Talk:Kennedy Stewart (Canadian politician)

Still MP?

Does anyone know if Stewart is actually still an MP? I saw the other stories indicating that he announced on May 10, 2018 that he was stepping down to run for Mayor. I checked the Parl website last week and his page seemed to be down. He is out campaigning for Mayor, but this article[1] says he is still a sitting MP. Anyone know what his status actually is?--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 21:32, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the edit 24.71.252.16. Stewart is still on the House of Commons website[2]. I gather he is still an MP. While he said he was going to resign to run for Mayor, I am not aware of any reporting indicating when he is actually resigning. I note that he has already started campaigning for mayor. We should keep an eye to ensure this page is accurate.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 23:46, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Criminal Contempt is Criminal

I have reverted a recent good faith edit by Joeyconnick. Stewart was initially charged with civil contempt, this was later upgraded to criminal contempt. He then plead guilty to criminal contempt. Despite criminal contempt not being a criminal code offence, as it is a common law criminal offence (ie. created by the common law, not statute). That does not mean it is "civil". It is not, it is a criminal charge (just not a Criminal Code charge). --Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 18:15, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

I still think we should retitle that section so the focus (of the title) is on the protest and not the result, because "criminal" de facto implies "jail", a criminal record, and other more negative connotations than a fine, and does in Canada imply a Criminal Code violation. Having it in the section heading violates NPOV because the nuance of distinctions is not apparent... people just see "criminal" and think "oh he's a crook". —Joeyconnick (talk) 18:22, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree with your sentiment about the title, but am a little conflicted to be honest. There was more going on than just the contempt issue, perhaps we should retitle the section and fill out the section with other details of the protest or his pipeline actions besides just the contempt conviction, which admittedly got most of the attention in media. At the same time, even though he received a small fine, criminal contempt of court is not a minor conviction, particularly for a public official, and one that admitted wittingly/intentionally breaking the law. It is significant and should be given due weight, whether the reader wishes to interpret his actions as justified protest/civil disobedience, or unjustified contempt/lack of respect for the courts, rule of law and Canadian democratic institutions etc. It is not our place to pick a side, but we should give the facts/events due weight and not minimize them. I think filling out other details of his pipeline activism and retitling the section may be the right way to go.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 18:43, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes I'm definitely not saying we don't mention it... just not sure it is even-handed to have it as a section heading among a fairly small number of section headings. Or maybe have something like a subheading under a general Kinder Morgan subheading titled "Arrest and conviction for protesting [or protest actions]" so that it's clear(er) that his run-ins with the law are protest-related, which seems a bit different from an arrest and conviction (or lack thereof) for drunk driving or stealing a ring [a little Canadian political humour there *coughCampbellcoughSvend*]. —Joeyconnick (talk) 18:56, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

You may be right. A sub heading under a section about the his Kinder Morgan opposition is likely the correct way to balance giving too much/too little significance to it. I think the larger section about his Kinder Morgan opposition needs to be filled out/beefed up though. The text only really addresses the arrest, charge, and conviction at this point. I believe he has likely said a lot about the pipeline before this, in Parliament, and perhaps since on the mayoral campaign trail.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 01:25, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Capitalization - 40th mayor of Vancouver or 40th Mayor of Vancouver?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should we capitalize the word mayor in the infobox?--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 19:23, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Survey

• Soft Capitalize - I think Joeyconnick is correct in the way MOS:JOBTITLE is to be applied, I tend to think we should deviate from that in the infobox. It looks sloppy in the infobox if it is not capitalized. I note the previous holder of the office is noted to be the 39th Mayor of Vancouver. I might be able to be convinced otherwise though.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 22:27, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

• Soft Capitalize - I agree with Darryl Kerrigan. Template:Infobox_officeholder/example#General_office is the official guideline for these info boxes, and they have capitalized titles, regardless of modifiers. However, Joeyconnick is correct in the context of MOS:JOBTITLE applying to body text. Deathying (talk) 00:49, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

  However, Joeyconnick is correct in the context of MOS:JOBTITLE applying to body text. What leads you to that conclusion? 24.72.14.64 (talk) 05:32, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

• Capitalize - As per above poster, it seems there are different styles for the Infobox, and it should be capitalized even if capitalization is not present in the main body of text. PraiseVivec (talk) 12:29, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

• Lowercase (if modified) – There is nothing in MOS:JOBTITLE that specifies it only applies to body text and has no bearing on infoboxes. To the best of my knowledge, there's nothing anywhere that states WP:MOS only applies to body text in general, since it very clearly addresses article titles and other things outside the article body. Moreover, the examples at Template:Infobox officeholder/example#General office are examples, not style guidelines and they do not govern anything. It's also quite possible they were done before MOS:JOBTITLE reached its current state as I'm sure everyone realizes not all pages on Wikipedia are necessarily in line with our most up-to-date guidelines (e.g. this case) and it's also a fair statement that examples in template documentation are more likely than not to be out of date as people are often more focused on actual articles and not documentation. How is this case so special we are ignoring guidelines? Regrets to Darryl but "It looks sloppy" is a personal preference that isn't necessarily shared by everyone. I happen to personally hate our guidelines on possessives—where we are always supposed add an 's' after an apostrophe even for words ending in 's' like the Jones's cat, something which looks exceptionally painful to me, but my personal preferences are ultimately irrelevant—we have style guidelines specifically so things don't descend into a "I like this"/"I like that" fight—and if I were reverting people adding that 's', I would be clearly in the wrong. And then finally... just because there are other examples of things that run counter to our guidelines doesn't mean people are free to revert changes that bring articles more in line with our guidelines. Nothing would ever improve if that were the case. So how Gregor Robertson, or any other mayor or officeholder anywhere, is listed is not material to the issue. —Joeyconnick (talk) 20:43, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Official examples should be in-line with style guidelines, otherwise they wouldn't be examples. Would Wikipedia recommend an article with poor grammar and structure? Of course not. Featured articles like Barack Obama have infobox offices capitalized. Don't label examples as irrelevant since you can't explain why the overwhelming majority of articles are like this. Also, MOS:JOBTITLE can be edited by anyone, so it's not some gold standard that all Wikipedia editors have to follow. What matters on Wikipedia is consensus, and the vast majority of articles capitalize. Deathying (talk) 03:43, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• Comment (Summoned by bot) I assume you're referring to the caption? If so, then capitalize. That's just good common sense and proper usage. I don't see the big deal and I don't understand why this rises to the level of an RfC. Coretheapple (talk) 13:26, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
• Capitalize, per the provision in MOS:JOBTITLE pertaining to "When a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) is addressed as a title or position in and of itself, is not plural, is not preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article), and is not a reworded description". The ordinal number is not a "modifier" in the sense precluded by this rule. Even if you don't buy that argument, however, then looking at how other similar articles handle the same matter is a strong cue to established consensus — and all other articles about political officeholders always capitalize the job title in the infobox regardless of the rules that apply to body text. Bearcat (talk) 13:22, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
  • If even "a" or "the" are considered modifiers, I assure you that "40th" or "third" or "last" are also modifiers, unless you are using some other kind of non-English grammar I'm not aware of. As for "well other pages do it this way, so we should", yeah... that's not how guidelines work and it certainly isn't done through local discussion on a particular article's Talk page. If it's really the case that you want infoboxes to be an exception (because they clearly currently are not), go to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography and seek consensus for that currently non-existent exception, because guidelines change and when they do, we don't throw up our hands and say "oh well most of these pages are not in keeping with our guidelines so they are a clear exception." We (sometimes slowly) work to bring those pages into alignment with the guidelines. Witness the deprecation of "dead-url" in {{Cite web}} in favour of "url-status" or the change in how we disambiguate television series from different countries: [[Show Name (U.S. TV series)]] became [[Show Name (American TV series)]] and "UK TV series" was similarly swapped out for "British TV series". None of these changes happened overnight (and indeed are likely still happening) but once the guidelines were established, no one pointed to the existing batch that didn't meet those guidelines and said, "Well those are an exception, obviously." The only arguments here for capitalization are "other pages do it that way" and "I like it better capitalized." Neither are valid in the face of an existing guideline. —Joeyconnick (talk) 17:47, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Consensus can change, and nobody ever said it couldn't — but it changes through discussion to establish a new consensus, not just because one person arbitrarily decided to move 10,000 pages for shits and giggles, and the way things currently are is an accurate reflection of what the current consensus is. So the changes you're talking about are not comparable to this: the existing consensus was what it was, and then people made a decision to change it in a documented discussion that hashed out the reasons why it needed to change. But the old way was demonstrably the consensus that existed until a new consensus was established to move things to a new way. So it's not my responsibility to start a discussion to have existing consensus upheld; it would be your responsibility to start a discussion if you wanted the existing consensus to change. Bearcat (talk) 23:11, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Guidelines supersede local consensus (see WP:CONLEVEL). It may well be that there are a bunch of articles that don't follow MOS:JOBTITLES. It's not my (or anyone else's) responsibility to start a discussion about bringing those articles into alignment with an existing guideline; in fact, guidelines exist so we don't have to have a bunch of tiny, exhausting separate discussions (at least that's the theory LOL) and unlike what's been implied, most guidelines are very hard to change because they are (understandably) among the most-debated/discussed part of the project. If I make, or anyone else makes, edits that result in an article better following our guidelines, the onus would be on those reverting those changes to argue for why said articles deserve to be an exception. Neither "There's a bunch of articles that don't follow this guideline" or "I don't like it that way" are valid arguments in that discussion. The first is basically the very definition of circular and would mean nothing could ever change because there'd always be an example of a set of articles where A was done instead of B. The second: well, I personally hate more than one of our style guidelines but that doesn't mean I get to ignore them. It certainly doesn't mean I get to revert people who are making changes to articles so that they better follow them. —Joeyconnick (talk) 21:04, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

It's not a "local" consensus, because this isn't just a "Mayors of Vancouver" thing — every single article about every politician on the entire planet that has an infobox in it at all always capitalizes the job title in the infobox, and Kennedy Stewart is the only article in the entire encyclopedia where that's ever been questioned by even one person — and nothing in JOBTITLE indicates that that the same rules apply to infoboxes as to body text anyway. So "guidelines supersede local consensus" is not dropping the mic on what I said, because there's no evidence that the long-established standard worldwide practice in politician infoboxes is violating any guidelines in the first place. Bearcat (talk) 14:44, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

There seems to be the beginnings of an edit war brewing here on the question of capitalization. Deathying seems to be pointing out that most other articles including those for past Vancouver mayors seem to use capitalization. Joeyconnick points to MOS:JOBTITLE as authority that we should not capitalize the title when it is modified by "40th". Some outside input would likely be helpful. Thanks all.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 19:30, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I will not be making any more reverts because of the three revert rule. Deathying (talk) 19:37, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest anyone was doing anything inappropriate. I think this has been going on for awhile. If I remember correctly there was another editor changing it back to "Mayor". I just expect this is something that should be talked over. If MOS:JOBTITLE does apply, and we wish to deviate from it then that will certainly require input from the larger community. My preference is "Mayor" but I have not made my mind up on that yet. Anyway, I think the discussion is worth having. Thanks--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 19:47, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#fun with MOS:JOBTITLES again

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#fun with MOS:JOBTITLES again. Joeyconnick (talk) 04:08, 3 October 2019 (UTC)