Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 14
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Index (Note that this index must be updated manually each 6 months)
Archive 1 (2004) • Archive 2 (Jan - Jun 2005) • Archive 3 (Jul - Dec 2005) • Archive 4 (Jan - Jun 2006) • Archive 5 (Jul - Dec 2006) • Archive 6 (Jan - Jun 2007) • Archive 7 (Jul - Dec 2007) • Archive 8 (Jan - Jun 2008) • Archive 9 (Jul - Dec 2008) • Archive 10 (Jan - Jun 2009) • Archive 11 (Jul - Dec 2009) • Archive 12 (Jan - Jun 2010) • Archive 13 (Jul - Dec 2010) • Archive 14 (Jan- Jun 2011) • Archive 15 (Jul- Dec 2011) • Archive 16 (Jan - Jun 2012) • Archive 17 (Jul - Dec 2012) • Archive 18 (Jan - Jun 2013) • Archive 19 (Jul - Dec 2013) • Archive 20 (Jan - Jun 2014)
acceptable image?
this image from this page seems to allow image downloading, by anyone, and no restriction is noted. I would like to crop and upload to display in the article Kathy Dunderdale. Acceptable? NorthernThunder (talk) 07:49, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- I think the link on the bottom of the page "Important Notices", see the Commercial Reproduction section, indicates that, as it is a living person, it can't be used. Wikipedia:Image use policy#Adding images says "Images which are listed as for non-commercial use only, by permission, or which restrict derivatives are unsuitable for Wikipedia and will be deleted on sight, unless they are used under fair use." and of course a living person's image can't be used under a fair use claim. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 10:51, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- You might want to contact the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. There is a good picture here but the wording at the bottom of the page ("No unauthorized copying or redeployment permitted.") seems to conflict with the wording at Disclaimer/Copyright/Privacy Statement. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 11:07, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- I am growing a very deep contempt for these restrictive copyright laws. NorthernThunder (talk) 12:02, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- You might want to contact the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. There is a good picture here but the wording at the bottom of the page ("No unauthorized copying or redeployment permitted.") seems to conflict with the wording at Disclaimer/Copyright/Privacy Statement. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 11:07, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Provincial/Territorial population figures in the infobox
With the exception of Nunavut, which I just changed back to 2006 figures, all of the provinces/territories infoboxes are using population estimates from StatCan for 2009/2010. I had assumed that Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Canada-related articles)#Population would apply and the infobox should use the 2006 census figures. However, after reading it the guide only talks about municipalities. So I was wondering if there is a consensus as to what population figures should be in the provincial/territorial infoboxes? I would think that they should be the same as the municipalities and use the 2006 figures with estimates in the body. If the latest estimates are preferred in the infobox then they should be consistent and indicate, like Alberta, that they are estimates rather than like Ontario. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 12:22, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- I think we should be using all consistent 2006 figures, with later estimates explained in the text. It's a consistent presentation and within approx. a year we will have the latest and greatest (with all-new totally butchered voluntary long-form statistics, but that's a different issue). The Census will still be (relatively) impeccably reliable for population stats - and it is the only reference point for when federal/provincial/municipal estimates vary. Franamax (talk) 12:57, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- Agree with Franamax, and WP:CANSTYLE should be adjusted accordingly. I believe that WP:CANSTYLE only refers to municipalities because people screwing with local population counts has always been a problem, but the same principles should apply to provinces and territories as well. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:03, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- Just to note provinces have their own statistics data, StatsCan is not the only official source, and the provinces seem to produce annual updates/estimates - I haven't looked at StatsBC yet, not sure there's even an article; I htink it's a branch of the Ministry of Economic Development and Small Business....whatever it's called since the last series of cabinet shuffles.Skookum1 (talk) 20:28, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- Those provinces that do produce the stats could be included in the demographics section of the article. That way the infoboxes for municipalities/provinces would be consistent. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 22:18, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- Just asking idly and indenting at random, do the various infoboxes have available fields for "latest_pop_est" and "latest_pop_ref" or such-like? For fast growing/shrinking populated entities, we would just then need a hierarchy for whose latest estimate rules the roost. Franamax (talk) 05:42, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
- {{Infobox settlement}} has "population_est" and "pop_est_as_of" but {{Infobox province or territory of Canada}} does not appear to have anything like that. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 10:21, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
- Just asking idly and indenting at random, do the various infoboxes have available fields for "latest_pop_est" and "latest_pop_ref" or such-like? For fast growing/shrinking populated entities, we would just then need a hierarchy for whose latest estimate rules the roost. Franamax (talk) 05:42, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
- Those provinces that do produce the stats could be included in the demographics section of the article. That way the infoboxes for municipalities/provinces would be consistent. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 22:18, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- Just to note provinces have their own statistics data, StatsCan is not the only official source, and the provinces seem to produce annual updates/estimates - I haven't looked at StatsBC yet, not sure there's even an article; I htink it's a branch of the Ministry of Economic Development and Small Business....whatever it's called since the last series of cabinet shuffles.Skookum1 (talk) 20:28, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- Agree with Franamax, and WP:CANSTYLE should be adjusted accordingly. I believe that WP:CANSTYLE only refers to municipalities because people screwing with local population counts has always been a problem, but the same principles should apply to provinces and territories as well. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:03, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Upon first review of this discussion, I was all for it. Thinking more about it, I'm not so sure.
The difference between municipalities and their larger levels of geography (provinces/territories and census metropolitan areas where applicable) is that Statistics Canada actually publishes intercensal estimates on a regular basis for all provinces/territories and all CMAs using a consistent methodology for both levels of geography. I've yet to see intercensal estimates published by StatCan for all municipalities (census subdivisions) in Canada. I'm not certain they even publish estimates for the larger municipalities. Perhaps this is why WP:CANSTYLE#Population was exclusive to municipalities, since a consistent StatCan baseline (intercensal estimates) could be used to maintain consistency among all provinces/territories, but not municipalities (this may be the argument of those that could potentially oppose removal of latest estimates in favour of the 2006 census counts when it comes time to implement what comes out of this discussion on each provincial/territorial article).
I am not opposed to changing provincial/territorial infoboxes back to the latest official census counts. However, there may be a different solution that could resolve this so that both can coexist in the infoboxes, given the amount of controversy that could ensue. A potential solution could be revising the {{Infobox province or territory of Canada}} template to include "population_est" and "pop_est_as_of" parameters like the {{Infobox settlement}} template. Hwy43 (talk) 05:56, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- Personally, I despise the convention to retain data that is now well over five years old in an encyclopedia that prides itself on being up to date. While retaining the last census data does make sense, there is absolutely no reason why we should not be including the current populations, either the most latest estimate, or in the case of many cities in Alberta that do full, annual censuses, their official figures. Anything that gets us away from relying so heavily on such ancient and , frankly, irrelevant data is a good idea. Resolute 06:01, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- 2006 isn't over five years. I am going to be the bearer of bad news, when I mention that when the 2011 census data comes out later this year, there will be a lot of articles to update? 117Avenue (talk) 06:20, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- Editors should be encouraged to update the encyclopedia, especially if doing so is done by replacing the references from the same source and/or its academic equal. I think if there are 2 numbers from 2 different sources - write about the differences and include both in the body of the article. I do like the idea of updating {{Infobox province or territory of Canada}} so both can appear, however simply removing the field all together would be best i think. Do we rrrrealy need all this info in the box in the first place - should it not be all in the article explaining its context anyways? 07:24, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- As a resource, and in many ways easier to get at analyzed information than the strict and confusing layout of StatsCan here is StatsBC's website.Skookum1 (talk) 09:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- 2006 isn't over five years. I am going to be the bearer of bad news, when I mention that when the 2011 census data comes out later this year, there will be a lot of articles to update? 117Avenue (talk) 06:20, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- First, I don't think census data is ancient. Data derived from an actual census has more validity than an estimate. Having said that, I have no objection to using Statscan intercensal estimates in infoboxes as well, which would presumably address any concerns about the currency of census data. As for estimates from provincial agencies and municipalities, many of them are derived from Statscan data anyway, so I think such information could legitimately be included in the body of the article (such decisions should generally be made on a case by case basis). Remember that the guideline at WP:CANSTYLE was intended to counter blatant breaches of WP:OR and WP:RS when including population figures in articles ("When you see all those new houses driving into town, the population must have doubled since 2006 fer sure!") -- provincial and municipal data, on the other hand, is from a legitimate source. However, given that provincial and municipal staff may use different methodologies from one another, and likely have differing objectives in preparing their estimates, I think the infoboxes themselves should stick to Statscan data and estimates, just so that we are sticking with apples-to-apples across all articles. Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:15, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- As an example, the City of Airdrie conducts an annual census. Not an estimate, an actual head count. The 2010 population count showed the city had a population of 39,822. [1] The 2006 national census showed the city as having a population of 28,927. By sticking to that old data, we have introduced a 27% error into our reporting of the city's population. That is ancient data. I get the idea of leaving the last national census figure in the infobox for consistency. But we should also include most recent data for accuracy. And frankly, I believe accuracy is more important than consistency anyway. Resolute 20:43, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- That can already be done for cities. As pointed out before {{Infobox settlement}} has the est pop field and it would be easy enough to add it to the provincial one. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 22:01, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- And when it is not an esimate, as in the example above? In either case, yes, something like that needs to be added to the provincial infoboxes as well. Resolute 00:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
- That can already be done for cities. As pointed out before {{Infobox settlement}} has the est pop field and it would be easy enough to add it to the provincial one. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 22:01, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- As an example, the City of Airdrie conducts an annual census. Not an estimate, an actual head count. The 2010 population count showed the city had a population of 39,822. [1] The 2006 national census showed the city as having a population of 28,927. By sticking to that old data, we have introduced a 27% error into our reporting of the city's population. That is ancient data. I get the idea of leaving the last national census figure in the infobox for consistency. But we should also include most recent data for accuracy. And frankly, I believe accuracy is more important than consistency anyway. Resolute 20:43, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Just re those BCStats pages, there's an interesting one broken down by provincial electoral districts, useful for improving electoral district articles; also by college region, health/hospital region etc, with everything available in Excel format as well as in PDF. I think the municipalities may be updated/estimated fairly regularly, though not by direct head-count like Airdrie etc. (Alberta has more money for that kind of thing). Note the "electoral districts revealed" link at teh top of that page, has some interesting comments/explanations of the data they have analyzed/sorted....Skookum1 (talk) 21:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- This discussion appears to be going a tad tangental to the municipal level of geography, with official municipal census population counts in Alberta and municipal population estimates published by BCStats in BC. As mentioned twice, the latter could use the "population_est" and "pop_est_as_of" parameters of the {{Infobox settlement}}, while the former could use the "population_blank1_title" and "population_blank1" parameters of the same template (since they are door-to-door counts and not estimates).
- I'd love to generally discuss both in greater detail just for education and personal interest purposes, but back to the topic at hand, the provincial/territorial level of geography. What are everyone's thoughts on adding "population_est" and "pop_est_as_of" equivalent parameters to the {{Infobox province or territory of Canada}}? Such an action would achieve both consistency and accuracy. Hwy43 (talk) 00:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
- I was planning to add it later but seeing as you asked. Yes I think it should be included. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 02:48, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
At least for cities and towns, the rule on here does quite explicitly allow properly sourced intercensal estimates and/or formal municipal censuses to be cited in our articles. However — and this is the point that some people keep failing to grasp — we also have a responsibility to provide a consistent source. Yes, by one perspective, 2006 census data is "outdated" in cases where an updated 2010 figure is properly citable; however, the moment you remove the 2006 census figure from an article entirely, such that its only population figure is a 2010 update, then you're setting up a false comparison to other cities which don't have reliable population updates published between national censuses. It's misleading to correlate Airdrie's population in 2010 to North Bay's or Brandon's or Edmundston's in 2006, because just like Airdrie, those cities have either grown or shrunk in the intervening four years too.
Which is why the rule has always been that updated population figures between national censuses can be provided as supplementary data, but not as a replacement for the most recent national census. The StatsCan census is the only source that's consistently available for every municipality right across the entire country, so it's the only figure that can provide a properly sourced apples-to-apples comparison that's consistent across all of our articles. Updated figures are certainly encouraged in body text wherever possible — but the 2006 figure still has to remain in all city articles until the 2011 census figures are published, whether an intermediate update is available or not, because that's the only number we can provide for users to compare across articles. And for the same reason, lists like List of the 100 largest cities in Canada require a consistent source as well, which is why those lists are never to be updated with any source outside of StatsCan data.
And incidentally, this is the problem I have with the claim that Calgary has surpassed Ottawa in population ranking. While it's certainly possible that it's true, it's currently based on a misleading comparison: Calgary did a municipal census in 2010, and Ottawa did not — which means that until StatsCan publishes its national 2011 census results, the claim rests on comparing two numbers that were calculated either by different methods or at different times (or both), and which are consequently not equivalent and not comparable.
When it comes to population data, it's absolutely critical that the figures be properly sourced, and it's absolutely critical that we provide data referenced to a consistent source — but while it's certainly nice to provide supplementary "up-to-the-minute" data where possible, it's not critical to do so if that compromises the more important objectives. 2006/2011 census data is the meat, and anything else is gravy — we can serve the meat without gravy if we have to, but we cannot serve the gravy without meat. Bearcat (talk) 07:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Collaboration with the Wine Project on Canadian wine articles?
Hello! For 2011, the Wine Project is doing a new Wine Improvement Drive where each month we focus on an area of articles that relate to a particular theme. In January we are are ringing in the New Year with New World wine, with a focus on the wines of the Northern Hemisphere-Canadian wine, American wine and Mexican wine. I am going by related projects to see if there is any interest in collaboration between this project and the wine project on the subject of Canadian wine? Some suggestion on potential article creations include Nova Scotia wine (currently a redirect), History of Canadian wine, the red links on Vintners Quality Alliance as well as individual appellation articles such as Pelee Island VQA (similar to the American Viticultural Areas where each wine region gets its own article). On a smaller scale, there are Canadian wine related articles that could use some help with clean up (such as Henry of Pelham Winery and Jackson-Triggs) or expanding beyond a stub such as the Vidal Blanc grape which is the source so many delicious Canadian Icewine. And, of course, of HUGE help would be the upload of free use photos of Canadian wineries, wines and wine regions to Commons that could be used to better illustrate Canadian wine articles. If you're interested in helping, please drop a note at the Wine Project's talk page with the article you're interested in helping with. Thanks and have a great New Year! AgneCheese/Wine 22:28, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
10th anniversary meetup
Hello my fellow Canadian Wikipedians (specifically West-Coasters, though a happy new year to all!). I think it would be great if we all could get together to celebrate Wikipedia's 10th annivesary on Jan. 15. I am trying to work out a meeting location in Vancouver; for all outside of the lower mainland, maybe we can set up a laptop for Skype drop-ins (or maybe its time for a vacation in balmy Vancouver!). We can discuss the meetup at this page at the official organizing area: Talk:Vancouver, B.C. I am told that swag such as t-shirts and buttons will be involved. Hope to see you there! The Interior(Talk) 03:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- Geez, I'd like some of that swag but I can't afford to come....if anyone is from the Okanagan and gonna drive down for it, might be viable (I'm in Penticton).Skookum1 (talk) 03:57, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- Hope we can work something out, Skookum, be great to see you there. The Interior(Talk) 16:36, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Nothing for Toronto? I thought we were the centre of the universe... → ROUX ₪ 19:40, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- I hear Greyhound can get you over here in less than 3 days :) The Interior(Talk) 20:31, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
- Nope, Kitsilano is the centre of the universe, doesn't even need a ref since it's so obvious. TO just takes the numbers on vastly greater and more diversified economic weight, political clout, better newspapers and other media, various similarly minor factors. We have the edge on number of sushi places and definitely win on number of cedar trees and that invasive thorny vine that grows everywhere. Franamax (talk) 01:47, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Permission status for Canadian postage stamp images
I'm reviewing an article ( Polar Bear ) for GA status and the only open item is an image of a Canadian Postage stamp with no real use rationale. I'm thinking of trying to fix it myself. Does anybody know the image use permission basis for Canadian government produced works like postage stamps? North8000 (talk) 03:29, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
- I can't claim to be an authoritative source, but at best, it would be under Crown Copyright (50 years from issue), otherwise the original author would hold copyright (life + 50). As that was issued in the early 2000s, I don't see any way that derivative work is free for use. Resolute 03:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks! Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:42, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Francophone history in British Columbia - OK title?
I've been pondering this for a long time, also things like Scandinavian immigration to Canada, German immigration to Canada etc. but we all know waht time-available vs distractions vs wiki-gumbo is like. I'm wanting to clear this title before even beginning a sandbox, as it came into focus from the similarly named discussion on Talk:History of British Columbia. I've been the lone soldier there so far, defending Wikipedia, the anglophony etc from a bitter attack that begins:
- IMO these francos did not all disappear in 1858 following the gold rush americans influx as the official narrative would like us to believe. But they have been whitewashed by history for the usual basic bigotry prevailing reasons.
My first response is - "WHAT official narrative?". Ironically he cites a BC tourism site which sends up, out of proportion, francophone history, and clearly doens't know much of the rest of what went on, and assumes that it is the fault of anglophones that francohpones did not assert their identity more, and that francophones have not written BC history . I'll let y'all read the discussion, i tried to be as nice as possible but it's a bit circular; it's an interesting and worthy topic, I've cautioned him against SOAP and POINT and POV etc but to me this is someone with an axe to grind, and is not interested in building the house, only condemning others for not having done so, and that they must do it according to their POV if it is....decided to post this here because of the recent thing about French in the BC infobox...I've always found it doubly ironic when somebody who's clearly bigoted accuses others, who have done nothing to deserve it, in the most bigoted fashion possible. Anyway I've said what I can without losing it, if anyone has any objections to the proposed title please suggest alternatives. Another related article would be List of place names of French origin in British Columbia (note: note "French placenames" because many are adaptations to/from French, into English or Jargon and occasionally via a traditional native language....though the only example of that I can think of just now is from Spanish, i.e. Masset from Masseta, a captain's name).....I don't really have time to research/write this article, but at least an outline could be put up....so that us maudits anglos cannot be accused of ignoring the demand that we do something to promote/present BC's francophone history....note my comments at the end about why "and Metis" would not be a suitable component of the title; the francophones he's primarily interested in are pretty much all Metis, other than the priests...and "Metis" in BC doesn't mean exactly what it means traditionally and/or in French (where it tends to mean half-French, not just half-blood).Skookum1 (talk) 04:39, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- Slightly different alternate, not sure which is more MOS, History of francophones in British Columbia, seems more awkward. Gives me pause to look at the French version of the BC History page, if there is one, and what they're using for sources...and what they're saying.Skookum1 (talk) 04:42, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- History of francophones... sounds to me like as good as it gets. As far as demands to include one topic or other, the standard answer is "{{sofixit}}", because of course everyone gets to work on whatever subject they want. The early coureurs du bois / French farming or merchant settlers (some of whom would be the Metis) are significant across Canada (and just for fun, I'm going to see if History of francophones in New England comes up as a bluelink). If you or someone else wants to start a framework article on the topic, I don't see a problem. Articles don't have to be first-rate when they start, just notable and sourced. Lack of coverage of one topic is never an argument against covering another topic. Franamax (talk) 05:16, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- Actually re francophones in New England....see Little Canada....there's also some coverage I think on Franco-American or French American, whichever, and I think there's a US category, even, of places with French heritage; see Ethnic ancestry maps of the United States, I think it's called, also.Skookum1 (talk) 06:24, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- Maps of American ancestries maybe....just came to me....I remember now also a bettter title re teh francophone was is History of francophones in the Pacific Northwest, 1811-1846 and, re La Perouse the boundaries, and teh activity/presence, were not ver much in modern BC at all; McLoughlin, whom he obsesses over IMO, barely came north from Fort Vancouver, his only connection with BC's boudnaries being via the York Factory Express and I'm not even sure he went to New Caledonia....anyway pretty clearly upon consideration that the context of the article should be hte Pacific Northwest (not including Alberta, as that term sometimes does) rather than British Columbia. Though many of the same people are involved as east of the Rockies, the circumstance was very different, and there were other kinds of francophones than just the fur company workers....and the bulk of their history is in what's now Oregon and WAshington....Skookum1 (talk) 06:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Untangling British colonial cats
With the creation of Category:British colonization of the Americas there's some parent/hierarchy confusion vs Category:British North America and maybe others....re the former one's title, I'd think Category:British colonies and territories in North America and maybe a pre-1776/1783 and post 1776-1783 subcats are called for, because of the Thirteen Colonies et al, and would work better than "British North America", which has clear "Canada"-only connections; I've never felt comfortable with describing the Columbia District or New Caledonia under that term, which sounds like a unitary place, not a scattered collection of territories/colonies as really it was, especially outside what is now Central Canada........"colonization" also infers non-territorial activity or areas of British influence, e.g. Uruguay/Rio de la Plata, Callao, trade activity, settlement in non-British territories etc etc....please have a look at Category:British colonies and its subcats....maybe this is sortable-outable without a CfD, or with only one CfD at some point....it's a tangled knot right now.....Skookum1 (talk) 21:15, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Whistler gondola news in Whistler Blackcomb
there's quite the tendency for ski area articles to contain current conditions/news updates, like the addition here. I'm not sure this belongs in the article at all; it's more like a press advisory for the mountain's customers than being encyclopedic in any way....do we cover every breakdown of equipment on such articles? I don't think so, but fielding it here for comment....Skookum1 (talk) 21:20, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- WP:NOTNEWS, WP:UNDUE. That's just an IP not understanding that Wikipedia is not intended to cover every trivial detail. Just remove it, imo. Resolute 21:30, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- Done, thanks for the guidelines to cite in doing so; would you mind reviewing Whistler_Blackcomb#Incidents as they're of the same ilk; though some involved injuries, even fatalities; Lift failures at Whistler Blackcomb would not seem to be the way to go....and WikiNews doesn't have the admin stuff to deal with coverage like this, I think....Skookum1 (talk) 00:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Offhand, I think the last three incidents are all trivial and could be removed as such. It is one of those things where a simple statement like "there have been occasional failures that have forced closure of the lifts.{cite}{cite}". Going into that much detail over what I presume are minor incidents is not that useful. In truth, if I cared to do so, I would rewrite the entire section to exclude the sub-section headers. The only thing those do is encourage people to create new sections for trivial incidents, exactly as happened here. Resolute 03:07, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Done, thanks for the guidelines to cite in doing so; would you mind reviewing Whistler_Blackcomb#Incidents as they're of the same ilk; though some involved injuries, even fatalities; Lift failures at Whistler Blackcomb would not seem to be the way to go....and WikiNews doesn't have the admin stuff to deal with coverage like this, I think....Skookum1 (talk) 00:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
I've been wondering about the viability of this list for quite a while, also List of filming locations in the British Columbia Interior....are there equivalent lists for LA, Toronto, New York, Boston, Halifax, London?? Isn't this just an agglomeration of trivia? Almost a bulletin board for set-spotting, and not really encyclopedic? Lots of articles - lots and lots of articles - have "so and so was shot here", much like "George Washington slept here" (or in the Canadian context "John A. MacDonald got drunk here"). I created the BC Interior list, partly because the Vancouver area list started including areas outside the Lower Mainland/Greater Vancouver, and as some may remember there was a one-time debate because the title originally delimited only the GVRD, under its brand-name Metro Vancouver, but the film industry is not governed nor restricted by RDs or their boundaries.....I'm just....well, like i said, is there a List of filming locations in Greater Los Angeles or List of filming locations in Manhattan or List of filming locations in Toronto? Seems like a lot of navel-gazing to me if there's only a Vancouver/BC pair of "Hollywood North" lists....the reality is sooner or later teh whole city is going to be covered, no?Skookum1 (talk) 07:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- So what's to stop others from creating similar lists? Wikipedia is a work in progress after all.. I believe these lists can be encyclopedic, and with added pictures they make for great-looking lists, though they should probably stick to covering just the most prominent locations, and not try to be exhaustive. -- Ϫ 09:36, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
- Well, the question then is to determine what makes a given location notable, filmically. Certain the Marine Building and Ruskin Dam and SFU and the Chan Centre and Lynn Canyon Park, Buntzen Lake etc (all very popular and IMO much-overused locations)...but the reality of the film business, when concentrated in a city like Vancouver or LA or New York, and with filming eventually everywhere becomes a film set eventually. On Supernatural alone, I've spotted twenty or thirty locations in and around Mission and Maple Ridge (my home turf, or one of them - I was raised at Ruskin Dam); the Stargate series(es), variously, Smallville, Flash Gordon and other series have covered a number of residential neighbourhoods/addresses at length, in Kitsilano, Kerrisdale, Lynn Valley and so on. So is Lynn Valley a location? Is Kitsilano? Half the high schools in the city have been used on various shows; which of them are notable? Wikipedia maybe be a work in progress, but it is not intended to be a directory of trivia.....Skookum1 (talk) 20:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Location name (ordered by geographic region, sub-ordered alphabetically )
Film/Show | Filming date(s) | Organising corporation/group | Other data film students might need |
---|---|---|---|
blah | 197o | Megamovies of Vancouver | Shot in black&white digital by monkeys. |
- What information is being presented, and why might it be relevant to the reader? which leads directly presentation. The data, currently, is not rich, nor is it presented in a way to make it useful/accessible to readers. You have a list of locations, each of which has a list of article links.
- Using a table to organise addition information about each shooting site is still fanboi, but it also serves a specific (if rare) group of film archivists/researchers. Find out what kind of information they record in their records. (My list of possible columns is specious; I don't know what they might want to find on en.WP.) - Amgine (talk) 01:58, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
New open license on BC govt (PAB) images
I dropped by the Public Affairs Bureau (British Columbia) website (here) last night in relation to non-wiki matters, and there was this posted at the top of its main page:
- Photos, videos and artist renderings are available for use in whole or in part without permission provided they are used unaltered. No credit line is required.
Doesn't say public domain but also doesn't restrict any known use; what might be the license for such usage? This would seem only to apply to pages on this domain, and not to other government websites, where SFAIK Crown Copyright still applies (other than places like BC Arch where it's lapsed on the 50-year rule).Skookum1 (talk) 21:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
- At first glance, "provided they are used unaltered" would seem to indicate that derivative works are disallowed, which means they would be unsuitable for adding to Commons. Might want to check the Legal section of their website to get more info, if they have one. --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 22:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed. As far as Wikimedia is concerned, the no derivative clause means those images are not considered free for our use. Resolute 22:17, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Vanvouver meetup tonight
Hello? Is this thing on? I am sitting in Benny's Bagels testing a very small computer. If no-one else brings one this will be the technology package. I plan to have a Skype channel running as "Franaparty" uuring our 10th-anniversary meetup tonight. If anyone wants to call in from across Canada (or elsewhere) to say hi, feel free to (try to) connect. Event starts at 6:30 PM PST. Franamax (talk) 23:40, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Disappointing non-result to generating/power station CfD
See Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_December_20#Category:Hydroelectric_power_stations_in_Canada - which I'm very unsatisfied by as it leaves a non-Canadian usage in the name of Canadian categories. Canadian English was discounted on the first CfD and the Americans given an exception; my input was rejected because I was the sole Canadian voice, i.e. because I was a Canadian (actually I think there were two others, but their input was passed over entirely as if they were not there; our decision was made for us; on this second one, it was said that no exception woudl be made for any country, even though the US already has such an exception for its own variety of English/terminology . It's very disappointing that few Canadians came to this CfD; it needs to be done a third time, after raising it maybe in CANMOS; CANMOS should have overridden "global consensus that we didn't matter"....the other Canadians in this one, which there were a few of, were largely in agreement with me except one guy pointing out that in SK they use "power station".
"Canadian opinion doesn't matter on Canadian categories" is what we're being tolld - or I'm being told. "Consensus: no decision" means that the wrong previous consensus is being allowed to stand, and teh very unsatisfactory situation upheld, as well as teh dismissive logic which cause the problem int he first place.Skookum1 (talk) 07:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
- 2 cents from the peanut gallery.....I took a quick look at it. I didn't see it as "Canadian opinion doesn't count"; I saw it as nobody making the case that there is a consistently used (different) term in Canada.North8000 (talk) 19:08, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
- Read through the arguments, it's not in Brown-Haired Girl's decision statement; and read through the previous CfD (wherever it is). True, there is no one consistently used term in Canada however a quick glance at all the categories shows that "generating station" is the prevailing term, by 90% or so; retaining a usage that's only in use in one province (SK) just because it's the "convention from above" and "there's no proof of consistent usage" across Canada belies the very pointed fact that, nationally, "power station" is a rarity, the SK case is an anomaly, and "generating station" is the Canadian standard (when "powerhouse" or "power plant" isn't, even though they're more common in "spoken" Canadian, likewise in news/magazine sources). "Power station" is very pointedly a British-ism and not at all common in Canada; to me (and as someone raised around power plants) it just sounds "foreign". Again again, there's no consistency across the US either, but (as per the previous CfD), an exception was made for them. I dispute this notion that "convention" can "descend" into child categories if the countries in question don't use the term (except rarely). The attitude in both CfD discussions towards Canadian English were dismissive, the counter-arguments picayune and discounted the Canadian norm(s).Skookum1 (talk) 19:19, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
file:EIIR-Canadian Parliament.jpg has been nominated for deletion. 65.93.13.210 (talk) 06:02, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Actually.... a large number of Canadian royalty images have been nominated for deletion at the same time, 17 January nominations by Damiens.rf (talk · contribs). 65.93.13.210 (talk) 06:06, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Heavy use of COI=POV government sources on political articles
I had reason to drop by the Gordon Campbell (Canadian politician) article tonight, after noting some harsh and deceptive (and unreferenced) spin on Glen Clark. In many - many - sections, the only citations given are from government press offices, either government ministries or frmo news.gov.bc.ca or similar sites; all are controlled by the Public Affairs Bureau, which is directly under the control of the Premier's Deputy Chief of Staff, who is also his Executive Assistant, and is not known (in the slightest) for its impartiality or for its fair presentation of actual facts. See Talk:Gordon_Campbell_(Canadian_politician)#Host_of_govt_sources_here_are_all_POV.2FCOI as I think any section there parroting a press release put out by an office directly under this politician's control is not viable or acceptable in Wikipedia unless clearly stipulated as a claim made by "government spokesman/offices/press release". Too much is presented as if it were fact, and reams of political context to many items, such as the doctor's pay raise, are entirely meaningless without their larger context - in that case a doctor's strike because Campbell broke standing contracts with them to try and get them to reduce their rates; they rebelled and won, though the 20.7% raise as I remember was a compromise settlement. This isn't the only article with this problem, and I fully expect to see "more of teh same" in citations on Stephen Harper and the Ministry of Stephen Harper articles and the like. Allowing Wikipedia to be an echo chamber for govenrment-generated spin/political "push" is not what we're supposed to be; either more third-party information and sources is added to teh sections in question, or they should be deleted as both COI and POV.Skookum1 (talk) 06:24, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
- Taken by itself, a source is neither POV nor COI. Even a government one. You are effectively accusing one or more editors of editing with a COI, and that claim will require support if it is going to be considered in good faith. At any rate, I am not convinced of your argument. For instance, the press release noting the 20.7% raise covers a fact that not even you are challenging, so I see no issue with COI or POV there. If you wish to replace with a non-government source, you can no doubt find a CBC article or something similar. That is your choice.
- It seems that your real issue is about an apparent lack of context. That's fair, but don't assume bad faith assuming why such statements have been simplified down to bare facts. That is pretty much how 90% of Wikipedia's editors write. There are only a limited number of editors who can and do bring the greater picture. If you wish to expand, feel free, though I would suggest limiting to summary style, as your tendency towards verbosity could unbalance an artice. Resolute 20:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
- That's one reason I haven't tried to work on this article, which in fact I took off my watchlist a long time ago as it gave me headaches; and like 90% (literally, and backed up by more than one poll) I intensely dislike this man and am horrified at what he has done to my province, in too many ways to begin here, so was semi-recusing myself on my own COI grounds. But there's a difference between "lack of content", which this article certainly has a problem with, and "one-sided content", which is the problem with most of its sections, other than the final ones where even NPOV accounts of what's gone on are condemnatory. I haven't taken the time to look back into the history to see who put in the one-sided sections, which are legion, and as I've explained the citations in question are all political-party/p.r.-agency derived material and this is a well-known fact in BC, even criticized by the mainstream media at times (though not often). CanWest in particular is known as a POV source, very pro-Liberal/business and anti-NDP (btw I'm not pro-NDP myself, anything but), but press releases from the government itself, fluffing up controversial policvies with feel-good language, has just been brought into here with no effort at all by those adding it to provide "balance" with "teh rest of the story", as with the Doctor's Strike. The lesser papers, certain ones in particular, have done an admirable job of covering what otherwise only teh blogosphere, as the Globe calls it, have covered and focussed on - read this, for example, by Merv Ritchie of the Terrace Daily, and note the passage in bold about the so-called Fudgeit-Budget hype the Liberals put out during their rise to power and have repeated afterwards as if it were true. The Glen Clark article has a deceptive passage about this (that article has POV issues "in both directions") and in the case of the Campbell article it's not stated as the reason for the brutal tax-and-service cuts of his incoming administration, the rationale for which was teh allegedly bad financial condition the outgoing NDP had left the place in; t he opposite was the case, and both the auditor-general and comptroller-general showed that as the case (both were replaced with someone more compliant with government spin thereafter, of course). The fluff about improving education is exactly that: fluff, and borne out only by more government press releases; as with the BC Legislature Raids article, properly expanding and NPOVizing this article is too much work for any one person; but main concern is that government citations giving only one party's view (the ruling party's) of government policies are inherently COI, same as they would be if this were on the BC Liberal Party page (where, if you can't see it but you should, sources from a government run by that party are implicitly COI). Government sources should only be used for data; not for reasons etc unless it says, outright "the government said ......" "the reason given by the government for this was....". And yes, I'm not used to thinking in terse point-form, but one reason is because I believe in completeness and fullness, not in boiled-down and overly-neutralized content that all too easily serves the interests of spin machines - especially if only material from the spin machines is what's presented. Skookum1 (talk) 20:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
- For example, I know if I were to attempt to include criticisms such as those from Corky Evans here there'd be complaints that I was adding "unbalanced information" and there'd be complaints also that i was using a blog as a citation; this is because the Sun and Province and other so-called "reliable" sources won't give Corky Evans or other critics space in their Op-Ed pages; see somewhere above about the unreliability and POV of mainstream coverage vs political blogs, the latter now being widely regarded by British Columbians as the only really reliable sources of information in the province.....Skookum1 (talk) 21:05, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
- That's one reason I haven't tried to work on this article, which in fact I took off my watchlist a long time ago as it gave me headaches; and like 90% (literally, and backed up by more than one poll) I intensely dislike this man and am horrified at what he has done to my province, in too many ways to begin here, so was semi-recusing myself on my own COI grounds. But there's a difference between "lack of content", which this article certainly has a problem with, and "one-sided content", which is the problem with most of its sections, other than the final ones where even NPOV accounts of what's gone on are condemnatory. I haven't taken the time to look back into the history to see who put in the one-sided sections, which are legion, and as I've explained the citations in question are all political-party/p.r.-agency derived material and this is a well-known fact in BC, even criticized by the mainstream media at times (though not often). CanWest in particular is known as a POV source, very pro-Liberal/business and anti-NDP (btw I'm not pro-NDP myself, anything but), but press releases from the government itself, fluffing up controversial policvies with feel-good language, has just been brought into here with no effort at all by those adding it to provide "balance" with "teh rest of the story", as with the Doctor's Strike. The lesser papers, certain ones in particular, have done an admirable job of covering what otherwise only teh blogosphere, as the Globe calls it, have covered and focussed on - read this, for example, by Merv Ritchie of the Terrace Daily, and note the passage in bold about the so-called Fudgeit-Budget hype the Liberals put out during their rise to power and have repeated afterwards as if it were true. The Glen Clark article has a deceptive passage about this (that article has POV issues "in both directions") and in the case of the Campbell article it's not stated as the reason for the brutal tax-and-service cuts of his incoming administration, the rationale for which was teh allegedly bad financial condition the outgoing NDP had left the place in; t he opposite was the case, and both the auditor-general and comptroller-general showed that as the case (both were replaced with someone more compliant with government spin thereafter, of course). The fluff about improving education is exactly that: fluff, and borne out only by more government press releases; as with the BC Legislature Raids article, properly expanding and NPOVizing this article is too much work for any one person; but main concern is that government citations giving only one party's view (the ruling party's) of government policies are inherently COI, same as they would be if this were on the BC Liberal Party page (where, if you can't see it but you should, sources from a government run by that party are implicitly COI). Government sources should only be used for data; not for reasons etc unless it says, outright "the government said ......" "the reason given by the government for this was....". And yes, I'm not used to thinking in terse point-form, but one reason is because I believe in completeness and fullness, not in boiled-down and overly-neutralized content that all too easily serves the interests of spin machines - especially if only material from the spin machines is what's presented. Skookum1 (talk) 20:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
My take is that there is an issue of undue weight, outlined in WP:NPOV: "discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and neutral, but still be disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic...undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements." Your argument seems to be using only government sources has given undue weight. It shouldn't be an argument from removing these sources from the article. Rather, they should be incorporated into a larger description of the issue. For example, the issue such as the doctor's pay raise. The fact that the 20% raise can be perfectly incorporated into the article from a government source, and rounded out with the description that it occurred after the doctors strike (being careful of tone to comply with NPOV). While I don't agree with the removal of these sources, I would agree that the article needs to have an NPOV tag if it is as bad as you characterize (I don't have enough knowledge to make that call). --Natural RX 21:57, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
- Undue weight is a good summary of the problem I suppose. It already has peacock, COI and POV tags - the POV tags were there because of defensive Campbell-flavoured edits, as I recall some even from government servers; the COI issue of government press-agency sources(i.e. controlled by Campbell's office directly) was not previously addressed).Skookum1 (talk) 22:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
1st Canadian Division
A discussion there, Talk:1st Canadian Infantry Division, for the name of the Div that have been recently reactivated. Amqui (talk) 21:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
major change in Canadian copyright?
Great News Regarding Crown Copyright and Licensing I don't know whether or not if this allows a much greater degree of what is not copyrighted (therefore legal to use on Wikipedia), but I wanted to mention this change and find out of it does give us more accessibility than before. NorthernThunder (talk) 12:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
- Still only non-commercial, which rules out Wikipedia. - SimonP (talk) 14:15, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
- What is the difference exactly? Payment or non-payment? I have never had to pay for anything I have added here. NorthernThunder (talk) 15:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
- All material of our own (writing, images) that we add to Wikipedia is licensed for re-use by others, including for commercial purposes. We call that "free" content, even though it is still covered by copyright (CC-BY). Re-use of CCL material is not allowed for commercial purposes, so it doesn't fit our definition of "free" - therefore remains "non-free". Franamax (talk) 19:25, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
- That, and the article that provides more details states that permission is still required to adapt or modify the work, another facet of what we consider "free(ly usable) content" - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 19:43, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
- All material of our own (writing, images) that we add to Wikipedia is licensed for re-use by others, including for commercial purposes. We call that "free" content, even though it is still covered by copyright (CC-BY). Re-use of CCL material is not allowed for commercial purposes, so it doesn't fit our definition of "free" - therefore remains "non-free". Franamax (talk) 19:25, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
- What is the difference exactly? Payment or non-payment? I have never had to pay for anything I have added here. NorthernThunder (talk) 15:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
Grandview-Woodland or Grandview-Woodlands?
BCGNIS has it in the "plural", the city source cited is "singular". I've always heard, and used it, in the plural. BTW this article's title and its siblings have been affected by a wide-sweeping imposition of MOSDASH contrary to that section's own guidelines; current main discussion is an RM at teh talkpage at Poland-Lithuania and also on WT:MOS. This is a hyphenated name and should never have been changed, like many others such as the hyphenated RD names; all done by "someone from somewhere else". Makes me wonder if the provincial electoral districts have been fussed with, too.....all done by speedy renaming, and taking arduous RMs to get fixed.....CANMOS should have its own hyphen standards, not subject to "interpretation of facts/syntax" by people not familiar with the place, or with normal usages here.Skookum1 (talk) 22:00, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Sue Gardner in TO
Just wanted to drop a reminder about plans for meeting with Ms Gardner in Toronto while she is in Canada for a speaking engagement. Not many have spoken up, but there's still time to set up a casual get-together event. - Amgine (talk) 06:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
- thanks for this notice, Amgine - I had no idea a meet-up was being considered. PKT(alk) 13:12, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
- You're welcome, PKT! Things have come together and the event will be Sunday evening at the Linux Caffe from 6-8 pm on Sunday, Feb. 6. If you have a moment, please add your name to the attendees list at Wikipedia:Meetup/Toronto/February 06 2011! - Amgine (talk) 03:48, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
The article on former Toronto city councillor Sandra Bussin could use some review and watching. Seems at least one editor has resorted to article damage and POV introduction. There may be some BLP concerns in there, but this editor won't elaborate or won't engage in constructive editing conduct. Meanwhile, there seems to be a basic level of mostly RS media citations in the article, but these could use a more detailed review. Dl2000 (talk) 03:56, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Interwikis
Very few en.WP Canada Wikiprojects appear to have interwiki links to their counterparts on fr.WP. I'm trying to build a List of Canada Wikipedia projects by language, but it's pretty slow going. - Amgine (talk) 20:35, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
- Not sure what your asking? You are free to add the interlinks if you wish. We have some of the main Canada related projects listed here, then you just can add the interlinks to each main project page here and there.Moxy (talk) 20:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Popluation templates
There are two different templates showing an estimate of Canada's population:
{{CanadaPop}}
- 34334000{{Data Canada|poptoday}}
- was 33812700, now 34333800
Just wondering which is the better figure? -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
- According to this
{{CanadaPop}}
{{CanadaPop}} is the one that is calculating as per Stats Can. The Third quarter 2010 says the pop was "34,238,000" as of October 2010. There is also this stats Can page that is a projection that says Between 1867 and 2009 Canada's population grew by 9.79x, and is projected to be 34,630,000, or exactly ten times greater in size, as of January 2011 that again is closer to{{CanadaPop}}
{{CanadaPop}}. I would say that{{Data Canada|poptoday}}
of 33812700 is way off the projections, that i found when i updated --> Population of Canada by year just a few weeks ago.Moxy (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
- I've updated the Data Canada figures now and they are now a lot closer. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:35, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
I noticed a List of U.S. state partition proposals article. Perhaps we should have a similar article for Canada? There certainly have been several movements to divide the provinces, and the territories have been divided several times (to add to Quebec and Ontario, to create the Prairie provinces, then Yukon, then Nunavut).
We have some articles on it already, such as Province of Toronto and Partition of Quebec... and the news every once in a while reports movements for Vancouver Island, Cape Breton, Labrador, etc. A central clearinghouse would be useful, with links to more detailed articles if such exist.
64.229.103.105 (talk) 13:05, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
- Proposed provinces and territories of Canada already covers this. I'm not sure that it could really be sourced well enough to meet the higher standard necessary to stand alone as a separate article instead of a subsection within the "proposals" article — even the existing article has sourcing problems — though do feel free to prove me wrong if you can. Bearcat (talk) 05:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
There's a notice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canadian TV shows suggesting to merge it to WP:TV. 184.144.169.126 (talk) 09:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
- If it does get merged or reactivated, it should probably be rescoped to Canadian television... (to cover TV channels, stations, etc). 184.144.169.126 (talk) 09:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Push for public domain
It seems to me that Canadian copyright is in direct contradiction (ie. commercial vs. non-commercial) with what is acceptable for addition to Wikipedia. I think the only way to get around this contradiction is to encourage the Canadian government to do what the United States government has done by having much of what it publishes automatically in the public domain. Otherwise, it's just too confusing to know whether or not something the Canadian government is acceptable to use on Wikipedia. We are missing basic information such as pictures of Canadian premiers. Aside from any public opportunity for Wikipedia contributors to take pictures of these officials, there should be easier ways to obtain pictures (or other missing data). As I said, I think there needs to be a liberalization of government-related publications in regards to copyright restrictions, because the current status quo is too restrictive. NorthernThunder (talk) 10:17, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
- Okay, who's e-mail should we protest at? 117Avenue (talk) 19:57, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
- I can only guess trying your local MP. I don't think they would be very interested in such a website-specific issue. NorthernThunder (talk) 18:40, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
- Well, according to Wikipedia, it is the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, ranking seventh among all websites. 117Avenue (talk) 21:17, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
- From the looks of things, the current government seeks more copyright, rather than less. James Moore, Heritage Minister, has called copyleft advocates "radicals" this summer during the Bill-C32 debate. CBC The Interior(Talk) 21:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
- Well, according to Wikipedia, it is the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, ranking seventh among all websites. 117Avenue (talk) 21:17, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
- I can only guess trying your local MP. I don't think they would be very interested in such a website-specific issue. NorthernThunder (talk) 18:40, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
Canadian Corps
I noticed that Canadian Corps is rated low. Is it supposed to be low? This is the Canadian expeditionary force to Europe for WWI. Wasn't participation in WWI one of the defining moments in Canadian history, crystallizing its separation from mother Britain as a Dominion Power? 184.144.169.126 (talk) 09:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
- Good point. Perhaps someone who is involved in assessing articles could adjust the rating. To be fair, the editor who gave the low rating does not appear to be Canadian, and may not have appreciated the historic implications. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:50, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
- Actually, it was me in my earlier days of assessing stuff, and an importance=low rating was wrong. I've changed it to high - thanks for catching the error. PKT(alk) (extremely Canadian, thank you very much!) 15:39, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
- I must have misread the edit history, then, because I didn't think it was you, PKT, who had done it - I thought it was User:Underneath-it-All, who has a German flag on his user page. I have never once confused PKT for a German. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
- Actually, it was me in my earlier days of assessing stuff, and an importance=low rating was wrong. I've changed it to high - thanks for catching the error. PKT(alk) (extremely Canadian, thank you very much!) 15:39, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
A Song for National Flag of Canada Day
As National Flag of Canada Day approaches on February 15th, it takes me back to the excitement when the new flag was first announced in 1965.
Freddy Grant's "Flag of Canada" (1965) Song was taught to the Grade 3 class by Loretta Holdridge at Cedar Hill School in Victoria BC to celebrate the event. Here's one of those students singing the song, 45 years later. Flag of Canada (sung by Wendy Station)
--Wendystation (talk) 03:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
- Hello welcome to WP:Canada - as i do agree it would be nice i guess pls read Wikipedia:SOAP (Opinion pieces.)
With apology, I did not intend this to be a soap/opinion piece, and have edited to reflect same.--Wendystation (talk) 17:09, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
Tegan and Sara: how many of 'em?
I realize this is an odd location to ask, but technically it's an WP:ENGVAR issue, and there's a lack on Canadian input. Which would generally be preferred:
- "Tegan and Sara is a Canadian indie rock"
- "Tegan and Sara are a Canadian indie rock"
Or else some rewrite to avoid either construction? The nuance here is of course that Tegan and Sara is the name of the band, also consisting of several additional people, and isn't just a list of two individuals. Smartiger (talk) 22:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
- I see this all the time with sports team names as well. Basically, the use of is or are follows whether the band/team name is singular or plural: The Rolling Stones are... vs. R.E.M. is... In this case, it should be "Tegan and Sara are..." , IMO. To use "is" after a plural name is just awkward. Resolute 22:33, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
- It does? It's a intriguingly logical theory, but in my experience BrE tends to go with "presumptively plural", and AmE with "presumptively singular", regardless of syntactic number. If Canadian use is as you describe, give yourselves several points for the obvious enlightened compromise! Smartiger (talk) 23:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
- Sara and Tegan Quin are the best musicians to ever come from this city. Tegan and Sara is the name of the band; Tegan and Sara are an amazing band. Not that it is the subject of the query but i find it in bad taste to stick a reference in the middle of Sara's name. Where the tricky part lies is that the article is both on the band and on each of the sisters individually and as a collective. Tegan is. Sara is. Sara and Tegan are. Tegan and Sara are on a loop in my iTunes at the time i see this come up in my watchlist :P R.E.M. is.... Keane are... Carbon Leaf is... City and Colour is ... The Flaming Lips are... second to U2. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 00:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- I would have to say 'is' when referring to the band, unless it is made plural by the use of an 's' at the end, 'are' when referring to the sisters. 117Avenue (talk) 00:56, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- I thought Deliriousandlost favoured "T&S are"? (Twice, in fact.) I think I concur about the "mid-name" reference, especially as it's an "alt title" for the article, so I moved it to after "Quin". As there a comment in the text about the spelling too, I would hope that would be sufficient. Smartiger (talk) 01:06, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
- The lack of an S does not change the fact that it is a plural name. "Tegan and Sara is" is just brutal English. Resolute 02:10, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
- I'd have to agree on both points. Just wanted to be clear on that. Smartiger (talk) 04:00, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
- I would have to say 'is' when referring to the band, unless it is made plural by the use of an 's' at the end, 'are' when referring to the sisters. 117Avenue (talk) 00:56, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- Sara and Tegan Quin are the best musicians to ever come from this city. Tegan and Sara is the name of the band; Tegan and Sara are an amazing band. Not that it is the subject of the query but i find it in bad taste to stick a reference in the middle of Sara's name. Where the tricky part lies is that the article is both on the band and on each of the sisters individually and as a collective. Tegan is. Sara is. Sara and Tegan are. Tegan and Sara are on a loop in my iTunes at the time i see this come up in my watchlist :P R.E.M. is.... Keane are... Carbon Leaf is... City and Colour is ... The Flaming Lips are... second to U2. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 00:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- It does? It's a intriguingly logical theory, but in my experience BrE tends to go with "presumptively plural", and AmE with "presumptively singular", regardless of syntactic number. If Canadian use is as you describe, give yourselves several points for the obvious enlightened compromise! Smartiger (talk) 23:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
Lake Erie revamp proposed
Hi I'm seeking feedback for a proposed revamp of the Lake Erie article; it's in a sandbox here. Comments? Suggestions? These will be appreciated.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 06:13, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- Impressive, Tom! You might mention Long Point Provincial Park in the geography section, as it's a prominent peninsula on Erie's north shore. Also I thought the Islands section could use a one-sentence intro, and the article doesn't mention where the Infamous Dead Zone is located within the lake. PKT(alk) 13:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks for your compliment and for taking time to look at it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Done -- Mentioned Long Point Provincial Park.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Done -- One sentence intro to islands section.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Done -- Dead zone. In the middle (not sure of location and it changes, moving slowly eastwards, I'm pretty sure)..--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks for your suggestions! --Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
usefulness of Category:Massacres in Canada??
I just came across this, which was just placed on Chilcotin War, and it includes the Lachine massacre, the Mayerthorpe incident and the North-West Rebellion among other things which are odd to see grouped together; the Tonquin could readily be added, but so could Chinlac and lots of other things; I find the term "massacre" a bit on the POV side especially when so many abstruse things are grouped together under the rubric....I removed "massacres of Native Americans" and "massacres by Native Americans" from the Chilcotin War article for what I hope are well-understood reasons; our Yankee wiki-cousins haven't gotten it through their heads that "Native American" only refers to aboriginal peoples in their own territories and is not used outside them (except by them). There's various categories of that kind that need renaming and/or cleaning of First Nations-related contents, but I find CfDs involving USPOV always get bogged down because there are so many "votes" from Americans insisting that their terminology is most common usage, because they use it most commonly.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:52, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- In fixing the Mayerthorpe incident link I glanced at the category contents again; an odd combination of FN/Metis-related battles/wars and modern mass-shootings....what strange bedfellows, no?Skookum1 (talk) 20:07, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Crown copyright federal jurisdiction
Does Canada's federal Copyright Act apply only to the federal government, because the provinces are under separate crowns? NorthernThunder (talk) 09:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- No. The Copyright Act codifies copyright in Canada. Each creator of a work is automatically granted copyright, but may licence it as desired. Each provincial government has its own licencing policy regarding their Crown copyrights, though these are all quite similar. If you're looking for government works to use on Wikipedia, you should be concerned with the licence under which it is released. (Copyright and licence info are often merged into one document, so this point may be moot.) Note that each government retains Crown copyright of the works it produces. See also this (Government of Canada Publications), with the following salient quote:
- Copyright in Canada is a matter of federal jurisdiction and is governed by the Canadian Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42. [2] The same copyright rules apply all across Canada. What is permitted or prohibited is the same in every province and territory.
- Is this what you were looking for? Mindmatrix 21:36, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
edit wars on Adrian Dix, Christy Clark, Glen Clark et al. by User:Sirjohnhackett
This was originally on the noticeboard but promises to get much longer so cut-pasting it here: I've been accused of being an NDP fanatic, see my response and be advised that I'd rather recuse myself from these sorts of things if there were other Wikipedians ready to watch out for campaign-edits, pro or con, on any BC leadership article....I do blog on politics outside Wikipedia, and he knows it (I'm infamous in BC blogspace, even more than here), but here I'm trying to just be a Wikipedian. The Adrian Dix article needs expansion to be sure, and I've left his most recent edits, though they're all of a negative nature (and one-sided in presentation). Sorry for the length, I'll cut this short, but would other people please watchlist all the BC Lib and BC NDP leadership bios from here on in.Skookum1 (talk) 07:26, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
- Followup on BLP here.Skookum1 (talk) 08:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
- Please note edit war by the same SPA against cited (and fair) BC Rail material on Christy Clark, for whom he is obviously a supporter/campaign worker; at the same time he has added parallel and much more BLP-violation material to the Dix article....Skookum1 (talk) 08:29, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
- A while ago he re-added the Forgers category and left this note no the talkpage - note last bit and has undertaken to edit the Glen Clark article to simultaneously add negative material as well as legitimate in the same edit, apparently wanting to make things difficult. The Forgers category has since been removed by an IP user....he's removed a "wikipedia is not censored" notice I placed on his talkpage awhile ago, also, which of course is his due (and which he continues to ignore).Skookum1 (talk) 09:15, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
English, hypens, dashes, and other sutff
There's a discussion and RFC at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style over dashes, that has evolved into something about ENGVAR, with one of the active participants saying that there are only two types of English used for articles, American and British... 65.93.15.80 (talk) 04:27, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
- LOL that's not surprising - in the "Power stations" CfD it was dismiseed that Canada had its own usage and needed no exemption from the parent-categories British-ism, even though the US had been granted one...Skookum1 (talk) 09:26, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
- Brits seem to be trying to rename alot of articles and categories recently. 65.93.12.249 (talk) 06:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I can't get this off
I found an image of former Bank of Canada Governor David A. Dodge here which I believe is acceptable for use on Wikipedia, because it simply asks for attribution, however, I can't seem to right-click do save it. NorthernThunder (talk) 20:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Try this link. You should be able to pick the size you want and download. Cheers! Resolute 20:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Or this one to get the largest size directly. Cheers delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 20:10, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Send the image to the Commons, it has a free CC license. (Note, always get the biggest image). User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 21:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Or this one to get the largest size directly. Cheers delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 20:10, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Adrian Dix needs expansion and POV/COI watch
Please see Talk:Adrian Dix#POV issue about the POV/COI watch. a POV/COI watch should be on all current leadership BLP's, LIberal or NDP, in BC, where "dirty tricks" are a known staple of spin doctors of both sides (cf. Kash Heed for example). One of the main issue with the Dix article is that only "negative" information has been added, to do with two long-ago scandals that the Liberals are fond of tub-thumping about while insisting any mention of their own should not appear at all; there is nothing else in Dix's bio and as one of the leading NDP leadership candidates his article should have a lot more in it; I tried adding the {{expand}} template but recall now it was deleted, on the premise that another templates suffices; why they didn't just redirect "expand" to whatever else is supposed to replace it I don't understand; teh "fix what ain't broken" crowd around Wikipedia leaves a lot to be desired in its wake....Skookum1 (talk) 19:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- Actually looking over the Kash Heed article, it needs serious updating as the election scandal has been big in teh news (again) this last week or two....but most BC political bios and articles need major updating, and hmmm I'm just not in the mood, politicians piss me off enough as it is....Skookum1 (talk) 20:01, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- Yeah, I've noticed that there's an especially big problem with BC political articles lately. But then again, there's a lot of axe-grinding across the board on our articles about Canadian politicians in general; the moment one gets implicated in a scandal or controversy of any sort, their article gets swooped down on by an army of WP:BLP-violating partisans and anonymous looky-loos who think they're doing public service journalism. (Check the history on Michael Bryant and Adam Giambrone, frex, if you think it's a BC-exclusive problem.) It's one of the reasons why I have far less faith in the long-term viability of Wikipedia than I did five years ago; it's gotten worse, not better. Bearcat (talk) 02:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- Well, one glance at the Obama and Bush or Palin article histories or Tibet or Falklands War or APPO etc and various others underscores the more-than-BC context to why political articles are a pain in the ass and yeah the axe-grinding - and propagandizing/spin doctoring can be profound and subtle at the same time, when not actually overt. And I find some articles so "neutralized" as to be useless; NPOV being mistaken for a reason to take out meaning, as it were. This applies also in history articles of various kinds, which can wind up either as pastiches of casual facts, or diatribes of one kind or another, or mutually-hostile diatribes doing a tango. I've soemtimes quipped, even before coming here (to Wikipedia), that history isn't written by the victors, it's written by the liars. Or by the sore losers and the disgruntled/self-righteous, as is the case with a lot of modern BC historiography about times past (those same historians won't go anywhere near modern BC politics without speaking of it in the most careful terms, c.f. Barman's and Bowering's chapters on the poat-WAC era). I've called Wikipedia "the document of the age" though it's not just our own age; it will last and last and last, which is one reason it's important to get materials right in it....but so hard to do, and so much to do. BC people live in mutual hostile and mutally-exclusive realities and mutually-derisive psychologies, not just "Liberal" (such an unsuitable name for that party) vs NDP, but in many ways, many manifold ways. So many agendas, only so much space on the bullshit meter, and life is only so long. It's hard enough writing political-historical articles sometimes, or even historical-geographical ones...anything that crosses the border, history-context wise, is made more difficult also because of the very different perspectives of Canadians and Americans, likewise the Anglo-French divide and the FN-rest of us divide. "I can hear the sound of axes grinding" I'll often say about various things (see the thing about francophone history on Talk:History of British Columbia). The Alaska, Oregon and San Juan boundary dispute articles badly need more CanCon (really BritColCon) vs the detailed American domestic-politics content in them....and I've dreaded going near Salmon War (when Glen Clark tried to boot the USN out of Nanoose Bay and closed the Inside Passage to fishing vessels that wouldn't pay a special toll, and Slade Gorton tried to get the US to "force" the Inside Passage as "international waters" (it's barely 2 miles wide in some spots, if that). I'd really rather have been trying to get the unfinished gold rush articles done, and various interesting placename subjects done.....but it's hard to watch the subversion of Wikipedia into partisan political brochures; it's bad enough when bios come off like resumes, worse when they become outright salesjobs or have NPOV content excised as being POV because somebody who's POV doesn't like what they see in it, or don't want things they don't want people to know to be in such a high-googling article....lots of NDP bio articles exist, like Green articles, which are really in-house jobbies and need serious revision/cutting....and the Grits and Tories have done a lot (as has the NDP) on historical members of their own parties (or in the NDP's case, on CCF people)......but yeah, in the so many years I've been on Wikipedia the NQ and SDQ seems to have gone up considerably, as has the rate of admins and coders who aren't concerned with content so much as with rules and revisions of ordinary language into wiki-isms....that being said, I'll leave off, noting that we haven't yet seen the end of silly season in BC politics...this whole year is going to quite the roller-coaster ride, and on various fronts there's a whole chorus yet of fat ladies waiting their turn to sing....Skookum1 (talk) 04:32, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- Yeah, I've noticed that there's an especially big problem with BC political articles lately. But then again, there's a lot of axe-grinding across the board on our articles about Canadian politicians in general; the moment one gets implicated in a scandal or controversy of any sort, their article gets swooped down on by an army of WP:BLP-violating partisans and anonymous looky-loos who think they're doing public service journalism. (Check the history on Michael Bryant and Adam Giambrone, frex, if you think it's a BC-exclusive problem.) It's one of the reasons why I have far less faith in the long-term viability of Wikipedia than I did five years ago; it's gotten worse, not better. Bearcat (talk) 02:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
"Native American" categories affecting FNs
Please see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_February_2#Category:History_of_Native_Americans_in_the_Pacific_Northwest.Skookum1 (talk) 17:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Watchlist request
Proving once and for all that I'm truly a giant Wikidrama magnet, I discovered the answer to a perplexing question earlier today and then promptly found a nest of edit warring behind it. This will all seem rather trifling, I admit, but bear with me.
Being a CBC Radio kind of guy, mainstream pop music tends not to show up on my radar most of the time, so I've been confounded by the fact that a three-year-old Romanian Eurodisco song with an accordion hook in it has been actively following me around for the past few weeks; it turns out that the song is called "Stereo Love", and a Canadian pop singer named Mia Martina recorded a cover of it last year — or, perhaps more accurately, stuck a new vocal track on top of the original recording — which actually landed in the Top 10 in Canada. Who knew? Certainly not moi.
Anyway, the guy who wrote and recorded the original song apparently sued Martina's record label in January, alleging that they're marketing the song as though he actively collaborated with her and might actually be present at her live performances; on the same day as he released his media statement about it, an anonymous IP (which, mystifyingly, resolves to Canada) edited Martina's article to remove any mention whatsoever of the song even existing, thereby presenting her as someone who's never had any charting hit singles at all — and this vandalism went completely undetected until I found it today.
I do want to stress that her article is terribly sourced, and I haven't had a whole lot of luck locating better sources either; as near as I can tell, she's really just a generic no-namer who squeaks past our notability rules on a pure technicality. But then again, the entire genre of dance music is teeming with non-entities who achieved their notability in exactly the same way, so there's not much useful reason to single her out as an isolated exception to those rules, either.
All that said, could a few willing volunteers keep her watchlisted for the next little while to make sure that the article doesn't get vandalized again? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 22:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Done added all mentioned pages to my watchlist.Moxy (talk) 22:14, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
- Added as well.
Complexe Desjardins
An editor has created splinter articles on three of the four towers in Complexe Desjardins: Complexe Desjardins, Tour Sud, Complexe Desjardins, Tour Nord and Complexe Desjardins, Tour Est. I don't think this a sensible approach and have said as much at Talk:Complexe Desjardins. I've proposed merging and notified the article's creator. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 02:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- I have nominated them for speedy deletion. Clearly {{db-a10}} material, since the information is found in the main article. 64.229.101.119 (talk) 04:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- Wouldn't it have been better to redirect to the main article? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 20:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- That was certainly my intention. And as I have stated on the deleting admin's Talk page, User_talk:King_of_Hearts#Complexe_Desjardins,, it's still the option that makes the most sense, imo. I think the articles' creator is looking to restore them as is. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- I didn't see the use of the name "Complexe Desjardins, Tour Est", does the east tower of Complex Desjardins need a separate redirect? etc. Would it even be in the format that is desirable (instead of "Tour Est, Complexe Desjardin" or "East tower of Complexe Desjardins", etc). 64.229.101.119 (talk) 00:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- I hadn't thought of that. Yes, we'd need to see. And per your question on the article Talk page, yes, imo, the creator's removal of the infobox, which includes the height of the tallest south tower, does indeed seem to be verging on WP:POINTy behaviour. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:27, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- I didn't see the use of the name "Complexe Desjardins, Tour Est", does the east tower of Complex Desjardins need a separate redirect? etc. Would it even be in the format that is desirable (instead of "Tour Est, Complexe Desjardin" or "East tower of Complexe Desjardins", etc). 64.229.101.119 (talk) 00:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- That was certainly my intention. And as I have stated on the deleting admin's Talk page, User_talk:King_of_Hearts#Complexe_Desjardins,, it's still the option that makes the most sense, imo. I think the articles' creator is looking to restore them as is. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- Wouldn't it have been better to redirect to the main article? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 20:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/74/Ambox_warning_yellow.svg/48px-Ambox_warning_yellow.svg.png)
The article New Music Canada, Vol. 1 has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
- A search for references found promotional references only, no references on article, no mention of notability, fails WP:V and WP:N
While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}}
notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}}
will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:26, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia needs more Canadians
It seems like Canada-related articles on Wikipedia are being created too slowly. Example: Certain pictures of Canadian Premiers, like Kathy Dunderdale, need someone who can take their own picture of her, since Wikipedia's copyright rules conflict with Canadian Crown copyright. It should not be too difficult for someone to find her and take a picture. I am beginning to feel like I am alone here making my own contributions seem meaningless, unless there's some significant increase in getting things done that should have been done by now. NorthernThunder (talk) 01:17, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Wikipedia has loads of Canadian editors, they do far more than just write Canadian articles though. At least one arbitrator, one bureaucrat, one checkuser and ten admins that I know of, dozens of regular editors. And there's the CBC Radio interview with Jimbo where he was asked if the most-active editor was from Ottawa and said yes. (Starts with a "B", they can fill the rest of their username if they want) With respect, if it should not be that hard, why haven't you done it? And once you have done it, great work, can you do more? ;) We're all volunteers. And again with respect, trying to make a contribution by uploading non-free images is not the best way to go, our non-free policy doesn't have an out for "because it's important to me and I'll get depressed if you delete my hard work of copying an image file from one website to another". Remember that our goal here is to create a work as close to absolutely free as possible, not the most convenient version we can do. I would however support "Wikipedia needs more Newfies" since I'm not aware of any editors from that island, which is a pity. Franamax (talk) 02:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/English_Wikipedia_contributors_by_country.svg/220px-English_Wikipedia_contributors_by_country.svg.png)
- How would you suggest we engage more activity in Canadian articles? Other than a change in Crown copyright laws, I don't see how it could become easier to access data published by the federal or provincial governments. NorthernThunder (talk) 03:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- We can access the data, but we just cannot plug the exact information. Remember a lot of countries that have Crown Copyright laws will put legal code and other stuff into the public domain (like O Canada in 1980). I am also good at finding images (and can do SVG). I been trying to get flag documents from each province so at least the SVG drawings we have will be correct. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Oooh, "B" has been slipping, he's currently third. It has also been reported that 7.3% of English Wikipedia contributions have been from Canada. There is Newfoundlander&Labradorian, who was editing under a different username (I am guessing it used his real name), before December. 117Avenue (talk) 03:45, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Well, if I can pass the test of usefulness of Immigration Canada, maybe I can walk across? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 03:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- If you're any good at artillery design, you don't even have to cross the border. ;) Franamax (talk) 04:47, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Well, if I can pass the test of usefulness of Immigration Canada, maybe I can walk across? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 03:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- How would you suggest we engage more activity in Canadian articles? Other than a change in Crown copyright laws, I don't see how it could become easier to access data published by the federal or provincial governments. NorthernThunder (talk) 03:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- I do understand the sentiment that you feel what you're doing isn't really make a difference. Yes it gets discouraging when you feel like you're the only one doing the work sometimes, and it seems like such an impossible task to have a complete encyclopedia with good quality coverage of all Canadian topics. But the truth is there's a whole lot of Canadian editors out there doing really awesome work. What really encouraged me was seeing the large amount of people that turned up at the recent Wikipedia 10 Vancouver meet. Really showed me that there's no shortage of Canadian editors out there.. -- Ϫ 04:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Seconded on that sentiment and nice meeting you BTW. :) It would have been nice to organize some group discussion around improving coverage of Canadian topics, there was a lot of talent there, but there were too many people attending (and one of us who is not you picked a noisy place to meet ;). Getting a workable CanWMF would be another way to make more "official" representations for licensing Crown properties, but I picked up a rather disturbing vibe on that front, i.e. I'm still totally unclear on whether we have a CanWMF or not. Franamax (talk) 05:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Some ramblings inspired by the topic:
Try telling people that some TV show they just absolutely love is not as American as they think it is. Many people won't like that news. Some will look into it themselves hoping i am wrong. Others will back me up. But there is almost always someone who is just never going to accept the revelation no matter what sources are collected. I found a comment on TV By The Numnbers a couple of days ago where someone called the actresses and actors immigrants stealing American jobs because ABC has bought broadcast rights to so many of Shaw's tv shows. Last year the Wall Street Journal said The CW was premiering an adaptation of the CBC hit 18 to Life even though The CW was showing the original and only version of 18 to Life.[3] It is nice the shows was called a hit but last i checked Montreal was not part of the United States even if a reliable source indirectly says it is. :P If you buy me some good shoes i might be willing to walk from Calgary to St John's for a picture if you will take over in tv land for a while ;) I might not often edit political and history and geography articles but CanCon is not always so laid-back.
Getting across the border via the bridge or by defying the laws of gravity to cross the Falls because this is no longer your wonderland and you want to find a new heartland will require the assistance of a lost girl who has no interest in being human but does enjoy being Erica and a Doyle who is there for a little flash. that was fun to write
That chart says that for every Canadian there are two Brits, 7 Americans and ½ of an Australian found on Wikipedia. It can be daunting but imagine how the Germans feel. Especially the Germans who have interest in military history. There are 4 Canadians and 28 Americans for every German. Maybe we could get the government to set up a tax credit for Wikipedia contributions :D Wikipedia does have such a large American base to it that much of its content carries an American tone so it is hard to entice Canadians to come aboard. If you look at it in relation to population a greater portion of Canadians and a greater portion of Brits contribute to Wikipedia than do Americans. :D :D delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 06:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)- I think that the end result / goal is content. I'm from the states and just started the Voyageurs article, which is a 90% Canadian topic. I can't believe that the article didn't exist already (due to mistakenly thought to be a pseudo-synonym of Coureur des bois) So that area is of deep interest to me....that doesn't mean that someone in Toronto is interested in it, or they can't be more interested in and the primary editor on a US topic. North8000 (talk) 13:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Some ramblings inspired by the topic:
- Seconded on that sentiment and nice meeting you BTW. :) It would have been nice to organize some group discussion around improving coverage of Canadian topics, there was a lot of talent there, but there were too many people attending (and one of us who is not you picked a noisy place to meet ;). Getting a workable CanWMF would be another way to make more "official" representations for licensing Crown properties, but I picked up a rather disturbing vibe on that front, i.e. I'm still totally unclear on whether we have a CanWMF or not. Franamax (talk) 05:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Well, it all comes down to interests. I don't have a huge interest in political articles usually, so I wouldn't go out of my way to find a picture or improve an article on a normal basis. After rewriting Terry Fox, however, I did think it would be a good idea to improve other key Canadian historical articles. Right now I'm focused on Calgary Stampede, which is approaching its 100th anniversary, and Lionel Conacher, who actually was a politician, but also one of Canada's greatest sportsmen. Maybe after I'm done with those two... Resolute 20:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- If that's the case why do most Canadian geography/geology articles get nothing from Wikipedians? Very few Canadians are interested in geography/geology? I am tired of being the main contributor to such articles. The pie chart says it all. Only 7.3% of Wikipedians are Canadian. Volcanoguy 19:50, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- I was actually thinking 7.3% was a lot, considering our smaller population. 117Avenue (talk) 19:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- When you do the math, I think that you're right. The participation level (per capita) of Canadians is better then us USA'ers. North8000 (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- Of course since the data is based on counting edits, that could just mean that Canadians are more prolific vandals, or too stupid to use the Preview button. ;) Franamax (talk) 05:05, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
- Also, how many of the 7.3% Canadian users are active? I doubt every Canadian user does something. Volcanoguy 03:36, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- I think the particular chart above is based on 2006 data, and it is based on gelocation info from that period (did AOL use a separate identified netblock for Canadian users at that time e.g.?), so perhaps any notion of "percentage" should be addressed with Homer's standard "mmm, pie...". :) There are lots of Canadian editors, but I think you are addressing a different topic, namely attention to articles within the "Canada" topic umbrella. There is no easy answer for that and I suspect that regular editors from almost every country on the planet would agree that their own particular interests don't have enough involved participants, one such interest being their own country. As far as geography and geology Canarticles, I can think of two aspects, given that we all volunteer our time: you can proselytize your own cause (in a nice way) by building your own network on-wiki, by watching other editor activity and asking for their help in areas where you think they may be interested (and/or setting up discussion pages for those interested editors, much like this one); and a very key point is access to sources, if you've got 'em, give 'em. I would love to conjure up good wording, especially on geography articles (geology is rocks, right? Those things that hurt when you fall on them? Yep, expert on that topic ;), but I don't have easy access to the sources or even know where to find them. Communication is key to getting other people involved in your own editing ventures. I've been quite pleased in the past at seeing flurries of editing on a topic when it comes to other editor's attention, and lasting interest in the topic too. Wikipedia is not an easy road, no matter which wiki-path you choose - but there are lots of people out there if you can find them. Franamax (talk) 04:54, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- Also, how many of the 7.3% Canadian users are active? I doubt every Canadian user does something. Volcanoguy 03:36, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- Of course since the data is based on counting edits, that could just mean that Canadians are more prolific vandals, or too stupid to use the Preview button. ;) Franamax (talk) 05:05, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
- When you do the math, I think that you're right. The participation level (per capita) of Canadians is better then us USA'ers. North8000 (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- I was actually thinking 7.3% was a lot, considering our smaller population. 117Avenue (talk) 19:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- If that's the case why do most Canadian geography/geology articles get nothing from Wikipedians? Very few Canadians are interested in geography/geology? I am tired of being the main contributor to such articles. The pie chart says it all. Only 7.3% of Wikipedians are Canadian. Volcanoguy 19:50, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Just commenting that some of the best work done on BC articles and their creation/expansion has been by Americans, generally from the Pacific Northwest, and there's been good teamwork on certain articles like Columbia River which are cross-border in nature.Skookum1 (talk) 20:44, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
CanEng IPA/linguist(s) needed
Re this edit re Esquimalt, British Columbia, the user has pointed out something that I've seen a fair bit of - pronunciations that aren't really Canadian being given in the IPA....which I wish I were more familiar with; often enough what I see in IPA seems to be to be the more American pronunciation - long diphthongs/drawls as in what was used on Victoria (Vic-TOAR-ia is how Yanks say it, i.e. with a really long diphthongamawhatzit relative our shorter and more tight-lipped pronunciation). Greater Victoria's a bit of a bad example re British vs. Canadian though, as a British accent was for a very long time pretty well the dominant accent there, with elements of it even in second and third-generation Canadians; likewise West Van and Kerrisdale (BC still has the highest rate of first generation Brits, and it's very rare in BC that someone of British stock is more than third-generation, unlike in Central and Atlantic Canada, unless the BC British-descendant's line comes from Central or Atlantic Canada); so in a way, given the number of Brits there, the British pronunciation of Esquimalt is a local pronunciation, vs how someone from Toronto or Halifax who's moved there might say it, or think. That technicality aside, and re the discussion this is subsected within, IMO we need to find more IPA-knowledgeable Canadian editors (are there any here?) instead of relying on those from other countries to interpolate what they think is the local pronunciation, when often it might not be. In some cases, where a placename is of aboriginal origin, e.g. Lillooet, an IPA has been cited that is of native origin, rather than how it is pronounced locally in English (even by natives, in that example, who are 1/2 of the local population at least - and in that case it's not "their" name anyway for the place, long story...). In other words there's a big difference between "Kamloops" in English and how it sounds in the original Secwepemctsin (which has a t' on the start of it, but is also more like 'kum-loops'). But I even wonder about "Canadian standard" pronunciation of places like Edmonton - where colloquial usage "swallows" that t, which in most people's vernacular (out West) is pretty much a glottal stop, not a /t/...then there's that Claire person who does the CBC weather, the British woman, who pronounces - over-pronounces DeaZe Lake instead of "Deece Lake" (for Dease Lake), and this annoying broadcast-pronunciation of Abbots-FORD which those of us from the Central Valley find really, really grating....taht's not reflected in that article's IPA (though I do have an issue with the demonym given, "Abbotsfordian", as I've always heard "Abbotsfordites", though in usual parlance iit's "Abbyites" or "Abby people". There were other examples which occurred to me previously, upon seeing their IPAs, I may come back with them.....but the main issue is that we find among us, or recruit, a Canadian English IPA person, and one with knowledge of our regional differences too. I haven't yet seen someone try to IPA the Fraser River as "FraZHYer" (a very common Washington/Oregon pronunciation of it) but there are other examples of that kind out there....does the Canadian Oxford Dictionary or the Dictionary of Canadian English have these IPAs btw (I don't have a copy/subscription).Skookum1 (talk) 18:57, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
- There's a conflation of two issues here: whether we should transcribe the local accent, vs. accommodating local vs outside pronunciation that would be different in any accent (shibboleths). That is, there are two pronunciations of "vase", /ˈveɪs, ˈvɑːz/, and both can be found in BC, London, or Sydney accents. For such words, we're generally agreed that we give both, but in generic English rather than in the various national standards. (I.e., we don't need to worry about whether the vowel of the first is [eɪ] or [eː] or [e] or [ɛj]; transcribing it /eɪ/ is enough to show it's the FACE vowel, which everyone can agree on, no matter how they pronounce face.)
- Unless stated otherwise, our transcriptions are supposed to be generic rather than local. That is, they're a guide to how the Brit, Yank, Aussie, or Kiwi would also pronounce the name. Predictable variation in vowels needn't be indicated, since they're automatic. Local pronunciations are valuable, of course, but they need to be marked as local, just as foreign pronunciations need to be marked as foreign, since the default is simply 'English'. (And usually the locals already know how to pronounce the name of their town!)
- We had a similar debate with Australian place names. Most of them were transcribed in a narrow AusEng transcription that left non-Australian scratching their heads. Although there was some vociferous opposition, the Australian Wikipedians decided to go generic + local, as we do in all other countries, and then found that many of the local pronunciations didn't add any info, as they were just the generic pronunciations in the local accent, which of course were predictable. That is, if readers want the local pronunciation, they can just pronounce the generic one transcription with an Aus accent. Same here with Canadian vowels: most Canadians are going to pronounce /ɔː/ as [ɑː], so it's not really a meaningful distinction. But, as I said, there's nothing wrong with local accents as long as non-locals can figure out how they would say it too. We have a |local}} tag in the {{IPA-en}} template to accommodate such things, though of course if the generic IPA key isn't being followed, then a different template should be used, like {{IPA-endia}} (which is not yet fully set up). And of course if the local pronunciation is substantially different from the outsider pronunciation, so that pronunciation isn't just a matter of accent but actually a shibboleth, like your deez Lake vs deess Lake example, then it needs to be indicated.
- What we've generally done with shibbolethic place names like Dease Lake, which aren't widely known out of the area, is to give the local pronunciation, but following the generic IPA key. That is, the generic-English equivalent of the local pronunciation, so that the local pronunciation is simply the generic transcription spoken in the local accent. Thus the outsider would read the name correctly, apart from using a non-local accent. We would then note (say in a footnote) that non-locals often get it wrong (if locals perceive it as wrong rather than just a variant), that there are various spelling-pronunciations by TV people not familiar with the name, etc. If, however, the place is widely known, and has a standardized pronunciation outside the area, then we will usually give two pronunciations up front, the local and non-local. It's most useful if both are given in generic English IPA, rather than trying to capture whether that /t/ is aspirated or a glottal stop or a flap or whatever. Generally we only do the latter (a narrow local pronunciation) if it's so distinct that it might be difficult to recognize. But of course all of this is a judgement call on how useful we expect the various possible transcriptions to be. — kwami (talk) 23:08, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
- I'm adding the pronunciation to Dease Lake parallel to what we have on other pronunciations, based on Skookum's description. That is, as /ˈdiːs/, with the 'correct' ess sound but without any attempt at a local accent. If the zed pronunciation is just an idiosyncrasy on the part of one TV personality, then it can be ignored; however, if it's widespread but considered wrong, we could add a footnote explaining that non-locals frequently mispronounce it /ˈdiːz/. — kwami (talk) 23:34, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
- As for native pronunciations, we of course need to carefully distinguish the English pronunciation of the native name from the pronunciation in the original language. We have a template, {{IPA-sal}}, that's intended for languages of BC and environs (and another {{IPA-ath}} for Athabaskan). Those don't yet have IPA keys, but that's just a matter of someone putting in the time. Anything formatted with {{IPA-en}} or {{pron-en}} should of course be in English.
- That leaves us with the English of the native nations vs. immigrant English. Again, if it's merely a matter of accent, then we don't need to bother, though that's a judgement call for the editor of the article. If it's not a predictable difference, something that you would do automatically when code switching between native and anglo English, then it would definitely warrant two transcriptions, just as vase does. — kwami (talk) 23:51, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
- There's definitely a certain kind of First Nations English, and there may eve nbe studies of it out there; what's curious to me is varous traits of it are shared by people from disparate language groups, e.g. Dakelh and Cree and Mi'kmaq....at the same time, the particular style of English between someone from Dene/Athabaskan cutlre vs Interior Salish is also noticeable.....and in many cases such as Lillooet FN English has laos influenced local English, and also inherited traits from e.g. Appalachian English left ofver from the gold rush(es), and "cowboy English" (though cowboys in BC are, often enough, Indians). Rez schools have had a role in that in BC, probably across Canada too; e.g. lots of Irish priests at some of them; with th result that natives often play really good soccer (adn rugby) and also have various irish-isms in their dialect ("ooizzit?" as a generic query, but also adopted by non-natives in some places, likewise an expletive "kweesht" (something like "oh shit!", and also "yuck!" and a derisive meaning also like "pffft" or "piffle").
- [post edit conflict] Well, it does make me wonder what's in the official CBC pronunciation guide (because there is one), as they've never corrected her (Claire Martin, as I remember her name now). Dease Lake, which is the largest community in northwestern BC, north of Stewart, anyway (unless Telegraph Creek is larger, but I doubt it), is actually something like a regional capital of sorts, and better-known historically than you might think - it was the "capital" of the Cassiar Gold Rush of the 1870s onwards and at one time famous around the world. It's also the namesake of the Dease Lake Highway, aka the Stewart-Cassiar, which is one of the only two land routes from southern BC to the Yukon (the Alaska Highway being the other - the Atlin Road and Haines-Skagway Highway are the only two other routes to/from BC and the Yukon). Also because of the Weather Channel and also of course Clarire Martin and other nat'l weather broadcasters, it's also heard nation-wide as it's the regular weather-reporting station for that region (currently 8 below, and going down to a totally balmy 20 below tonight....). So it's "around" a lot, beyond being purely local in nature....at some point I'll actually write CBC and see what their "CBC English" guide has about it, if anything....there's a few other names that get mangled here, too, as noted above....btw please have a look at the Talk:Esquimalt, British Columbia page about the IPA as noted by someone there, or in Greater Victoria anyway, apparently familiar with IPA, about the British v. Canadian vowels.....rider to all that is that this was once the HQ of the Pacific Station until the withdrawal of the Royal Navy from it early in the 20th Century, so the British pronunciation does have its place there, at least historically (also because of the decidedly-British ongoing presence in Victoria). One thing about BC is that British and European accents of one kind or another, and of course historically Chinese accents, means that nearly anywhere may have variations in local pronunciation by such people, who are as much Canadian as the rest of us....in some areas it's probably trackable, e.g. the German influence in the Cariboo and Chilcotin, the Dutch-German influence in the Fraser Valley, the Doukhobour and American (draft-dodger) influence in the West Kootenay and Boundary etc, the Albertan influence in the Okanagan, Ukrainian and Scandinavian influcne in other parts of BC; but nobody's every done a survey of BC pronunciation or dialects, noticeable as some very definitely are, or were......I've got to go; I'll think about which other ones need attention, and there's a host of native-derived placenames that could probaly use IPA though their pronunications are often intuitive, e.g. Nemaia Valley. Of is it? it is to me, but then I know what and where it is....Skookum1 (talk) 00:20, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- 'Nemaia' is not intuitive. I can think of several possibilities, and have no way to choose between them.
- The Esquimalt discussion is based on a misunderstanding: it's not supposed to be a narrow phonetic transcription. Question: for people who make the /ɔː/–/ɑː/ distinction, which vowel is it? That's the one we go with, because BCers will automatically pronounce both the same. Since there's been a British influence in BC, that should be easy to answer. If they use /ɔː/, then so do we; BCers will automatically pronounce that [ɑː]. We can indicate that explicitly if we like, but it isn't necessary. However, transcribing it /ɨˈskwaɪmɑːlt/ would be incorrect, because it would lead to the wrong pronunciation for those who make the distinction. Of course, if everyone pronounces it with /ɑː/, then of course that would be the correct transcription. (See my explanation on that article's talk page.) — kwami (talk) 02:37, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- [post edit conflict] Well, it does make me wonder what's in the official CBC pronunciation guide (because there is one), as they've never corrected her (Claire Martin, as I remember her name now). Dease Lake, which is the largest community in northwestern BC, north of Stewart, anyway (unless Telegraph Creek is larger, but I doubt it), is actually something like a regional capital of sorts, and better-known historically than you might think - it was the "capital" of the Cassiar Gold Rush of the 1870s onwards and at one time famous around the world. It's also the namesake of the Dease Lake Highway, aka the Stewart-Cassiar, which is one of the only two land routes from southern BC to the Yukon (the Alaska Highway being the other - the Atlin Road and Haines-Skagway Highway are the only two other routes to/from BC and the Yukon). Also because of the Weather Channel and also of course Clarire Martin and other nat'l weather broadcasters, it's also heard nation-wide as it's the regular weather-reporting station for that region (currently 8 below, and going down to a totally balmy 20 below tonight....). So it's "around" a lot, beyond being purely local in nature....at some point I'll actually write CBC and see what their "CBC English" guide has about it, if anything....there's a few other names that get mangled here, too, as noted above....btw please have a look at the Talk:Esquimalt, British Columbia page about the IPA as noted by someone there, or in Greater Victoria anyway, apparently familiar with IPA, about the British v. Canadian vowels.....rider to all that is that this was once the HQ of the Pacific Station until the withdrawal of the Royal Navy from it early in the 20th Century, so the British pronunciation does have its place there, at least historically (also because of the decidedly-British ongoing presence in Victoria). One thing about BC is that British and European accents of one kind or another, and of course historically Chinese accents, means that nearly anywhere may have variations in local pronunciation by such people, who are as much Canadian as the rest of us....in some areas it's probably trackable, e.g. the German influence in the Cariboo and Chilcotin, the Dutch-German influence in the Fraser Valley, the Doukhobour and American (draft-dodger) influence in the West Kootenay and Boundary etc, the Albertan influence in the Okanagan, Ukrainian and Scandinavian influcne in other parts of BC; but nobody's every done a survey of BC pronunciation or dialects, noticeable as some very definitely are, or were......I've got to go; I'll think about which other ones need attention, and there's a host of native-derived placenames that could probaly use IPA though their pronunications are often intuitive, e.g. Nemaia Valley. Of is it? it is to me, but then I know what and where it is....Skookum1 (talk) 00:20, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- There's definitely a certain kind of First Nations English, and there may eve nbe studies of it out there; what's curious to me is varous traits of it are shared by people from disparate language groups, e.g. Dakelh and Cree and Mi'kmaq....at the same time, the particular style of English between someone from Dene/Athabaskan cutlre vs Interior Salish is also noticeable.....and in many cases such as Lillooet FN English has laos influenced local English, and also inherited traits from e.g. Appalachian English left ofver from the gold rush(es), and "cowboy English" (though cowboys in BC are, often enough, Indians). Rez schools have had a role in that in BC, probably across Canada too; e.g. lots of Irish priests at some of them; with th result that natives often play really good soccer (adn rugby) and also have various irish-isms in their dialect ("ooizzit?" as a generic query, but also adopted by non-natives in some places, likewise an expletive "kweesht" (something like "oh shit!", and also "yuck!" and a derisive meaning also like "pffft" or "piffle").
Roads in Canadian cities
There was recently an attempt to get rid of articles on roads like Bloor Street and Bathurst Street, and a debate has also broken out as to what those articles should include. To avoid conflicts like this in the future it would be good to have some discussion about what city roads should have articles, and what the content should be. I've thus tried to start one at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Canada_Roads/Ontario#City_roads. - SimonP (talk) 00:20, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- Get rid of should be replaced with merged into an article with other city streets in Toronto. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 00:54, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- Some other streets have now been prodded, Winterburn Road and Water Street, Vancouver. 64.229.101.119 (talk) 06:38, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
comma-province re Clayburn BC and others
A while back, in the fall, I raised the issue of Clayburn, British Columbia, which redirects to Clayburn, Abbotsford and shouldn't and there was a discussion about it somewhere - which I'd like to reference for an RM on it and others that have wrongly been comma-cityfied contrary to CANMOS as well as normal convention. Anyone remember where it is? I'm going to compile a list of those which have had this done to them so it's a bulk RM; Clayburn's not the only one (even just within Abbotsford, e.g. Bradner and Huntingdon and Kilgard also - at least, likewise Clearbrook). Basic premise is that they all their own POs as well as long-standing separate identities, especially in times before modern-era amalgamation (Bradner, Clayburn and Clearbrook were part of the District of Matsqui, Kilgard and Huntingdon part of the District of Sumas, for exampel).Skookum1 (talk) 19:18, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
- It sounds like you're looking for this. PKT(alk) 23:07, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Tillson Harrison FAC
Hello WP Canada, I've been working on Tillson Harrison for a while now and have added it to the FAC list for a second time. However, despite being on the list for well over a week now, I've only received one response (and even that commenter seems reluctant to come back and recognise that I've fixed the issues he's highlighted...). Does anybody have any comments on this? Not sure if this is allowed, btw, but it was this same issue that killed this article's last nomination... Arctic Night 03:04, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Bye bye mon cowboy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) was prodded for deletion. I deprodded it, but it needs some work. 64.229.101.119 (talk) 06:28, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Random Collaboration of the month
If anyone is interested we are currently working on improving History of Newfoundland and Labrador article. If this is a topics anyone has knowledge on pls fell free to add/edit User:Newfoundlander&Labradorian/Sandbox. As we are doing this in a sand box first then will propose its merger. Moxy (talk) 20:37, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Mountain biking in British Columbia linkfarm and CanMtnBike template
I just cleaned up a lot of ad-carrying sites, or ad-linking sites, in the growing linkfarm on this page, which remains unreferenced; sites removed others may wish to review, maybe the Whistler one is OK for example....but there was a link to CrankWorx, which is a Colorado thing, which I just took out, period. Also on that page is {{Mountain biking in Canada}} which has a hideous/garish bright-red banner, maybe it should be brought into line with the usual maple-leaf motif we've used on e.g. {{Canadian Rockies}}.Skookum1 (talk) 00:52, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Party leaders for future elections
On Monday I removed the names of two party leaders, on the Next Alberta general election, for parties who currently have interim leaders, thinking that they were likely to change before the election. The next day, the Premier announced he will not be running in the next election. I have been thinking about this since, and that listing the party leaders involved in an election that hasn't been called, may be a violation of the Wikipedia is not a crystal ball policy. There are currently eleven articles for next general elections (all but the territories), five of which are scheduled to take place this year. As for the remaining six (BC, AB, QC, NB, NS, & federal), should we request a source that quotes the leader that he/she intends to run in the next election? 117Avenue (talk) 23:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
- or a source suggesting that said person is a likely leadership candidate...we can't be crystal balls, but we can report what "professional crystal balls" of the political-pundit variety say who might be; Adrian Dix was much-expected to declare for the BC NDP leadership finally he did. Carole Taylor was expected to run for the Liberals, but has wisely stood aside rather than get her fancy and respected duds soiled by the manure.....and NB the next BC election may well NOT be in 2013, depending on who wins the Liberal leadership and whatever else may happen (a(n even larger) caucus revolt ending majority government, for example, and precipitating a general election). Most people expect there will be an election by the end of the year, maybe coinciding with the HST election...Christy Clark has openly mused about calling it before the NDP have time to select their leader (unfair advantage being really the only way the Liberals could squirm out of the pit they've dug themselves....).Skookum1 (talk) 00:18, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
- Pretty much the entire infobox violates WP:CRYSTAL, as everything is subject to change ahead of the next election calls. That said, given the information is important to the articles, this might be a valid case for WP:IAR, and sticking with the best information we have today. We could perhaps add a disclaimer to the infoboxes noting that the leaders and seat counts are accurate as of today, and are subject to change prior to an election being called. Resolute 00:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
I'd have to agree with Resolute on this one; yes, everything is subject to change, but I also don't see that we really have any viable choices besides either (a) starting from the basis that all things (date, leaders, etc.) will be as per what's officially known today, and then updating the article with the new information as things actually change, or (b) just not doing articles about forthcoming elections at all until the writs actually get dropped (and good luck getting a consensus for that; it's hard enough to keep people from jumping the gun and starting articles on elections that are ten or twenty years away, let alone four or less.) Given the structure that election articles follow on here, I don't really see how we can really write anything at all about a future election without dancing on the edge of WP:CRYSTAL, because there honestly isn't a single detail about any future election that doesn't fall in the "things that might change between now and then" bucket.
If Christy Clark is really musing about calling a snap election before the NDP can select their new leader, she might need to brush up on her history a bit. That stunt's been tried once before in Canadian history, by Walter Weir in the 1969 Manitoba election, and the public fury over it bit Weir in the ass: the Tories were turfed out and the NDP won under the shiny new leader, Ed Schreyer, that they selected after the election campaign was already underway. I've seen it cited more than once as the reason why first ministers who are flirting with the idea need to stop it. Bearcat (talk) 04:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
- Yeah, pretty much what Rafe Mair had to say about it, though not mentioning Weir/Schreyer....a sort of reverse instance occurred to me while reading that - the Liberals under interim leader Allan McEachern I think it was, voting out Joe Clark in a non-confidence motion and going back to Trudeau, who had retired, persuading him to come back as leader....calling an election without a leader of your own - pretty brassy stunt...and worked. not the same situation, and Christy Clark is not Pierre Trudeau either....this ain't a blog so I won't comment further except to add that Mair called her "mean-spirited" and implied the b-word in the process....Skookum1 (talk) 08:23, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
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- You can't delete party leader names as they currently are, one of those Interim leaders you deleted, Bruce Hutton has been interim leader of the Separation Party thru 2 elections since the name was changed from the Alberta First Party to Separation in 2004. Despite being interim, there is nothing to suggest that will change any time soon.
The future election articles are maintained in such a state that all or most of the current as of today information is ready to go if a snap election is called today. Leaders and candidates, die, resign or get fired. The articles are designed so that the current information is ready to go if an election were called today. Hideing a leader name who is interim is asinine, because plenty of interim leaders have led parties thru elections, and these articles shouldn't be withholding relevant or verifiable data. The governing party will go to the polls when it wants to go and it won't wait for anyone else to finish a leadership race etc.--Þadius (talk) 09:49, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
- I am not asking to delete any articles or content, just that the parties that will be involved are discussed, rather than the current leaders. For example, the NS infobox would look like the one to the right. In regards to leaderless parties in an election, it also happened in 1921, when the United Farmers of Alberta had an unexpected win. 117Avenue (talk) 07:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
- The United Farmers had Henry Wise Wood as a leader in 1921, he decided not to run as a candidate to better help his candidates get elected. It was not an unexpected win, the UFA was on the rise and had a caucus in the previous legislature while the Liberals were still in power. --Þadius (talk) 09:38, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
The articles aren't on who is a current leader, they are on events that have passed, and what is known, like the latest possible date for election. When the election is called, the leaders can be filled in. This is not withholding verifiable data, one week ago a "fact" that Stelmach would participate in the next election was unverifiable, and proved to be false. According to Alberta general election, 1921, which you wrote, says that the UFA had no leader. 117Avenue (talk) 00:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
- I should also point out that Greenfield is scheduled to be featured on the home page February 10, so if there are any errors on the 1921 election article, they should be fixed by then. 117Avenue (talk) 21:07, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
- I disagree with you, the article is on what is current and people do look at the future election article, see who the current leader is and what the standings are, this is the way it has always been done. Frankly I find it offensive, and these changes are for the worst, Wikipedia has become more about overtly rigid rules rather than presenting any kind of meaningful information. --Þadius (talk) 11:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
- I don't mean to offend you, but I do not want to encourage others to add unreferenced information. 117Avenue (talk) 00:30, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- I disagree with you, the article is on what is current and people do look at the future election article, see who the current leader is and what the standings are, this is the way it has always been done. Frankly I find it offensive, and these changes are for the worst, Wikipedia has become more about overtly rigid rules rather than presenting any kind of meaningful information. --Þadius (talk) 11:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Then one week later the leader of the opposition said he was stepping down, there just isn't anyway of knowing who plans on running. 117Avenue (talk) 19:25, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
- Well, Alberta is a fairly unique situation right now. Shame we have to wait a year for the next election. Resolute 19:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
I kind of agree with what 117Avenue wants to do and Alberta isn't a an overly unique situtation. Danny Williams was widely expected to run for re-election this October and a week before he retired from politics he said he was running in the election. Many are unsure if Liberal leader Yvonne Jones will be the leader come October due to her undergoing treatment for cancer and because of internal party conflict, though she says she is running. We don't state the parties candidates before they are offcially nominated so should we list the leaders? Newfoundlander&Labradorian (talk) 01:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Peace Arch - interesting problem
Please see Talk:Peace_Arch#Well.2C_hm.2C_CanEng_vs_USian..... My gut feeling is that it was instigated from this side of the border....but was built by people from both sides. Thoughts?Skookum1 (talk) 19:07, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
The usage of Provincial highway is under discussion, see Talk:Provincial highway. 184.144.164.14 (talk) 07:57, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Ontario Greenbelt
I was wondering if I could ask everyone to weigh in on a discussion to move Greenbelt (Golden Horseshoe) to Ontario Greenbelt. The discussion is stagnant, and I'd like to gather some consensus. Thanks. --Natural RX 18:05, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Subscription databanks
- Notice --this has been posted (permanently at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/References)
Thank you John for this.Moxy (talk) 19:36, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
- Subscription databanks
Material from the following sources relevant to Canada can be obtained from subscription databanks for the time periods indicated. The material in question may be in abstract, citation, or full text format. To obtain information, please send me an e-mail indicating the specific subject of interest, or the title and dates of sources requested, and I will forward what I find. John Carter (talk) 19:11, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
- Abstracts (2000-on)
- Advocates Quarterly (1980-on)
- Affaires Plus (2000-on)
- Alberta Law Review (1980-on)
- Alternatives Journal (1996-on)
- American Drycleaner (1999-on)
- American Review of Canadian Studies (1989-on)
- Anglican Journal (2000-on)
- ARC (2000-2005)
- Archivist (1994-on)
- The Army Doctrine and Training Bulletin (1998-2003)
- Australasian Canadian Studies (1988-on)
Lakes
Anybody know the naming convention for multiple lakes with the same name in the same region? There are two Trout Lakes in the North Slave Region of the NWT. I have no idea how to separate them out.
- Is either one of them part of a major river system? Does either one of them have a named community on or near it? Could we get away with disambiguating them directionally (north and south, or east and west) in a pinch? Worse come to worst, are they small and unsourceable enough that we could get away with writing one article about both of them? Bearcat (talk) 02:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- BCGNIS makes that a bit easier by always telling you what it's at tributary of....CGNDB isn't so kind, here's its results for the NWT (the alphnumerics at the end are the NTS map number):
- Trout Lake N.W.T. Unincorporated area Mackenzie 095A06
- Trout Lake N.W.T. Lake Mackenzie 085J16
- Trout Lake N.W.T. Lake Mackenzie 085I06
- Trout Lake N.W.T. Lake Mackenzie 095A11
Of course there's only one region to the NWT in their system, as it's the same as the old Mackenzie District, no? Seems like the Unincorporated area and the last-named are connected, but normally lake articles should be separate from place-articles...Skookum1 (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks guys. Both of them are just off Great Slave Lake, one north and one east and neither one has a community next to it. Nor do they appear to be close to anything. The first and last ones in the CGNDB are Trout Lake, Northwest Territories and Trout Lake (Dehcho Region, Northwest Territories), which makes the lake easy to disambiguate. Probably could go with "Trout Lake (North Slave Region, Northwest Territories, 085J16)" or something like that. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 04:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
- Another option is to use the river drainage basin to which the lake belongs. The lake at 85I06 is part of the Beaulieu River drainage basin, so you could use Trout Lake (Beaulieu River). The one at 85J16 is part of the
McCreaYellowknife River drainage basin, so you could use Trout Lake (McCreaYellowknife River). Just be sure to include text in the article lead like "This river is part of the NAME OF RIVER [[drainage basin]]."--papageno (talk) 07:08, 15 February 2011 (UTC)- Oops. Corrected river drainage basin with strikethrough.--papageno (talk) 07:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- Another option is to use the river drainage basin to which the lake belongs. The lake at 85I06 is part of the Beaulieu River drainage basin, so you could use Trout Lake (Beaulieu River). The one at 85J16 is part of the
- Thanks guys. Both of them are just off Great Slave Lake, one north and one east and neither one has a community next to it. Nor do they appear to be close to anything. The first and last ones in the CGNDB are Trout Lake, Northwest Territories and Trout Lake (Dehcho Region, Northwest Territories), which makes the lake easy to disambiguate. Probably could go with "Trout Lake (North Slave Region, Northwest Territories, 085J16)" or something like that. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 04:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
youth sports in canada
After looking at the 2011 Canada Games, I found articles 1988 Junior Olympics and 2011 International Children's Winter Games. These seem to need some work.
Does anyone know about the 1988 event? 64.229.101.183 (talk) 03:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- Wow not much out there....Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL..Moxy (talk) 04:40, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
The various months of 2005 in Canada
For the year 2005, there are articles (such as August 2005 in Canada) for eleven of the months, all but December. It looks like overkill to me. As far as I have been able to tell, 2005 is the only year for which separate articles have been started for each month.
Before I think about how to merge the series of Monthxxx 2005 in Canada into 2005 in Canada, I'd like to see what the consensus is for merging them, and whether or not other similar articles exist that I just haven't found yet. What say you? PKT(alk) 14:15, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
- unusually quiet around here.............PKT(alk) 14:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
- OK, last call. Silence = consent, ie the series of Monthxxx 2005 in Canada articles will be merged into 2005 in Canada. PKT(alk) 13:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- Is there any harm done by leaving them the way they are? There's a lot of work gone into those pages and lots of handy links. So long as the main items are reflected in the master "year" article, I'm not sure what problem is caused by leaving the month pages as they are. Are they getting vandalized or used for POV-pushing? Franamax (talk) 17:06, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- There's no harm, it just doesn't make any sense for those 11 months to have special treatment. Also remember that I'm talking about merging to 2005 in Canada - while some of the minutia will be tossed out, events that have some lasting importance will be kept. PKT(alk) 19:40, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- Is there any harm done by leaving them the way they are? There's a lot of work gone into those pages and lots of handy links. So long as the main items are reflected in the master "year" article, I'm not sure what problem is caused by leaving the month pages as they are. Are they getting vandalized or used for POV-pushing? Franamax (talk) 17:06, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- Aside: I've noticed that there's a slow but concerted effort to create articles for each month of every year in other areas, so it may just be that this set was ahead of the curve. They don't necessarily merit inclusion, though. Mindmatrix 21:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Geographic townships
Me and User:Qui1che started a discussion here last night about these township types and were wondering if the titles of such articles should be "XXXX Township, XXXX" or "XXXX Township (XXXX)". Titles of geographic articles such as rivers, lakes and mountains use "XXXX (XXXX)" whereas communities use "XXXX, XXXX" as far as I'm aware of. But from looking at Category:Townships of Ontario, there are geographic township articles that use "XXXX, Ontario" (e.g. March Township, Ontario). Geographic townships are not communities and are used mainly for geographic purposes, such as land surveying and natural resource explorations. Since I'm not sure if the geographic township articles should be moved to "XXXX Township (XXXX)", I am posting this issue here. Volcanoguy 00:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- Many of them used to be communities (like the example noted). Townships not geographical features, they are man made. -- Earl Andrew - talk 01:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- You are missing the point. These are NOT communities as noted. They are used for GEOGRAPHIC PURPOSES. I never said they are geographical features. Whether if they were communities they no longer are. In fact, the Geographical Names Data Base discribes geographic townships as "geographical areas". Thus, if they are used for geographical purposes they should be treated as such. Titling geographic townships as "XXXX Township, Ontario" makes it sound like it is a community, which they are not. Retitling them as "XXX Township (XXXX)" makes more sense as they are geographical areas unlike communities, which deal with politics. Volcanoguy 01:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- Townships are a form of organized government below the regional level. Just like any other place name, a comma would be the appropriate piece of punctuation. Think of postal addresses. Geographical features (as opposed to entities), things such as lakes, mountains, rivers, roads, rails, airports, buildings, etc are proper names - they should use parenthesis in order to disambiguate them from other features with the same name.
- Also, please make sure you de-disambiguate where you can. I've moved dozens of Foo, Ontario where there is no other Foo besides the one in Ontario. Our policies (which override any guidelines Canadians may have crafted) indicate that pages shouldn't be disambiguated unless it is necessary to do so. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 03:19, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- I prefer the "XXXX Township, Ontario" nomenclature for a place as opposed to a physical feature, if for no other reason than it seems right, an admittedly less than supremely rational position. I do take Volcanoguy's point about Geonames calling gepgrahic townships "geographic entities" (even pointing that out in our discussion), but still like the "XXXX Township, Ontario" better. One point in favour of Volcanoguy's position is National Capital Region (Canada), a geographic entity created by government that uses brackets, the only good example in Canada I could find. I also take Floydian's point about unnecessary precision; the townships that Volcanoguy has created that I have seen are not unnecessarily precise, adding an additional modifier only where required to avoid ambiguity.--papageno (talk) 06:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- Just to get away with this issue I have moved the geographic township articles I created (e.g. Chambers, Strathcona, Briggs and Best) to "XXXX Township, Ontario". However, I did not move Strathy Township because according to a quick Google search this is the only township named Strathy. So there isn't really no need to add Ontario beside it. I do not have a real problem using "XXXX Township, Ontario" for geographic townships, I just do not want to be re-moving pages just because someone made a mistake. As you can see in the article history of Strathy, Chambers, Briggs and Best Township articles, Qui1che moved them to "XXXX, Ontario", which is a name form not commonly used for geographic townships, not geographic townships in Temagami anyway. Whenever I do geological/geographical research in the Temagami area their names are always known as "XXXX Township". So I moved them back to "XXXX Township" for that reason and per WP:AT, which states "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it instead uses the name which is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. This includes usage in the sources used as references for the article." Volcanoguy 07:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- I prefer the "XXXX Township, Ontario" nomenclature for a place as opposed to a physical feature, if for no other reason than it seems right, an admittedly less than supremely rational position. I do take Volcanoguy's point about Geonames calling gepgrahic townships "geographic entities" (even pointing that out in our discussion), but still like the "XXXX Township, Ontario" better. One point in favour of Volcanoguy's position is National Capital Region (Canada), a geographic entity created by government that uses brackets, the only good example in Canada I could find. I also take Floydian's point about unnecessary precision; the townships that Volcanoguy has created that I have seen are not unnecessarily precise, adding an additional modifier only where required to avoid ambiguity.--papageno (talk) 06:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- You are missing the point. These are NOT communities as noted. They are used for GEOGRAPHIC PURPOSES. I never said they are geographical features. Whether if they were communities they no longer are. In fact, the Geographical Names Data Base discribes geographic townships as "geographical areas". Thus, if they are used for geographical purposes they should be treated as such. Titling geographic townships as "XXXX Township, Ontario" makes it sound like it is a community, which they are not. Retitling them as "XXX Township (XXXX)" makes more sense as they are geographical areas unlike communities, which deal with politics. Volcanoguy 01:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Canadian filmmaker Adam Smoluk deleted buy UK editor
Canadian Filmmaker Adam Smoluk deleted. Entry had good sources. UK editor isn't correct for reason of deletion "Minor film-maker, not even famous regionally" -- strong sources prove other wise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smoluk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.200.6.214 (talk) 16:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- I've restored it since it was a prod and you have objected, but in reading it, it will probably end back up at articles for deletion. -DJSasso (talk) 16:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)First, let's try to keep nationalistic name-calling out of this. That the article was deleted by a UK editor is irrelevant. I found the Smoluk article in google cache and it does not appear that he satisfies WP:GNG at this time. He has one film under his belt and only minor media coverage at this time. Perhaps a brief mention at Foodland (film) about the director. freshacconci talktalk 16:42, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Copyvios at BC MLA's
Just noticed that in 2009 Sdley1 (talk · contribs) and probably Sbdley (talk · contribs) had introduced copyvios to several BC MLA's. I've removed them, and in the process no doubt removed valid material, by reverting to the last good copy. They will need checking over and updating because I'm busy with something else. It might be an idea to check all the other BC MLA's for problems as well. The material was copied from the LA website who's copyright is not compatible with Wikipedia. The only one I didn't revert was Murray Coell as Bearcat got it already. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 21:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Trudeau salute
I don't know what happen that caused Trudeau salute to be hit 146 times in one day, but it seems to be of interest to people again. If anyone is willing to write an article on it, please add your voice to the RFD, it is a bit before my time. 117Avenue (talk) 09:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
Article on government hackings
I created an artice yesterday on the attacks on the federal government's departments at 2011 Canadian government hackings. Please help expand the article. It is currently being reported on by CBC, CTV, Toronto Sun, Ottawa Citizen, Globe and Mail, and internationally by the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, and others.--Richard (Talk - Contribs) 21:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
Canadian filmmaker article highlighted for deletion
Canadian filmmaker article highlighted for deletion -- lacked inline citations. Inline citations added yesterday and then highlighted for deletion second time this morning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foodland_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smoluk
Good sources (CBC, free press, etc) and supported by Canadian cinema task force -- Article requires polish from seasoned wiki Canadian editor.
- This might be seen as Wikipedia:Canvassing. PKT(alk) 20:53, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
It has been proposed to move NHL Winter Classic (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to NHL outdoor games to better cover the contents, and both Classics (Heritage and Winter). 65.95.14.96 (talk) 01:01, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Location maps
Currently the {{Location map Canada Northwest Territories}}, {{Location map Canada Nunavut}} and {{Location map Canada Yukon}} will not work because they are missing the required figures. Does anyone know what they are as it would be useful to have those maps available. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 01:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
- Anyone? I want to add locator maps to a bunch of lakes, and can't do it till this is fixed. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Lieutenant Governor
I have to ask why all our Lieutenant governor's have not been added to Wikipedia:Canada, to Wikipedia:WikiProject Governments of Canada, and to of course to the the specific provincial projects (if not already done)? See: Talk:James Bartleman. Argolin (talk) 03:27, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Cleanup needed on Whistler, British Columbia
With the addition of yet another picture of skiing and mountains on this article, it's come time for someone to take a weed-whacker to Whistler,_British_Columbia#Gallery -postcard-type pic after postcard-pic, few of them of the municipality itself - and probably a lot of spam-like peacockisms throughout. There's a directory of radio stations that's overbuilt and....well, it's just too much, given the largely irrelevant nature of the topic of radio stations and what kind of music they play to be feature on a resort-town page. All resort pages have this problem of mindless bloat, but this one's getting out of hand (again).Skookum1 (talk) 17:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- The thing to do is create a gallery page on Commons, and link to it at the top of the gallery section, with a clear hatnote-type link. {{main}} external linkage. 65.93.15.125 (talk) 05:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Proposed move at Talk:Warwick (disambiguation)
There is currently a discussion concerning moving the Warwick (disambiguation) page to Warwick taking place at Talk:Warwick (disambiguation). There are three places in Canada using the name Warwick, but the English town currently occupies the primary topic. The discussion concerns making the DAB page the primary topic. You may wish to comment. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 20:08, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Montreal Expos --> Washington Nationals merge proposal
Yet another proposal has been made to merge Montreal Expos into the Washington Nationals article. Parties interested in commenting are invited to at Talk:Washington Nationals. Resolute 01:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
Who is the person(s) who created our community page for us?
We have a lovely Community page on Wikipedia but who is creating, editing and keeping it updated. No one from our community is doing it, and since you are stating that this is a "project" by Wikiproject Canada, I would like to know who is doing this for us and can they be contacted by our community? Our page is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenaston,_Saskatchewan
The main point of my question is how did the Facebook page happen? It looks like it has somehow been migrated from the Wiki project. Since we would like to have administration of a Kenaston Facebook page for Facebook discussions etc, we would like to have log in rights to this facebook portion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikibyfirefly (talk • contribs) 21:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- As Wikipedia is a collaborative effort, no one person really created or maintains the article as it exists today. The Facebook-based mirror of the article is beyond our control, so nobody here can help you with that. Given a number of Wikipedia articles have been copied to Facebook in this fashion, I would guess that the transfer to their platform was done via an automated tool. You would have to contact Facebook directly to get a better understanding of your options regarding that page. Cheers, Resolute 21:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Just another useless mirror of wikipedia to make researching that much more difficult. Plus all the pages are at /article-title/4556354e4dd7e4e4d785e45dd4d8dd576f86f65f65 and similar. Absolute 100% waste of space, time, money and effort. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 22:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. I learned from asking this question to Facebook itself and found the following.
Community pages and profile connections. Can I edit the content on a community page? No. Community pages display Wikipedia articles about the topics they represent when this information is available, as well as related posts from people on Facebook in real time. At this time, there is no way for you to add your own pictures or edit information on these pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.204.196.3 (talk) 22:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Proposed move of Canadian Forces Air Navigation School to 1 Canadian Forces Flying Training School
These entries contain no duplication. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PGursky (talk • contribs) 23:48, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
- But one became the other, did it not? And both articles are pretty stubby. Would a single article not be preferable? (For the record, this comment would have been better on the article Talk page, there was no need to bring it here. But let's continue here, if the Wikigroup does not mind...) Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
- I remind you of your own text:
On June 26, 2009 CFANS adopted the name of the Canadian Forces advanced pilot training school, 1 Canadian Forces Flying Training School (1 CFFTS), inheriting the histories of both advanced flying training and navigator training
- We're talking about a name change. To chose an educational institution closer to my own experience as an example, the former Sir George Williams University is a redirect to the current Concordia University. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:20, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
- I did not say this was a name change. I said "adopted". The content of each article is about two different subjects: 1) pilot (flying) training schools and 2) navigator training schools. For anyone who is familiar with this history, they know that this is not just a name change. The fact that one entity adopted a similar name doesn't mean that it was the same historical entity. The phrase "inherited the history" is the phrase which causes me concern because one institution can't just inherit another's history. If you want Wikipedia to be avaialble, it doesn't help to talk down to new contributors. PGursky (talk) 19:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
- Whoa, whoa, no one's talking down to you. I'm simply trying to understand the issue. I'll remove the merge tags. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:54, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Note especially the Special:WhatLinksHere/Michael John Adams and the vanity redir at Environics. Appears to be a marketer and his marketing firm, but I may be biased. - Amgine (talk) 22:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
To whom it may concern. Nergaal (talk) 04:38, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
name dispute - Haida Gwaii v. Queen Charlotte Islands
Rather than re-summarize what I just posted on WP:IPNA please see here. Mediation/decision needed, the paranoia and anger and accusatory invective is getting nasty (nastier even than me ;-0). Locally-official name vs. prevailing global usage is what the core issue is, though also the intent of those wanting the name change is to get Wikipedia to promote the term within the English-speaking world.Skookum1 (talk) 20:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Bibliographies
Ok sure most have noticed my book work adding books to our main pages - inhopes they will be used to expand the articles....i have also taken the time to make/update the Bibliographies on Canada with "scholarly books" that are digitized were possible for us to use as sources and for our readers to expand there knowledge on topics. As more books are found by editors would be nice if all could update the bibs with BOOKs (hopefully that are online) that are relevant to the overall project here. Pls see Bibliography of Canada and Bibliography of Canadian history (ones done so far) for a huge amount of sources. Will be doing the other CAN bibs over time - that is finding links and new books for them.Moxy (talk) 00:08, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
Bixi
The usage of Bixi is under discussion, see Talk:Bixi 65.95.15.144 (talk) 06:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
UNDUE and SPAM re "Harper government"
I've never liked this series of articles:
- Domestic policy of the Harper government
- Economic policy of the Harper government
- Foreign policy of the Harper government
- Environmental policy of the Harper government
- Premiership of Stephen Harper
Have a look through the other PM categories; nothing like this kind of article bloat; and these aren't just short articles, either, they're heavily-referenced tracts, very SPAM-like and not containing NPOV views/criticisms in any meaningful way, clearly written by a p.r. agency. The Canada's New Government article also seems unwarranted as a stand-alone. There's no reason for this particular PM to have his own article on Environmental Policy, for example; a history of environmental policy of the Canadian government, yeah sure, but not one focussed on one administration. What's got me going about this is this rebranding effort re "Harper government", also Govt here in the Toronto Star, and how these articles seem clearly to be part of this same rebranding campaign. They're all over-written and very much "advertorial" rather than actual NPOV coverage; IMO they should all have been deleted long ago, or seriously trimmed and merged into either general economic/foreign/etc policy articles, or into the "Ministry of Stephen Harper" article (which is about his heavy metal band, I guess). I'll save my very-POV views on his environmental and foreign policies and what's not reflected in these articles, but my main problem as a wikipedian here is this encyclopedia being used as a vehicle by political operatives and p.r. firms....Skookum1 (talk) 21:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
- I would think it's Harper's continuing campaign to turn Canada into the United States, by becoming President Harper, King of Canada, what with Harper Government, everything needing the approval of Harper/PMO, 24/7 attack ads, the neverending election campaign, US Congressional style playing-chicken in congress style Parliamentary sessions, etc. Geeze, Stockwell Day was so much more civilized. 65.95.15.144 (talk) 22:24, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
- Yep looks like some very nice forking. Shall we see if deletion and/or merger is recommended. Moxy (talk) 22:28, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
- Absolutely. There's no need for them. More political hijinks from Tory supporters. PKT(alk) 22:48, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
- Yep looks like some very nice forking. Shall we see if deletion and/or merger is recommended. Moxy (talk) 22:28, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
Just to note, on many articles Iv'e deleted things like "On March 52, 2155, Stephen Harper cut a ribbon to open a new daycare centre" - stuff like that's all over the place, likewise for Gordon Campbell, no doubt for other premiers too. "Politician spam" peppered across all kinds of different articles - location/town articles, even rivers and so on. Worth noting most of the many entries in the Pierre Trudeau category are things named for him.....do you think there will ever be a Mount Stephen Harper? Oh, probably, no doubt, somewhere down the line; I'm just amazed he hasn't tried to name one for himself yet.....(WAC Bennett and the then-head of BC Hydro, Gordon Shrum, named a dam and a power plant after themselves, which was regarded as unseemly at hte time - i.e. living people naming monumental structures after themselves). Anyways on all articles watch for Prime Minister Stephen Harper did this, or Premier Gordon Campbell did that, in contexts where the appropriate term would be "the Canadian government did this" or "the Briitsh Columbia government did that". Examples which come to mind immediately are teh Head Tax and associated apology in the case of Harper, the renaming of Haida Gwaii and Salish Sea in the case of Campbell. But they're all over the place, that kind of stuff - and somewhere someone is getting paid to add that crap, and they know those of us who take it out are unpaid and "understaffed". As for these articles I see nothing more than policy statements/claims, I don't see encyclopedic content; a previous discussion was whether to merge them somehow....but i think given their preponderant tone of pitch-pitch-pitch and the blatant use of the rebranding name, they should just be deleted outright. NB there will be harper-defenders who come along and maintain it's notable, NPOV content or that "they find it interesting, it should stay"...Skookum1 (talk) 23:00, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
- Also the heavy use of CTV citations, and a few CBC ones, points to the ongoing problem of using the media monopolies as the only "reliable sources" when it's known that they have partisan ties and are not known for their....reliablity, certainly not for their impartiality. That articles like this can exist without the inclusion of blog critiques and small-media critiques is one of the problems with the hard-line rule against using blogs and so-called non-reliable sources like small media; on one page somewhere it was claimed that Canadian Dimension, a long-standing leftist journal, was "fringe"....oh that was on teh 2010 Olympics article where other non-rightist and similarly non-monopoly sources were similarly garbage-canned by POV activity.Skookum1 (talk) 23:03, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
- Shall we tag them for deletion due to forking?? And see what others have to say. Moxy (talk) 23:33, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
- They should be deleted/merged to the main Harper article. If there are examples of similar forks being created with articles on premiers as well, they should be deleted as well. This should go beyond partisanship: Wikipedia shouldn't be part of a marketing/campaign strategy for any party, nor should it be used for legacy building. freshacconci talktalk 01:34, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
- I totally agree, especially that bit about "Legacy Building"....it's not just politicians but consultants/bureaucrats too; I just added tags to Paul Tellier and took out words like "visionary" and "his exceptional skills" and such; you may be aware of the recent edit war on Christy Clark where her campaign people tried to control what it said, expect more of the same from BC politician articles. "Conflation and deception" are the operative bywords for spin doctoring, and there's a whole army of p.r. firms out there...IMO we need a firmer approach to dealing with them; as WP:AGF is too easily manipulated by....manipulators; likewise other wikipedia guidelines, which get disabused endlessly for partisan purposes; see here on Harper's own article from today, where a whole phrase/sentence was taken out as "weasel worlds" when "some" was only one word in the sentence; if anything that should have been "many" rather than "some" and it's very citable and should ahve just had the word removed and a fact/cite tag added. Deleting dissent and criticism, and in the case of some BC poli-bios, embarrassing and politically-damaging truth is usually masked under guise of NPOV, weasel, etc...the time of innocence for Wikipedia is long over, as anyone familiar with the history of articles such as Tibet know well, and some issues IMO can't be left to admins not widely-read enough or politically-sophisticated enough to recognize distortion or willful manipulation by news-twisters and "information bureaus"....anyway I really only dropped by at this point about that one edit to the Harper article as an example of what I call "washing"; silencing dissent by deleting its existence. The Harper articles should be smashed, dashed, diced and fricassee'd into something relevant and less pitch-man in purpose; and though there's supposed to be that line between the media and what goes on inside of Wikipedia, the "Harper bloat" in Wikipedia is itself newsworthy in terms of the "Harper government" controversy.....well, it's not a controversy, really, it's an ugly truth.Skookum1 (talk) 06:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Local Health Integration Network
Local Health Integration Network appears to have been a copyvio since 2007. I've removed it so of course it now needs some attention. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 23:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Norfolk General Hospital
Anybody know anything about the Norfolk General Hospital? The coordinates for the site are fine but the ones for the helipad, 42°50′48″N 080°19′11″W / 42.84667°N 80.31972°W, seem to be a long way north but there is a pad there. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 04:10, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Category:Transportation in Canada
Earlier, nearly all the "Transportation in (country)" categories were standardized to "Transport in (country)," reflecting the accepted usage in most of the world. The big three countries in North America were not renamed, however. Here in the U.S., we exclusively use "Transportation" for this purpose, but Canada seems to vary back and forth (e.g., Transport Canada and Transportation Safety Board of Canada. I've posted a nomination here, proposing that we match the head article Transport in Canada. I'd love to see some of my neighbors to the north comment upon whether this is the right move.--Mike Selinker (talk) 01:25, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
- Now Transport in Canada is nominated to be moved the other way. 117Avenue (talk) 21:34, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Tourism SPAs/COIs and WikiTravel template suggestion
I reversed today a series of edits adding links to a tourism directory for the Queen Charlotte Islands, http://www.qcinfo.com, made by User:QueenCharlotte9 who is apparently the tourism office in Queen Charlotte City (properly the Village of Queen Charlotte). There've bveen lots of stuff like this, and sometimes a tourism site is the only place that information on a given place may exist - http://www.britishcolumbia.com for example often has writeups on small places that don't exist anywhere else, and their advertising is low-profile...more or less; but this is a link to a directory of accommodations/lodges, tour/guiding companies, etc, and there are others of the same kind for the same region, though this one appears semi-official; the presence of the BC govt tourism logo means nothing; this may or may not be part of Tourism BC I'm not sure (their main site is http://www.hellobc.com). Another example a while back was User:TourismUcluelet and there's been many more since for various palces. In my edit comments I say "please take this to WikiTravel.org, Wikipedia in not for advertising/promotion purposes" though I haven't gone to QueenCharlotte9's talkpage yet to leave a note, partly because of that "be welcoming" thing and I know there's proper first-timer templates but I don't know what they are. I usually add "What Wikipedia is not" and say "please read COI, SPAM, NPOV, etc but that can come off kinda harsh. But I've wondered about a template that says something liek "you recently added tourism promotion/advertising to X article. Such content is not appropriate for Wikipedia but you are welcome to add it to WikiTravel.org which is designed for that purpose." Too many articles are being treated like travel guides, others as we all know like rank real estate promotions....but maybe there's an opportunity here to encourage the wider use of WikiTravel.org, which is underutilized and could be put to great use, especially by smaller, more remote communities like QCC and FNs that have tourism/hotel/lodge services.Skookum1 (talk) 07:04, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
- There is a welcome template especially for spammers: {{subst:Welcomespam}} ~~~~ It could be adapted to a special tourism spam welcome, with links to WikiTravel. I'll look into it. The Interior (Talk) 07:26, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Wayne Gretzky
Should have posted here earlier...
Looking for input on an FA article that is having a slow edit war the past 6 months - pls see Talk:Wayne Gretzky#Nationality removed from lead.Moxy (talk) 02:15, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Adding Governors General to the PMs infoboxes
I'm considering adding the Governors General to the infoboxes of the Prime Ministers. Shall I make the additions or not? PS: I asked this at Wikipedia:WikiProject Governments of Canada, but got no response. GoodDay (talk) 02:24, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- What is the purpose of adding this? The GG is just the local representative of the monarch, are you proposing to also add the name of the monarch for each PM? Franamax (talk) 04:02, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- The monarch is already in the PM infoboxes. GoodDay (talk) 04:12, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- I'd say the monarch is enough. Wasn't there already a debate on this a few years ago and that's how the infoboxes ended up as they are now? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- I can't remember. But if so, it's time for a review. GoodDay (talk) 04:19, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- OK, so what is the purpose of ahowing the information? Franamax (talk) 05:46, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- There's an official between the Queen & the Prime Minister. GoodDay (talk) 14:49, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- Not really. There are some things the prime minister advises the Queen on directly. There are others that only the governor general can perform. That may be the best argument in favour of your proposal. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 17:08, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- My additions of GGs in the Australian & New Zealand PM infoboxes were accepted. I'm just trying to get a consistancy across all the commonwealth realm PM infoboxes. I realize though, keeping so many infoboxes consistant is practically impossible. GoodDay (talk) 17:17, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- Not really. There are some things the prime minister advises the Queen on directly. There are others that only the governor general can perform. That may be the best argument in favour of your proposal. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 17:08, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- There's an official between the Queen & the Prime Minister. GoodDay (talk) 14:49, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- OK, so what is the purpose of ahowing the information? Franamax (talk) 05:46, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- I can't remember. But if so, it's time for a review. GoodDay (talk) 04:19, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- I'd say the monarch is enough. Wasn't there already a debate on this a few years ago and that's how the infoboxes ended up as they are now? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- The monarch is already in the PM infoboxes. GoodDay (talk) 04:12, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- I also seem to recall that this discussed fairly recently. Why is it time for a review? How long ago was the last discussion, what decision was reached (and why), and has anything changed since then? While anyone is free to raise the issue again at any time, I'm not sure the suggestion will go anywhere unless you can provide more details. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:30, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- I can't remember the last discussion. I'm not insisting that the GGs be added, but rather I'm just seeing if they can be. GoodDay (talk) 17:04, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
- I also seem to recall that this discussed fairly recently. Why is it time for a review? How long ago was the last discussion, what decision was reached (and why), and has anything changed since then? While anyone is free to raise the issue again at any time, I'm not sure the suggestion will go anywhere unless you can provide more details. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:30, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
WPENGVAR template:Canadian English
{{Canadian English}} use of the flag is in question, see Template talk:American English
184.144.160.156 (talk) 02:56, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
BC politcians
I just semi-protected 30+ BC politicians articles due to copyright violations. To get rid of the copyvio in some of them I had to revert back to mid-2009 which means they are now in poor shape. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 12:34, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
- LOL for pages which probably have paid COI contributors on them, you'd think they'd at least take the time to learn the wiki-ropes...Skookum1 (talk) 19:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
apparent COI activity on E-Comm
I haven't reverted a large series of changes on this article, made yesterday by an IP and today by a SPA, apparently the same contributor, partly because of updated stats provided. But some wording changes and the deletion of the link about financial contributions by the GVRD/Metro Vancouver, and the insertion of external links into the text, notably into the lede/title phrase, indicate that this person doesn't give a fig for Wikipedia guidelines; I've just got up and am in no mood to try and tidy things up; there are some wording problems and an unexplained de-linking of the SLRD and related introduced-redundancies....this is a public private partnership, a government service now outsourced to a private company (US-owned, I think), so in the infobox where it says "government private" taht's not quite right; we need an article on PPPs anyway (Public-Private Partnerships I think is the "translation" of that acronym. There's a lot of info-war going on in BC, with Wikipedia as the vehicle, including on corporate articles; other than the non-MOS changes and the deletion of that funding link, this seems fairly innocuous; but the SPA should get a COI warning I'd say, and if others could please monitor/fix this article it'd be a good idea; I won't be around much in the next while, for one thign, but I'm also tired of cleaning up after SPAs...they're really annoying.Skookum1 (talk) 19:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
BC Geographical Name switch
I've updated the {{Cite bcgnis}} template to use the new BC Geographical Name web service. This was an easy transition, as the IDs used in the template don't need to be changed. If you've used {{Cite bcgnis}} or {{BCGNIS}} before, you don't need to do anything to fix the references. They should just work. +mt 12:49, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Research reactors in Canada
We should check on articles about research reactors in Canada, considering the interest in nukes in Canada because of Japan.
SLOWPOKE reactor needs improvements, such as a list of Canadian universities that have reactors. The University of Montreal isn't on the page, even though it has one, etc.
The various news outlets have been saying that Canada only has a few nuclear reactors, and that only Gentilly-2 is in a quake zone, but that's incorrect, since Chalk River is in a quake zone, and it has several reactors, and so is the SLOWPOKE at UdeM. 65.95.13.139 (talk) 14:19, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Title problem - United Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia
Please see Talk:United_Colonies_of_Vancouver_Island_and_British_Columbia#wording_problem.Skookum1 (talk) 07:43, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Lists of premiers of Canada
Wow, I am surprised by this. I wanted to go through the lists of premiers, to verify the dates of the premiers' terms, and I couldn't on most of them, (MB, ON, NB, PE, NS, NL, YT, & NT). And seven out of eight of these are supposed to be featured lists! 117Avenue (talk) 07:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Libya
With Canada performing air interdiction missions over Libya, it might be useful to write an article about Canada's military operation, similar to that of the UK, Operation Ellamy, (hopefully with more details). 184.144.168.153 (talk) 14:38, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Done Operation MOBILE - just a stub ...pls fill at will.Moxy (talk) 02:01, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
We need help at that article, concerning a dispute over the departure dates of Prime Ministers. GoodDay (talk) 04:21, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Junk Raiders
There's been a request for input at Talk:Junk Raiders. It was formatted incorrectly with a {{talkback}} template by 65.93.12.101, so I'm repairing it on their behalf to point to the actual discussion instead of to a non-existent user talk page. Bearcat (talk) 05:51, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Dominic Cardy
I created a new article yesterday about Dominic Cardy, the new leader of the New Brunswick New Democratic Party, but a new user has spent today repeatedly changing the phrasing to read that Cardy was proclaimed, instead of acclaimed, as the leader, even after I explained on his talk page that acclamation is the correct word for a person winning an election because they're the only candidate on the ballot at the registration deadline.
Technically speaking, a proclamation is a statement announcing a decision actively taken by someone in power — where an "acclamation" is a valid potential outcome of a legitimate democratic process, a "proclamation" is essentially imposed from the top down. So I'm unclear as to whether this is a good faith change by someone who simply doesn't understand the word "acclamation", or a POV attempt to cast aspersions on Cardy's legitimacy by implying that the party brass pushed the withdrawn second candidate out in order to install Cardy by fiat. Normally I'd think nothing of it, but the fact that a brand new user with no prior edit history went straight to this particular article to impose this particular change, as their first-ever Wikipedia edit, kind of makes my "POV-pushing agendabot" radar tingle (even if I can't actually prove that outright.)
I've put a 24-hour editprotect on the article for the time being, but this isn't exactly a clear-cut case of vandalism that would justify a longer-term protection or an editblock — so I'd like to request some willing watchlisters to assist in keeping an eye on this. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 20:06, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- Watching :) - Pictureprovince (talk) 15:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Austan Goolsbee
You may remember hearing about this fellow - he was the Obama campaign rep who featured prominently in the leaked foreign affairs memos about Obama's musings during the Democratic primaries only being rhetoric. Anyway, all reference to the media coverage of his meeting with Canadian consular officials in Chicago has been scrubbed by anonymous and/or new users going back for quite some time. I had re-added it for a while but another established user came in to suggest it shouldn't be included. He and I never reached an consensus and he has since stopped participating in the debate. I would appreciate your help/input in finding a consensus. Here is a link to the discussion on the talk page. - Pictureprovince (talk) 16:01, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Street names
Need advice on what to do with these street name moves (see also this thread). Materialscientist (talk) 01:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
- One person making what looks like over 100 controversial article moves in a few hour period without discussion in what looks like a political quest is terribly out-of-line behavior at best. North8000 (talk) 02:34, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
- The editor went bold, was asked to stop and complied. What we need is advice on what to do with the moves. In some cases, the situation is crystal clear - the street is mentioned under English name in (multiple) reliable sources, thus revert, but some articles have minimal referencing, often to official sites/maps which obviously use French names. Materialscientist (talk) 02:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
- In WP "Bold" generally means "B" in BRD, I.E. testing the waters. IMHO renaming & redirecting 100+ articles in 2 1/2 hours does not qualify as that.North8000 (talk) 03:21, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
- The editor went bold, was asked to stop and complied. What we need is advice on what to do with the moves. In some cases, the situation is crystal clear - the street is mentioned under English name in (multiple) reliable sources, thus revert, but some articles have minimal referencing, often to official sites/maps which obviously use French names. Materialscientist (talk) 02:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Academic degrees in infoboxes
I while ago I added the degrees to the alma mater section of the infoboxes of Canadian politicians. I matched the style of the American politicians by making the degree names a smaller font than the university and putting them in parentheses (see Barack Obama for an example). It was later removed with the comment "This is what a normal infobox should look like". I think we should decide a standard Canadian policy: do we want to mention academic degrees in infoboxes, and if so, how should they be written? —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 20:56, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
To whom it may concern. Nergaal (talk) 17:15, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
University Canada West
We could use a few eyes at University Canada West a previously blocked IP has a bit of a grudge, and I do not want to get into 3RR here, but I am just trying to follow policy. Dbrodbeck (talk) 02:46, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Harperitis again
I can't find our previous discussions here about the proliferation of Stephen Harper articles, so I'll start a new one on the same theme - which was merging/deleting the bulk of them. So though it's a year old, the tag I noticed on this edit, so split the article into yet more articles (apparently already made since). That they also were to titles matching the PMO's re-branding "Harper government" edict is a problem all on its own, given the issue/debates attached to that edict/practice; so Wikipedia being used to further instances of a controversial term is of major concern. But as is the apparent ongoing expansion of all these "specialty" articles; there's nowhere near as much activity on article creation/expansion for Ignatieff or Layton, nor for any past Prime Minister (even much more notable and intensely more interesting ones like Pierre Trudeau and Laurier and Sir John A...). With election season on us (on multiple fronts in BC), the notion that articles expanding on only one candidate constitute advertising; not something the Chief Elections Officer would care about it - unelss these were people paid to make and expand these articles 9rthare than just being fanatical members of Steve's extensive fan club). Premiership of Stephen Harper is odd to start with, but apparently 28th Canadian ministry is where I'm supposed to know where to look for his cabinet. PMO-centric Wiki-advertising, possibly by paid staff, or certainly COI party/p.r. firm operatives/"volunteers"). Moi, j'accuse, I just think it's time given the reality that free webspace isn't exactly free if it's used for the wrong thing, and with imbalance towards others in the field....there's a thematic POV problem inherent in that, because if only one campaign's/party's/poiltician's staff is doing it, and not the other side, "it's fair". Is it? And I can't prove paid editing so NPA shouldn't accuse it, but the logic of the situation and the who and the whyfor is all too clear. As long as the large crop of Stephen Harper pamphleteering stands as if it were notable (any more than anyone's else's)....Harper's WP:Undue weight isn't only around his waistline.....so does that "split" discussion have to be closed for a "merge/delete 'em all" discussion? We're in mid-campaign right now; how repsonsible is it to let one party's abuse of Wikipedia as a platform continue?Skookum1 (talk) 07:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed. All of the article titles, at the least, should be changed and the articles scoured to remove partisan statements. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 12:11, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Given their role as political advertising and the sheer volume not just of the group but of each article, I think simply changing their names is just not enough....I'm busy in real life and have also developed a distaste for RMs and AfDs and such because of the inanities that surface during them....what's the proper procedure here? A series of RMs, or a big AfD addressing the merge issue (not that there's anything in those articles that needs to be in the main Stephen Harper article that isn't already). We're already a week into the election campaign, this needs action...
Iain Baxter
The artist legally changed his name in 2005 from Iain Baxter to IAIN BAXTER&; the artist's official catalogue raisonne <http://archives.library.yorku.ca/iain_baxterand_raisonne/> hosted by York University, his dealer <http://www.corkingallery.com/?q=node/50>, the Museum of Modern Art <http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A397%7CA%3AAR%3AE%3A1&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1> and many other print and electronic sources since 2005 <http://www.amazon.com/Passing-Through-Baxter-Photographs-1958-1983/dp/0919837751> , <http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/971> identify the artist as IAIN BAXTER& -- this is his legal name . . .contact him directly if you wish <ibaxter@uwindsor.ca>, but until you institute this change you are unfairly representing him in wikipedia and damaging his reputation — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alauder (talk • contribs) 17:19, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- "Damaging his reputation"? Honestly, how? Bearcat (talk) 17:23, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
National Register of Electors
I've recently created the article about the National Register of Electors, and have already covered most aspects of the topic. Would anyone be interested in helping me edit it so that it passes through GA and perhaps even FA (and potential inclusion on the main page on, say, 2 May 2011)? (Aside: Is anyone interested in translating it into French?) Whatever the case, I'll continue working on it over the next week or so, at the least. Mindmatrix 18:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- I would help edit, but I can't see anything that needs improvement! PKT(alk) 19:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
New Democratic Party of Canada candidates
A move request was added to the project page today, viz: "New Democratic Party of Canada candidates, 2011 Canadian federal election → New Democratic Party candidates, 2011 Canadian federal election, main article doesn't include "of Canada"." I would note that the use of "of Canada" in the title is consistent with the similar lists from previous elections - see 2008 and 2006. To me, it's a moot point because redirects are in place, but if the move is to be made for 2011 it ought to be made for the previous election years, too. PKT(alk) 13:30, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- What was the point of reporting that here? If people are watching WT:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board, they are watching WP:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board. Any commentary can be added to the move discussion. 117Avenue (talk) 17:57, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- The point is that the request that was made has a complication or two that ought to be discussed......and the discussion belongs on the talk page, not necessarily the Notice Board. PKT(alk) 18:37, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- I wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't been posted here....I only actually watch the talk page, even if technically the software has both watchlisted. -DJSasso (talk) 18:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- So are we to report every current event, topical article, request for peer review, good article nominee, candidate for deletion, requested move, requested merger, requested split, cleanup project, request for comment, request for image, and request for article, here on the talk page? 117Avenue (talk) 19:12, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- No I am just pointing out that it is wrong to assume that people watch both. And that sometimes there is more information that is needed and the talk page is the appropriate place for it. Honestly I don't see what the issue is, unless you are worried it will lead to a mass rush to oppose your proposal. Which I would highly doubt it would. -DJSasso (talk) 19:18, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- No, but when I post something on the notice board, I assume all project members are notified, and those who are interested look further into it. 117Avenue (talk) 22:53, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Dear 117, please re-read my point about the request in question, and calm down. Honestly. PKT(alk) 19:30, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- No I am just pointing out that it is wrong to assume that people watch both. And that sometimes there is more information that is needed and the talk page is the appropriate place for it. Honestly I don't see what the issue is, unless you are worried it will lead to a mass rush to oppose your proposal. Which I would highly doubt it would. -DJSasso (talk) 19:18, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- So are we to report every current event, topical article, request for peer review, good article nominee, candidate for deletion, requested move, requested merger, requested split, cleanup project, request for comment, request for image, and request for article, here on the talk page? 117Avenue (talk) 19:12, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Those pages should be moved, per 117 Avenue. GoodDay (talk) 15:31, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
SN 1054
Help is needed in cleaning up SN 1054. It was recently greatly expanded (by 80kB!) from the French version of the article. Checking the grammar and wording against the original to fix errors in translation would be good. As well as selecting English terms where French terms were used and untranslated as they were not originally French but some transcription into French would also be useful, as transcription systems in French and English are different for some languages. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 07:23, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- How is this topic relevant to the Canada WikiProject? Mindmatrix 13:41, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- This is the Canadian Wikipedians Notice Board, not WikiProject Canada, even though WPCANADA uses this talk page as well. This is a notice to interested Canadian editors who may wish to deal with French-English issues, since Canadians are involved in French Wikipedia as well as English Wikipedia. Some WikiProjects and Noticeboards retain separation between the two talk pages for this reason (confusion between a Wikiproject topic and a Noticeboard topic) but Canada doesn't, so that's why it's posted here. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 15:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
Party Leadership elections?
Such articles X Party of Canada leadership election, year should be moved to X Party of Canada leadership campaign, year or X Party of Canada leadership convention, year. GoodDay (talk) 15:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Why are you bringing this back up? Can't we just focus on the federal election? 117Avenue (talk) 19:34, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- The events at the 2011 BC Liberal leadership convention, brought it back to my attention. GoodDay (talk) 19:47, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
New Democrat vs. New Democrats vs. New Democratic
To start up a slightly unrelated NDP discussion, and to open up an existing one to a bigger audience, I would like to ask what is the appropriate short form of "New Democratic Party"? One convention, when listing parties, is to simply remove the word "Party", another is to ask what you would call a related person. My vote is for "New Democrat", because none of the other parties listed are plural, and "New Democratic" seems grammatically incorrect to me. This discussion will affect Template:Canadian federal election, 2011, Template:Canadian federal election, 2011A, and their previous year versions, and Template:New Democratic Party/meta/shortname, and its provincial counterparts. 117Avenue (talk) 22:22, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Well I suppose it depends on what context it is being used in. If you are talking about a single member of the party then New Democrat is appropriate. If you are talking about the group as a whole then you should probably have the s as should the other parties. Canadian English tends to treat a group always as a plural. Whereas UK English treats a group as singular. -DJSasso (talk) 22:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Some of them can't be made plural though, Christian Heritage, Canadian Action, Marijuana, and Western Block I am having difficulty imagining plural. 117Avenue (talk) 22:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Add an "er"? so: Christian Heritagers, Canadian Actioners, Marijuanaers (OK, now so great :), and Western Blockers? -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 23:08, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Some of them can't be made plural though, Christian Heritage, Canadian Action, Marijuana, and Western Block I am having difficulty imagining plural. 117Avenue (talk) 22:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- Since this is purely for the purposes of dropping "Party [of Canada]" from the shortform name, then we should go with "Democratic" in the same way we use "Liberal", "Conservative", "Green" etc. It's just unfortunate that they used that word when the party was formed back in the day, but I doubt they had the foresight to factor wikipedia into their considerations. -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 22:42, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- I would say you have "the NDP" or "the New Democrats" when referring to the party. You have "a New Democrat" when referring to an individual party member and "the New Democratic candidate" when using it as an adjective. - Pictureprovince (talk) 15:24, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Article reassessment
Can anyone reassess the current quality status of the 2009 Tamil diaspora protests in Canada article? That would be quite helpful, thanks! EelamStyleZ (talk) 04:50, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
Had to be done, we're into an election campaign and there's no point in talking about merging, splitting or de-POVing any of these (the Premiership article, and the "X Policy of the Harper government" series); I have my doubts about the budget articles also (there are none before 2001) but they're not so clearly UNDUE and BLOAT and SOAP and POV-driven as these are. Bugs me that it will take another week of the campaign before these are deleted - a speedy-delete is to me more appropriate because of their overtly spammish nature, and the timeliness of their sitution as effective wikipedia-based advertising/p.r./spam.Skookum1 (talk) 23:00, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
Electoral district boundaries
I've noticed that on a few electoral district pages some users are adding Crown copyright material. For example, in Oak Ridges—Markham there has been the repeated addition of boundary information copied directly from the Elections Canada map page about the district. (These maps are linked in the "District webpage" field of the infobox for each riding.)
This information is Crown copyright, and the Elections Canada licence specifically forbids any commercial usage, which by extension includes Wikipedia. If you find boundary information on electoral district pages that has the same style or is a complete copy of the EC info, please delete it. Thanks. Mindmatrix 13:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
- Or, far better, rewrite it in your own words and source it to Elections Canada. - Pictureprovince (talk) 13:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
- Indeed. Mindmatrix 13:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
- How can legal descriptions (which is what those are) be copyrighted? This is like saying that quotes from Hansard can't be used, even though they are a matter of public record. In this case they are the text of actual legislation, which is not copyrightable (or else no one could use it). Even the Crown can't copyright what is not copyrightable.Skookum1 (talk) 17:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
- You can most certainly describe the boundaries, you just can't use the phrasing used at Elections Canada. Frankly, I think all government-produced work should be in the public domain, as is done in the US, but that's a different issue. Mindmatrix 22:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
- How can legal descriptions (which is what those are) be copyrighted? This is like saying that quotes from Hansard can't be used, even though they are a matter of public record. In this case they are the text of actual legislation, which is not copyrightable (or else no one could use it). Even the Crown can't copyright what is not copyrightable.Skookum1 (talk) 17:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
- Indeed. Mindmatrix 13:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
- Actually, while it is copyrighted, the site states: Information on this site has been posted with the intent that it be readily available for personal and public non-commercial use and may be reproduced, in part or in whole and by any means, without charge or further permission from Elections Canada. We ask only that: 1) Users exercise due diligence in ensuring the accuracy of the materials reproduced; 2) Elections Canada be identified as the source agency; and 3) The reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor as having been made, in affiliation with or with the endorsement of Elections Canada. As far as I know, WP is completely non-commercial. Therefore, use on WP is permitted. -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 20:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
- Your assumption that WP is non-commercial is wrong. Anybody can fork or mirror WP and use it for commercial purposes, and many have already done so. The issue is that content added to WP must be freely licenced, because it will be redistributed and repackaged in numerous ways. If we were to allow such copyrighted content onto WP, the effect would be to relicence that content as CC-BY-SA, at which point anyone could bypass the Elections Canada website and simply obtain the content from WP, then distribute or use as they wish. More to the point, only public domain content may be copied to Wikipedia in this manner, or any content that is clearly licenced in a way that permits such copying. (Even the notes below the editing screen say this - "Please do not copy and paste from copyrighted websites – only public domain resources can be copied without permission.")
- In a nutshell, no, we cannot use this content. Mindmatrix 22:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Legal descriptions cannot be easily rewritten without changing their meaning; that's why they exist at all. Loosey-goosey wiki pastiches of these won't do; maybe the thing to do is blockquote the descriptions...on the other hand the passage cited above says The reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor as having been made, in affiliation with or with the endorsement of Elections Canada. But this does remind me of the objections to using BCGNIS/BC Names historical information, which is generally sourced and cited from public-domain works like Walbran; the site is copyrighted, but public-domain material in it cannot be considered in that copyright. The same, to me, is true of legislation, which is inherently public domain (unless top secret/confidential in which case it's not publishable at all, not legally anyway).Skookum1 (talk) 23:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Sourcing challenge
I've got a challenge for anyone willing to participate. After years of fending off unsourced assertions that Yukon Liberal Party leader Arthur Mitchell is the brother of US television journalist Andrea Mitchell and therefore the brother-in-law of Andrea's husband Alan Greenspan, I've finally found a real media source which asserts the relationship to Greenspan — but the problem is that it still doesn't properly specify his relationship to Andrea. While obviously I realize that Arthur and Andrea being siblings is by far the likeliest explanation for Arthur's relationship to Greenspan, in an encyclopedia that relies on verifiability we can't actually assume that (or rely on claims of inside knowledge) as long as we can't actually cite a real source to definitively rule out the remote possibility (weirder things have happened) that Arthur and Andrea having the same surname is merely coincidental and instead Arthur is married to Greenspan's sister instead of vice versa.
So, the challenge: can anybody find a reliable source which explicitly confirms, rather than merely implying by omission, that Arthur and Andrea Mitchell are actually siblings?
Your prize, should you succeed, will be priority registration. (Why, yes, I did recently rewatch the paintball episode of Community, why do you ask?) Bearcat (talk) 23:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
- Um, just wondering, but isn't Arthur's relationship to Greenspan the interesting one? Does it really matter if he's a sibling of Andrea - or are you simply being a completist (which I can totally understand :) -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 02:19, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
- His relationship to anybody who's notable enough to have their own encyclopedia article is interesting enough for our purposes, if properly sourced. And besides, given the right source, shouldn't the relationship be mentioned in Andrea's article too (it was, at one point, but was deleted as unsourced), giving American readers the opportunity to learn something about the Yukon? It would certainly be relevant to her article, for example, but I doubt it would even warrant a mention in Greenspan's. Bearcat (talk) 02:25, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
- That's fair. BTW - here's another source asserting that Greenspan is Arthur's brother-in-law. Same source also says that he was born and raised in the U.S. (but not where in the U.S.). But what's odd is that none of the Arthur or Andrea bios mention anything about siblings. Arthur's also don't mention anything about his parentage (although I can see one for Andrea that does - Cecile and Sydney Mitchell). -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 02:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
- In the forward to her book, Andrea thanks her brother Arthur. It doesn't say which Arthur, but it confirms she has a brother named Arthur, that combined with a source that Greenspan is Arthur's brother-in-law may be enough to get you there. Here's the source: [4] - Pictureprovince (talk) 17:19, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Need admin assistance with page move - Montreal Eaton Centre
I'm in need of administrator assistance for this. The article on the Montreal Eaton Centre needs to be moved to "Montreal Eaton Centre", however this is currently not possible because that page already exists as a redirect with more than one edit.
FYI: There was some debate about this but clearly is an issue of following the Wikipedia common name guideline and therefore needs to be done. Even beyond that, the official name of the shopping mall is indeed the "Montreal Eaton Centre" (it also has an official French title "Centre Eaton", however this is an identical situation to the Montreal Olympic Stadium, or Stade Olympique in French, which was also moved as per the common name guideline). We would be grateful for assistance here, thanks! --Apple2gs (talk) 18:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
- When such a problem arises, add {{db-move}} to the destination page. 117Avenue (talk) 19:08, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
- I'm not sure it's as clear cut a situation as Apple2gs makes it out to be. There was a discussion, with 2 in favour of a move, and one opposed. It's not a non-controversial or consensual move that would allow the use of {{db-move}}. I suggested Apple2gs post a notice here asking for an admin to review the discussion and determine if there was consensus for a move, and if so, to implement it. No point listing it at WP:RM at this point (unless an admin determines it needs more discussion), since Apple2gs has been at this since October, so I thought an admin might make some time for him. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
- Well I'm opened to more editors' take on the matter, or the opinion of an admin, but looking at this particular instance, I believe it couldn't be more clear cut. "Montreal Eaton Centre" is not an English translation, it is an official name used not only by the media and public, but by the mall's own website (I'm sure if we look into it, we'll find it's a legally registered name as well). By the same token the French "Le Centre Eaton de Montreal" is also an official name, but when faced with two names as in this case, we must go by the common name guideline, and the fact Wikipedia is an English encyclopedia. Internationally and nationally, the common name is "Montreal Eaton Centre", is it not? This is much like the Montreal Olympic Stadium versus Stade Olympique de Montreal. If there is no official English name (e.g. "La Belle Province" fast food chain) then it stands to reason the common name is the original language spelling; I've never heard anyone, French or English, refer to that chain by "The Beautiful Province" restaurant. --Apple2gs (talk) 17:45, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
- I'm not sure it's as clear cut a situation as Apple2gs makes it out to be. There was a discussion, with 2 in favour of a move, and one opposed. It's not a non-controversial or consensual move that would allow the use of {{db-move}}. I suggested Apple2gs post a notice here asking for an admin to review the discussion and determine if there was consensus for a move, and if so, to implement it. No point listing it at WP:RM at this point (unless an admin determines it needs more discussion), since Apple2gs has been at this since October, so I thought an admin might make some time for him. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
- I don't think you need to restate your arguments here. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
- I don't think WP:FORUMSHOPPING is an appropriate way to settle a move dispute. Someone contested your opinion on the name of the article, you should not be asking an administrator to override a lack of consensus, instead of establishing a consensus. The proper forum for seeking consensus on naming of articles is WP:RM. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 06:44, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
- If you'd read the discussion, you would understand that's not the case. Please do not make unnecessary accusations. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 11:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Quebec City - One of Canada's jewels - Not a GA
Hi Everyone! I'm looking for some help bringing the Quebec City article up to GA status. It's a tall order, we have a shortage of referenced material to write the article. I know there are a lot of editors who can help polish it up, but we could really use some help doing the research. A GA Review was done and we're trying to work from there. Any help would be appreciated! Alan.ca (talk) 03:17, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Target ridings
I noticed a very different approach to target ridings on the page for the upcoming Scottish election than what we have been using on Canadian election pages. It seems more straightforward and has a lot more information. I think that this might be something worth adopting for Canadian election pages. What do others think? - Pictureprovince (talk) 22:02, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
- It's interesting and well-done, though I do want to caution that we can't just copy it straight up without modifications. The "swing", for example, is not a concept that really comes up in Canadian political coverage. It isn't the same thing as the raw margin of win-loss, but a complex mathematical formula — if you note Linlithgow, Labour beat the SNP 42.9-39.0 in 2007 for a 3.9 per cent point spread, but the "swing" necessary for the SNP to take it in the 2011 target seats chart is 0.45. Don't ask me how that's calculated, because I can't explain it — nothing remotely comparable even exists in Canadian elections coverage. So we could certainly do something like the Scottish charts, but we'd have to modify it for our purposes rather than simply importing it wholesale. Bearcat (talk) 21:26, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- Definitely needs to be Canadianized. Here is how I tried it out on a New Brunswick election page before it was reverted. - Pictureprovince (talk) 12:48, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
- Is there any further comment on this? - Pictureprovince (talk) 14:21, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
- Definitely needs to be Canadianized. Here is how I tried it out on a New Brunswick election page before it was reverted. - Pictureprovince (talk) 12:48, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Federal election - Commons needs help
Wikimedia Commons is acting as a repository of media related to the 2011 federal election. At the moment, we have no media related to the Conservatives, Greens or any independents. Any contributions of photos related to any aspects of the election would be most welcome (it need not be stuff from the leaders' tours -- the local stuff is welcome).--Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:36, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
- Well, it seems I won't be able to help, as the election failed to come to Calgary this year. All I could likely photograph is the complete lack of campaigning, signs and interest. It really is rather amazing. Resolute 14:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Leaving Wikipedia once and for all
I'm nauseated and disgusted that biased-content defenders dismiss me for being biased in the course of my pointing out how biased and jerry-rigged the Harper articles are; most of the people going "gee, they sound neutral to me" there aren't even Canadian so can't know how POV they are; the wiki-hypocrisy at play is breathtaking, and WP:DUCK applies...it's like Harper claiming that the Speaker didn't rule on contempt of Parliament which of course he did; politicians and spin-doctors routinely used "neutral-sounding" language in order to advance agendas, and routinely dismiss their critics as ranters as a way to not have to acknowledge what they're saying...I should have known better than to start that AfD, which is why in fact I didn't a year ago when i first noticex those articles. Wikipedia has become a Tory playpen perhaps largely because the other parties/factions haven't sought to use it so systematically to advance their leader's persona/agenda....see my "Final Comment" on the Premiership of Stephen Harper AfD....I know I'll never get to updating the BC Leg Raids article, never get to the history and geography articles that need more work, never get rid of that noxious neologistic Category:First Nations reserves titel, never see common sense here; only wiki-posturing and a lot of snivelling against me for pointing out the truth and wanting Wikipedia to be what it's supposed to be: encyclopedic, not a forum for partisan propaganda, which is what it's turning into, whether in political articles or corporate ones. Some housekeeping on certain articles maybe before I'm gone, but I've got better ways to waste my life than fighting against the rank combination of stupidity and pretentious/deceitful posturing by those who know how to talk calmer than I do....I'll write books and articles from now on where I don't have others telling me how to think or what to say or asking me to abide by wikiquette rules that are used to avoid having to deal with Wikicontent rules....Wikipedia, if that AfD is won by the Tories (which is what the gist of a "keep" decision is), will be revealed as just a gullible tool of Big Brother and King Stephen the First....I've put a lot of blood and sweat into Wikipedia, and enriched its geographic content and historical depth considerably.....but I don't get paid for this, and I've got more important things to do from now on than patrol my watchlist for POV trolls and code-tweakers....WP:DUCK - there are paid operatives here, andit's disgusting that you can't even point out that they're there without hearing "you have no proof of that"....yeah, well maybe there should be a wiki-mechanism to deal with that, instead of the cloak of anonymity that allows such abuses as are so obvious to me re the Harper articles....I get called "biased" for pointing out something is POV by people who insist that it's not POV because they say so; just denialism of the very same kind that politicians traffic in all the time...i.e. in this case I mean Canadians, not the Americans and Brits and others in that AfD who just don't know enough to really know....I'm gonna go puke now....if more of you had seen fit to take part in the AfD I might be a little less pissed off....but I wound up bein g the target in that AfD, which is just another media-manipulator tool, like teh trumped-up AfD tried against me to for supposed "legal threats' for pointing out that Wikipedia is transgressing on electoin advertising rules (even though it's a US company there are still cross-border liabilities about that). Yeah I'm angry and not in the mood to listen to passive-aggressive self-justification any more....I'm gonna go pump some weights, play some LOUD electric guitar, and by Monday will hit the road and pull a user:Phaedriel and leave Wikipedia once and for all...with so much left undone; but it's a bottomless pit, with far too many worms squirming around in the dark....I've got a life to lead, and given Wikipedia a lot of my life/mind and it's time to cut the cord.....congratulations all you who hate me, more stonewalling on nonsense has finally driven me away; wiki-frustration is coming to an end; one way to end an abusive relationship is just to end it; and tell the truth as loudly as possible about what went on....to anyone who'll listen, or you can MAKE listen. Wikipedia is too easily manipulated by p.r. people and political/corporate media types....and the ongoing exclusion of non-mainstream media as "fringe" or "opinion blogs" is just a tool of that enterprise.....the truth will out - but not in Wikipedia, it seems....Skookum1 (talk) 20:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
- Money and politics make the world go around. Heh, your head would asplode from one of the alternative medicine debates. One side is all "well, pubmed says", and the other side "Pubmed says exactly what they're paid to say". I say let it turn to a filth pile. People will read it, see it as a poorly written advertisement for him, and think nothing of it. Don't let douchebags get to you, and keep rocking that geet. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 22:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
- Yes agree poorly written that does sound like an ad (odd some dont see it that way)- i would hope our readers figure that out on there own - hard to argue with those that simply dont see the problem. PS Skookum1 your not allowed to leave Wiki - if you do i will email you 10 times a day asking you back.Moxy (talk) 23:12, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
- Skookum1, don't be a diva, I don't want to hear about what you hate about your volunteer job. And Moxy, please don't feed the divas. 117Avenue (talk) 00:56, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
- Yes agree poorly written that does sound like an ad (odd some dont see it that way)- i would hope our readers figure that out on there own - hard to argue with those that simply dont see the problem. PS Skookum1 your not allowed to leave Wiki - if you do i will email you 10 times a day asking you back.Moxy (talk) 23:12, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
- Money and politics make the world go around. Heh, your head would asplode from one of the alternative medicine debates. One side is all "well, pubmed says", and the other side "Pubmed says exactly what they're paid to say". I say let it turn to a filth pile. People will read it, see it as a poorly written advertisement for him, and think nothing of it. Don't let douchebags get to you, and keep rocking that geet. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 22:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't see the point in having the article Prime Ministership of Stephen Harper. We've already got the article 28th Canadian Ministry, along with the previous 27. GoodDay (talk) 02:24, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
- We need to merge the Stevie Harper articles together into the standard articleset we usually use. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 06:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm not a Diva, 117Avenue; I'm someone who's tired of being told the truth doesn't matter, and that wiki-obfuscation is what decides things instead of actual reason and fact-of-the-matter realpolitik. Wikipedia is too easily manipulable by Big Brother and his many minions; and in a theatre ruled by consensus, there's always more stupid and arrogant/irrational people than informed and rational ones. The Divas in this case are people like Koala, who brags on his userpage about how many articles he "defends from deletion", keep-bagging egotism. These articles are trash and not "encyclopedic" as Silver Seren and whomever else want to claim; looking formatted and well-cited doesn't mean that they're encyclopedic/ it means that they're pseudo-encyclopedic. COIism and POVism will always prevail here, this is just the latest round of gang-fuck stupidity shutting down truth in favour mis-application of all teh wrong principles. This AfD should be on the POV and SOAP and wide-ranging issues bulletin boards, but I know the drill - if I take them there, I'll be accused of "polling"....instead we have a bunch of tongue-clucking ducks making a chorus of denial that's really really really really uninformed and arrogant in its sweeping denial of poltical-manipulation reality. I've seen too much in politics to not recognize equivocation and denial when I see it....Again, I'm not the diva, the divas are the chorus of "keep, keep, keep because we say so, and we don't care about obvious POV/SPAM".Skookum1 (talk) 20:17, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
- Heh... Sounds like a few editors I've dealt with lately. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 21:46, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Obviously I'm still around for a bit - partly because it's an addiction I have to break, partly to see how that #$%@#%# AfD works out (and to keep efforts by its naysayers from distorting/misleading the discussion where they want it to go, avoiding the POV/SPAM problem entirely by playing name-games), partly to take off the gloves and start calling spades spades, and providing links for others to build on re issues on various pages I've avoided in the past.....it galls me that for pointing out an edit is censorship that's a "personal attack" and "not accepting good faith"....good faith is earned, not granted in the face of obvious iniquity. And I'll be coming up with a tract to table wherever I can put it on teh ways Wikipedia is being corrupted by professional "information managers" and how the various conflicting guidelines just don't work in objective terms, and how easily they're corrupted by people with subjective agendas. One particularly galling notion is that by pointing out something is POV, you are yourself accused of having a POV, but those defending the POV that's the . Equivocation, deception, evasion, I've seen too much of it. But I'm not leaving with a whimper....anything but. Stay tuned. And if it lands me in an ANI for taking a stand, fine and dandy, it seems to be easier to be banned from this place for telling the truth than it is to stay in it and have to keep your tongue in check because of "wikiquette" being more important than FACTS and REASON and COMMON SENSE. For now, with this election campaign underway, it's irresponsible for me to leave given the obvious POV campaigns to control certain pages, such as the efforts on teh Stephen Harper page to remove materials, allegedly on grounds of NPOV, when the motive and effect of removing the material in question (on Contempt of Parliament) is so clearly and obviously Tory-POV. And the mainstream media/ reliable sources who are talking about the Tory strategy of infiltrating and "seeding" social networks and user-generated content, ditto BC's Public Affairs Bureau ("the largest newsroom in the country", as it's been called) are pertinent to the whole direction that Wikipedia is going; Wikiscanner's great failing is that it can't scan accounts with account-names, only IP addresses; that's got to change to address the reality that there are obvious political-partisan and p.r.-agency people at work, hiding behind Wiki-anonymity and screaming "personal attack" when anyone points out their motives, or takes them on for thier POVish/SPAMish-ness....."no paid editing" only has meaning when we know who people are. Anyways I'm limiting myself overall from here, especially re time-wasting housekeeping edits, and despite my original intentions to deepen historical and geographical coverage in Wikipedia, it's clearly a bottomless pit infested by info-worms and moles....I have a life to get on with, and Wikipedia eats too much of it up, in energy, time and frustration; there are more worthwhile places to fight the good fight....where anonymity and wikiquette can't be used as muzzles and to confound reason and fact.Skookum1 (talk) 20:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
- Wiki policies/guidelines standards are a 100% total abysmal failure on inherently contentious articles....in fact, on those articles, those policies/guidelines are USED (via wiki-lawyering) to POV articles. This won't end until the standards evolve. My method of keeping my sanity is to figure that they will someday evolve, to try to help them evolve, and, until then, minimizing my involvement with inherently contentious articles. North8000 (talk) 21:59, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
- How those standards will evolve with people staying away from contentious articles I'm at a loss to understand, especially when you have completely clueless "votes" like this one from teh politically-unsophisticated who don't know enough about the issues being presented to realize that the entire article at question is SOAP and SPAM. "oh it's got lots of pretty citations, so it passes"...sheesh....but if material from non-"reliable" (i.e. non-mainstream-media monopoly sources, which only replicate COI/AUTO materials/press releases from the subject of teh articles) is allowed, and not independent sources, whether blogs or what right-wingers/information doctors always try and delete as "POV" or "fringe" sources...how can such articles ever be anything but contentious; when do you/I/we stop staying away from them and get the guidelines sorted out - partly so we CAN "out" spin doctors and their kin?? I gotta go to the gym and throw some weights around....instead of wikipedians.Skookum1 (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
- Can't argue with you because I agree (but I'm not knowledgable on that particular example) . But answering your question, it's through evolving the policies and guidelines rather than pain in the articles. I'm working on some stuff. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:25, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- How those standards will evolve with people staying away from contentious articles I'm at a loss to understand, especially when you have completely clueless "votes" like this one from teh politically-unsophisticated who don't know enough about the issues being presented to realize that the entire article at question is SOAP and SPAM. "oh it's got lots of pretty citations, so it passes"...sheesh....but if material from non-"reliable" (i.e. non-mainstream-media monopoly sources, which only replicate COI/AUTO materials/press releases from the subject of teh articles) is allowed, and not independent sources, whether blogs or what right-wingers/information doctors always try and delete as "POV" or "fringe" sources...how can such articles ever be anything but contentious; when do you/I/we stop staying away from them and get the guidelines sorted out - partly so we CAN "out" spin doctors and their kin?? I gotta go to the gym and throw some weights around....instead of wikipedians.Skookum1 (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
- Wiki policies/guidelines standards are a 100% total abysmal failure on inherently contentious articles....in fact, on those articles, those policies/guidelines are USED (via wiki-lawyering) to POV articles. This won't end until the standards evolve. My method of keeping my sanity is to figure that they will someday evolve, to try to help them evolve, and, until then, minimizing my involvement with inherently contentious articles. North8000 (talk) 21:59, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
- Your Anti-Harper & Anti-Conservative rantings at that AfD, are becoming quite tiresome. Not to mention your running down of editors there & here, who've chosen to keep that article. GoodDay (talk) 07:18, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- What's tiresome is you, and nobody has "chosen" anything there yet, except the pro-Tory pro-Harper types like you resorting to all kinds of asinine arguments...and what you're doing here is WP:HARASS and I suggest you take a pill, boyo.Skookum1 (talk) 08:37, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- I do have to say i feel bad for conservatives on Wikipidia - lets face it they are the minority and are not well received in general. I feel even worst for the Germans here - as they have to fight ever step of the way to make there voices heard espesicaly for WWII article. That said its not a good thing to simply fork the Conservative articles in hopes the views will be seen. Only in the USA is the term liberal a bad thing - the rest of the world sees liberalism as a progressive movement. Moxy (talk) 15:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- FWIW, I'm apolitical. GoodDay (talk) 20:59, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- Pfffft. WP:DUCK says it all; your history of Tory-favouring edits on the prorogation article was obvious, as is your pro-Tory behaviour here. Deny all you want; your trail is littered with blue paper.Skookum1 (talk) 22:16, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- You're welcomed to present my past political edits, at WP:ANI, for scrutiny. GoodDay (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- Pfffft. WP:DUCK says it all; your history of Tory-favouring edits on the prorogation article was obvious, as is your pro-Tory behaviour here. Deny all you want; your trail is littered with blue paper.Skookum1 (talk) 22:16, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- FWIW, I'm apolitical. GoodDay (talk) 20:59, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- I do have to say i feel bad for conservatives on Wikipidia - lets face it they are the minority and are not well received in general. I feel even worst for the Germans here - as they have to fight ever step of the way to make there voices heard espesicaly for WWII article. That said its not a good thing to simply fork the Conservative articles in hopes the views will be seen. Only in the USA is the term liberal a bad thing - the rest of the world sees liberalism as a progressive movement. Moxy (talk) 15:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- What's tiresome is you, and nobody has "chosen" anything there yet, except the pro-Tory pro-Harper types like you resorting to all kinds of asinine arguments...and what you're doing here is WP:HARASS and I suggest you take a pill, boyo.Skookum1 (talk) 08:37, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
- Your Anti-Harper & Anti-Conservative rantings at that AfD, are becoming quite tiresome. Not to mention your running down of editors there & here, who've chosen to keep that article. GoodDay (talk) 07:18, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Fort Carillon
There is a discussion at Talk:Fort Carillon about Fort Carillon and Fort Ticonderoga and the need to have separate articles on the two (co-located, but temporally separated forts). 64.229.100.45 (talk) 04:53, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Deletion debate
As an aside, and possibly related to the claims of Tory POV above, there's an AFD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet (2nd nomination) which may be of interest to Canadian Wikipedians. Orderinchaos 06:05, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Invite
I have - for some time been using (what is now in the temple below) to invite people here - i was recently asked to make this a template so others could use it simply - so i did - However i believe we should all have input on what the template is and says...so pls edit the invite thing at will...Moxy (talk) 19:56, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
{{WikiProject Canada invitation}}
Thanksgiving
The usage of Thanksgiving is under discussion at Talk:Thanksgiving, with the proposal that US usage should be placed at the primary location. 65.94.45.160 (talk) 10:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Game night
Polls should now be closing in Newfoundland. Just to advise everybody, I've put a three-hour admin-only block on Results by riding for the Canadian federal election, 2011 — Canadian law around "premature" reporting of election results, as you know, means we cannot leave ourselves open to becoming a potential tool for that purpose. Whether we agree with the law or not isn't the point; the law is what it is.
However, I also note that the page is still incomplete; several sections of the country have their tables filled out only with the current incumbent MP, while the columns for other parties' candidates are still empty. Are there any administrators handy who are willing and able to help fill in some of the blanks over the next few hours? Bearcat (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
- That page only contains templates of the tables, you haven't actually protected the content. 117Avenue (talk) 23:09, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
- Crap, yeah, I just realized that. Okay, I've just protected the NL template for now, since that's the only region where polls have closed and results are starting to be counted yet; I'll do the others as poll closing times approach. For now, then, absolutely anybody can help fill in the blanks on a template that's still incomplete — for the record, the "blank" regions are Alberta and most of non-metropolitan Ontario. Bearcat (talk) 23:15, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
- Polls are now closed. And may God have mercy on our souls. The Canada we woke up to today is almost certainly dead. Sigh. → ROUX ₪ 02:13, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
- Lets take our time with all articles in question - no need to rush - better that all is done properly.Moxy (talk) 02:16, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
It might be good to add a few articles onto WikiNews as well... several articles should be possible, to expand coverage beyond just a few Wikipedia articles, to cover the historic events (Green breakthrough, NDP high water mark, NDP opposition first, NDP breakthrough in Quebec, Liberal collapse, Bloc collapse, Ignatieff loss, Duceppe loss, historic low water mark for Liberals, talk of NDP-Liberal fusion, ...) which would get a paragraph on Wikipedia could get a page on WikiNews. 65.93.12.8 (talk) 09:37, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
Emily Murphy or Edwards v. Canada
In the Wikipedia articles on Emily Murphy and on the case Edwards v. Canada, you will see this reference: "...based on a British Common Law ruling of 1876, which stated, 'women were eligible for pains and penalties, but not rights and privileges [of the law].'"
This reference is quoted over and over again in a variety of sources. Emily Murphy's close associate, Nellie McClung, quotes it in her book The Stream Runs Fast. Supposedly both Prime Ministers Borden and Meighen referred to it in refusing to allow Ms. Murphy's name to be put forward as a candidate for the Senate. Often you will find the source for the quotation to be the case Chorlton v. Lings (1868) LR 4 CP 374 (and frequently the citation is incorrectly given as Charlton v. Ling or some such). I have examined this case carefully and do not find this quotation.
Supposedly it may have been cited by Eardley Jackson, a defence lawyer, in the first case the Ms. Murphy adjudicated in an Edomonton court in 1916. Unfortunately no transcript of this case exists. I have used most of the electronic resources available and have not been able to find any case that uses this quotation or anything even close. It would be a great addition to the scholarship of this era if anyone could locate the source of this quotation. Have at it! Katecroy (talk) 15:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Proposed merge
It is suggested that this article Winter Stadium (Montreal) be merged into CEPSUM Stadium . It is my feeling: I know very well the CEPSUM and the campus of Université de Montréal. The Winter Stadium (Montreal) probably does not merit his own article, and such content as is appropriate should probably be merged into the CEPSUM Stadium article. I invite discussion, --Charlesquebec (talk) 13:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
List of Canadian cities with large Chinese populations
List of Canadian cities with large Chinese populations has been nominated for deletion. 184.144.163.181 (talk) 05:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Unorganized areas in Ontario
I recently tried to move the unorganized areas of Ontario to simpler article titles, which though not the official Stats Can reference for the location, are far less unwieldly, easier to search for, an application of WP:COMMONNAME (specifically not using official names when they are long and misleading). These moves were reverted on the basis that no discussion was held (which is certainly not reasoning in itself, WP:BOLD applies) and that the new titles aren't the official name. I also argue that Toronto (actually, City of Toronto), Ottawa (City of Ottawa)
Generally this would result in these kind of changes:
- Algoma, Unorganized, South East Part, Ontario, a WP:Permastub on a chunk of never-to-be-developed forest that will probably never garner an additional sentence in the next several years, being merged with Algoma, Unorganized, North Part, Ontario to form a single article titled Unorganized Algoma District. The section on the southeast part is no longer than the sections on the various unincorporated communities in that area.
- Kenora, Unorganized, Ontario → Unorganized Kenora District
- Sudbury, Unorganized, North Part, Ontario → Unorganized Sudbury District
Etc. The only place that would be troublesome is Timiskaming, which has east and west parts that are both good standalone topics. They could be Unorganized Timiskaming District, East Part and Unorganized Timiskaming District, West Part. The point of doing this is not to indicate that these are the official name, but to reorganize a poorly worded title that is at its place based purely on statsCan. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 16:17, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
- Two distinct issues are raised: merging and renaming. Merging: it has long been established that we make separate articles for each census subdivision, including unorg. areas (like Quebec). Merging them inhibits a clear distinction of the areas concerned. It will also be easiera and clearer if and when they are absorbed by neighbouring municipalities. Renaming: current name scheme is already clearly systematic, consistent, and in harmony with official designation. The arguments in WP:COMMONNAME are not applicable since the common place name would be the individual communities, not the census subdivision. If the consensus is to change the word order, the cardinal direction should NOT be dropped. But the "Ontario" part can be dropped if so decided, since names are unique. -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 17:09, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
- Why is there a need for a cardinal direction in places like Cochrane and Sudbury, which only have a single unorganized area? Relying on technical names from StatsCan is contrary to WP:COMMONNAME (which applies to article titles, regardless of context). Ontario should be dropped regardless per CANSTYLE, and honestly a big cleanup is needed because someone, at some point, decided to go around and make everything Foo, Ontario, even when no article is at Foo. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 18:23, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
- Generally speaking, the articles in question were created and named before the current Canadian naming convention was fully codified. While the convention was always meant to apply across the board, it's only been in the past two or three years that anybody's actively undertaken the process of actually applying it to anything much beyond major cities, and even then it's been a quite stop-and-go project. And even when that process did begin in earnest, the consensus position was still that articles had to be at "Foo, Ontario" until such time as a formal move discussion had specifically taken place to support "Foo"; only in the past six months or so has consensus moved toward the view that a page can just be moved on sight without counting hands first. And even then, that's not a universally agreed consensus; I see, for example, that Grande Prairie was moved to the plain title in June last year, but then moved back to Grande Prairie, Alberta in December by a user who specifically cited the lack of a move discussion as his reasoning (although, for the record, it's the same person who once argued that Victoriaville had to stay at the comma-Quebec title even though it's a unique name on the grounds that the individual "Victoria" and "-ville" elements of the name weren't unique, so he's not necessarily someone who'd be onside with any consensus at all.)
- That said, the problem remains that just because an article doesn't already exist at "Foo" does not, in and of itself, prove that a name is necessarily unique; it does still happen on occasion that another topic of sufficient notability to challenge for the main title exists and just hasn't been written about yet. That obviously doesn't apply in these particular cases, but in principle we still need to invest a bit of research time before deciding that "Foo, Ontario" is entitled to claim "Foo" just because "Foo" is a redlink. Val-d'Or obviously outstrips Val d'Or, Penang in notability, frex, but I didn't even know the Malaysian one existed (and I'm sure most other Canadian Wikipedians didn't, either) until the prospect of moving ours came up. Bearcat (talk) 23:36, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
- Its not like we couldn't have the discussion again when/if those other places get articles. That's what is happening now with a lot of British places, since they gobbled up every primary topic possible. I think if this weren't the case, that all articles on places would have to have the comma-state/provincename, for the possible potential that another place with that name exists elsewhere. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 00:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- No other opinions either way on this? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 23:22, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
- Its not like we couldn't have the discussion again when/if those other places get articles. That's what is happening now with a lot of British places, since they gobbled up every primary topic possible. I think if this weren't the case, that all articles on places would have to have the comma-state/provincename, for the possible potential that another place with that name exists elsewhere. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 00:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- Why is there a need for a cardinal direction in places like Cochrane and Sudbury, which only have a single unorganized area? Relying on technical names from StatsCan is contrary to WP:COMMONNAME (which applies to article titles, regardless of context). Ontario should be dropped regardless per CANSTYLE, and honestly a big cleanup is needed because someone, at some point, decided to go around and make everything Foo, Ontario, even when no article is at Foo. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 18:23, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Floydian, due to lack of other people's input, lets come to a consensus the two of us. I can certainly support simpler article names as stated above (Kenora, Unorganized, Ontario → Unorganized Kenora District or Unorganized Kenora) but each area needs its own article that also includes the cardinal direction if present in current name (Sudbury, Unorganized, North Part, Ontario → Unorganized North Sudbury District). This allows for continuity and consistency with official census divisions. Even if some remain a permastub, that is no reason for exclusion. Whether or not to include "District", I'm undecided about at this point. -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 19:39, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Sounds good. What about places where there is a cardinal direction in the "official name", but only one unorganized area? Would you support Unorganized Parry Sound District instead of Parry Sound, Unorganized, Centre Part?
- I don't believe these are official names per se, as these are areas lacking a government or structure. Rather, StatsCan arbitrarily divides the areas and names them for statistical purposes. If you were to mail a person in one of these areas, you wouldn't include it in the address. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 02:18, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
- Although these subdivision may be created by Statscan, they are also used by other agencies and ministries. By dropping the cardinal direction, we lose the direct connection between these geographic entities and their articles. Would readers really be sure that Unorganized Parry Sound District is the same as Unorganized Centre Parry Sound District? I doubt it. I don't think anything is to be gained by over-simplifying the titles. BTW, we probably should include "district" in the titles to avoid confusion between the district and town (Cochrane, Parry Sound, etc.). -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 13:26, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
- I don't believe these are official names per se, as these are areas lacking a government or structure. Rather, StatsCan arbitrarily divides the areas and names them for statistical purposes. If you were to mail a person in one of these areas, you wouldn't include it in the address. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 02:18, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
- I recommend using the naming format of either Kenora District Unorganized or Kenora Unorganized District so that the common name applied to each unique unorganized area is presented first. This would enable these articles to appear in the search field list when someone types in Kenora. Hwy43 (talk) 15:55, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
- As long as the redirects are set up, everything will show up in the search bar all the same, when you type "Kenora" or "Unorganized, K", you'll get the two different cases, and be redirected to the article. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 16:14, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
- I recommend using the naming format of either Kenora District Unorganized or Kenora Unorganized District so that the common name applied to each unique unorganized area is presented first. This would enable these articles to appear in the search field list when someone types in Kenora. Hwy43 (talk) 15:55, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Without further ado, the move requests are now at Wikipedia:Requested moves#May 8, 2011. -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 15:38, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
Collapsible election templates
Hello everyone,
I've been experimenting with a new technique for creating collapsible election templates, and I'd like to know what other people think of it.
You can review my efforts at the biography page for Louis Plamondon and the electoral division page for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour. I had already created election results templates for both of these pages; I've now embellished these templates with further "Collapse top" and "Collapse bottom" templates.
I think the advantages of this are fairly obvious, in thatit resolves the "unwieldiness" problem of having a stack of election templates on a single page. Others may have different opinions, however, and I'm not inclined to introduce this system to other pages without consulting first the community. If others think this is a bad idea, I can very easily change the original templates back to their previous form.
Thoughts? CJCurrie (talk) 07:05, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
- Nice! The articles look much cleaner that way, IMO. PKT(alk) 12:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
- It looks odd putting a table inside another table. Why not just use the collapsable table function, instead of placing it in a collapsable table? 117Avenue (talk) 19:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
- I thought of that after logging off last night; I'll see what I come up with on that front. CJCurrie (talk) 00:49, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
- It looks odd putting a table inside another table. Why not just use the collapsable table function, instead of placing it in a collapsable table? 117Avenue (talk) 19:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
This article/list is in dire need of updating - most notably it's missing a column for who won each riding. If somebody would like to take on a project, this could be a good one to sink their editing teeth into. PKT(alk) 13:53, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
- Does it really even pass WP:GNG? DigitalC (talk) 23:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
- That was my secondary reason for posting the note above. I would say yes, as the initial source was the Globe and Mail, but it would be useful to get a broader opinion on that question. PKT(alk) 11:55, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
- I have listed a few potential issues with the article at Talk:Contentious_ridings_in_the_Canadian_federal_election,_2011. Many eyes would be appreciated. DigitalC (talk) 23:32, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
- That was my secondary reason for posting the note above. I would say yes, as the initial source was the Globe and Mail, but it would be useful to get a broader opinion on that question. PKT(alk) 11:55, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
Flags on varieties of English templates
This may be an interesting discussion. As a result of some heated discussions over at templates pertaining to British and Irish English, there is now a centralized discussion as to whether flags are necessary on templates such as {{Canadian English}}. Discussion is at the MOS Talk Page. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:02, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Michael Ignatieff & Gilles Duceppe
With tears in my eyes & in a begging posture, I ask the un-answered questions. On what dates did Ignatieff & Duceppe resign as respective leaders of their parties (Liberal & Bloc). None of this outgoing or stepping down stuff, we need sources which are definitive. Sources, which I'm having trouble finding. GoodDay (talk) 03:06, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
- I knew Michael was now Ignotieff, but I didn't know Gilles had Dustepped down. → ROUX ₪ 03:13, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
- IIRC Gilles Duceppe stepped down immediately after the election, results it was the same evening of the election, during the speeches. Ignatieff said in his speech he would stay on as long as the party wanted him. The following morning, he stepped down. Magu (talk) 04:32, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
- That is precisely what I recall as well. Hwy43 (talk) 04:35, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
- Perhaps so in Duceppe's case. But, up until around May 11, Ignatieff was still be described by some as the outgoing leader, while others called him former leader. GoodDay (talk) 15:20, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
- That is precisely what I recall as well. Hwy43 (talk) 04:35, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
- IIRC Gilles Duceppe stepped down immediately after the election, results it was the same evening of the election, during the speeches. Ignatieff said in his speech he would stay on as long as the party wanted him. The following morning, he stepped down. Magu (talk) 04:32, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
- See Michael Ignatieff article. According to a bloke there, Iggy's resignation won't take effect until May28, when an interim leader is chosen. GoodDay (talk) 15:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
- My understanding is that they're both still the leaders until the new ones are actually chosen. Communicating the intention to step down once a replacement is chosen is not the same thing as actually stepping down — after all, when you've given your two weeks' notice that you're quitting a job, you still have the job during those two weeks. It would appear, for the record, that the Bloc has already selected an interim leader, while the Liberals are expected to do so this week or next — meaning that as of today, Duceppe isn't the leader of the Bloc anymore but Ignatieff still is the leader of the Liberals. So the question isn't the dates on which they announced their resignations; it's the dates on which the resignations become official by virtue of the parties having chosen their replacements. Bearcat (talk) 18:33, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
- CBC keeps confusing people, by calling Iggy former leader. I wish they'd get their facts straight. GoodDay (talk) 22:44, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
Template:Canadian federal opposition leaders
Would like some more opinions at Template talk:Canadian federal opposition leaders#Multiple listings on whether repeat office holders should be listed more than once in a navbox. 117Avenue (talk) 21:51, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
2 Military Police Unit (Canada) & 3 Military Police Unit
2 Military Police Unit (Canada) and 3 Military Police Unit have been requested to be renamed. 184.144.163.181 (talk) 03:49, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Rubber-tyred metro
Rubber-tyred metro has been requested to be renamed as Rubber-tired metro, because it originally used the North American spelling, before being rewritten in British. The only system using this type of metro in the English-speaking world is located in Canada. 184.144.163.181 (talk) 04:16, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
- The only public transit is in Canada, looks like they use them in two airports in the UK.--kelapstick(bainuu) 04:21, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Graphics
Hello, not sure if this is the place to put this, but I am interested in doing graphic work including photos if applicable but especially vector (svg) pieces needed for articles, if it is within my skill range and time constraints. I am Interested in helping out with things particularly related to Canada, including (but not exclusive to) subjects related to Canadian military units, battles, technology and equipment, also anything of Canadian national or corporate interest, and especially anything related to Alberta and or Edmonton. But really almost anything related to Canada.. as long as my modest design abilities are sufficient for the task. Sooooooo... where do I start? Magu (talk) 07:10, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
- Here's one for you to work on if you'd like: we need an SVG of the new version of the Alberta coat of arms that includes the gold royal helm instead of the steel helm. Indefatigable (talk) 17:35, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
- You could update Template:Location map Canada Edmonton. 117Avenue (talk) 18:40, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
- Coat of Arms update is now complete. 117Avenue, do you just mean to bring the map to SVG format or is something otherwise incorrect or out of date? I am going to start comparing it to Google , etc imagery of the city to compare. As far as bringing it to SVG it will take sometime but I will start working on it. Please feel free to use my talk page so we can discuss any needed changes. Magu (talk) 19:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
- ok I have uploaded a new Edmonton map which will probably need a few minor modifications upon review http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edmonton_City_Road_Map.svg if anyone have any critique, suggestions etc. this would be a good time for it. I have also completed a corrected Flag of Alberta which I can not upload as a revision yet (Just started a commons account). If anyone has any other suggestions or requests please post here or on my talk page. Magu (talk) 05:53, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
- Coat of Arms update is now complete. 117Avenue, do you just mean to bring the map to SVG format or is something otherwise incorrect or out of date? I am going to start comparing it to Google , etc imagery of the city to compare. As far as bringing it to SVG it will take sometime but I will start working on it. Please feel free to use my talk page so we can discuss any needed changes. Magu (talk) 19:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
- You could update Template:Location map Canada Edmonton. 117Avenue (talk) 18:40, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
St. John's
The introduction for St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador needs to be expanded to make it GA if someone could please help with this. Newfoundlander&Labradorian (talk) 01:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Toronto-Montreal rivalry
Toronto-Montreal rivalry was nominated for deletion. Seems as though this should be a substantial article, considering the press harping on it from time to time. 65.95.13.213 (talk) 05:15, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
This article has been proposed for deletion. I disagree with the basis of the PROD, but do agree that it could be improved. Other commitments prevent me from working on it right now, but I hope that some other editors can jump in and fix this article. thanks --Derek Andrews (talk) 10:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
- De-prodded. The topic is worthy of an article, in my opinion. Somebody slapped a bunch of tags on it without indicating on the talk page what the specific issues were, so I removed some of them as well. PKT(alk) 11:32, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
List of disasters in Canada and the like
I was looking at these articles while working on the article for the Slave Lake wildfire, and I see a lot of redundancy and confusion in how this set of articles is presented. I am contemplating reworking the lists into a new series with a better defined structure. I have in mind a series of splits and merges that I wanted to open to suggestion before implementing.
My idea is to turn List of disasters in Canada into a disambiguation page that would list the following:
- List of Canadian disasters by death toll (renamed List of disasters in Canada by death toll)
- List of natural disasters in Canada (fires, earthquakes, volcanoes, Frank Slide, etc; List of fires in Canada would be merged into this)
- List of man-made disasters in Canada, for want of a better term (potentially air, ship, train and vehicle disasters - pending child articles - building explosions, etc.)
- List of accidents and incidents involving airliners in Canada (plane crashes; title based off the US article)
- List of shipwrecks in Canada (there were a lot)
Additionally, I question whether the Spanish Flu pandemic or the SARS epidemic, as two examples, fits anywhere on these lists, as they were not disasters, per se. Also at question would be entries like the Boys in Red accident and De la Concorde overpass collapse, which can hardly be considered a disaster. Perhaps moving them into something like List of accidents in Canada? Thoughts? Resolute 21:37, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
- Spanish flu, H1N1 and SARS aren't really disasters, I'd suggest they would best be included under List of public health incidents in Canada or something similar. Canada Hky (talk) 22:17, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
- That list looks like a really good candidate for a sortable table, which could cover the various categories you have listed as well as the death tolls. My preference would be to keep the list together, rather than creating the various sub-lists, but augmenting it with relevant data. I'm picturing something like the table at List of earthquakes#Largest earthquakes by magnitude. PKT(alk) 23:39, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
- That was my original thought as well. The problem is that the list is currently a dumping ground for random things that killed people or did a lot of damage. Bus crashes, for instance, are not disasters, even if they killed 19 people. Perhaps a simpler format then... a list of disasters and a list of accidents. The Halifax Explosion would likely fit both such lists. What then to do with List of Canadian disasters by death toll, which is currently a mish-mash of both proposed lists. Resolute 23:50, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
- Why is the death of 19 people in a bus accident not a disaster (as well as an accident)? The Canadian Oxford defines disaster, in part, as "a great or sudden misfortune". --Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:42, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- There's a fairly widespread assumption that a "disaster" has to be natural in origin. I don't necessarily agree that the term is really that restrictive, but whatchagonnado. Bearcat (talk) 18:53, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- Not necessarily natural... the Halifax Explosion would be a disaster. As, potentially, could be a bridge collapse. The first paragraph on the disaster article does pretty much sum up my view, and I see the differentiation between an accident and a disaster as being a matter of scale. I don't hold that a small-scale vehicle crash would be considered a disaster. Resolute 19:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- But you are just establishing a subjective and artbitrary distinction. What is small-scale? What is the number-of-deaths cut-off point to graduate to the disasters list? The disaster article mentions (unsourced) "catastrophic accidents" (throwing yet another amorphous and subjective concept into the mix). For example, I'd be interested to see the reaction in Swift Current if one visited that town and told them that the 1986 hockey team bus crash was neither a disaster nor catastrophic. The Globe did a story on the 20th anniversary of the crash, and people were still talking about the town's heart being ripped out. But is that just an accident? I agree with you that a highway collision between two cars on the highway, for example, would generally not be considered a disaster, but an incident that merits inclusion in Wikipedia is much harder to classify without getting into WP:OR distinctions. I'm just saying that the difference between disasters and accidents is pretty vague, ripe for dispute, and the concepts are not mutually exclusive. Lists would not divide so neatly between disasters and accidents. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:22, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- I've never heard the Broncos bus accident described as a disaster (living in SK my entire life). A tragedy to be sure, but not a disaster. The team nmarked the 20th anniversary of the crash with a brief moment of silence, and nothing else. I haven't seen the Globe story, but ESPN's story about the event was rather telling in how the town would almost prefer to forget about it. That's a tangent, though. Small-scale loss of life and/or property is tragic but not disastrous. It sounds heartless, but it is true. 30 % of a town destroyed by wildfire? Disaster. Four young men killed in a bus accident? Tragic. There will be grey areas, but as a rule: all disasters are tragic, not all tragedies are a disaster. Canada Hky (talk) 19:55, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- That's fine, but most disasters and accidents are tragic. Tragic and disaster aren't any more mutually exclusive than disaster and accident. Funny that ESPN and the Globe would have different takes on that one event (to my recollection at least), but of course that just goes to show you how differently these types of events are perceived. And maybe that wasn't a great example (it came to mind when the Dorion incident was mentioned above). But I would easily call such an event a disaster, an accident and tragic. I'm still wondering where are the authorities upon which we would be relying to draw these distinctions? So, if a wildfire destroys a bunch of homes, that's a disaster? Property damage is a disaster (as long as it hits some threshold like 30%), while a bus accident is not? Four deaths is small-scale? What if 20 people had died? Is that a disaster matching the 30% of the homes destropyed by the wildfire? I'm not trying to badger you, but I am saying we shouldn't be making distinctions based on the pornography rule ("I can't define it, but I know it when I see it"). We can't even agree on the concept, and I wish us luck when we actually get to the stage of compiling the separate lists. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- I guess the easy answer is - we report what reliable sources say. Almost every news report I have read calls the Slave Lake fire a disaster. Similarly, almost every report about the Broncos bus crash calls it a tragedy. Wikipedia's page on disaster mentions "any tragic event causing great loss". Hence, all disasters are tragedies, but small scale tragedies are not disasters. Canada Hky (talk) 20:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- I don't want to belabour this, but I think many, many people use the two terms a lot more loosely than you seem to. If the test is how it's described in reliable sources, my suspicion is that it would not be too hard to find most incidents described either way in the mainstream media. I just dusted off my Toronto Public Library card and did an online search of the Globe archives for the Swift Current broncos accident -- and even there, for a 4-person death bus accident, the March 27, 1989 article (page C1) on the Broncos being the favourites in that year's Memorial Cup refers to the 1986 accident as a disaster. And that's a 4 minute search of one source. One could argue that one source ≠ disaster, but anyone who was motivated could find a number of other reliable sources. I'll leave it at that -- for notable incidents that we would be listing on Wikipedia, I think the distinction between accident and disaster is artificial and is going to lead to fights. But I've said my piece. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:16, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- I guess the easy answer is - we report what reliable sources say. Almost every news report I have read calls the Slave Lake fire a disaster. Similarly, almost every report about the Broncos bus crash calls it a tragedy. Wikipedia's page on disaster mentions "any tragic event causing great loss". Hence, all disasters are tragedies, but small scale tragedies are not disasters. Canada Hky (talk) 20:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- That's fine, but most disasters and accidents are tragic. Tragic and disaster aren't any more mutually exclusive than disaster and accident. Funny that ESPN and the Globe would have different takes on that one event (to my recollection at least), but of course that just goes to show you how differently these types of events are perceived. And maybe that wasn't a great example (it came to mind when the Dorion incident was mentioned above). But I would easily call such an event a disaster, an accident and tragic. I'm still wondering where are the authorities upon which we would be relying to draw these distinctions? So, if a wildfire destroys a bunch of homes, that's a disaster? Property damage is a disaster (as long as it hits some threshold like 30%), while a bus accident is not? Four deaths is small-scale? What if 20 people had died? Is that a disaster matching the 30% of the homes destropyed by the wildfire? I'm not trying to badger you, but I am saying we shouldn't be making distinctions based on the pornography rule ("I can't define it, but I know it when I see it"). We can't even agree on the concept, and I wish us luck when we actually get to the stage of compiling the separate lists. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- I've never heard the Broncos bus accident described as a disaster (living in SK my entire life). A tragedy to be sure, but not a disaster. The team nmarked the 20th anniversary of the crash with a brief moment of silence, and nothing else. I haven't seen the Globe story, but ESPN's story about the event was rather telling in how the town would almost prefer to forget about it. That's a tangent, though. Small-scale loss of life and/or property is tragic but not disastrous. It sounds heartless, but it is true. 30 % of a town destroyed by wildfire? Disaster. Four young men killed in a bus accident? Tragic. There will be grey areas, but as a rule: all disasters are tragic, not all tragedies are a disaster. Canada Hky (talk) 19:55, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- But you are just establishing a subjective and artbitrary distinction. What is small-scale? What is the number-of-deaths cut-off point to graduate to the disasters list? The disaster article mentions (unsourced) "catastrophic accidents" (throwing yet another amorphous and subjective concept into the mix). For example, I'd be interested to see the reaction in Swift Current if one visited that town and told them that the 1986 hockey team bus crash was neither a disaster nor catastrophic. The Globe did a story on the 20th anniversary of the crash, and people were still talking about the town's heart being ripped out. But is that just an accident? I agree with you that a highway collision between two cars on the highway, for example, would generally not be considered a disaster, but an incident that merits inclusion in Wikipedia is much harder to classify without getting into WP:OR distinctions. I'm just saying that the difference between disasters and accidents is pretty vague, ripe for dispute, and the concepts are not mutually exclusive. Lists would not divide so neatly between disasters and accidents. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:22, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- Not necessarily natural... the Halifax Explosion would be a disaster. As, potentially, could be a bridge collapse. The first paragraph on the disaster article does pretty much sum up my view, and I see the differentiation between an accident and a disaster as being a matter of scale. I don't hold that a small-scale vehicle crash would be considered a disaster. Resolute 19:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- There's a fairly widespread assumption that a "disaster" has to be natural in origin. I don't necessarily agree that the term is really that restrictive, but whatchagonnado. Bearcat (talk) 18:53, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- Why is the death of 19 people in a bus accident not a disaster (as well as an accident)? The Canadian Oxford defines disaster, in part, as "a great or sudden misfortune". --Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:42, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- That was my original thought as well. The problem is that the list is currently a dumping ground for random things that killed people or did a lot of damage. Bus crashes, for instance, are not disasters, even if they killed 19 people. Perhaps a simpler format then... a list of disasters and a list of accidents. The Halifax Explosion would likely fit both such lists. What then to do with List of Canadian disasters by death toll, which is currently a mish-mash of both proposed lists. Resolute 23:50, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
- That list looks like a really good candidate for a sortable table, which could cover the various categories you have listed as well as the death tolls. My preference would be to keep the list together, rather than creating the various sub-lists, but augmenting it with relevant data. I'm picturing something like the table at List of earthquakes#Largest earthquakes by magnitude. PKT(alk) 23:39, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Gimli Glider
Gimli Glider has been requested to be renamed as the flight number (which is still in use by Air Canada) 65.94.44.141 (talk) 05:27, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
File:EIIR-OoC.jpg has been nominated for deletion. 65.94.44.141 (talk) 04:25, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- The discussion is found here . PKT(alk) 11:50, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Unreferenced BLPs - the final surge
Since early in 2010, many editors have assisted in the referencing or removal of over 90% of the Unreferenced Biographies of Living People, bringing the total down from over 50,000 to the current 4,861 (as of 16:02, 1 June 2011 (UTC)). Thank you for all of the work you've done to date, but we are now asking for your help in finishing this task. There are two main projects which are devoted to removing UBLPs from en.Wikipedia:
- WP:URBLP has set up a large number of topic based lists, which are updated each day by a WP:BOT. Your project's list is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Unreferenced BLPs and currently contains 135 articles.
- WP:URBLPR is focusing on clearing out the backlog based on the month in which each article was tagged as being unreferenced. The current task is Category:Unreferenced BLPs from September 2009, and it is the last month remaining from 2009.
- You can also reference a random article or make your own lists using one of the catscan tools, such as this search for Canadian journalists.
All you have to do is pick your articles and then add suitable references from reliable sources and remove the {{BLP unsourced}} template. There is no need to log your changes, register or remove the articles from the list. If you need any help, or have any comments, please ask at WP:URBLPR or WT:URBLP.
Thank you for any assistance you can provide. The-Pope (talk) 16:02, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you for the reminder. 135 is not a bad number and we should be-able to "get er done". This project and its related projects still have a way to go but not bad overall. --->Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Unreferenced BLPsMoxy (talk) 16:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Members of Parliament
There's been a bit of conflict in recent days about what date Wikipedia should actually denote as the opening date of a newly elected MP's term in office. Many of the new stubs were created with the date of May 30 listed in the infobox (or changed to that date after the fact if the article was created with a different date); however, that date doesn't actually correspond to anything notable per se. The first actual sitting of the 41st Parliament is June 2, new and old MPs have been getting sworn in at various times over the past couple of weeks, and there are still people who argue that we should simply use the election date itself — including one article where the new MP himself asserted that it was the only appropriate and correct date. (Yeah, yeah, I know, WP:COI — but that actually kind of misses the point in this particular instance.)
And even Parliament's website is quite muddled about it — an essay about "when do elected politicians officially become MPs" is basically about as clear as mud about which date is officially recognized, and most MPs' pages list both the election date and the "first sitting of Parliament" date at different spots in the same profile. For example, look at Bernard Cleary — which lists the actual election date under "House of Commons" and the first sitting date under "Caucus".
Accordingly, I thought we should discuss and establish consensus: which date should we list as the beginning date for an MP's term in office?
- The date of the election itself?
- Where possible, the date that they actually had their swearing-in ceremony? (The challenge here is that this would frequently be unreferenceable.)
- The first sitting of Parliament after the election?
- Screw the specific date and just list the year?
Furthermore, no matter which option we choose there'll be a significant number of articles that need to be corrected or changed, as we currently have all four approaches in use on different articles (as well as a good many that still have no infobox at all.) Bearcat (talk) 23:25, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- I thought they were all sworn in on the same day, guess I was wrong. I thought we could go by the Parliament of Canada website, guess I was wrong. 117Avenue (talk) 23:49, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Canadian hockey wikiproject
See WP:WikiProject Council/Proposals/WikiProject Hockey in Canada -- where a proposal for a new wikiproject for Canadian hockey is presented. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 07:22, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Dead issue. The proposer has been blocked as a sockpuppet. PKT(alk) 12:38, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Someone should get it closed then. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 04:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Chance to get a Canadian list featured on the main page
An editor has submitted a proposal to feature List of Canadian federal parliaments on the Main Page, in the brand-new Today's featured list section. I'm in favour of it going on the main page, but have some concerns with the referencing. I was wondering if one or more editors here would be willing to help address the issues raised here? Yours hopefully, —WFC— 17:17, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Cleaning Up our RM section
Our RM section has entries on it that are years old. I have been pruning the list bit by bit over the last week or so. I'm not sure how to best proceed next, so if there is anyone that would like to help with this endeavour, I'd appreciate it - especially someone from BC or with knowledge of BC. Many of the "RMs" were proposed by a now inactive editor, and no discussion was ever started on the talk page. DigitalC (talk) 18:04, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
- Bump? DigitalC (talk) 01:10, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
British Canada (1763–1867)
British Canada (1763–1867) has been requested to be reverted to the name it has had since 2007 (to 2011). See Talk:British Canada (1763–1867).
This period of Canada covers the point of ceding of the Province of Canada (New France) to Britain, becoming the Province of Quebec (British North America), through division into Upper Canada and Lower Canada, unity into the Province of Canada (British North America), until Dominion Day/Confederation Day/original Canada Day.
65.94.47.63 (talk) 06:23, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Cup riot
See Talk:2011 Stanley Cup riot for discussions about the need for such an article. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 10:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
{{Canada-company-stub}} image
template:Canada-company-stub uses the generic company stub image File:Factory.svg, while the UK equivalent, template:UK-company-stub uses File:Factory GBR.svg, a UK regionalized image. I was wondering if the Canadian image should be similarly regionalized? 65.94.45.185 (talk) 07:14, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
- I have an idea... brb → ROUX ₪ 14:32, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
- I like the addition of the flag, but there is no way I would have ever guessed that was a factory if you hadn't told me... Resolute 23:32, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
New province outline
Toward the goal of having a complete collection of outlines on Canadian provinces and territories, Outline of Quebec is under construction. It is the third outline on a Canadian province.
For comparison see these further developed outlines:
For the entire set outlines, see Portal:Contents/Outlines. The Transhumanist 12:12, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Earl Thomson/Thompson
I was looking at the list of inductees at Canada's Sports Hall of Fame, and noted Earl Thompson, inductee in 1955. The Wikipedia article on him was spelled Earl Thomson based on what I presumed was a typo by the article's lone source. I made a few page moves and set about correcting links, but discovered that there seems to be no obvious note of which name is correct.
- For Thompson, I have: Canada Sports HOF bio, Regina Morning Leader, 1920, The New York Times, 1919 (apparently, see first Gsearch summary), Chicago Tribune, 1920, Los Angeles Times, 1920, Vancouver Sun, 1920, Milwaukee Journal, 1928
- For Thomson, I have: The Toronto World, 1920, The New York Times, 1920, Hartford Courant, 1931, Dartmouth College, USC
Which name is correct? Resolute 23:12, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
- It's hard to know for sure, but I think I would go with the HOF spelling. With such an honor, I would think they would have sources of information closer to the subject. I've also seen a lot of inconsistencies in the news reports of early 20th century athletes (i.e. McDonald vs. MacDonald, etc.). It's probably worth inserting a footnote indicating that "some references note his name as Thomson". Location (talk) 01:09, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
- Indeed. I was kind of thinking along the same lines. "Earl Thompson (sometimes spelled Thomson...)" in the lead, and leave the redirects alone. Resolute 03:51, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
- I would say if there is some doubt about the spelling of a name, go public with your doubt. We try to report factual information here, so if we don't know it to be a fact, we should make such clarification. And being public, we might get a correction from someone who knows. Trackinfo (talk) 05:25, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
- I will further add that the official results of the 1920 Olympics spell the name with a "p" in multiple places. see here Trackinfo (talk) 05:33, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
- I would say if there is some doubt about the spelling of a name, go public with your doubt. We try to report factual information here, so if we don't know it to be a fact, we should make such clarification. And being public, we might get a correction from someone who knows. Trackinfo (talk) 05:25, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
- Indeed. I was kind of thinking along the same lines. "Earl Thompson (sometimes spelled Thomson...)" in the lead, and leave the redirects alone. Resolute 03:51, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
- It's hard to know for sure, but I think I would go with the HOF spelling. With such an honor, I would think they would have sources of information closer to the subject. I've also seen a lot of inconsistencies in the news reports of early 20th century athletes (i.e. McDonald vs. MacDonald, etc.). It's probably worth inserting a footnote indicating that "some references note his name as Thomson". Location (talk) 01:09, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
International space station
I'd like to ask that International Space Station (ISS) article be included in WikiProject Canada, as the Canadian Space Agency is one of the 5 main partners of the station, and Canada provides Canadarm2, Dextre, and conducts scientific experiments on the space station.
Thank you Penyulap talk 00:09, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
New portal: Television in Canada
I've created a new portal: Television in Canada. What do you thank? JJ98 (Talk / Contributions) 03:16, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Francophone
Francophone has been nominated for deletion. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 04:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Clock Factory in Bowmanville
Iunderstand there was a clock factory in Bowmanville at one time. I have a clock that is suppose to have been made there. Does anyone have any information about such a factory? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.91.117.40 (talk) 00:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
History of Canada (1764–1866)
Could all pls take a look at Talk:British Canada (1763–1867)#Request for comment about titleMoxy (talk) 18:00, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
2011 Royal tour of Canada
Is this the right name 2011 Royal tour of Canada? 99.240.171.234 (talk) 04:08, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- Someone nominated that article for deletion. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 08:17, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Template:Politics of Canada
There's a discussion going on regarding which image is better to use on Template:Politics of Canada; either the Government of Canada wordmark or the national flag.
![]() |
vs. | ![]() |
Input would be appreciated, since the discussion so far doesn't seem to be moving forward very well. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:53, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- I absolutely adore your predictability. In Miesianiacal-speak, 'not moving forward' means 'I am obstructing the discussion as usual, and nobody is agreeing with me, so nothing will move forward until I say so.' It's what you do every time. Really would be refreshing, just once, to see you participate in a discussion in good faith. I'd also like a pony. → ROUX ₪ 16:57, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- There's nothing wrong with asking for additional opinions when a discussion has boiled down to a few people butting heads, as the referenced discussion has become. PKT(alk) 17:08, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- The discussion shouldn't even be happening; a clear consensus was developed two weeks prior to Miesianiacal's change, and the only reason he's trying for another change is because he didn't get his way in the first place. → ROUX ₪ 17:10, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- Pot / Kettle, as far as I'm concerned. Go see which option I support. PKT(alk) 17:16, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- Then as far as you're concerned, you are wrong about who's doing what here. Again: a clear consensus was developed. Mies even agreed that such was the consensus, even though he disagreed with its outcome. True to form, he then attempted again to thwart the consensus by changing the image. And is now doing his usual nitpicking and making people repeat themselves over and over in order to stonewall any real discussion, and tire people out until they give up. He has been doing this for years. → ROUX ₪ 17:20, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- Stop whining, roux. Man up and take your complaints where they might actually count. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:10, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- How cute. It's different when you make personal commentary/attacks, I keep forgetting that. → ROUX ₪ 18:15, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- You really should re-read WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. DigitalC (talk) 03:40, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
- My reserves of AGF with Miesianiacal were exhausted years ago. In every argument, he stonewalls, obfuscates, and nitpicks until you just give up and he gets his way. At an RfC/U (under one of his many previous usernames; dig around if you really want to find it), someone commented that she doesn't get involved in any disputes with him, because a large part of her time on Wikipedia is spent avoiding the areas he camps out in and stakes a claim to. As for civility, Mies has a sharply-honed talent for being disgustingly incivil in a way that not only appears to the casual observer that he is not, but also has the direct aim of infuriating his opponents into saying something actionable by admins. Or the shorter version: don't make sanctimonious statements when you clearly have not one clue as to his history, particularly his history of browbeating, harassing, and generally making my time on Wikipedia so unpleasant that I have had to abandon entire categories of articles solely because his appearance at a talkpage heralds such a deeply unpleasant experience that it was actually causing me stress. → ROUX ₪ 05:35, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
- You are pontificating on this subject in the wrong forum. Also please remember that you are subject to WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 03:22, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
- Blah, blah, blah. → ROUX ₪ 03:27, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
- You are pontificating on this subject in the wrong forum. Also please remember that you are subject to WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 03:22, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
- My reserves of AGF with Miesianiacal were exhausted years ago. In every argument, he stonewalls, obfuscates, and nitpicks until you just give up and he gets his way. At an RfC/U (under one of his many previous usernames; dig around if you really want to find it), someone commented that she doesn't get involved in any disputes with him, because a large part of her time on Wikipedia is spent avoiding the areas he camps out in and stakes a claim to. As for civility, Mies has a sharply-honed talent for being disgustingly incivil in a way that not only appears to the casual observer that he is not, but also has the direct aim of infuriating his opponents into saying something actionable by admins. Or the shorter version: don't make sanctimonious statements when you clearly have not one clue as to his history, particularly his history of browbeating, harassing, and generally making my time on Wikipedia so unpleasant that I have had to abandon entire categories of articles solely because his appearance at a talkpage heralds such a deeply unpleasant experience that it was actually causing me stress. → ROUX ₪ 05:35, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
- You really should re-read WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. DigitalC (talk) 03:40, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
- How cute. It's different when you make personal commentary/attacks, I keep forgetting that. → ROUX ₪ 18:15, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- Stop whining, roux. Man up and take your complaints where they might actually count. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:10, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- Then as far as you're concerned, you are wrong about who's doing what here. Again: a clear consensus was developed. Mies even agreed that such was the consensus, even though he disagreed with its outcome. True to form, he then attempted again to thwart the consensus by changing the image. And is now doing his usual nitpicking and making people repeat themselves over and over in order to stonewall any real discussion, and tire people out until they give up. He has been doing this for years. → ROUX ₪ 17:20, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- Pot / Kettle, as far as I'm concerned. Go see which option I support. PKT(alk) 17:16, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- The discussion shouldn't even be happening; a clear consensus was developed two weeks prior to Miesianiacal's change, and the only reason he's trying for another change is because he didn't get his way in the first place. → ROUX ₪ 17:10, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
- There's nothing wrong with asking for additional opinions when a discussion has boiled down to a few people butting heads, as the referenced discussion has become. PKT(alk) 17:08, 30 June 2011 (UTC)