) 13:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Common usage for the NWT in the north is to use "the". So I would say go with #1. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 13:25, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • As the original proponent, I support #2: there's little reason to not equilibrate how Wp consistently refers to Canadian subdivisional entities – i.e., consistently treat Yukon and Northwest Territories as we do any other province or territory. If a common usage guide prescribes removing the definite article, which also has support in common usage (see discussions), that should be sufficient. Moreover, to clarify: option #3 above is not entirely accurate since (as of 2002) "Premier of Yukon" is arguably the correct rendition and a perusal of their website indicates a melange (e.g., Government of Yukon). Even the instigator of this discussion conceded previously that both are "acceptable". Apropos, I'd also support #4 to accommodate for these differences in dialectic. It perhaps is more appropriate for Wikipedians to get over their admitted "dislike" for one or the other option (and I could be as guilty of that as anyone) and to have a cup of thé instead. :) E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 20:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I'd rather have a glass of this instead. :-) While I have a visceral dislike of referring to the Yukon without the article, I have to recognize that there is no unanimity in the Yukon about the use of the article, and neither usage is absolutely "correct" or "incorrect". But please don't tell anyone I admitted to this. I would also support #4 if that is the consensus. Luigizanasi 03:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm in favour of something substantial being written up and added to Wikipedia:Naming conventions and then reflected in a lot of areas like Category names. My initial thoughts are:
    • "of/in/from the Northwest Territories"
    • "of/in/from Nunavut"
    • undecided about the, er, westernmost territory, the one that includes Whitehorse.
My preference is for treating each territory separately, and in particular having a broader debate about the/the Yukon. I'm open to either of those Yukon options, just so long as we come to a standard and stick to it. It's worth noting by way of comparison that Wikipedia tends to stick with "the Netherlands" and "the Gambia" elsewhere, but not "the Sudan." I quite severely dislike using "the Yukon Territory" as if it were a valid name (and, as an aside, using the YT rather than YK abbreviation, but that's another issue), particularly because "Nunavut Territory" never entered popular parlance, and "territory" is merely a descriptor of its constitutional status rather than an inherent part of its name in the same way as "Northwest Territories"–you wouldn't say "Saskatchewan Province."
Oxford strikes me here as being just plain wrong on the NWT. Both Northerners and Southerners, in my experience, use the "the." The Globe & Mail, National Post, Ottawa Citizen and Edmonton Sun are "the" users. And there's no particular reason "the" should be associated with abstract geographicness and the be associated with a political identity: witness Prime Minister of the United Kingdom–fine, the state in question is named "United Kingdom", not "The United Kingdom," but the "the" is always there for grammatical purposes. The Tom 20:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm in favour of #1 as well, but agree with Tom that the popular convention seems to be to refer to "Yukon Territory," (more usually without the definite article) but "the Yukon." "Northwest Territories" when used with a preposition sounds strained - although I'm sure it is used on occasion. Given that it is a plural reference (to the districts?), the definite article seems grammatically appropriate. Perhaps the main NWT article could begin in the same way as the Yukon one (i.e., "Northwest Territories or (usually) The Northwest Territories") if we want to represent the legal name. Fishhead64 21:25, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • My sense is the word "Territories" in the NWT's name originated as a generic synomym for "lands" (ie, the "North West Lands"). "Territory" (singular) only came to be adopted as a generic term for a geographical subdivision lacking full federal status after then, presumably borrowing the similar terminology in use in the western US at that time (and later picked up by Australia as well). There's no particularly strong linguistic reason that we couldn't have a "Province of the Northwest Territories" at some point down the road, unlike "Province of the Nunavut Territory", which would have an internal contradiction.
As for the NWT's article lead, I see no reason for deviating from the way we treat the UK or the Netherlands, (ie, "The Northwest Territories is..."). Nobody's saying that the The is a part of its formal name (unlike, say, The Pas), only that it's a grammatical convention to include the "the" in written and spoken English, but omit it from things like maps or statistical lists. The Tom 22:33, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • While I'm sensitive to local usage concerns, I find that constructions like "People from Yukon" or "Premiers of Northwest Territories" land extremely oddly on the ear. They actually sound wrong to me. And while it's true that we don't say "the Alberta", Alberta's legal name isn't "Alberta Province", either. No opinion, just some food for thought. Bearcat 19:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, you have most Northwest Territories residents on your side as well as a large proportion, if not the majority, of Yukoners. Including this Yukoner, the two local papers, as well as most people he knows. On the other hand, Eric Nielsen and a number of bureaucrats have done their best to change the Yukon to just Yukon. It should comfort you that you are on the side of angels on this one. :-) Luigizanasi 05:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I support number 1 or 3. Northwest Territories with the "the" in a sentence sounds very odd, and people will think that we've made a mistake. -- Jeff3000 16:43, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I vote for number 1.  Flag of Scarborough, ON, Canada  UTSRelativity (Talk)  18:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Ardeth Wood

I made a new article on Ardeth Wood, would appreciate comments and changes. -- Samir ∙ T C 07:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Margaret Gibson

Somebody edited writer Margaret Gibson's article on March 1 to indicate that she died in 2006, but they didn't provide a specific date. I hadn't heard this and haven't been able to find a media reference to confirm it. Is anybody able to confirm? Thanks. Bearcat 10:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay, confirmation no longer needed. The Globe published an obit on March 15. Bearcat 23:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Canadian Military History Taskforce

WikiProject Military history
The Canadian military history task force of the Military history WikiProject is looking for participants to help expand and improve content relating to Canada's military heritage.

Brad Salyn

Looks like WP:VANITY to me. Can somebody closer to the area have a look into it? Circeus 02:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Grand total of 55 Google hits, most of which are Wikipedia mirrors or discussion forums where he was a participant. A few references to him as press secretary to the mayor of Winnipeg, but city bureaucrats hardly qualify as notable unless they make major news. Accordingly, I've speedied. If this comes back a second time, however, AFD or {{prod}} it rather than speedying it again. Bearcat 02:34, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Statistics Canada - more free stats

For those that don't know, some time ago Statistics Canada announced that its internet publications would be available for free. Today, they made that official (announcement). Keep in mind that the data is still covered by Crown Copyright. Mindmatrix 14:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

By the way, here's a list of currently available publications. Mindmatrix 15:09, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Cool! This is going to save me a ton of money in my professional work. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Luigizanasi 19:35, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Liberal Leadership Articles

I'm concerned with the leadership race spawning needless articles. There have already been several, perhaps created to justify their inclusion on the race's endorsement article. Some, such as Milton Chan seem to offer a little more notability. I'd honestly considered an AfD nomination for most, particularily considering the heavy deletion votes for some similar articles but I'm newish and perhaps too polite so I'll just be bold enough to add "importance" tags to these articles. Does anybody have any thoughts on these types of articles? Is this too little? Too much? Thanks. --JGGardiner 05:27, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there many of these articles should be deleted. HistoryBA 15:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Canadian Military History Taskforce

{{WPMILHIST Canadian military history task force}}

Canadian Royal Family

Any thoughts on the idea that there is a Canadian Royal Family welcome at Talk:Court Circular Astrotrain 22:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Pembroke, Ontario

Could a few people keep an eye on this article. Someone keeps adding spamlinks to it, and I've recently had my userpage (and a few articles I created) vandalized as a result of reverting that spamlinking. This one's not too annoying, since the edits are typically a few days apart, but if there are accompanying vandal edits to other articles, then we should try to revert them all as soon as possible. Thanks! Mindmatrix 13:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I've opened a discussion about the links on the talk page. Mindmatrix 15:53, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Places of Worship

Kuzaar recently nominated a synagogue article for deletion which is listed on the main page. The article in question offers very little information. I noted in the AfD (with some examples) that there are many such articles, about places of worship, that are as thin as the one in question. Many, if not most, of the Canadian articles about places of worship only offer slightly more information than that. I'd like to know if anyone has any thoughts on what our criteria should be for inclusion of these articles. Thanks. --JGGardiner 20:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I can try to get this started. I think any place of worship is notable if it meets some criteria:
  1. The building is notable.
  2. The place of worship has notable members.
  3. Something notable happened there.

--YUL89YYZ 18:11, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I think that is a good set of criteria but it would also eliminate many of the churches that currently have articles. But perhaps we have had too much reluctance to delete these types of articles. --JGGardiner 23:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Requested article

I didn't know which section to add this request to but I would like to recommend we created a List of Canadian Prime Ministers by height. NorthernThunder 14:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Uh, let's not; there's little relevance to it, and I don't believe this has encyclopedic value. Of course, that's just my opinion. Mindmatrix 14:46, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with Mindmatrix on this. HistoryBA 15:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
How about List of Canadian Prime Ministers by golf handicap? ;-) Ground Zero | t 15:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Many of the lists under the template:Prime Minister of Canada see also are just as irrelevant. I would then suggest we delete that template. The List of United States Presidents by height order article then should also be deleted. NorthernThunder. 15:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the template itself should be deleted: That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. By all means make a case on AfD for deleting what you feel is prime ministerial listcruft, but most of the lists do have encyclopedic value. Fishhead64 22:51, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
NT, please accept my apology for my facetious remark above. It was unnecessary, and an inappropriate way to respond to your genuine interest in creating this list. I don't think it should be created, but making a facetious remark was the wrong way of expressing that. Ground Zero | t 16:21, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the list of presidents by height should be deleted. HistoryBA 16:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I'll also add my support for the removal of the presidents by height article. Mindmatrix 14:32, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

T dot

Can someone keep an eye on the T.dot group of articles? (see Special:Contributions/Independent Journalist). I've been redirecting them to Toronto's name, but the original author suggests that these articles are more about culture, than simply a name. I've only ever heard T.dot as a reference to the name Toronto, never a cultural scene. Am I wrong? Mindmatrix 14:32, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Ontario Plaques

Have a look at this user's contributions. This seems to be borderline spamming. Although the links are tangentially related to the articles, I don't think they belong. Perhaps a separate article about Ontario Plaques could be written, if one doesn't already exist, with one link to that website. (Note that the site linked to contains no advertising etc, and seems to be genuinely created for informational purposes by an historian.) Mindmatrix 14:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Since this site, Ontario Heritage Trust, is actually the official non-spam version of the site (Ontario's Historical Plaques) Amii was adding. --YUL89YYZ 16:39, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Template for Current Canadian COTW

Please look at the talk page for the Current Canadian COTW. Which do people prefer:

  • This:
This is the current Canadian collaboration of the month! Please help improve it to featured article standard.
  • Or this:
This is the current Canadian Collaboration of the Month!
Every month a different Canada-related topic, stub or non-existent article is chosen.
Please read the nomination text and featured article standards and help improve the article any way you can.

Please provide your comments on the template's talk page. Fluit 05:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Newfoundland and Labrador WikiProject

HJKeats and I have just created a WikiProject for Newfoundland and Labrador. If you'd like to help, come on over—the more the merrier. OzLawyer 17:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Education_in_Canada/Revised

If you've ever participated in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Education_in_Canada, please take a look at the re-write I did of the entire project. This re-write is just a proposal at this point in time, and is available here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Education_in_Canada/Revised. I'm looking for constructive comments with the eventual goal of archiving the current education project and switching over to this revised version. Thanks! --Stephane Charette 11:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that we've gone ahead and replaced the old WP:EiC project with the new one. --Stephane Charette 17:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Canadian city naming convention

At Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names), Canada is lumped in with the United States, which means that several Canadian cities (e.g., Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal) do not comply with the "published" naming convention if (city, province). The rest of the world pretty much follows a "disambiguate as needed" policy closer to the standard Wikipedia naming convention. I propose that we draft our own city naming convention. Here is a first draft:

Draft 1:
Canadian cities should be named "Placename" when possible: e.g., Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg. If disambiguation is needed, "Placename, Province", is used (the "comma convention", as in London, Ontario, or Dartmouth, Nova Scotia).
--Usgnus 21:33, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing inherently wrong with sharing a naming convention with the US, and the principle encompassed by it is a fairly well-understood standing policy, which lets globally-well-known cities in both Canada and the US (c.f., Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles) go without province/state names, while major-but-not-internationally-known cities get trailing state/province names (Denver, Colorado; Edmonton, Alberta; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Halifax, Nova Scotia). I think Australia corresponds fairly closely to this, too, FWIW. If the naming conventions page doesn't explain that policy clearly, which has come up on WP:RM in the past, then it ought to be fixed.
That isn't to say your proposal is without merit or worth discussing, by the way, although I imagine it would involve a heck of a lot of moves. The Tom 22:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Interestingly, I see Chicago and Los Angeles have since moved. Well, that's thrilling. I'll read up on what's prompted that. The Tom 22:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
What I'm mostly looking for is something that will allow Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City to stay where they are, and not be moved to Vancouver, British Columbia; Toronto, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec and Quebec, Quebec. -- Usgnus 22:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Comment - I don't have a problem with having the same naming convention as the U.S. if that's what a significant number of Canadian wikipedians choose, but I do have a problem with following along with the existing standard just because sometime in the past, Canada was lumped in the U.S. By the way, I read through the entire archive above. -- Usgnus
Interesting. I've certainly never heard any complaints about it, and my sense is that it's pretty much impossible for someone to speak of a city in Canada without knowing what province it's in. In contrast, in England, for instance, matching towns with the counties in which they are contained is often not well-known by even their fellow countryman. A worthy debate, certainly, but I have no real problems with the status quo. The Tom 22:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Copenhagen, Oslo, Vienna, Budapest, Istanbul, Mumbai, Paris, London, Accra, Tunis, Madrid, Rome, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Johannesburg, Taipei, Hong Kong, Sydney, Seoul, Tokyo, the list goes on, all follow the "disambiguation as needed" convention. -- Usgnus 22:49, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Nobody's breaking any conventions; the usual naming convention has been to use the simplest unique title possible. That is, if a city has a unique name or is overwhelmingly the most significant locality with a shared name, then it can have the city name alone; if it has to be disambiguated, then it uses the name of its appropriate political division (state, province, county, etc.) Even European communities have disambiguated titles when necessary, e.g Launceston, Cornwall, Nelson, Lancashire, Montréal, Aude, Amerika, Saxony, etc. — the difference is that European towns and cities tend to be a lot more likely to either have a unique name (where else but Germany could there possibly be a Bad Kissingen?) or to be the most significant use (I don't think anybody would seriously claim that London, Ontario is more important than the London in England, for example), not that they're actually using a different naming convention. What Usgnus is proposing here is the actual convention as written; it's not some kind of deviation. But at the same time, let's be realistic: although obviously there are exceptions, towns and cities in Canada and the United States are probably the absolute least likely in the world to actually have unique names for which no kind of disambiguation whatsoever is necessary.

I don't think the convention is saying that Canadian towns and cities must use the province name at all times, either — as written, what it means is "if disambiguation is necessary, the title is 'Halifax, Nova Scotia' rather than 'Halifax, Canada'." I've added a phrase to the convention to clarify that. Bearcat 00:53, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


One of the questions to me is, which cities should be able to stand out on their own and which need the the comma convention. That becomes a question of POV (I think it's safe to say that Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and perhaps Vancouver are internationally known enough to go without. The "second tier" - Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City, etc, is debatable). Once you get to cities which are unimportant on a global scale, it just becomes confusing for non-Canadian readers. "Edmundston", for example, isn't notable enough just to stand out on its own in my opinion. Unless already placed in the context of New Brunswick, it's rarely ever referred to without a ", New Brunswick" after it. If we do go this route, we could use something like the CP style guide (if they have a section on something like this) to determine which cities only get titled "placename".

The other issue I have with the original proposal is the same one I have with the UK/European convention (only disambiguate when needed). A lot of British Wikipedians have issues with people that dare suggest other cities share the spotlight with them. I've seen some of them swear up and down that their Bostons, Lincolns, Clevelands or Halifaxes were more important than those on this side of the pond, despite that all of their North American namesakes have national importance here as opposed to regional importance in the UK. (The UK city almost always prevails in the case of cities of roughly equal size and importance like Worcester or Truro, which is another POV issue that needs to be addressed). Do we really want to open the same can of worms here? Kirjtc2 01:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Draft 2:
Canadian cities, in general, should follow the following naming convention:
  • World-recognized cities should be named "Placename" when possible: Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver.
  • Unique major (population > 100,000 CMA) centres should also be named "Placename" when possible: e.g., Calgary, Winnipeg.
  • All other cities should be named "Placename, Province": e.g., London, Ontario, or Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
Notes: "Placename" cities should have redirect pages at "Placename, Province" and "Placename, Canada". Moving pages requires discussion and consensus on the city's talk page.
--Usgnus 16:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Those of you who may think the current "convention" does not require every U.S. city article to be named according to the [[city, state]] standard, try to find one city (besides the one exception, New York City) that does not follow the convention. And forget the ambiguity argument. Cities with clearly unambiguous names like Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, etc. etc., are named according to the convention, while the more common name form is a redirect to the article. Try to go to one of these pages and change the name back to what it should be (most used/recognized.. no state disambiguity baggage). Good luck with that. I support the separation of the Canadian policy from the U.S. policy, because the interpretation used in practice by U.S. city editors is that the standard is required, whether there is a disambiguity issue or not. --Serge 07:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Category:Order of Canada split

Here's a discussion that I started at Category:Order of Canada. I thought moving it here would get more comments:

This category (Category:Order of Canada) is very large at the moment. Is it worth splitting it into three categories?

My only concern is that 99% of the media references of the Order of Canada simply say that the individual was awarded the Order of Canada most do not say which level of the Order was given. Any comments? --YUL89YYZ 17:18, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this should be split into the further categories above. Does Canada publish the awards in a certain paper, like the New Year and Birthday Honours are published in the London Gazette here in the UK? If so, then we can check by that. Craigy (talk) 22:47, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
They should all appear in the Canada Gazette. - SimonP 12:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
There is an official book called something like "orders of canada", listing all recipients wih level. I can look up any missing entries there once the split up is complete. Circeus 15:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
All the people who have been awarded the Order of Canada are listed at the Governor General of Canada's web site (http://www.gg.ca/honours/search-recherche/index_e.asp?TypeID=orc). I just want to know if splitting this category will cause confusion since many people just say they have been awarded the Order of Canada rather than saying being made an Officer (OC) or Companion (CC) or Member (CM) of the Order of Canada. For example, I just found the first article from Google news about Harley Hotchkiss (see http://calsun.canoe.ca/Sports/Hockey/2006/06/29/1658700.html). It says "Anointed with the Order of Canada" rather than the actual article which says he is an Officer. --YUL89YYZ 15:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm comfortable with the proposed split, too, as long as we've got good sources. I've had the same concern in the past, that we don't always have sources clearly indicating which level of honours a person received. Bearcat 01:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Support the subcategorisation. Would suggest setting this up as subcategories of Officer and Companion on the existing Members category. The Members category would then be default where the rank of a member is yet to be determined on WP. Note the level of any OoC member can be confirmed at the OoC pages at gg.ca. Dl2000 14:18, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
I have created the categories and have started the sorting. Any help for this task is appreciated. --YUL89YYZ 20:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
The Category:Companions of the Order of Canada now seems to be in full sync with the List of Companions of the Order of Canada. Now to complete the Category:Officers of the Order of Canada recats. Dl2000 05:16, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
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