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Lieutenant Governors

I've come across a problem with our articles on provincial lieutenant governors, which needs to be discussed.

For most provinces, there is an article "Lieutenant Governor of X", which is a discussion of the position, with a separate list that's usually at the title "List of Lieutenant Governors of X". However, in the cases of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, the position title exists only as a redirect to the list, and in the case of Nova Scotia, an individual user recently moved the list to the alternative title Viceroys of Nova Scotia. And for some of the other provinces, alternate spellings that should be a redirect to the article (e.g. "Lieutenant-Governor of Québec") have been incorrectly made into redirects to the list, and vice versa. And for some provinces, the list is at the title "Lieutenant Governors of X", which is a poor choice as it's very nearly indistinguishable from the titles of the primary articles. A single "s" should never be the only difference between the title of an article and the title of its associated list.

As a result, lists of LGs are now at three different title formats, depending on which province you look at, and articles about the position of LG may or may not exist at all. Needless to say, this is not acceptable – we need to have a consistent format across all of the provincial lieutenant governor articles, so we need to come to a consensus about how best to treat these.

So I offer the following proposals for discussion:

  • Option A: For every province, there should be an article on the position and a separate list of the people who've held it; the list is titled in the format "List of Lieutenant Governors of X".
  • Option B: For every province, there should be an article on the position and a separate list of the people who've held it; since the positions may have had different names in the past, the list is titled "(List of) Viceroys of X" instead of "List of Lieutenant Governors".
  • Option C: For every province, the article and the list should be merged into a single title.

Please indicate a preference, and hopefully we can come to a consensus on how to proceed. Thanks. Bearcat 02:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks to Bearcat for notifying me on this. I changed the name of the Nova Scotia article because it is not correct to call the list "Lieutenant Governors" as the list includes the 1710-1867 (British, full) Governors and then lists the Lieutenant Governors since confederation. So to be accurate we need to use the catchall name "Viceroys" for Ontario, Quebec, PEI, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and B.C, if we want the list to include pre-confederation governors. I strongly support Option B. WayeMason 11:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I support Option A, with Option C being second choice. With all due respect, I think Option B is a terrible idea. Viceroy might technically be a more encompassing term, but it makes me think of the Raj in India and E. M. Forster novels, not the Queen's representatives in British North America, and the term would leave the vast majority Canadians scratching their heads. Refer to articles as "List of Lieutenant Governors of X", then explain at the top that the pre-confederation governors went by different titles. Skeezix1000 11:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I support option A, with the following caveats: each List of article should indicate any nuance about the list, such as that for Nova Scotia. That is, the list can be broken up into several lists, each specifying its nature in a short preamble. I'd create redirects from List of Viceroys of X to List of Lieutenant Governors of X for the sake of completeness. I don't like option C, because lists have a habit of cluttering articles, and option B isn't attractive because most people today at least know about LGs, but I doubt many know about viceroys. The few that do would be redirected to the proper place. Mindmatrix 15:45, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Had I read Skeezix1000's comments fully before replying, I would have just said See above. Oh well. Mindmatrix 15:48, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Bearcat, what's your preference? If it's Option A, we probably have consensus. If it's Option B or C, we probably need some more input from other editors. Skeezix1000 18:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't have a personal preference – I'm willing to go along with whatever the consensus is. I just felt that the issue needed to be raised. Bearcat 23:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I vote for option A. The term "Lieutenant Governors" is by far going to be the most common one for which people look. We should, of course, mention the name difference in the opening text of the list article, and the viceroy name should be a redirect. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Bearcat, it seems like there is consensus for Option A. I believe that all that needs to be moved is Viceroys of Nova Scotia to List of Lieutenant Governors of Nova Scotia. The move requires an admin. There is also an edit history problem, as the move from Lieutenant Governors of Nova Scotia to Viceroys of Nova Scotia appears to have been a cut-and-paste. Skeezix1000 20:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I have revived this discussion, by placing a RM tag on the Viceroys of Nova Scotia talk page, which directs the discussion here. Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the article entitled Viceroys of Nova Scotia and it is a simple list of names, essentially a mass redirect to individual articles. These list type articles predate the relatively new method of placing names in succession boxes at the bottom of the article. For example, at the bottom of each Governor article is placed Template:LieutenantGovernorsNovaScotia. I feel that this is an improved method of seeing the entire list and more interactive as you can page through the list in the succession rather than having to refer back to a separate list article. In essence the template has replaced the list, and IMO, for the better. Therefore I think the "List of Lieutenant Governor of X" articles should be removed and ensure that templates are placed at the bottom of each individual governor article. The ""Lieutenant Governor of X" can still remain as the office is still notable. I guess this is a vote for a modified version of Option C - get rid of the list articles altogether. Atrian (talk) 18:55, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I am against rename this article, as that would be factually incorrect as the list includes pre-confederation Governors. Further, I am against making "every province the same" as every province is not the same. The article for Lieutenant Governors of Alberta can be different from Viceroys of Nova Scotia, as Nova Scotia has over three centuries of Governors and LGs, and Alberta was created by the Federal government after confederation and has a bare hundred years. I think that the focus here is to have the best articles possible for the subject, not to "make everything the same" at the risk of making things both less clear, and incorrect.WayeMason (talk) 12:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
You expressed that opinion above, and certainly I gave it some thought. But the comments thus far from other editors indicate that List of Lieutenant Governors of Nova Scotia is both the better title and allows us to be consistent, and I don't think the feeling is that we have to choose between quality and consistency. The outstanding issue is the one raised by Atrian, as to whether we need the article at all (as opposed to a succession box). Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The article has been moved to List of Lieutenant Governors of Nova Scotia and the edit history fixed. Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Canadian conventions

I've started writing up a draft summary of the Canadian-specific naming and style conventions as they currently stand, so that they'll finally be accessible all in one place. I'd like some input and assistance in expanding it, however – so please come help out at User:Bearcat/Canada MOS. Bearcat (talk) 22:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks quite comprehensive, and sums up everything I can think of. That's what you get when you try and codify common tradition though. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 22:54, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
There may be a section on roads, but I think road article names are satisfactory now that you can just look at the existing ones for the convention. –Pomte 19:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Looks good so far. Should we include anything on spelling/language usage (Canadian English)? --Kmsiever (talk) 22:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Another section is needed to sort out NWT/Yukon titles. Is it "something in the NWT/Yukon" or "something in NWT/Yukon"? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
It looks fantastic. Thanks for putting the time into this. I left a few minor comments on the talk page. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure we've even really settled the to-the-or-not-to-the? question for the territories, actually. Bearcat (talk) 07:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Byelection question

Do we really need three separate articles for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean by-election, 2007, Outremont by-election, 2007 and Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot by-election, 2007, or should we merge them into a single Canadian federal by-elections, 2007 article? Our practice here seems to be a bit inconsistent: while those are treated separately, the multiple Ontario, Alberta and Newfoundland provincial by-elections of 2007 are treated in single merged articles, as are the Quebec provincial by-elections of 2002. Other provinces' by-elections in 2007 have standalone articles, but in each of those cases there was only one by-election to discuss. But the federals are treated separately, and a cursory search appears to indicate that, apart from Quebec provincial by-elections, 2002, our practice prior to 2007 was to treat a by-election as a subtopic of either the previous general election or the electoral district in which it took place, rather than in a separate article of either the merged or standalone type.

So I guess I'd like to ask for discussion and clarification: what should be our practice for by-elections?

  1. Every federal or provincial by-election gets its own article, no matter how stubbish that would be.
  2. Federal by-elections, being more important and more widely covered, get their own articles regardless of length, but provincials get merged into a single article per year.
  3. Both federal and provincial by-elections get merged into single articles per year.
  4. By-elections should never have separate articles, but should be discussed in another article – e.g. the article on the electoral district, or the article on the preceding general election.

One potential consideration, in my opinion, might be that somebody might know that there was a by-election and want to read the article, but not know or remember the name of the specific electoral district they have to look for – such people might be better served by a merged title discussing all three by-elections.

I'm open, however, to whatever the consensus is, as long as we spell out something consistent. Bearcat (talk) 18:01, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

My opinion would be, in general, to have it as a section of the riding article, where it is of most interest and can be best discussed in context. I would consider a separate article, a combined by-elections article, or a section of a preceding general if it was particularly notable and could be best discussed in one of those contexts. E.g., something news-worthy and unusual happened in the by-election or several by-elections combined to demonstrate a change in the make-up or political-direction of the legislature. DoubleBlue (Talk) 18:24, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Other countries have separate articles, and I think it's a good idea on the federal level to do this, but not on the provincial level. – Earl Andrew - talk 01:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Let's forget about "how other countries do it" for the moment, and decide what we should do based on our resources, our circumstances and our needs for once. The UK contingent actually puts effort into writing real articles about the political and social context of each by-election, for one thing, whereas with the single isolated exception of Outremont in 2007, we have a nasty habit of just slapping together a stubby little introduction and a results table and leaving it at that. That's not an article; it's a subsection. Separate articles are a perfectly acceptable approach, if we're prepared to actually write real articles – but doing separate articles just because the UK does ain't gonna fly if we're not prepared to start putting a lot more effort into these than we have until now. Bearcat (talk) 01:30, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

{{Census metropolitan areas by size}} and {{Largest and smallest census divisions of Canada}}

Thoughts on the purpose and scope of these templates? It doesn't make too much sense to link these articles directly to each other. The former can be listifed at Census geographic units of Canada and the latter can be merged with List of census divisions of Canada by population by adding a column for area. –Pomte 04:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see any need for them. It's really just extra trivia information. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 02:31, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd have to agree that they're unnecessary – I almost TFD'd them myself quite recently, and have no recollection of exactly what stopped me. Bearcat (talk) 06:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I've nominated the second, but am not so sure about the first anymore. Being a CMA is an important characteristic, and will help readers navigate between the most populated places of Canada, like {{USLargestCities}} may be useful. Its loose association is exemplified only by St. Catharines-Niagara. The rest all have their own articles, even Ottawa-Gatineau. Feel free to nominate it though. –Pomte 07:08, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The USLargestCities template isn't comparable to a CMA template; it would only be a valid precedent for a "50 largest cities in Canada" template based on the rankings at List of the 100 largest municipalities in Canada by population. Editors frequently conflate cities with CMAs as if they were the same thing, but they're not. Bearcat (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Debra Arbec at AfD

Debra Arbec has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Debra Arbec. 132.205.44.5 (talk) 22:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Larry O'Brien

Ottawa mayor Larry O'Brien's first court appearance on the bribery allegations is a matter of hours away, so I'd ask that as many editors as possible keep an eye on the article for the standard troika of WP:RS/WP:V/WP:NPOV issues. Bearcat (talk) 08:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


TVarchive.ca

I would like to see a template created to add to Canadian television shows a link from [1] NorthernThunder (talk) 11:25, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm mystified by the fact that their URLs seem to contain both a reference ID number and the actual title of the show, and would also like to extend the note of caution that this site doesn't currently list all past Canadian television shows. But otherwise it's a good idea. Bearcat (talk) 23:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, for what it's worth, I'd like to note that the {{CBC Series Dir}} template isn't working properly; it seems to produce an invalid URL that 404s on the actual website. Bearcat (talk) 00:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Trying again...

Can I please get some input at Template talk:Canada Provincial Parliamentary Delegation regarding the utility and/or design of the various provincial parliamentary templates? This isn't the first time I've asked. Bearcat (talk) 18:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Trans-Canada Highway

I've created two new subcategories of Category:Trans-Canada Highway, as follows:

  1. Category:Urban segments of the Trans-Canada Highway, for articles where a road's local name within a particular city has a separate article from the one about the highway that it's a part of (e.g. Portage Avenue, Queensway.)
  2. Category:Former segments of the Trans-Canada Highway, for roads which used to be designated as part of the TCH but were bypassed or absorbed by other roads.

Please add to these categories as appropriate. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 19:41, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

template:Infobox CanadianMP/doc

There are two attributes in this template that I do not understand. First, cabinet= what exactly goes into this attribute? Also, the attribute and party colour. I assumed that entering something in the party colour attribute would change the colour of the template, but, it seems I am wrong. NorthernThunder (talk) 06:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

{{Infobox CanadianMP}} no longer exists as a separate template; it was merged into {{Infobox Officeholder}}. Attributes such as party colour= and cabinet= no longer have any function at all, since they don't have analogous fields in the actual target template.
While we're on the subject, when you create a new article on a politician, could you please enter an uninterrupted term in office as one term rather than starting a new term every time the person wins a consecutive election? If a person is elected in 2000, then re-elected in 2004 and 2006 and then resigns from Parliament in 2007, that's one term in office beginning in 2000 and ending in 2007, not three separate terms in office started and ended by each election date. Fields like office2, office3, etc., should be used to note non-consecutive terms in office, or terms in different offices (e.g. a person who has served as both a federal MP and a provincial MLA, or a person whose riding got redistricted), and/or cabinet positions, not consecutive re-elections to the same office. Bearcat (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Would [2] be the correct template? Why not create a Canada-specific template? NorthernThunder (talk) 09:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
We can't create a Canada-specific template just because some individuals want one – there has to be an actual, specific and encyclopedically significant reason to diverge from standard templates. That is, if we had some unique need (on the scale of Australia's preferential voting system being wildly out of whack with the structure of {{Infobox Election}}) that standard templates can't cover. But, needless to say, we don't. So standard it is.
If you're not sure how to go about using the standard infobox, just do what I usually do: cut and paste. I usually default to France Gélinas in this regard, since I know there's a clean and correct infobox on her article, but any Canadian politician whose infobox is already present is just fine – I go to her article, copy the infobox, paste it into the new one and make the necessary field changes. Easy as pie. Bearcat (talk) 09:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
And incidentally, one of the flaws with the old {{Infobox CanadianMP}} was that it was useless on anybody who represented different electoral districts at different times in their career. Bearcat (talk) 09:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Continuing on from this topic, I created Edmund Power Flynn (4th, 5th and 6th Canadian Parliaments) using the template:Infobox MP template, however, I do not know how to indicate within the template all of the parliaments he was a member of. NorthernThunder (talk) 07:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Generally, I'd be more inclined to skip the specific Parliaments in the infobox, and just denote them as Member of Parliament. Bearcat (talk) 19:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Talk page

The Canadian notice board formerly maintained a distinction between Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board, for formatting discussions about the noticeboard itself, and Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/discussion, for discussion of editing issues in articlespace. This created a lot of unnecessary confusion, and left some discussions unaddressed because they were posted in the "wrong" place, and was not generally standard practice for a Wikipedia noticeboard anyway. Accordingly, I've now merged the two into a single discussion page.

Also, prior to 2006 we used to archive at random and start a new page each time, so some of the archive pages covered just a few weeks at a time while others covered several months – so I've reorganized those as well, so that each one covers a six-month period and integrates the one otherwise isolated archive from the extra talk page. And I've created an index page (there was an index redlink in the archiving notice...couldn't resist) which lists the contents of each archive page for ease of searching. If anybody would care to help out with the index page, it still requires a bit of work – converting the bullet points to #'s, adding a brief summary of the discussion to any item title whose subject isn't obvious, etc.

And finally, I've manually archived any discussion from this active page that hasn't been posted to in January, as it would appear that Shadowbot3 (the bot that's actually been doing the archiving lately) is currently in shutdown. Just to let y'all know. Bearcat (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Infobox Settlement

Is this template appropriate for creating pages for communities included in the 2006 Canadian census? NorthernThunder (talk) 18:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. It is a very versatile template, can be used for cities, towns, villages, hamlets, rural municipalities, districts, neighbourhoods, counties, etc. NB: Most pages are already created, many could use the addition of the infobox.--Qyd (talk) 21:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, the main problem I have with using the settlement template on anything smaller than the level of an incorporated municipality is that it tends to invite edits that misrepresent the community's legal and political status, such as leaving the community described as a "town" or "city", giving an unsourceable population figure (the phrase "a population of approximately..." has absolutely no business in an encyclopedia article), creating the appearance that the community has its own separate mayor and council, etc.
The problem with this is that while an inaccurate edit to Edmonton, Toronto or Montreal will get reverted within minutes, since hundreds of people have those articles watchlisted, an inaccurate or misrepresentational edit to Hallebourg, Pekisko or Upper Burgeo typically doesn't get caught for months. Bearcat (talk) 23:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Why is the problem any worse because an infobox is being used? An unwatched article is an unwatched article, and a bad edit is a bad edit. Lets get an admin to find unwatched Canada articles and spread out the watch-load. I'll check now on this project whether there is a defined acceptable source for population figures, I've seen a few "estimated" figures creeping in lately. (I guess I better join the project now :) Franamax (talk) 00:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
It's kind of like painting a bullseye on the side of a barn. Even if the bullseye isn't there somebody might still throw something at the barn, but if the bullseye is there somebody definitely will. Bearcat (talk) 00:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Dave Michael Garg

This article looks like what used to called a "vanity" piece before Wikipedia became the polite place that it is today. I was going to put an importance tag and then maybe an AfD. But I'm patient and kind of lazy and I was wondering if anyone has heard of him or thinks that he has some notability. I only noticed it because one of the SPA's that worked on it inserted the guy into the Gordon Campbell article. Apparently he interviewed the Premier. Thanks. --JGGardiner (talk) 01:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, having interviewed notable people does not, in and of itself, confer notability on the interviewer. (Well, okay, maybe if your name is Nardwuar.) Secondly, the inclusion in Gordon Campbell is pretty tenuous. Thirdly, 29 Google hits, of which nary a one is an independent reliable source. Tag it. Bearcat (talk) 04:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I suppose. Google first, ask questions later. I'm not sure why asked since the answer was obvious. Although I thought that, being an internet phenomenon, "notability" can be gained quickly. I see that you tagged it already but if anyone would like to go ahead with the AfD, you'd have my support. --JGGardiner (talk) 01:54, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Communities

Just to keep everybody up to date, we've had a bit of an issue lately with Canadian place categories being split between two different trees: "Settlements in Province" and "Communities in Province". I've reviewed the respective category trees, and "settlements" is the term used for geographic communities of residence, while "communities" is used for social communities such as religious organizations, ecovillages, intentional communities and kibbutzes. Accordingly, I've begun to merge the two Canadian trees into one, under the title "settlements". Bearcat (talk) 01:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I missed this when you first posted it. I agree with the move, as the convention to use "settlements" for places has been in effect since just after we started using "communities" widely in our (Canada) category tree. Doh! I'll help out where I can. Mindmatrix 16:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Parker's Notch

I've come across the article Parker's Notch, which seems to be about the border between the Northwest Territories and Nunavut but doesn't really clarify the relevance of its title. And a Google search comes up completely dry. Can anybody shed some light on the subject? Bearcat (talk) 21:08, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

John Havelock Parker, a former NWT Commissioner drew the border line. But I think that the exact title isn't something standard. Some sources on Parker's work: [3] and [4] --JGGardiner (talk) 21:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I've read through that article twice now, what exactly is the "Parker's Notch" part of it? Is there some little kink in the border? Something on his bedpost? Something I'm completely missing? Perhaps the article should be merged somewhere else or renamed, I just can't figure it out... Franamax (talk) 11:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
There are three possible "notches". One on the mainland and two on Victoria Island. Use Google Earth with the boarders setting on. The one on the mainland is the most likely of the three. The two on Victoria would have probably been set when the Inuvialuit land claims were settled and the article talks about Dene/Inuit claims which wouldn't apply on the island. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 11:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
That's right. A notch is a V shaped cut. There's a V shaped turn where the border turns west from the north-south one (the continuation the MB/SK one). If you look at the links I put up before, apparently Parker's main contribution was in that area. The Inuit TFN had originally proposed that the whole of the Thelon Game Sanctuary in this area be in the new territory. Parker split it, creating the "notch," which you can see here[5]. I'm not sure if that is what the title refers to but it seems the logical choice. --JGGardiner (talk) 18:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Question

Does anybody know if the John Turner who's running for the Neorhinos in the Vancouver Quadra by-election is the same John Turner who ran for the paleo-Rhinos (no, not the other one...I'm not that dumb!) in Vancouver Quadra in 1988? Seems likely, but I can't find a source which even addresses the question at all. Bearcat (talk) 05:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Same one apparently.[6] --JGGardiner (talk) 08:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Another one for the watchlists

An anon IP is repeatedly adding the nickname "The Baller" to our article on The Score sportscaster Adnan Virk. I've done a Google search and this appears to be a nickname coined for him by a sports blog and picked up by a very few other blogs and discussion forums, but with no obvious general currency outside of that tiny little walled garden: a Google search on "Adnan Virk" + baller gets just 14 page hits, of which one is the Wikipedia article itself, one is an internal Wikipedia report page which merely happens to have Adnan Virk and pianist Adolph Baller listed on it, and a further four are similarly coincidental usages of Virk's name and the word baller in different parts of the same page...which means that with just eight real hits, it is not a notable nickname for him.

Furthermore, it seems to be somewhat ambiguous as to whether this nickname is meant to be flattering or unflattering to Virk.

So I'm asking for a few people to keep it watchlisted so we can revert this inappropriate addition. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 00:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

United Farmers of Ontario

Can anyone give a bit of time to add sources to United Farmers of Ontario, an article about an often overlooked historical political party that actually formed a government after World War I? Reggie Perrin (talk) 06:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

PEI Conservative leaders

Does anyone know who led the Prince Edward Island Progressive Conservative Party between 1948 and 1957? Reggie Perrin (talk) 08:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Nothing's coming up on a Google search, so the best thing I can think of would be to maybe contact Elections PEI. They'd surely have to know. Bearcat (talk) 03:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

template:CanParlbio

I have added the template:Infobox MP to numerous MPs pages. I used the phrase 'Parliament of Canada biography' over the link to the MPs official biography. Does anyone object to me changing the template message currently used in the template:CanParlbio to the one that I use? NorthernThunder (talk) 16:40, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

  • The current template says "Synopsis of federal political experience from the Library of Parliament" which isn't exactly correct. The actual site uses the term "Parliamentarian File" which is a better description but somehow doesn't seem to say what is in this "file". The current information isn't really what I think a biography is. In the sports world you would use the term statistics. How about "Official parliamentarian of Canada information"? --YUL89YYZ (talk) 18:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikimedia Canada

Wikimedia Canada is currently in planning after recent interest. Bylaws are being seen to by a lawyer and a Steering Committee has been elected. If you would like to help out, please join the mailing list and, if possible, come to an upcoming meeting. Greeves (talk • contribs) 18:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Canadian films

Just thought that the community would like to know that WikiProject Films has a established a Canadian cinema task force. Interested editors are encouraged to join onboard! Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 01:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Summit Series

Summit Series has been proposed to be renamed 1972 Summit Series. 132.205.44.5 (talk) 02:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Original research conflict

There is a conflict at Canadian order of precedence regarding original research and the inclusion of the royal family. It would be helpful if uninvolved editors could take a look. Reggie Perrin (talk) 23:40, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Simon Reisman article urgently needed

He has just died and given his central role in negotiating the free trade agreement we really should have an article about him. Reggie Perrin (talk) 00:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I just created a stub about him. I was searching for a good category for him, say Negotiators or something under Diplomats, but none seem appropriate. Mindmatrix 01:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
What refs did you use to write it? I couldn't find a citation for his WWII service. Anchoress · Weigh Anchor · Catacomb 02:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it was in an obituary written by The Canadian Press; I read it earlier today and was going by memory. I just found this, which indicates that he served "with the Royal Canadian Artillery in Italy, Holland and Germany in the Second World World". Mindmatrix 02:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanx. Anchoress · Weigh Anchor · Catacomb 02:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Hindu Conference of Canada

A single-purpose editor User:Hccanada who seems to only edit the article Hindu Conference of Canada has twice re-inserted a line claiming that the HCC is "the largest Canadian Hindu political and media advocacy group". Here is the latest diff. The source they are using is an opinion piece in the Canada Free Press [7] - an online tabloid which doesn't strike me a reliable source. When I first edited the article a few weeks ago it was pretty much a promotional piece. I've tried to make it more NPOV and I'm a bit worried that this user, who may well be with the HCC, is trying to reintroduce puffy elements. I'd like other editors to take a look. Reggie Perrin (talk) 16:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

But isn't it likely that they are the biggest? I know of no other group (I'm hardly an expert in this field, mind you) and there is no other such Canadian organization with an article on Wikipedia.Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
While that's quite possibly true, an encyclopedia can't state it as a fact without a reliable source. Bearcat (talk) 22:32, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, but Reginald's comment above was that Canada Free Press "doesn't strike me a reliable source." Canada Free Press doesn't appear to be funded by or connected in any way to the Hindu Conference of Canada. I would respectfully suggest to Reginald that there is no basis in fact for opposing this citation, and that we should assume good faith, in this case.Shawn in Montreal (talk) 22:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Canada Free Press is a problematic and not wholly reliable source at the best of times. Reggie isn't raising a unique concern in relation to this article – generally, most Canadian editors are leery of citing it anywhere in Wikipedia for a lot of historical reasons. Bearcat (talk) 22:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I see. I wasn't aware of this context. Disregard my comments, then. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 23:16, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Sketchy at Best

Sketchy at Best is up for deletion. If anyone has any information that establishes notability, feel free to add it and remove the PROD. Apparently the information is, well, sketchy at best. —BradV 22:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the alert. I've added two references. --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 00:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

New MPs - articles needed

Rob Clarke appears to have been elected in today's Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River by-election. We had no article on him so I've started a stub but it needs to be developed. It's also possible that Deborah Meredith will win in Vancouver Quadra and we have no article on her at present. The article for Vancouver Quadra's Joyce Murray also requires expansion. Reggie Perrin (talk) 03:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

{{Subdivisions of Quebec}}

A discussion regarding the layout of {{Subdivisions of Quebec}}, please comment at Template talk:Subdivisions of Quebec. --Qyd (talk) 16:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Inuit folklore?

Hi there, we're looking for more info on Polar bear folklore from the far north..anyone who has any folklore material and references is welcome to add it to the polar bear article. much appreciated. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Ramparts of Quebec City

If anyone had some free time, could they help me with this article? --ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk | Contribs) 02:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The Monklands

We don't seem to have an article on The Monklands (it was previously merged away), which is the former residence of the Governor General. It would seem to me to be significant. 70.51.8.110 (talk) 07:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

As you noted, the article was merged, specifically into Villa Maria Girls School, with a redirect left in its place. The article had been no more than a sentence or two. In hindsight, I think this treatment was appropriate. PKT (talk) 12:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Too much talk

I'm not sure if this is controversial or not, but I would propose that we merge the two talk pages: Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board (NBT) and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canada (WCT). It's not uncommon for Wikipedians to post the same message at both NBT and WCT, which suggests to me that there is some major duplication in roles. I understand that there is a theoretical difference between the two, in that WCT is the place to coordinate Wikiproject efforts whereas NBT is a more general talk page. In practice, however, there is very little difference between the usage of the two. I think Canadian Wikipedians, and Wikipedians interested in Canada-related articles, would be well served if WCT were redirected to NBT (first archiving old discussions, and transfering over any ongoing or recent discussions). It would ensure that don't end up with parallel discussions on the same topic on the two separate pages, provide a bit more exposure for Wikiproject Canada efforts, and save the effort of posting in both places.

Ironically, I will also post this suggestion over at WCT, but I will direct the discussion here, so that there are not two separate discussions. Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with merging the two, but I think the WikiProject should "survive" (for want of a better word) because it's part of a more extensive WikiProject structure. PKT (talk) 15:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely. Sorry if there was any confusion - I was not proposing that we eliminate the Wikiproject itself, and WP:Canada would remain where it is. I was merely suggesting that we merge the Wikiproject's talk page. I suggested that WCT be moved over to NBT simply because NBT appears to get more posts, and it is the more general of the two. The new "consolidated" talk page would continue to serve as the discussion page for Wikiproject Canada.Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Merging the Talk pages sounds to me like a great idea. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:15, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that not only the talk pages, but also all of the other features here could be made subpages within WP:CANADA. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 22:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I've thought about this awhile and decided that I agree with the sentiments here but not precisely with the method. The Notice board is already part of WP Canada. As Wikipedia:Regional notice boards says, a RNB is a more general, informal, and user-friendly means of collaboration that is complementary to a WikiProject. However, this talk page and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canada have become confused, overlapping, and off-topic and we need to better divide their uses.

Talk pages should simply discuss the associated article or project page. Rather than having discussions on other issues on either of those talk pages, a notice should be posted to the Notice Board with a link to a more specific Talk page (i.e., an article talk page or a more specific WikiProject talk page or discussion board). This talk page should be for discussing the Notice Board itself. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canada should be for discussing and organising the WikiProject. I think we also need a newbie-friendly place, such as the recently-closed WP:CANTALK, for asking questions and discussing general Canada-related concerns about Wikipedia itself. DoubleBlue (Talk) 03:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you in theory, but that has not worked in the past. As you know, we used to have separate talk pages, one for discussing the notice board and one for discussing general Canada-related concerns, with large notes at the top of each page clearly indicating the purpose of each pages. The distinct roles and notes were ignored, and both pages were used for general Canada-related concerns. Today, we have NBT and WCT, both being used for the same purpose – discussing general Canada-related concerns. I'm not even sure that there is a clear-cut division between discussions related to organizing the Wikiproject versus general discussions respecting Canada-related articles – given the role and purpose of the Wikiproject, I am not sure there is any difference in practice. And frankly, the use patterns of both of these talk pages suggest that the vast majority of editors also do not see any big difference. There comes a point when theoretical division of roles comes crashing up against actual practice, and we can either maintain fictional roles for each of the pages, or we can figure out the best way for Wikipedians interested in Canada-related articles to communicate with each other. Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree that discussions should not be divided between NBT and WCT; I think they should not take place on either page. Re-open the discussion board for general Canada-Wikipedia discussions. Leave the talk pages for discussing the associated project page. If we agree, then we can enforce this rule by moving off-topic discussions to the appropriate places; thereby helping inform people who are watching the correct place and teaching people the appropriate way to raise issues and questions. DoubleBlue (Talk) 14:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I hate to say it, but I disagree with the "enforcement" and "teaching" suggestion. It never worked in the past, and as I said above I don't think there is a clean delineation between the different types of discussions. Last thing we need is a talk page police, which would more likely stiffle discussion and discourage postings more than anything else. I know I would likely be pissed if someone purported to teach me "the appropriate way to raise issues and questions". If we have one talk page, thus giving a wider audience to both general Canada-related discussions and Wikiproject Canada efforts, then we don't have to worry at all about "inappropriate" discussions in "inappropriate" places. And I don't see any point to recreating a defunct talk page, when we already have too many talk pages – I don't see much of a difference between Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/discussion and Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board. And past history suggests that most editors do not either. Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Talk pages are for discussing the attached project page. If we clean up the pages, the distinction would be obvious. DoubleBlue (Talk) 15:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't see how it would. It never has been. Past efforts at cleaning up the pages and leaving notes as to the distinct roles of talk pages never worked. And frankly, why would we go to such efforts when there are simpler solutions? I care a lot less about dictums like "Talk pages are for discussing the attached project page", rather than looking at past and current uasge and figuring out the most efficient and effective way of having useful discussions respecting Canada-related articles and the Wikiproject. Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
There's very little (if any) talk about the specific wikiproject and its organization. A redirect (here) would be the most efficient solution. --Qyd (talk) 15:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
And if there was discussion about the specific wikiproject and its organization it would get lost in the general discussion. DoubleBlue (Talk) 15:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I doubt it. And even if that was the case, the Wikiproject discussions would already be getting lost in the general discussions over at WCT. In any event, Wikiproject discussions would have a wider audience under a merged talk page, thus increasing the likelihood both of greater participation both in the discussion and the Wikiproject efforts generally. Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the merged discussion page but let's make it at an appropriate place: the Vilage Pump for Canadians: WP:CANTALK. DoubleBlue (Talk) 15:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
WP:CANTALK is just a shortcut, which links here. I think what you are proposing is that the discussion be at the page to which WP:CANTALK formerly redirected, which is Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/discussion. Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:52, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I just didn't feel like typing or copying all that. :-) Sorry for any confusion. DoubleBlue (Talk) 16:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

There is also the Australian Wikipedians' notice board solution, which I don't particularly like, to have the discussion board as a section of the notice board. DoubleBlue (Talk) 15:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you on that. Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
We did that at first, too, and then moved to a separate discussion page after a consensus was established that people didn't particularly like it that way. Bearcat (talk) 16:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
The consensus appears to be in favour of one merged talk page. As per the discussion, WCT has been redirected here. On both talk pages, older discussions (inactive 30+ days) have been archived (both sets of archives available through the archives link at the top of this page), while active discussions on WCT (posted since March 1) have been moved here. That leaves DoubleBlue's proposal that this merged page now be moved over to Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/discussion (which is currently redirected here). I have no problem with his suggestion. I thought I would mention it again because no one has commented on it. Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Use of the word "kingdom"

Once again Canada's legal status as a monarchy has been brought into question, this time at Talk:Style of the Canadian sovereign#The word "kingdom". I would appreciate some third party input. Thanks. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Requested moves - Ottawa neighbourhoods

After a discussion on these pages, there is a new guideline over at WP:CANSTYLE for the titles of articles on Canadian neighbourhoods and communities (i.e. settlements that are not municipalities themselves). Simply put, the convention is that a community title should be at [[Community, Municipality]] (e.g. Westboro, Ottawa), unless it is recognized as a distinct postal destination by Canada Post, in which case the article can be at [[Community, Province]]. The goal was to replace the current inconsistent naming practices, and to have some objective standard upon which to base naming determinations. The details are at WP:CANSTYLE#Neighbourhoods.

The new guideline does require some page moves (and, in fact, requires that page moves be raised on an article talk page first to ensure compliance with the guideline). Some articles pertaining to neighbourhoods and communities in some large Canadian cities have already been moved. In implementing the new guideline for some Ottawa communities, however, one user, Earl Andrew, has made clear he prefers his own criteria to the guideline – he notes his issues, and ideas, over at Talk:Blossom Park, Ontario, a discussion that is going around in circles. A number of other articles were moved, after no opposing comments were made on the talk pages, but Earl reverted the moves on the basis that the communities were either "suburban" or "rural", and therefore in his opinion not neighbourhoods (the guidelines apply to all communities - rural, suburban and urban, whether considered by editors to be neighbourhoods or not). He also edited some of the articles involved to remove pre-existing references to the communities being neighbourhoods, in keeping I suppose with his own criteria for disambiguation.

Therefore, I am doing a formal RM for the following communities, with the proposed moves intended to implement the guideline:

Please discuss below, as opposed to on the individual article talk pages. Thanks. Skeezix1000 (talk) 22:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC) And I forgot one: Johnston Corners, Ontario → Johnston Corners, Ottawa. Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Support. As nominator. Consistent with WP:CANSTYLE. One of the objectives of the discussion that lead to the new guideline was to adopt an objective, clear-cut standard that avoided basing article naming determinations on editors' personal impressions and opinions on the character of the communities in question. The above-listed communities are all bedroom communities of Ottawa, none of them were ever autonomous municipalities (as many communities and neighbourhoods now in Ottawa once were), none are recognized as distinct postal addresses by Canada Post. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 22:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Support. Communities included inside the former cities/townships of Ottawa should not have the name of the province included in the article title except for a redirect link. In addition to the list above, Orleans, Carp, Dunrobin, Leitrim, Manotick, Stittsville, Greely, Richmond, Antrim, Navan, Vernon, Carlsbad Springs, North Gower, Kars, Vars, etc should have their titles changed to have Ottawa or simply the title of the community alone (but it would make no sense). As stated above, those towns were also part of townships or older ROMC cities and were not officially themselves as municipalities as far as I know only part of the older townships/cities. The only ones that should have the title kept with Ontario are Goulbourn Township, West Carleton, Kanata, Nepean, Vanier, Rockcliffe, Cumberland, Cumberland Township, Osgoode Township, Rideau Township and Gloucester.--JForget 23:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. The communities listed are not neighbourhoods, and should not be moved. I have no problem moving actual neighbourhoods when warranted, but it's stupid to move "Greely, Ontario" to "Greely, Ottawa". No one calls it that. All of the communities in question are in the same boat. In Wikipedia, we are supposed to have articles at the names that are the most common. It is unheard of to have these "bedroom communities" suffixed with ",Ottawa", but it is quite common to have ",Ontario" after them in practical speech, and indeed when it comes to postal addresses. This is regardless of whether or not they were separate municipalities. Are we going to take communities like Woodbridge, Ontario and move them to Woodbridge, Vaughan? That's just stupid! – Earl Andrew - talk 23:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Woodbridge is not comparable to any of the Ottawa communities under debate here. For one thing, Woodbridge is actually recognized by Canada Post as a distinct mailing address. And Greely ain't going anywhere, either – because guess what? Greely is a distinct mailing address! Whereas mail to Ficko, Kempark, Gloucester Glen or Blossom Park has to be addressed to Gloucester, not the individual neighbourhood, to be deliverable. Try actually researching these things before you make sloppy, invalid comparisons like this. Bearcat (talk) 08:49, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I would just add, being Ottawa born and bred, that I disagree with Earl's opinion that these are not neighbourhoods, and that it is "unheard of" to suffix these communities with ",Ottawa". Not that it matters. The guideline was drafted so that determinations would not be based on competing personal opinions as to community status and character. Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:25, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Support. The addition of ", municipality" is only for disambiguation purposes. We also don't say "Larry O'Brien (Canadian politician)" in normal speech but it's required here. We are not going to move Woodbridge because it is a formerly independent town and recognised by Canada Post. Greely is also recognised by Canada Post so ", Ontario" also agrees with WP:CANSTYLE. Barrhaven, on the other hand, is not recognised by Canada Post and, according to the Barrhaven article, with good reason as it is a subdivision built in Nepean in the 1960s. (Also, not really of consequence but for interest's sake, Barrhaven, Ontario has 5900 ghits, "Barrhaven, Ottawa" has 5200 ghits, "Barrhaven, Nepean" has 2600 ghits so those alternatives are not as unheard of as you might believe.)DoubleBlue (Talk) 04:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Me too. I suggested it on the Blossom Park, Ontario talk page, and Earl was open to the suggestion, but since that one discussion was a surrogate for a discussion of all of the proposed moves, it didn't go anywhere at that point. Fallowfield and Cedardale wouldn't work, as a google search shows they are quite commonly used names, and there appears to be a Johnston Corners neighbourhood in Toledo, Ohio. Oddly enough for such an unusual name, Ficko seems to be a relatively common surname (which in itself wouldn't be a block to a non-disambiguated title), but also appears to be the name of various European businesses (and given that my Slovenian (?) and German are rusty, I can't tell how notable they are). I would have thought Honey Gables would be a problem, but it doesn't appear to be. As Mindmatrix points out, the guideline suggests that there is a higher threshold for smaller communities to be non-disambiguated (numbered para. 2), but I think the ones that he has listed, except perhaps for Ficko, would be okay. Skeezix1000 (talk) 22:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It is a few hours shy of two weeks since these proposed moves were first proposed on the talk pages of the articles in question, and the consensus appears to be:

Thanks for the input. Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Prime Minister infobox

There is a discussion on Talk:Stephen Harper about whether we should include the name of the person who appointed the PM in their info boxes. As with any talk like this, if you participate, I'd like to remind people to give their opinion about what is best for the encyclopedia rather then just telling us whether you are a monarchist or a republican. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:32, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

looking for historians of black Canada

The article Black Loyalists has been edited to refer to these people as African Americans, and the many articles related to Black Loyalist topics, such as Black Canadian, Black Nova Scotians, African American settlers (Sierra Leone), Book of Negroes. The same editor has removed articles from the category Category:Black Loyalist documents, Category:People of Black Loyalist descent, and Category:Black Loyalists. To me, it looks like a campaign to remove references to the phrase "Black Loyalist", and yet this is overwhelmingly the most commonly used term, both contemporaneously and in academic and official publications now. Removing the connections to this episode in Canadian history is to the detriment of Wikipedia readers, I believe.

Does any Canadian editor have access to printed and other references (and the energy) to tackle this? BrainyBabe (talk) 15:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record, the editor who blanked all of those subcategories is the very same person who created them in the first place. So I suspect it's less of a campaign to remove references and more of a rethinking and reorganizing of their own work. I'd also note that the relationship between "Black Canadians" and "Black Loyalists" was being categorized incorrectly – Loyalists should have been a subcategory of Canadians, not vice versa. I'm also not entirely certain as to whether Black Loyalists really need a distinct category of their own – I'll have to review Wikiaddict's edit history to look at some of the articles in question. It's also a very complex topic that ties in to both African-American and Black Canadian cultures – it isn't an exclusively Canadian topic, but is very much an intersection of the two. I'm by no means an expert on Black Canadian history, but I'll take a look at this. Bearcat (talk) 19:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Liberal Shadow Cabinet shuffle

Dion has shuffled the Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet of the 39th Parliament of Canada [8] can someone adjust the article accordingly? Reggie Perrin (talk) 21:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Accents in French names

Hi. After a discussion with User:Shawn in Montreal, I have a question. (I have read Wikipedia:CANSTYLE#French_names, Wikipedia:NCGN#Use_English, Talk:Montreal#Official_name, and Wikipedia:PSTS#Sources). I understand from the guidelines that the common English spelling should to be used. And I agree with Shawn in Montreal when he says: "Basing the article name on a single primary source using the Quebec spelling of Montréal, while ignoring reliable, published secondary sources such as the Montreal Gazette, establishing a commonly used English version of the name, is a clear violation of WP:CANSTYLE and just plain wrong."

But I also think the official name should be mentioned, at least once at the beginning of the article. Montreal Insectarium is officially with an accent, it has one in the article (in the beginning that is), but Montreal Biodome gives the French name (should it even be there per Wikipedia:NCGN#Use_English?), the common English name (but not the one used in The Gazette) and doesn't even mention the official English name (Montréal Biodôme [9]). I think using the official spelling everywhere isn't the right thing to do, but I also think totally ignoring it is worse. The last thing I want is an edit war over it, so I'm asking here (on Shawn in Montreal's advice): Should the official names be included at the beginning of article (in a form similar to "The '''Montreal Biodome''' (officially '''Montréal Biodôme''')")?

If no clear answer exists, I suggest the official (English) name (when different from the common one) should be mentioned as such in the first sentence of the article on the subject, and the common name used throughout the rest of Wikipedia and the article on the subject. If a clear answer does exist what is it? Pro bug catcher (talk • contribs). 14:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Certainly, the lead paragraph should mention the French-language version of the name. (Let's avoid calling it the "official" name – just because the website uses it does not make it official. The official name of a Quebec subject is usually French, but if it was incorporated some time ago, or the establishing by-law or statute was passed was passed some time ago, you may find that there are official names in English and French.) However, after the lead paragraph, the article should stick to using one version of the name. And, by the way, this isn't limited to Quebec-related articles, but would apply to any Canada-related subject where there is a common French version of the name. Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
(As said on Shawn's page after his (deleted) comments) For the names in the article itself that's what I meant (sorry if I was unclear). And for the "official" name, what I mean is: Should both the "official" English names and "official" French names be used, or just French or just English? (For example "Montréal Biodôme" is the name used by the site in English, and "Biodôme de Montréal" the name used in the French site, and "Montreal Biodome" the common name). (slightly modified from the first time written [10]). Pro bug catcher (talk • contribs). 15:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I'm having trouble following you. But, my two cents is that if there is evidence that the English version of the name is most commonly used in English, then use "Montreal Biodome", but reference the French version of the name ("Biodôme de Montréal") in the lead (avoid jumping to conclusions about "official" names, absent sources that actually state that it is an official name). "Montréal Biodôme" isn't French or English - just because the biodome decides to use that form on its English website (likely being overly cautious when it comes to language) does not mean we have to.Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
This (I think) answers my question. You're saying: No the self-attributed English name should not be used for the articles. Only the self-attributed French one should, with the common English one. Am I understanding you correctly?
POV: I also disagree with your statement that "'Montréal Biodôme' isn't French or English". For this I'll quote User:Stemonitis: "I believe in the preservation of "foreign" accents and characters when writing in English, rather than the naïve façade of alphabetic purism." It is true (as you said) that "just because the biodome decides to use that form on its English website (likely being overly cautious when it comes to language) does not mean we have to" (i.e. yes we should use the common English name), but I still think one should respect the self-attributed name someone or something chooses to use (by putting, once, in the lead, the self attributed English name). As stated earlier this is a POV (i.e. I'll respect current policy on names). Pro bug catcher (talk • contribs). 17:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Famous Canadian Color guard photograph

OK, so this only has a slight link to the Canadian Wikiproject, but the reference desk couldn't help me, and it is ultimately in the interests of improving an article (even if it's not one which would normally fall under the project's remit). So hopefully someone here can help me. In this article, a scene being shot for the film State of Play is described, featuring a marching band and an orange and cream-clad color guard performing complex choreography with rifles. As the article describes: "[Director] Macdonald's purpose with the band and the Color guard is to recreate a famous photograph - a Canadian photograph [...] taken in the 1970s that featured majorettes twirling guns." My question is, of course, which "famous" photograph is Macdonald referring to? He goes on to talk about the themes which such an image represents in relation to the film, and I reckon the image (if I could find it) would more than qualify for fair use in the State of Play article. Feel free to tell me to bugger off if this isn't the place to ask this question. Many thanks, Steve T • C 11:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Seal Hunt

The 2008 seal hunt has started, and we apparently have an article on it (2008 Canadian Commercial Seal Hunt). It'd be nice if a fair few could watch it to make sure it doesn't get out of hand over the next month. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 02:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Royalguard11, it is a controversial topic, and the biggest part of the hunt has not started yet. Bib (talk) 12:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Green Rivers in Canada

I just created Green River (British Columbia) but there are others in YT, SK, NT, NWT and NB in need of articles; redlinks added on Green River, q.v. Skookum1 (talk) 15:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Canada: Articles of unclear notability

Hello,

there are currently 31 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 12 March 2008 and may be slightly outdated.)

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


List has been reduced to 21 articles now. SriMesh | talk 04:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

History request subpage obsolete?

I found there are no outstanding articles left to create in notice board's history request subpage: Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/History. Would it be appropriate to delete this now-emptied subpage and use the main request page instead? i.e. Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/Requests Dl2000 (talk) 03:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The original idea was that the subpage should also be added to again when there are new requests being made. But it looks like it's just not getting used that much – there have only been two edits to the page since the end of 2005. So yeah, go ahead and merge it. Bearcat (talk) 17:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
OK done - History is merged up. Dl2000 (talk) 01:03, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Haida Gwaii/Queen Charlotte Islands sudden redirect/merge

  • Haida Gwaii/Queen Charlottes have been merged to Haida Gwaii by SPA-type user [Keir]. This is a hot-button issue and while it's true they pretty much mean the same thing (well, not quite...) and Haida Gwaii is increasingly the official name, even in government-dept use in one case, and it's certainly in wide use on the Islands, many on the Islands still call them the Charlottes or the Queen Charlottes; what I mean is there's parallel usage, vs. the "righteous" one of denigrating the old name, as one of the successive edits here did. The islands have not been officially renamed, and while it's true Haida law/nomenclature is as valid as anyone's especially about the home turf, it's also true "Haida Gwaii" includes Prince of Wales Island where the Kaigani Haida live; the terms are not the same, as with Oregon Country vs. Columbia District. The guy's new, seems earnest, went to the trouble of a Tow Hill article, and obviously cares about the Haida to take it upon himself to do this edit; maybe he's Haida, I don't know. But it's "ownership". I didn't want to charge in with my usual testy style, but there's obviously some issues with the way the merge was done - by a newbie, if you'll forgive me for putting it that way - and there IS a difference in meaning, and no reason to slag the old name. The move itself was aggressive and without warning or merge proposal- Queen Charlotte Islands was blanked to a redirect - was a radical move to take for someone with less than two dozen edits. I'd say "undo" and post the merge templates - is that the right thing to do? NOTE: this is in the same context as efforts to redirect Strait of Georgia to Whulge and Salish Sea, with the last-named now a political agenda in BC and the NW "to supplant colonialist names". Maybe this SPA is a p.r. firm - we've seen them before, huh? - so WP:COI and related matters come into play. Even without that consideration, that IanKeir is just an enthusiastic and idealistically-minded newcomer, but I'm not sure this merge was ever valid, content/meaning-wise (one is a geographic place, the other a quasi-nation-state located partly in the place), and because it was done without due process. The self-righteous have no room for consensus with the old order; an overwriting of history is needed to redeem the past, apparently; this is the gist of the Salish Sea proposal, and now the campaign to wipe Queen Charlotte off BC's map (and Cortes, too, although it seems Hernan may not be who Cortes Island is named for anyway - see Talk:Cortes Island. Sorry for the long post, figured I'd take this national than leave it to WP:BC or the Indigenous peoples' project; instead I'll post notices on the relevant discussion pages there about this notice, and with certain editors; although Talk:Haida Gwaii is I guess the natural place this will go down. I just didn't want to be the one to weigh in first, and I do have my own agenda(s). Balance and fairness in BC history/historiography and keeping POV out of the decision-making, too....a concerted campaign to rename/rewrite BC is currently underway, and its methods as here are sometimes less savoury than their content; it's not about truth or honesty, it's about "righteousness" and shoring up ethnic and social egos (as with any nation-building process), moral/POV contempt for an inferior/"antiquated"/derogated view; "anything p.c. is inherently POV" is one of my wiki-mottos. Editorial actions, like this redirect/merge, can be just as POV/political in nature as content edits (e.g. Talk:Tibet). Sorry for the long write-up, had to lay out the issues; would saner heads please cool this guy's jets? And here I was going to write about steamboats and gold rushes tonight....sigh.Skookum1 (talk) 04:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Communications

Is this where Canadian Wikipedians communicate each other, serving a purpose of a Village Pump? Ktsquare (talk) 05:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Wayne Gretzky Featured Article Review

Hello, this article, which falls under the scoope of your project, is currently listed as a Featured Article. I felt that there is sufficient reason to revisit this assessment, so I have listed it for a Featured Article Review. My preference is to see the concerns addressed and have the article remain at its current level, but some work its needed. Please feel free to contribute to the discussion at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Wayne Gretzky. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 21:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Places in Montreal is at AfD

Places in Montreal] has been nominated for deletion 70.55.85.225 (talk) 05:14, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I've listed it at Wikipedia:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board#Candidates for deletion. DoubleBlue (Talk) 13:27, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Good Soods

There seems to be a bit of back-and-forth conflict about whether musician Ashwin Sood and actor Veena Sood are brother and sister or cousins. Most sources seem to say that they're siblings, but some don't – and there's been a slow-creeping edit war about it in our articles on the two since July of last year. Does anybody know for sure, or at least know where we could find out for sure? And while we're at it, how does Manoj Sood fit in there? No Google source that's specifically about him asserts that he's Ashwin's brother – the only sources for it are the ones about Veena which name both Manoj and Ashwin as her brothers. Bearcat (talk) 05:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


\\Manoj and Veena Sood are cousins of Ashwin Sood. Their fathers were both doctors in Calgary.Ashwin's father passed away several years ago, but Ashwin's uncle is still practicing. Manoj, Veena, as well as their older sister Rupa are all noted in their fathers self-edited biography on zoom info. Ashwin was an only child. Both families emigrated, but Manoj, etc arrived in 1964, and Ashwin was born in England in 1967.

--Vitesse (talk) 04:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)Vitesse

Flag of Canada is in WP:FAC

Flag of Canada is currently in WP:FAC and if anyone is interested in helping out with improving the article by copyediting, that would be great. Thanks! Gary King (talk) 03:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Canadian Royal familly?

A DRV on whether to recreate an article about this. Does it exist as a notable Canadian concept? IS the article NPOV? People might wish to have a say, [11].--Docg 14:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

No one every really mentions a Canadian Royal family. There is a Queen of Canada, but a British Royal family. The only time that I can think of the family being mentioned here is on old plaques where it says something like a cornerstone being laid by the Duke of Edinburgh or the Prince of Whales. I don't think it is notable, but if an editor has enough referenced stuff to say about it, I could be persuaded otherwise. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:44, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Comments should be posted at the review discussion. PKT (talk) 16:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
The "Prince of Whales"? Now there's something I'd like to see.-Dhodges (talk) 13:13, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Here you go: Prince of Whales :) I went on one their tours a couple of years ago, and I heartily recommend it. Indefatigable (talk) 17:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I think I remember reading somewhere that only the Queen and her husband have any official status in Canada. If that's right, the future king doesn't belong to the Canadian royal family. Joeldl (talk) 18:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

An official French name template?

What do people think about creating of an official French name template, that could be used in the lead for English-titled articles on places in Quebec (and elsewhere in the francophonie)? I don't know if you've noticed, but there's no consistency in what we put in the brackets: there's a lot of variations where text is italicised and/or bolded; where we say "officially" or "French"; sometimes with a wikilink to French-language, sometimes not. I know I'm a big offender in this regard, my edits have not been stylistically consistent. There'd obviously have to several variations of the template, analogous to how the settlement infobox offers a number of naming options. I thought a template would standardize the appearance – but maybe this is a complicated answer to a much simpler problem and a prime example of template creep? What do you think? regards, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If we create a template:Canadian name or somesuch, and make it resemble the East Asian name templates... It could include French, English and Inukitut (the three languages officially in use by first level subdivisions of Canada (Provinces and Territories))... (see template:Chinese for the most complex and complete example of such templates). Or the inline templates (see template:zh-tsp for a fairly simple one). 70.55.88.176 (talk) 06:52, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
It actually already exists. I've seen it on some article leads. Can't remember where, though. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Canada Coat of Arms

Without even so much as a heads up, it looks like all Canadian Coat of Arms have been deleted from Commons. So, does anyone know why besides the vague "no license" reason that seems to be give for all of them? And secondly is what should we do now? Just looking at the Saskatchewan Coat of Arms, it has a notice saying "These emblems are protected by law and may only be used with permission." Are we going to have to claim fair use for all of these? I think it's an unacceptable solution to just not have them at all. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 20:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Canadian Crown copyright is a lot pickyer than US state copyright, and pretty much every drawing of a coat of arms or official photo of an MP has to be either labels as fair use if we can't duplicate it or deleted if we can. One of these days I'm going to organize a petition to ask the government to loosen up crown copyright laws, because right now they are not our friend. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 20:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Arctic Gnome is correct. You can upload them to Wikipedia if (and only if) you justify a Fair use on an article. DoubleBlue (Talk) 20:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Why then was it only the provincial arms that were deleted? Or, will we lose Image:Coat of arms of Canada.svg as well? --G2bambino (talk) 23:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC) Oops. Never mind; I see now that that image is used under fair use. --G2bambino (talk) 23:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

This is the page about Saskatchewan's use/copyright of its Coat of Arms SriMesh | talk 14:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Nova Scotia in the Dutch Empire

Hello everyone! There is a discussion at Talk:Dutch Empire#Request For Comment: Map, because user Red4tribe has made a map of the Dutch Empire (Image:Dutch Empire 4.png) that includes significative parts of Nova Scotia. Would you like to comment? Thank you. The Ogre (talk) 15:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

New Map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dutch_Empire_new.PNG http://www.colonialvoyage.com/ square=tradingpost (Red4tribe (talk) 16:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC))

Still OR, POV and unsourced (yours is not not a credible source). Please discuss stuff at Talk:Dutch Empire#Request For Comment: Map. This was just a request for comment, not a discussion. Thank you. The Ogre (talk) 16:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Canadian artists

See http://www.ccca.ca/artists/artist_list.html?languagePref=en& for a list of Canadian artists who might be notable enough for a Wikipedia article. --Eastmain (talk) 03:15, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Library and Archives Canada non-PD images - Deletion

Something for editors of Canadian articles to be aware of at Commons is Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Library and Archives Canada non-PD images. It seems we will soon loose of a lot of images on important subjects (e.g. pics of former Prime Ministers). --Rob (talk) 19:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Does this mean that we should be moving them to en:wikipedia as fair-use images wnd writing rationales for them? Franamax (talk) 19:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I looked at three images at random from the nomination, and found that on all three, the LOC itself owns the copyright, and places no restrictions on use or reproduction. I'm willing to go through them all if it becomes necessary, but I'm betting the images of the Prime Ministers will be kept, plus several more. Resolute 20:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Scratch that. I hadn't read the email linked in that IfD. Resolute 20:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing - but commons only hosts fully free images. We will need to write up FUR's where we have a compelling reason to use the image to demonstrate the subject - which is not all that hard really, but there's some detail involved. Can we organize a mini-project here? Franamax (talk) 21:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I have a short list of en.wikipedia-hosted LAC images at User:Padraic/LAC - these will also need to be FUR'd or deleted. --Padraic 14:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

CAIRS

After reading about this in the news for the past week I realized it didn't have an entry, so I started one. It's a bit tricky to see exactly how it works, so please chip in over at Coordination of Access to Information Requests System. --Padraic 14:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Canadian Refugee Policy

Don't know what to make of this article: Canadian Refugee Policy. Not a bad article topic in theory, but the author seems to have a major bee in his bonnet. Deet (talk) 19:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe the article should be renamed. It's not really about Canadian Refugee Policy. It is in fact a sourced article on a particular "urban legend" (although it's as much a rural legend it seems) about whether immigrants benefit more than Canadian pensioners. The title should reflect that, and there is a category for urban legends to which, I suggest, it be added. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

MV Island Sky

The MV Island Sky stub article is up for deletion. Island Sky is a ferry currently under construction. Comments are welcome at the article's entry at the Articles for deletion page. – Bellhalla (talk) 21:07, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

2008 Major League Soccer season standings

For those of you who cares about Canadian soccer, there is a discussion about the standings format here and there is a vote of consensus here. The topic is about whether to use Wins-Losses-Ties or to use Wins-Draws-Losses. Kingjeff (talk) 16:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Provincial coat of arms

Dionysius321 (talk · contribs) has uploaded most of the provincial coats of arms under {{PD-self}}, so they'll be deleted. Is someone out there kind enough to find the sources and upload them properly?-Wafulz (talk) 12:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Government section at Canada article

A relatively serious disruption is being caused at the Canada article, namely around the government and politics section. The discussion is becoming aggravated as it is being taken round-and-round in circles, so some fresh opinion would be most welcome. Cheers. --G2bambino (talk) 14:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

fixed election dates

Just created Fixed election dates in Canada, please take a look. I would like to expand the provincial list and have a pro/con section as well. --Padraic 16:59, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Braidwood Inquiry

The page on the Braidwood Inquiry into the Tasering death of Robert Dziekanski is in a sorry state. This is a very high-profile inquiry with masses of media coverage - I'm wondering if a few editors can help bring the article up to scratch and also keep it updated as the inquiry unfolds? Reggie Perrin (talk) 16:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey wrestling fans...

Pursuant to the current AFD on Blood sweat and ears, I've noted that there was a previously AFDed article about the same topic. The organization appears to be notable enough to merit a properly written and properly referenced article, but the current version is very poorly written and completely unsourced, and the prior version, while much more substantial, was still just not quite good enough to get past the AFD gatekeepers. If anybody would like to take on getting the article up to snuff, I'm willing as an admin to provide them with a restored copy of the old article to work with – but the article truly is complete crap in its existing form. Please reply here or on my talk page if you're willing to work on it. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 04:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Sheslay River

I found this incidentally tonight, seeing it bluelinked while editing List of British Columbia rivers; it's an amateur-report personal wilderness trip thing, although thtere's useful text within it that's fairly easy to cite; I don't ahve time to trim it - needs a chainsaw, or at least a really good weed-whacking - and there's all other kinds of things bout the Sheslay basin that could/should be in it. So if anyone here also is in the rivers project, or maybe WikiProject Mining (a lot of issues/mines/mining history up that way), it might help save what's good in the article from being deleted wholesale when somebody comes along and just deletes it all. Its parent river the Inklin, and its twin the Nahlin River, also both should have articles if this one does (the Taku River already exists, though needs CanCon).Skookum1 (talk) 06:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Draft Guidelines for Lists of companies by country - Feedback Requested

Within WikiProject Companies I am trying to establish guidelines for all Lists of companies by country, the implementation of which would hopefully ensure a minimum quality standard and level of consistency across all of these related but currently disparate articles. The ultimate goal is the improvement of these articles to Featured List status. As a WikiProject that currently has one of these lists within your scope, I would really appreciate your feedback! You can find the draft guidelines here. Thanks for your help as we look to build consensus and improve Wikipedia! - Richc80 (talk) 21:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

delete Broadmead-Sunnymead, Saanich

A year ago someone placed the advert tag on this, and unlike James Island (British Columbia) and Ten Mile Point, British Columbia, this is not rescuable; the other two are at least geographical objects; hte4se are just developer-named subdivisions. Saanich's real neighbourhoods like Deep Cove, Saanichton etc don't have articles, but some developer has been busy, busy, busy using Wikipedia to write promotinoal materials; another one is Bear Mountain (resort). Ten Mile Point I have my doubts about; it should be merged with Cadboro Bay, British Columbia ibn my estimation, as an actual local-neiburhood of Caddy Bay, rathe than a "special case" needxing its ow narticle....article = promotional materia.Skookum1 (talk) 14:08, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

re Bear Mountain (resort) I just took out promotoinal sections on policing, what kidn of views the hotel's rooms have over its golf course, where the nearest schools are (far) and a custom-made infobox. See that page's history, and pls maintain a POV/advertotirla watch (I won't be around again in a short while). Looking around for similar realtor-focussed articles......Skookum1 (talk) 14:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
While I can't tell what the Broadmead-Sunnymead, Saanich article looked like, I would disagree that they are just developer named subdivisions. Broadmead at least, is locally refered to as a neighbourhood, in the same manor Cadboro Bay is. However, I do agree that it does not need its own page, and the summary in Saanich is suitable.DigitalC (talk) 00:21, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
The content was rankly promotional in nature, and didn't read like normal neighbourhood articles; I was surprised at how quickly it was taken out after I placed the delete tag, but clearly the party who deleted it took one look and went, "yup, advertising". If it hadn't been written so marketing-wise, I wouldn't have placed the tag; if it hadn't been what I thought it was (advertising) it wouldnt' have been deleted. Other articles with similar content I've just trimmed befcause somethign else about them was notable than the real estae pitch that was most of the content (see next section).Skookum1 (talk) 03:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Bear Mountain, Uplands and Ten Mile Point

A number of Victoria-area articles have been written for promotional reasons and were/are heavy on promotinoal content. This is not so much of a problem in Vancouver-area articles becuase of the activity there of the Vancouver WikiProject and a greater overall level of Wiki inputting/editing from Vancouverites. Some of the Victoria articles ahve been around for a while but never got dealt with; in the course of investigating links off related articles I happened to find them and take a chainsaw to the advertising content, with Sunnymead-Broadmead being so bad it was speedily deleted. James Island (British Columbia) survived, and I think i was kind to Ten Mile Point, British Columbia. But on the talkpages at Talk:Bear Mountain (resort) and Talk:Uplands, Greater Victoria, I've been criticized for being too heavy-handed in chopping out the sales pitches and house-buyer brochure info..... I disagree although there are maybe elements from what I deleted that could be reworked into the article in a less sales-pitchy tone; and in Bear Mountain's case there's a "controversy" section which needs a neutral eye to de-NPOV it (and there's POV from both sides in it)); I don't ahve the stomach so that's one reason I'm asking for comment/input/edits from outside. I did my best to refer the complaint to WP:MOS etc but maybe others could be more diplomatic....here's athought; could we add a switch to the project template for "kind of attention needed", taht would disaply/rank like the class/importance/tpye stuff? So we could "flag" articles like this that need attention, though not a change of importance/rating.Skookum1 (talk) 03:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Please see also Talk:Cadboro_Bay,_British_Columbia#Merge_Ten_Mile_Point.Skookum1 (talk) 03:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Templates_for_deletion#Template:Ministry_box_office_header

I noticed that this template which appears to be in fairly common use for Canadian politicians is listed for deletion. I added it to the list here in case anyone here has strong feelings on the subject. --Big_iron (talk) 10:22, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Bus transit in Canada to Category:Bus transport in Canada

A proposed rename for Category:Bus transit in Canada to Category:Bus transport in Canada. See Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_May_28#Category:Bus_transit_in_the_United_States. 70.55.85.131 (talk) 04:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Patrick Moore

The Patrick Moore (environmentalist) article could use some work, and a photo. Pustelnik (talk) 11:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

1% milestone passed

As of the last update of WP:1.0 stats, WikiProject Canada has grown to include 24,050 articles out of English Wikipedia's 2,395,457 articles, meaning that our WikiProject comprises a full 1% of the entire encyclopedia! --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 02:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Skungwai/SG_ang Gwaay Llnaagay/Ninstints

Skungwai/SG_ang Gwaay Llnaagay/Ninstints - choice of name re article creation; please see THIS from Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site, which needs the village split off. Formatting and orthography choices for indigenous articles in general need dicscussion/consistency somewhere/somehow.Skookum1 (talk) 17:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Improvement projects

While I'm on the subject of compiling redlinked municipalities, I'd also like to solicit some input on whether we can improve the current organization of Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/Requests and Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/Articles to improve. I find both of them very confusingly-organized at present, and would note that they're very poorly used. I shouldn't have had to start compiling a list of redlinked municipalities by individually consulting various provincial "Municipalities in X" lists, for instance – if we were using the requests and improvements areas as consistently as we should be, every Canadian municipality that doesn't have an article yet would already have been listed there.

So does anybody have any ideas for how we can improve the organization of those two subpages, and maybe make more active and efficient use of them as coordinating tools? Bearcat (talk) 18:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you about the organisation of those pages and some of the requests on Articles to improve are undoubtedly out-of-date. I'm not sure at the moment how to improve it but I'll think about it. On a somewhat related note, I was recently thinking of making a to-do list or task list like Template:WikiProjectCSBTasks with rotating items from those pages that might be helpful. I'd also like to see the Collaboration of the Month thing restart. DoubleBlue (Talk) 01:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure if it's better but there's a more automated and comprehensive option through User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings which creates a list page like Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Cleanup listing. We might also try a attention=yes parameter on the Template:WikiProject Canada to add article to a Canadian subcat of Category:Articles needing attention, which might be better kept up to date (by being tagged on the article's talk page) but not particularly well-organised. DoubleBlue (Talk) 01:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Quebec City

Our article on Quebec City is in dire need of some cleanup work. It currently has eight separate cleanup tags on it, three at the very top of the article and five in subsections. Some of them have been on it since February. Can somebody who's willing to help improve the article take a crack or two at it? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 00:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Isaac Brock

Isaac Brock has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Ultra! 19:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Category:Human rights organizations in Canada needs populating.

If someone can populate this cat: Category:Human rights organizations in Canada, I'd appreciate it. Reggie Perrin (talk) 01:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Conscientious objectors

There's been a user, User:Boyd Reimer, kicking around making various edits pertaining to American conscientious objectors to the Iraq War and their claims for refugee status in Canada. In addition to inserting inappropriately slanted content into Liberal Party of Canada and Stéphane Dion regarding a particular US war objector who was in the news last week, they've also repeatedly inserted content into the articles on four Conservative MPs – Brad Trost, Nina Grewal, Ed Komarnicki and Dave Batters – criticizing them for having voted against a citizenship and immigration committee motion to grant permanent resident status to all conscientious objectors. Whatever one's personal feelings about this issue, the subtext that voting against it somehow violated an inherent moral obligation on their parts is quite obviously a WP:NPOV violation, and the only provided source was the actual text of the motion on the parliamentary committee's own website, which similarly violates Wikipedia's rules against primary sources. Dion is already pretty well-watchlisted, but the Tory backbenchers aren't – can I ask a for a few kind CWNBers to watchlist them so we can keep an eye on this? Bearcat (talk) 22:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Watchlisted, but BR is going all over the place with this, so a watch on contribs may be helpful too. Franamax (talk) 10:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Embassy of Uzbekistan in Washington, D.C.

Not sure where you list new articles for this project, so I'll mention it here. This building was the Embassy of Canada for several decades, hence the project tag. APK yada yada 20:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a pretty good spot for listing. Thanks for the excellent work! Franamax (talk) 10:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Canada Day to FA by July 1?

Is anyone interested in bringing Canada Day to FA status by July 1, for Canada Day, so that it can be shown on Wikipedia's main page? Gary King (talk) 00:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Great idea for a collaboration though I fear I won't have the time to do much work on it. DoubleBlue (Talk) 01:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
It's definitely do-able, but the time available is slowly shrinking, and I'm collaborating on other articles (such as Adam Smith) with a few other editors so I'm a bit tight on time. Gary King (talk) 01:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Peer review request was raised: Wikipedia:Peer review/Canada Day/archive1. Things are tight for FA by Canada Day, but could try for at least GA. To get there, references need to be added, some more material such as examples of celebrations outside Canada. Maybe beef up info on some of the more prominent occasions e.g. additional activity for 125th in 1992. Dl2000 (talk) 18:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Some peer review comments are now available, and ready to be addressed. Generally most of the work will be getting material in good shape with plenty of references. GA seems within reach, but will realistically require contributions from several editors. Dl2000 (talk) 02:37, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Article for FA

The article Monarchy of Canada has been nominated as a featured article candidate. It's already rated as an A-class for this Wikiproject, and was a previous nominee for FA, so I don't think it would take a helluva lot of work to get it up the next notch to FA status. I've started cleanup and copyediting, but, obviously, the more attention it receives the better. --G2bambino (talk) 15:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations. A lot of work went it to that article. Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:37, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

HNIC

I was wondering if The Hockey Theme should have a separate article... it has resonance in Canadian popular culture... 70.51.9.185 (talk) 09:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

What would go in the article? It's been around for awhile, lots of people know it, the composer wants more money. Not much meat there, really. Franamax (talk) 10:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
The theme is notable, and has been subject to coverage by various secondary sources, even before the recent controversy. It strikes me as being more noteworthy than a good number of the songs, singles and pieces of music that are subject to existing Wikipedia articles. Perhaps the question is not so much whether the theme is an appropriate subject for an article, because it appears to meet the criteria, but rather whether a separate article should be created, as the information is potentially better addressed in the context of the larger HNIC article. I am of two minds on that last question. Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Since CTV, today, purchased the rights to the song and it will hereafter be heard on TSN, RDS and CTV rather than HNIC, I've created a spin-off article. See The Hockey Theme. Reggie Perrin (talk) 22:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Commons wikiprojects

Should there be a Wikicommons wikiproject to help create consistency amongst image naming and categories on commons for Canadian related images. This could also be cross wiki linked to Wikimedia Canada's project to organise drives to produce free photos of Canadian locations SriMesh | talk 03:14, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you talking about commons PD images only here? Technically that's beyond en:wiki's scope but I'd be glad to help on my commons account - tell me there where I can sign up! Of course, the first hurdle will be the large number of non-free LAC images on commons. Commons:Deletion requests/Library and Archives Canada non-PD images took out some but by no means all of them :( Franamax (talk) 03:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
A preliminary Commons WikiProject Canada has been created. Please help adapt, modify and expand it, to coordinate and organize Canadian media on commons. It will provide a common area for media discussion, PD issues and naming on the commons WP talk page as well.SriMesh | talk 01:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, already the Commons WikiProject Canada has a This gallery has been requested for deletion deletion tag and discussion started because a wikiproject is not a gallery. Does anyone want to edit the intial start up or comment if it is needed on commons or not. SriMesh | talk 02:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Deletion tag is removed now. Will see how a WP on the commons fares to coordinate media issues. SriMesh | talk 18:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
The page was moved and is now at Commons:Commons:WikiProject Canada. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 15:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Even though the deletion tag was removed it got deleted anyway 6 days later. SriMesh | talk 01:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

CRTC website down (June 11, 2008)

Hi there, incase anyone here happens to do any edits on canadian radio, television or canadian media related stuff on wikipedia tonight, please do not remove any CRTC website links that appear to have "404 page not found". I just found out earlier that the CRTC website is down as of this evening June 11, 2008. http://www.crtc.gc.ca/ I believe the entire site is down because the main page is down as well. I was about to add some CRTC links to some radio station articles on wikipedia. I don't know the reason why the site is down, I don't recall seeing any notices regarding site maitenance for June 11. Just thought i'd let you all know! Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.96.123.75 (talk) 01:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

This appears to have been temporary; the site is back up again as of 8:21 EST on June 12. Server maintenance isn't necessarily the only reason for a temporary website outage – server crashes or upstream pipeline problems can also make a site temporarily inaccessible. Bearcat (talk) 12:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Peter MacKay

Hello folks. Does anybody know what MacKay's status is, in the Conservative Party? Is he still the Deputy Leader; if not, who is? GoodDay (talk) 16:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Not from a source, but I have been told before that the party has no deputy leader (and specifically this is to avoid playing favourites between the old PCs, represented by Mackay, and the Alliance members, represented by Day). --Padraic 16:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Okie Dokie. GoodDay (talk) 17:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Watch Flag of Canada

Please watch Flag of Canada today as it is featured on the Main Page and is a likely target for vandals. Though, helpful edits, of course, would be appreciated. DoubleBlue (Talk) 00:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Bots

There's a proposal, currently being discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/FritzpollBot creating up to two million new articles, to possibly have a bot set up boilerplate articles for at least a portion of all sourceable and verifiable geographic localities in the world that don't have articles yet.

While I'm not sure where this particular proposal is going to go, I've been thinking that we should probably work toward turning a bot loose on any and all Canadian municipalities that don't have articles yet. This wouldn't be for all geographic settlements, as a bot can't evaluate the quality of sources outside of a straight data dump, but only for those which are legally incorporated as municipalities and consequently have objective statistical data that can be copied directly from the Canada 2006 Census. It would remain a job for the human editors to determine whether unincorporated communities have sufficient sources to get independent articles or just redirects; a bot cannot make that determination.

We've discussed this possibility here before, but it never came to fruition – and I think we should try to pursue it again, as we have far too many Canadian municipalities (especially in Quebec) that still have no article at all. Even if nothing comes of this particular bot project, I think we should still approach a bot programmer to get the Canadian places done regardless.

Accordingly, I'm going to set up a reference list at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/Municipalities to list all incorporated cities, towns, townships, villages, parishes, municipalities, etc., that still don't have their own articles. Please add to it if you can. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 01:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm iffy on the bot thing (actually I've opposed it over there) but I like the idea of a list of Canadian redlinks as a guide to what we need to do. Three questions: 1) would the list be better off by province by alphabet, for easier regional assessment? 2) What about a list showing all the census municipalities including the articles already created? 3) What is your data source / how are you generating the lists, so we may better help? Franamax (talk) 04:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Whenever possible, I'm listing places that are redlinked on the various provincial "list of municipalities in (province)" lists. Not all provinces have a comprehensive one, however, so it's been a bit scattershot at times. I've been adding redlinks from List of municipalities in Quebec, though I haven't entirely finished S-Z yet. Another user has already added places in Saskatchewan, though you might have to check with them to know whether they've added all the remaining municipalities. I know that all incorporated municipalities in Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador and all three territories are done, with none left to create – although many certainly still need expansion, that's not within the scope of this particular effort. I haven't reviewed any of the other provinces yet; I know, for example, that some summer villages in Alberta need to be added, but haven't reviewed whether there's anything else besides that. And no First Nations in any province have been added yet, either. Bearcat (talk) 04:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Regarding your other questions, sorting the list by province is perfectly valid; just because I created it the way I did doesn't mean that it can't be reorganized if necessary or useful to do so. As for lists of all census municipalities, that is a good idea. Lists already exist at Places in Canada: A and Places in Canada: B, though only A is actually complete, both A and B mix incorporated municipalities and unincorporated communities, and with both lists almost two years old now I have absolutely no idea why the creator never got around to finishing the B list past Barachois or moving on to C. Bearcat (talk) 05:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
There is a List of Aboriginal communities in Canada which may be a useful starting point for the First Nations. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 16:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Added red link all towns of Saskatchewan. Added SK Rural Municipalities to the end of the letter L so far. Will have to investigate if hamlets are incorporated or unincorporated before adding, same with first nations - investigate which are incorporated or unincorporated - and how Stats Canada names them.SriMesh | talk 01:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Finished adding all red link Saskatchewan towns, villages, RMs, northern villages, resort villages, First Nation Indian reserves that are numbered. The hamlet listing is not reliable for which are incorporated and released into the 2006 census, some are and some are not, so did not add hamlets. The unnumbered names are not listed in the 2006 census from List of Indian reserves in Saskatchewan SriMesh | talk 03:35, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

CEGEP de Victoriaville

I don't know if anyone could help, but I had to list CEGEP de Victoriaville for speedy deletion today, because to be honest, there's nothing in the article except a link to the CEGEP. I'm really hoping someone can come up with a few lines so we can keep it. Thanks. GreenJoe 02:56, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Donna Upson

A user requested that I review the article on Donna Upson, a controversial former mayoral candidate in Ottawa, for WP:BLP issues. I've added sources where I can, but need some additional help ensuring that the article is properly sourced. Can anybody help out on this one? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 13:36, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. This is one of those minor-BLP situations where an article exists primarily to cast negative light on a living person. The main benefit of the article is that googling "Donna Upson" returns "white supremacist" right near the top. It's a much wider debate, but I'd have to ask why we bother having an article on a failed candidate for mayor of a city that is only notable for being a seat of government. Does this person have any other notability? Maybe the best way to improve the article is at WP:AFD. Franamax (talk) 14:33, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Franamax. I can't find much else out about this person. If her most notable feats/accomplishments are controversial opinions and a fringe mayoral candidacy, I would vote 'delete' in an AfD. PKT (talk) 15:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Although I don't necessarily disagree, this was previously kept in an AFD on the grounds that being linked to the neo-Nazi movement put her higher in the notability sweepstakes than a run-of-the-mill failed mayoral candidate (although a couple of people did !vote to keep on the dubious grounds that all mayoral candidates should have articles.) I'd also note that while it's proving hard to find now, she did receive significant media coverage at the time. Bearcat (talk) 16:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I forgot to look at the talk page :P However that was three years ago and some of the !keeps mention "criminal", "racism" and "despicable views". Nothing has happened with the person since then, the only thing changed is that Wikipedia now swings a much, much bigger weight in the world of search. We have here a living person notable for a five-years-gone single event. What's the point? Franamax (talk) 18:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh, believe me, I agree with you. I just think that some people might use the same "what's changed since five years ago?" reasoning as a keep rationale (that is a fairly common approach to second nominations), so an AFD argument would need to be more carefully crafted than just a five-word non-notability argument. Bearcat (talk) 19:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Good news, she's on AfD now. GreenJoe 03:40, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

This was closed as merge to the municipal election article. What happens now? I couldn't find all that much to merge. Do we now just pop a redirect into Donna Upson or does it get deleted? Franamax (talk) 19:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Redirect and merge was taken care of already; Ottawa municipal election, 2003 seems to have the merged material included. Dl2000 (talk) 23:06, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Census data

It was just pointed out that there is a big differnce in numbers for First Nations people in Nunavut (100) and Demographics of Nunavut (380). The first uses this for a source and the second uses this. Does anybody know which is likely to be the most accurate of the two? CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 11:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a mind bender, but I noticed the concept of "single response" versus "multiple response" in that census participants may indicate multiple ethnic origins. The 380 figure in table #2 is broken down into 65 single and 315 multiple responses. The 100 seen in the other table #1 is N.Am. Indian single response only, although there are only 35 multiple aboriginal identity people listed for Nunavut. Perhaps 100 - 35 = 65 somehow. The discrepancies seem to be differences in how Stats Can groups the multiple responses. Not sure which figures are most appropriate for which article, but these should account for multi-ethnic response numbers in any case. Dl2000 (talk) 03:30, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Also note that because some of the numbers are small, they are rounded up to the nearest grouping of five. (So 23 becomes 25, 27 becomes 30 etc.) This is apparent when comparing total counts with those for males and females within one group. This effect is minimal in this case, but you should be aware of it. Mindmatrix 03:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Royal Canadian Air Cadets GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria and I'm specifically going over all of the "Culture and Society" articles. I have reviewed Royal Canadian Air Cadets and believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have left this message at this WikiProject's talk page so that any interested members can assist in helping the article keep its GA status. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, and I'll leave the article on hold for seven days for them to be fixed. I have left messages on the talk pages of the main contributors of the article and several other related WikiProjects. Please consider helping address the several points that I listed on the talk page of the article, which shouldn't take too long to fix if multiple editors assist in the workload. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 07:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

New Project

WikiProject British Empire has formed. Interested users are invited to sign up to the project and help better organise and improve articles within the project's scope! --Cameron (T|C) 14:44, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Removal of non-notable Canadian police departments.

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law Enforcement#Intent to PROD non-notable Canadian municipal police departments discusses deleting several articles mentioned in {{Law enforcement agencies in Canada}}. Also, all police departments listed in that template should be part of some Canada-related WikiProject. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

What we need

In the past week, I went through most, if not all, of the articles about communities on Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Yukon, plus a few dozen others, and I've discovered that this project really needs a WikiProject History of Canada. There were many articles to which I wanted to add a history=yes parameter for {{WikiProject Canada}}, but there simply isn't one right now. (We do have a Canadian military history task force, which is a sub-project of WikiProject Military history, which could work in unison with this new project.)

Are there enough people interested in this to warrant founding such a project and maintaining articles? We already have a few sub-projects which have little participation or activity, so I'd rather ensure that this would receive some attention, especially given the scope it would have.

Aside: further, we could probably use a project for Canadian biographies (we have Category:Dictionary of Canadian Biography), and perhaps an inclusive one for business, organisations, non-profits and charities. Mindmatrix 03:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I've also opened up a discussion at the template talk page. Mindmatrix 23:02, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I've been thinking there's a need for a WPCanHist subproject/workign group - and in the case of BC and some Yukon articles there's a need/crossover for a Pacific Northwest History workgroup, and in both cases a cross over with {{NorthAmNative}}; and inveitably crossovers with {{WikiProject Mining}} etc. similarly I've been wondering about WP:Geography and its implicit crossover not just with WPCanGeog but also WP:Rivers and WP:Mountains and WP:Lakes etc., i.e. WPGeog and WPCanGeog seem redundant especially. I wans't aware of Category:Dictionary of Canadian Biography) or would have added it to varioius items (NB it's useful for more than bios....) but I should point out it's NOT t he only online bio/hist dictionary for Canadians; the second two volumes of Scholefield & Howay online (at http://www.nosracines.ca search "Frederic W. Howay" to find it) and J.B. Kerr's Biographical Sketches at historica.ca are specifically BC-focussed; the DictCanBio isn't - qualifying biographies, as communciated to me via email from their office/researchers, are teim-delimited and BC's just not that old....curiously some fairly obscure FN chiefs are in there; like Jean-Baptiste Lolo - while Nicola, Maquinna and others aren't. Seems to be pick and choose; Forbes George Vernon I resourced off John Andrew Mara...or was it the otehr way around; both equally prominent, only one's in there; and much about him isn't (e.g. that he was an Overlander....and the CanDictBio has some interesting" errors here and there either about Bc geography or about its polity/history...). I realize this is about more than just BC biogs but I wnated to point out that there are equally extensive and not so-Central/Eastern oriented resources online; should they have cats too? I'm not sure I see the rationale for that cat, in otehr words.....anyway I'll go check out the discussion (and thanks MindMatrix for tagging all those community switches....).Skookum1 (talk) 01:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that it's a pretty safe bet that there are some people interested in editing articles on Canadian history. Even if a wikiproject doesn't get started right away, having articles tagged as history=yes would be useful for our own categorization. I'll turn the parameter on. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 18:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 3408 articles assigned to this project, or 13.0%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 12:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

University Class + Wikipedia

It looks like there was another class editing Wikipedia this semester, this time at the University of Alberta (story link). A history class where the final paper was to be written for Wikipedia. I've been able to track down one article so far (Science in the Age of Enlightenment), who's first version wasn't all that bad either. They'd all be enlightenment topics posted June 12 (or a couple days before), and probably have all book references. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 22:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I've dug into it a bit; they've created new articles, or greatly expanded existing articles. I've listed my findings below. Mindmatrix 23:19, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
BTW, Françoise de Graffigny is mentioned in the article University of Alberta article you linked, but it doesn't appear to have been edited for this class. Mindmatrix 23:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
A couple need quite a bit of wikification work, and Anne Vallayer-Coster had an external link to the library (accessible only to students). The first one is quite good though. Must have gotten an A. There were 9 students in the class, so there should be a total of 9 articles. He's also teaching the class next January (already full 15 students), so he may do the same thing again. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 00:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I might propose changing the title of Science in the Age of Enlightenment, but damn, that's a pretty good article. We should see if we can recruit these students to become regular Wikipedians! Bearcat (talk) 17:57, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles

Editors

Unannounced class project

UPDATE: Discussion for managing this project has been moved to Category:Higher education in Canada.

Hi all. Earlier today, I discovered a group of new articles edited by new and anonymous editors. These were all started in the last few days of May, and appear to constitute a graduate class project, unannonced on WP. This is for the class ADHE536, and I believe it is at UBC. While they seem to respect the policies of WP, particularly that of OR, some of thesse editors are frustrated by the fact that others are editing their work before they have a chance to finish (I think they were given two weeks, ending June 11). Unfortunately, most of these articles don't follow WP:MOS. (For example, providing links to an external site despite the fact that a wikilink to a WP article is more suitable; placing notices on the article page instead of talk page; etc.)

There have been a few messages left by these students in various project pages, but I don't think they've received sufficient attention and help. See Talk:Higher education in Ontario#Background and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Education in Canada#Higher Education in Canada. I discovered these articles at User:AlexNewArtBot/CanadaSearchResult.

Anyway, for anyone that's interested in guiding these editors, I've compiled a list of articles and editors below. Mindmatrix 19:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles and templates

Users and anons

Next steps

Thanks for your help! With everyone being new to wikipedia no one realized it was appropriate to announce the project first. Sorry about that. The bulk of the editing will be completed by June 11 because the course is winding down with other non-wikipedia assignments due by then. However, most students indicated they'll continue to contribute to these pages (& possibly others). In addition, the pages were featured at a conference on higher education yesterday. Therefore, other subject-matter experts (and most likely wikipedia rookie editors) may add content here and there over the next couple of weeks. There's discussion with several students to complete another project in a new course. This would involve completing the current loose ends, expanding the covered content by province, and completing the top-level page Higher education in Canada. Thanks again for your help, I can see edits from several Canadian Wikipedians across these sites today. If possible, please advise if there are any other steps we should take. Adhe536ontario2008 (talk) 06:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC) ...working on Higher education in Ontario

Although there's no specific requirement for an announcement, it's good practice to do so since it will draw a few Wikipedians toward the project to mentor or guide new editors. Writing an article is just one component of editing. Categorizing the article and adding it to relevant wikiprojects so it can be maintained are also important. All the articles noted above have the same problems:
  • they aren't categorized
  • most are not linked to WikiProjects
  • they need to better conform to the Manual of Style
Overall, it's a good start, and the omissions and issues aren't particularly egregious. Proper article categorization can be annoying, so we'll help out with that. Mindmatrix 15:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback! I've checked all the provinces and territories for links to WikiProjects. Where applicable, I've added the WikiProject Canada tag {{WikiProject Canada|[sub-project]=yes|[province mnemonic]=yes|class=???|importance=???}} with appropriate settings for sub-project and province. I'm leaving the parent level Higher education in Canada site alone for now because another student team will move that (and its related sub-levels) forward later and our current focus is on the provinces/territories. Hopefully, these tags combined with Wikipedian editor's help with categorization will address items one and two that you mentioned above. Regarding better conformance to the MOS... that will take awhile. To help with that process, I've put in a {{talkheader}} on each discussion page for easy reference for student editors and for visiting content-experts who may be rookie wikipedia editors as well. Adhe536ontario2008 (talk) 21:15, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I've gone through each article and categorized it, added assessments where missing, and did minor cleanup. I made very few content-related changes, mostly for style or to fix obvious errors. Regarding categories, I created one specifically for this set of articles: Category:Higher education in Canada, since there are a sufficient number of articles to warrant it. I've also shifted a few other articles and categories into it. If you find others, feel free to update their categories; if you're not sure, leave a message on my talk page and I'll inspect it. Mindmatrix 23:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, that'll really help the whole project! We'll pass the word around re: new category and editing and grow from there. Cheers Adhe536ontario2008 (talk) 22:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
The deadline for this Class Project is now June 30th for the provinces & territories component. After the 30th (details still being organized), a smaller group of five or six students will work on the parent level & associated pages (e.g., Higher education in Canada) as well as clean up and additions with the provinces & territories. If possible, please flag pages with concerns where appropriate and allow an extended grace period for them to be fixed. Once we organize the smaller team, we'll post an announcement here. Thanks again for your help and patience while getting this project launched. Adhe536ontario2008 (talk) 06:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
The smaller group of students will discuss priorities in the near future and would like your input. A snapshot of the whole project is available above for your convenience. If possible, please add items or prioritize where applicable below. So far, a general overview includes the following in the form of a bottom-up process: Adhe536ontario2008 (talk) 20:09, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Expanding stubs to Start class
  • Flag & error correction on Stubs & Start class articles
  • Improving Start class articles to B-Class
  • Expanding content (e.g., including comparison of higher education systems within Canada)

UPDATE: Discussion for managing this project has been moved to Category:Higher education in Canada.

Colin James deleted???

If anyone didn't catch it, Admin Ohnoitsjamie deleted the Colin James article. Not sure what happened there? Just a mistake on the admin's part. I sent hom a note but it looks like he's taking a break. If anyone wants to prompt any admin acquaintances to reverse the blunder that would be great. Cheers! Anger22 (Talk 2 22) 16:44, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I just raised this at DRV - Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 June 21. Dl2000 (talk) 16:54, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Just another reminder of why checking the history of an article before deleting is important. And another reason why having public logs helps the whole process. -Royalguard11(T·R!) 17:12, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
The Colin James article has been restored. --A. B. (talk • contribs) 15:32, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

National Post links

See Talk:William Connolley#WP:REDFLAG

We have almost 500 links to nationalpost.com. The particular link under dispute is a bit of a gray area since it links to an editorial, not a news piece. A broader point, however, has been made that the National Post is generally unreliable for any use here.

I have used National Post links myself before but I don't read that particular paper. Is it really unreliable? --A. B. (talk • contribs) 15:08, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The National Post is one of 2 national papers, the other being The Globe and Mail. The Post is owned by Canwest, who also own papers in several other cities, including my local paper. It is a newspaper, and therefore meets WP:RS for all news stories. As pointed out, editorials can be used as opinions and not as fact. Removing dissenting opinions from articles is nothing less than censorship and whitewashing, but you do need to make sure that the source is good first. The National Post is a reliable newspaper, not a tabloid or a rag, so it meets that.
If you did want to argue that the National Post is not RS, then you also rope in a dozen other [Canwest]] newspaper. In other words, to say that the Post isn't RS would say that 12 other local newspapers (3 of them being the only local paper) are not RS, which is not possible.
Why am I even arguing this? The National Post is RS, and anyone who says it's not just doesn't like them or likes to cherry pick sources. Move on. -Royalguard11(T) 16:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
I'll gladly argue that - that all the CanWest papers are NOt reliable sources - but thea rgument itself is original research and "not for this space". Global's papers have proven time and again that they not only DISTORT events but systematically IVENTN and also IGNORE them. So when using htem as a "reliable" source GREAT care must be taken to discern when a "news" article is not in fact an op-ed or promotional piece; I could think of twenty examples off the top of my head of such promotional bits (hyping ocean Falls, Anyox or even Prince George to Vancouver investors, e.g.). Global's assistance in the coverup of the true events at Seton portage duering Oka, of the pevents and trial cov erage of the Gustafsen Lake Standoff, the distortion and avoidance of co erage of the current Railgate scandal, and lots more. Teh National Post, especially when now-con exl-Lord Black was runn ing it, was op-ed from start to finish; ALL news stories carried POV language, and continue to; it's teh rankestof all the rightist major papers in this country (only exceeded in rhetorical excess by Western Erport of the Byfiueld c"empire")
Global's paperss and news stations often get geography wrong - placing Kamlops in teh Okanagan, or Prince George as thte Cariboo, for instance - and systematically distort events in Great er Vancouver in particualr4. The houndingofrom office of Glen Clark was a tub-thump of teh same order, although then the same miscreant writers and broadcastser, hacks and whores all, were then called BCTV. Tehre is no indepednent major media in Canada; it can call itself like that, but it doesn't behave like that. A reliable source is only as reliable as its rriters, or its wources. Neither are reliable in the case of Canwest, unles their press kits/p.r. departments are taken at face value. Which, being ad vertising people, they shouldn't be taken straight at all. This doesn't change the ball on Wiki rules, only to remind everyone that when using one of the se papers as a source taht news content can still be editorialized. And censored, by order of the publisher, as is often the case ith CanWest.Skookum1 (talk) 16:25, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
This would be the type of cherry picking sources that I was talking about. All media to some extent manipulate the story, even the BBC (who'd I'd consider to be one of the most respected news agencies in the world). The New York Times is just liberal propeganda according to conservatives, yet there are over 10,000 links to the NYT. Fox News has a right-of-center bias, yet they are also still considered RS and there are over <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lupin/navpop.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&dontcountme=s">5,000 links to them. According to WP:RS, Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed. Until otherwised proved, Canwest is a mainstream news organization (Global National is the highest watched national news broadcast in Canada). On Wikipedia, we also don't use user's conspiracy theories to rule out RS. -Royalguard11(T) 16:54, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Royalguard. Mainstream media is considered to be a reliable source. We cannot cherrypick reliable sources based on the political views of our editors. And I say this as someone who is far more often infuriated, rather than enlightened, by the National Post. Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:09, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Reading the Post usually raises my blood pressure, but that's because I dislike its bias. Reading the Globe makes me happy because I agree with its bias. That's a good reason to cite from both as much as possible. --Padraic 17:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Editorialized tone in news content is one thing; actively and systematically distorted reporting of the content is another; the instances I mentioned were all cases where the factual reporting was to be found in other sources which did not have as much lock on the public consciousness; in some cases it was mainstream American media (the Seattle P.I.' and Seattle Times and others) that got the facts right, and reported honestly. Yellow journalism and op-ed masquerading as news - or trumped up trials-by-media like what went down with various matters in BC are all documented. It's not a question of what someone's political bias is - it's a question fo whether a paper or station or media chain can be trusted. There's a similar problem in historiography with "archival resources" and early newspapers; particularly BC newspapers, which from day one were in the business of inventing buzz out of pure b.s. (and winning political power for their publishers, in nearly all caess). What I'm asking people to do, or to somehow come up with a fofrmula about, is to be aware of POV-flavoured tone OR one-sided content; teh same is true for me when someone cites baldly the rhetoric on an eco-site or a First Nations radical-site; that news is inherently POV in its owenrship/management and that it's always got a bias; "question everything" may not be something Post readers think is worth doing, or think is a leftist activity and so not worth knowing about except dismissively (the Post's tone on so many topics). The Post, come to think of it, like the Edmonton Journal, has been a leading light in the anti-global warming, anti-Kyoto movement; given that doesn't it make sense taht articles on those subjects in those papers should always be cited as opinion, not as fact. Even if it doesn't come from an op-ed article. In paper's like the Post, ALL articles are op-ed articles, as with Fox News in the US.Skookum1 (talk) 18:19, 26 June 2008 (UTC) To RoyalGuard: your shot about "a user's conspiracy theories was bad manners and to me is typical of rightist dismissals of peopel they think are leftists (even when they're not) - is a typical pooh-pooh'ing of extremely valid complaints about the effects of media concentration in this country, or any other reality that someone doesn't want to admit to the grim reality of. If you're enough of a sucker to believe the well-written lies and pontifical rhetoric of the Post's august and oh-so-trustworthy editors, I pity you. Media laying and event-manipulation in Canada is well-documented. but I guess you don't know anything about that, as a good Post reader, because if it's not in teh post it's not worth reading about....isn't that theri slogan, in fact? I made no personasl attack on you, yet you have implied I'm a conpsiracy loonyist. No, I learned my poiitics from years oponfed me my thinking. Being accused of "conspiracyism", and even the mantra taht "consparicy theories are [whatever]" is POV. I've seen forty years of outright lies on major issues, real news gone totally ignored and other news totally invented, by the leftist press as well as thte rightist, by eco-groups as well as "share" groups and company mouthpieces. All I'm asking is that "reliable sourcesw" always be read skeptically if their poitical biases are a known factor in the issues of the article at hand.Skookum1 (talk) 19:28, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I just observed that you seem to have a bone to pick with mainstream media. Whether you think that all news in Canada is wrong is inconsequential because there is no test in WP:RS that requires all users to agree that it's reliable.
I don't read the Post because I like to read local papers. I read the Edmonton Journal while at university because it was free, and because it's much better than the Edmonton Sun. I read the Saskatoon StarPhoenix here. As I've said before, citing sources with different biases is good. It's a pillar of free speech; the ability to have differing opinions. -Royalguard11(T) 21:53, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Dutch Occupation of Acadia

A requested move has been initiated to move Dutch Occupation of Acadia to Nova Hollandia, per name given to territory occupied by the Dutch. 70.55.87.54 (talk) 03:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Fête nationale du Québec article

I've put in a request to change Fête nationale du Québec to Saint Jean Baptiste Day. You may wish to join the discussion at the Talk Page --soulscanner (talk) 22:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

City names should include provinces except for cities known worldwide

It's been common practice for ages that city names that are not known worldwide to include the state, province, or country name. I've seen numerous moves lately, and these should be suspended until there is a centralized discussion. In the interim, leave the city name as city, province and put a redirect for city to city-province. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:15, 28 June 2008 (UTC) Nevermind, I see this discussion has already happened. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I know you already struck out this comment, but just in case somebody else needs clarification: the state, province or country name is included when the place's name is ambiguous because multiple places of the same name exist, not based on subjective criteria of how well-known the place is worldwide (a criterion which is essentially unquantifiable anyway.) Bearcat (talk) 20:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
It's also an unneeded qualifier. The article is about the city, where it's located is something that is mentioned in the article. -Royalguard11(T) 02:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Also, if we wanted to disambiguate a place that was not know world-wide, I think it would be more useful to give the country than the province. How many people outside of Canada know where "Manitoba" is? --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 02:17, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
How many people outside of Saskatchewan can even pronounce it? Correctly that is, in two syllables not four ;) -Royalguard11(T) 20:17, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
What are you talking about? The word "it" only has one syllable not 2 or 4. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 23:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

An Invitation from the Philippine Wikipedia Community

Hello folks,

The Philippine Wikipedia Community will be holding its 1st Meet-up in Cebu City (the fourth one in the Philippines) on June 23-24, 2008. This coincides with the first Philippine Open Source Summit also to be held in Cebu, and which the Philippine Wikipedia Community is a Implementing Partner in. We invite you to join us in this event. If you are in the IT or IT-enabled services industry, this would be a great opportunity to network with leaders from the 4th best outsourcing city in the world. This is also a good excuse to visit our beautiful beaches :)

If you're interested in joining the Wikipedia meet-up, please join our discussion. To register for the Open Source Summit, please contact CEDF-IT. If you would like some assistance with local accomodations, you may email User:Bentong Isles.

The Philippine Wikipedia Community
WP:PINOY - —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nino Gonzales (talk • contribs) 07:51, 19 May 2008

Undeleted Commons:WikiProject Canada

Well after much controversy, the Commons:WikiProject Canada is back up again to see what can be made of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SriMesh (talk • contribs) 01:41, 17 June 2008

Isaac Brock nominated for FA review

Isaac Brock has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ultraviolet scissor flame (talk • contribs) 19:19, 5 June 2008

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