Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/discussion/Archive 6

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[edit] Vancouver municipal election

Vaguely curious if any of the election-covering gang would be up for tackling a municipal election, namely Vancouver's this November. I don't think we've ever done a Canadian municipal election before, and I suppose there could be concerns about diverting attention away from historic federal and provincial coverage that could still use work (although personally I think we're veering pretty close to a buildout threshold on those—without getting into serious text-based research, that is). Vancouver's kind of a neat special case, though, as there's a nutty party system intertwined in various manners with the provincial and federal scene as well as the typical dose of poop-suit/sex-party/drunk-premier-grade British Columbian political intrigue. I recognize we don't really have surfeit of British Columbians around here (and I barely qualify for covering Vancouver well, being from the deepest edges of the Interior and presently relocated to S. Ont.), so there would be an element of bumbling unfamiliarity. That said, there's no shortage of web coverage to draw upon. Thoughts? -The Tom 21:57, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I think this area needs some work. Compare what we have at Category:Toronto city councillors and at Category:Ottawa City councillors with the red links at Vancouver City Council. - SimonP 22:11, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Noted. Again, something of a side effect of not much overlap on the "Wikipedians from BC" and "Wikipedians who follow politics closely" Venn Diagram. I suppose my biggest concern is that we blow open a whole new notability wall by doing municipal election articles, rather than get a few detailed articles about municipal politics in major Canadian cities, we'll get a whole whack of stubs listing the makeup of town councils in Saskatchewan in 1975 with adorned with links that are going to stay red until said towns are overgrown by rainforest. I think we can all agree that Vancouver is notable, its just I hope that things grow out from there in a responsible manner. -The Tom 22:20, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I would love to see more organization when it comes to municipal elections. We should start by having an article at municipal elections in Canada and list dates of elections there. I know Quebec and BC have elections this year, and Ontario has them next year, but I have no idea for the other provinces. -- Earl Andrew - talk 03:43, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I am well versed in Vancouver politics and will be willing to help. I have certain opinions about the subject of municipal politics in Wikipedia but I will think how to best express myself before presenting them here. --maclean25 07:27, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
  • OK, if anyone cares, here is my opinion. I like the idea of Wikipedia gradually lowering the bar of notability to include more local stuff. I do not believe individual councillers should have articles unless they have proved to be influential or otherwise notable, most are neither. Let's start with the mayor first, then if that works out go down to councillers. I think it is hippocritical to have councillers and mayors but not administrators. Certainly, administrators have more influence on a municipality. Councillers are just decision-makers, administrators decide what decisions the councillers will make and advises them on those decisions. Most municipal elections are not very notable or interesting so I like the lists solution. However, some elections are, for example the 2002 Vancouver Municipal election was a big milestone in the city's history (first non-NPA government in its history?) deserve many, many articles. --maclean25 02:09, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I think it is inappropriate for us not do municiple elections, as it to me, sounds like censorship. However I can see where it can get out of hand if we cover municiple elections 50 years ago. I think we should try Vancouver and possibly Montreal and if it goes well we could continue with other municipalities. As long as we are carefull, we should be able to avoid many stub pages if we simply merge them in to one page. Ex: instead of one page for evey election, have all historical elections on one page. This would be similar to the Nova Scotia election pages. MS123

Ok Everyone. I created municipal elections in Canada, and it came to my realization that Newfoundland has very recently (on Tuesday) had elections, so I created a relevant page on that. (Newfoundland and Labrador municipal elections, 2005) Please add to it! -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:19, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

British Columbia municipal elections, 2005 and Vancouver municipal election, 2005 are both up and running, albeit in rather skeletal form. I recommend we move any further discussion to one of their talk pages or for broader stuff to the talk page for municipal elections in Canada. -The Tom 19:26, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

And I've created Quebec municipal elections, 2005 :) -- Earl Andrew - talk 19:58, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Just to let y'all know, it looks like they've finally hammered out a definitive policy on category naming. Looks like it's going to be (subject) in Canada (although there are certainly some categories where it would have to be of Canada) in some cases, and "Canadian (subject)" in others. They seem to have a list of which applies where, so some categories may have to be renamed. (It sounds like a pretty dubious and confusing policy to me, but whatchagonnado...) I'll certainly take some of that on, but if anybody's looking for something to do... Bearcat 02:17, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll do the geographical stuff: parks, lakes etc., including all the location articles - towns, villages, communities...heck, I'm already working on it :-) Mindmatrix 03:11, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Location Maps

Hi, anyone good with making maps, wish to tackle location maps for History of Northwest Territories capital cities? I am currently expanding the page, but have less then desirable cartography skills --Cloveious 02:12, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Hey; I can try this. I'll get back to you. E Pluribus Anthony 14:27, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks I appreciate it, --Cloveious 07:56, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian copyright

Well, apparently Wikipedia has taken it upon itself to deny legal Canadian copyright to be uploaded to Wikipedia. How are we (Canadians) supposed to add things to the website even if it is legitimate under Canadian copyright? SD6-Agent 04:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Could you cite some examples? Bearcat 04:13, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
[1] Notice the red background coloured message.It appeared after I uploaded the image and applied the CanadaCopyright tag. SD6-Agent 04:25, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
This is certainly bad news. -- Earl Andrew - talk 04:27, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay. Looking at that, and following the link that's in the red section (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html), I think it's fairly clear that the issue isn't about whether it's Canadian, but whether the specific copyright license it's released under is compatible with GFDL. Even the CanadaCopyright template clearly specifies that it "may or may not be suitable for use in Wikipedia". We're certainly going to have to discuss this, but it's not as clearcut as what you're describing.
From the GFDL article: Materials for which commercial redistribution is prohibited generally cannot be used in a GFDL-licensed document, e.g., a Wikipedia article, because the license does not exclude commercial re-use. However in some specific cases, commercial re-uses may be fair use and in that case such materials do not need to be licensed to fall within the GFDL if such fair use is covered by all potential subsequent uses. One good example of such liberal and commercial fair use is parody.
In other words, there's an entirely legitimate legal issue of license compatibility here; it's not just anti-Canadian discrimination. Really, the only option we have is whether "fair use" is a suitable alternative or not. Bearcat 04:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Brilliant! US copyright law trumps Canadian copyright law. I hope we can work out a way we can use anything that is legal under Canadian copyright without having it being made into a debate.SD6-Agent 04:39, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
No, it's not about whether US law trumps Canadian law; the conflict between GFDL and non-commercial use exists equally under both laws. Bearcat 04:41, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
So how do I prevent anything I tag with CanadaCopyright from being deleted? SD6-Agent 04:47, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, as far as I can see, these are the only options we have:
  1. Figure out how to resolve the conflict between the federal government's non-commercial-use-only copyright policy and GFDL's inability to use non-commercial-use-only content.
  2. Figure out if they can be simply listed as "fair use" rather than "CanadaCopyright".
  3. Learn to live with the reality that we just can't use anything that's released only under a non-commercial-use license.
But the reality is that even if this were the allcanadianpedia, governed exclusively by Canadian law, the exact same issue would still apply because the non-commercial-use clause would still be in conflict with GFDL. It simply isn't a question of national laws; it's a commercial vs. non-commercial licensing conflict. Bearcat 04:58, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, I am at a loss for a solution. SD6-Agent 05:11, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Tag 'em all as fairuse then -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
This is going to require some investigation as to whether it's legally possible to claim fair use for material quite specifically released under an NCU license. We can't just arbitrarily decide to do it on a whim. Bearcat 05:55, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Context for others who may be unclear on the dispute: under GFDL, if I wanted to do so it would be completely legal for me to copy the entire Wikipedia database, rename it "The Bearcat Encyclopedia", and even charge a fee or price for it. The only restriction would be that I couldn't subsequently stop someone else from further altering my product and reselling their version for their profit.

As a result, there's a problem with using material licensed as non-commercial-use on Wikipedia. Because Wikipedia's license doesn't prevent other people from reusing Wikipedia content in a commercial context, we essentially have to act as if we were a commercial use even though we don't actually charge a fee ourselves. The issue is not one of Canadian vs. American copyright law -- GFDL licensing and restricting material to non-commercial use are both entirely legal in both nations. But unfortunately, they're in direct conflict with each other. Bearcat 05:55, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Well I think that from now on, rather than using the CanadaCopyright tag, I'll just the fairuse tag. Thus, bowing to American law. I'm open to any better solution. SD6-Agent 06:13, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
The issue has nothing to do with a difference between American and Canadian law. Bearcat 06:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Again, I know that. So, from now on, rather than using CanadaCopyright tag, I'll use PromoPhoto, at least for images.SD6-Agent 09:46, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Note that not all images qualify for the promophoto tag; only "official" photographs depicting a single individual. Bearcat 15:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Earl Andrew and others are correct, we should simply go through and add fair use tags to most of the Canadian copyright images. For instance the one SD6-Agent uploaded clearly fell into {{logo}} category of fair use images. This is already done in many cases. I do think that it is also important to mark such images as being released under crown copyright. Fair use exists only in the United States, and any such images cannot be reused outside that country. If we were to ever have a Canadian DVD or print version, we would have to remove all these images. However, if any such project was noncommercial, we would at least be able to use those that were dual licensed under crown copyright. - SimonP 13:52, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

"Fair use" does exist in Canadian law; it's just called "fair dealing" instead. See http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/cp/copy_gd_protect-e.html#6 . But the issue is that we can't necessarily just apply fair use to get around the problem of using an image licensed for non-commercial use in a commercial resource; there are going to be cases where we just can't use an image.
I've advised SD6-Agent to retag as {{promophoto}} anything that's an "official" photograph of a single political figure (such as an MP, a Governor-General, etc., but not photos of groups of people.) I've also confirmed that US government logos are tagged as {{logo}}, so that should be fine as well. But we can't always just change the tag to get around the issue; "fair use" does not mean "it's fair for me to use this just because I want to". Things like historical, geographical or military photographs don't necessarily constitute fair use; in those cases we may just have to try harder to find public domain images or take our own GFDL photographs when possible. Bearcat 15:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
What about other images previously tagged under CanadaCopyright? Should those be retagged? For example, the picture of the current Cabinet of Canada.SD6-Agent 18:43, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think there is any difference between a promo photo of a group and an individual. Musical groups all have fair use images of themselves, for instance. Unfortunately fair dealing in Canada for the most part only applies to material for private use, not for publication. I agree some images will have to be deleted. For instance, I don't think the images of military hardware can be used under fair use. We should also try to ask government agencies about whether we can use items. I recently asked Elections Canada if they could release their maps under a license that Wikipedia could use. They said no, but they did put a fair bit of thought into the matter. - SimonP 18:47, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
So let's get this straight. Other than images of people, there's no legitimate use of any image under GFDL because it conflicts with CanadaCopyright. It still blows my mind that a set of rules created by one American person can trump Canadian copyright law. Copyright laws under the provinces can't even do that. SD6-Agent 19:10, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
The thing is Wikipedia doesn't fall under Canadian copyright law, only American because that is where it based. This is actually a good thing as things like moral rights are totally incompatible with the GFDL. There are a fair number of other things covered under fair use, which can be read at Wikipedia:Fair use. Everyone should also be aware that the National Archives has a huge collection of copyright free images relevant to Canada. - SimonP 20:35, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
SD6, it is not about American vs. Canadian rules!!! GFDL is perfectly compatible with Canadian law; it just isn't compatible with non-commercial use, regardless of what nation the image comes from. You said you got it this morning; why are you back on the notion that it has anything to do with nationality?
Secondly, it is not impossible to use any image at all under GFDL; only ones that are specifically released under a non-commercial use only license. If an image is in the public domain, we can use it. If it was personally taken by one of us with the express intention of being released under GFDL, we can use it. If it meets the conditions of "fair use", we can use it. If it's licensed for commercial use, we can use it. If the copyright holder personally posts it to Wikipedia, we can use it. We just can't use images that are licensed for non-commercial use only, because we are not a non-commercial use.
I feel the need to repeat this again, since you don't seem able to accept it: there is no conflict between American and Canadian copyright law in this matter. There is only a conflict between GFDL and non-commercial use.Bearcat 21:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
It is not my intention to create tension due to my ignorance of these laws. I understand there conflict between non-commercial use and the GFDL.SD6-Agent 22:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
But you still characterized it as It still blows my mind that a set of rules created by one American person can trump Canadian copyright law a few comments back, several hours after telling me that you understood the issue. If you understand that it's not an international law dispute, could you please stop characterizing it as an international law dispute? Bearcat 22:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I am simply looking for a solution. {{CanadaCopyright}} seems now to be an invalid tag as it conflicts with the GFDL. I believe that most, if not all, the data from http://www.parl.gc.ca falls under this copyright and, since it conflicts with the GFDL, I am wondering what I could take from that website and how I can apply it here without violating any rules.SD6-Agent 22:45, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
SimonP, the thing about group photos is that the {{promophoto}} tag specifies that the image is being used to illustrate an article about the entity depicted in the photo. In other words, we can flag a Image:Anitaneville.jpg as a promo photo, because its purpose for being here is to illustrate an article about Anita Neville. We can flag Image:Spiritofthewest.jpg as a promo photo, because it's an image that the band specifically released as a publicity shot, which is being used here to illustrate an article about Spirit of the West. However, we can't flag Image:Dallaire in Rwanda 1994 CBC.jpg as a promo photo, because it's not here to illustrate an article about a single entity that encompasses everybody depicted in the photo. (It may be usable on other grounds, such as {{screenshot}}, but it can't be flagged as {{promophoto}}.) The difference between a promo photo and a non-promo photo isn't the number of people in it; it's whether the subject of the photo is identical to the subject of the article it's meant to illustrate. Bearcat 23:45, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
The reason publicity images are allowed is because they are released with the assumption that they can be freely reused. Promotional images are created in the hopes that newspapers, television shows, and websites will reuse them. Releasing a promotional image creates an implied license to reuse it. Under British, and perhaps Canadian, law releasing a publicity shot makes it implicitly public domain. In the United States it seems that these images fall under fair use.
It doesn't actually matter what the content of the image is, just that the nature of its release implies the right to distribute it. If Image:Dallaire in Rwanda 1994 CBC.jpg had been created and released by DND or the Senate to promote the General, then it would qualify. However, since it seems to be a CBC screenshot this is not the case. The image is actually not even valid under Crown Copyright, as CBC images cannot even be used for non-commercial uses. It certainly is also not valid under screenshot, screenshots are only valid fair use when the discussion is on the medium. E.g. a screenshot from The National could be used in an article on the show, but we can't use clips from it to illustrate other articles. - SimonP 00:10, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
The comment of yours which I was replying to appeared to be challenging my distinction between photos of individuals and photos of groups, on the grounds that a promo photo of a band was also of a group of people. My apologies if I misunderstood, but your original comment addressed whether the number of people was a legitimate basis for excluding group shots currently listed under Template:CanadaCopyright from being retagged as Template:promophoto. You didn't appear to be commenting on the implied purpose of a photograph's release. Bearcat 00:28, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I've created a template, Template:Canada-politician-photo, which I would like to propose for use on photos of federal political figures. Please review, comment, edit and/or apply as appropriate. It draws from the Template:promophoto template and cites fair use, but also explicitly names the copyright holder. Bearcat 00:03, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

  • How many people noticed when Winnipeg's flag was speedy deleted on Oct 3? --maclean25 02:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Reupload it and tag it as {{PD-flag}}. If you come across any other Canadian flags (federal, provincial, municipal, etc.) that aren't so tagged, add that tag right away. Bearcat 03:03, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I believe you have to prove (ie. source) it is public domain, too. Can you tell me, my good administrator friend, if this or this had PD-flag on it before deletion? I put in an inquiry at Image copyright tags a little while ago about Canadian flags. However, I see that the PD-flag template has been significantly altered since. --maclean25 03:48, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I have another question. What about historical photographs? I uploaded Image:Skookum Jim Mason.png which I got from a Parks Canada website and duly tagged it with the Canada copyright template and, for good measure, copied the copyright notice from the Parks Canada web site. The picture dates back to the turn of the past century during the Klondike Gold Rush, and is seen everywhere in Whitehorse, but I don't know if it is in the public domain or not. The image on the site has a copyright notice (© NAC/C-25640), presumably the National Archives of Canada. When I was a trustee of our local museum, we did make money by selling prints of photographs in our collection. I have two questions: Is a recent image (say a JPEG) of an expired copyright photograph copyrighted by the person who did the transformation? What should I do about the Skookum Jim image? Luigizanasi 04:53, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, the copyright has expired. Perhaps this {{PD-old-50}} is more appropriate. --maclean25 05:27, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, I've done that and included the link. But the question still remains whether a scan of an old photograph is copyrighted as a derivative work. Luigizanasi 05:51, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Under American law simply scanning an image does not give you copyright over it, as was determined in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.. To my knowledge there has been no similar case in Canada, and most websites that have copies of old images claim that they are copyrighted. However, these claims are somewhat dubious, and they don't matter anyway as Wikipedia is under American copyright law. - SimonP 14:12, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I hope you are not suggesting Canadian copyright law doesn't matter. We don't want to go back down that road again. SD6-Agent 23:19, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to raise a special discussion at Wikipedia:Copyright issues. Bearcat 07:16, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] RAV-FM

An anon editor keeps reverting the article RAV-FM (a high school radio station in the Toronto area) to an unwikified, uncategorized and unformatted version with significant POV assertions. He characterizes it as a factual dispute, but hasn't actually disputed any facts; the factual content of the article remains identical after his edits. He has never acknowledged the discussion page; instead, he has occasionally inserted personal notes disputing the reversion into the article itself. And I can't just ban the offending IP, because it's been a wildly different IP number each time.

Just a request for other people to keep it watchlisted so I'm not always handling this matter by myself. Thanks. Bearcat 23:31, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] First Nations question

Today, a non-Canadian user filed Matthew Coon Come in Category:Native American activists and Category:Native American leaders. Has there been any concrete discussion around whether First Nations people from Canada should or should not be classified as "Native Americans"? Bearcat 22:16, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re-structure Canada-related projects

This past summer, we cleaned up the notice board and this discussion area. However, we still have a bit of a mess when it comes to archiving these discussions, as well as info related to the CCOTW (let alone the name of it). Given several new projects that are underway, I'd like to clean up and re-structure all Canada-related projects, boards etc. so that we have a more cohesive and functional system.

My proposal starts with the following:

  • rename the CCOTW, and move it out from under the notice board
  • rename this discussion area, moving it out from under the notice board
    • Proposed name: Wikipedia:Canada discussions
  • create threaded discussions for both of those, a la Wikipedia:AfD
    • I can do this - it shouldn't be too difficult

Once we've done this, we can start integrating other Canada-related projects into the system. This gives us automatic archival capability, shorter pages, and easier maintenance. We can also create a variety of views of the data by simply transcluding discussions et al as needed.

Do I need to clarify anything? Does anyone object? Should I just be bold and make the changes? Mindmatrix 02:49, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Support. No objections, but concerned that new users may not understand the WP:AfD style of starting a new thread (or even section editing). Potential alternate wording: Wikipedia:Canada-related discussions. --maclean25 06:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
    • I think this can be resolved; it doesn't need to be as complex as AfD, and will only require the use of one template. I'll create a mock-up to play with. Mindmatrix 00:38, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Sounds wonderful to me. Zhatt 00:56, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Alright. I've played with it a bit. Here's a test version of the new CCOTW nomination system. Give it a try, and let me know what you think. I think the process is fairly straightforward, though I welcome feedback for improvements to make it even easier. Also, feel free to edit any of the files in the test system under my userpage. Mindmatrix 01:26, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I've updated the functionality. There are no section edit links anymore, the headers link to the sub-page and launch an edit session automatically, and the template does everything once the user has supplied the article's name and a reason for the nomination, including adding a sig. I've also simplified the instructions somewhat. Mindmatrix 18:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Canadian radio infovoid

Do any of you know where a media junkie might find helpful resource directories for writing radio station articles besides the CRTC, the Industry Canada database and the Canadian Communications Foundation?

I think I slammed into the ultimate speed bump today: CJSD in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Read it, and realize that with the known resources, this was actually the best I could do. I need some help fixing that mess! Bearcat 11:12, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I've found some info for radio stations at the culture.ca website, though it seems to be mostly a collection of unrelated articles; there's no mention of CJSD. There's also the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council which may have some info, though a quick perusal led me to a member list, which links directly to external links for the radio stations. Aside: the CJSD website definitely needs work. Mindmatrix 01:09, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Aboriginal peoples in Canada-related stubs

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've put in a request for a stub for Aboriginal peoples in Canada-related stub articles. Comments on this proposed stub are welcomed at WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/canada-abp-stub. If passed the stub will be available for use in a week. Kurieeto 00:26, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] stupid.ca

After this article went through an AfD, the admin who closed the AfD moved it to Canadian Anti-Smoking Campaign. I don't think this is the right place for this article. In the AfD, I offered this suggestion:

Anti-smoking programs in Ontario? Perhaps programs is the wrong word, though, and I'd like to capture the fact this is done by the government. Anti-smoking campaigns by the Government of Ontario? Government of Ontario anti-smoking campaigns?

Does anyone have a good suggestion for the appropriate name of this article? At the very least, we should remove some of those capital letters. Mindmatrix 01:57, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 39th Canadian general election

A number of Tory candidates for the anticipated election appear to have created lengthy vanity screeds--in some cases simply copying and pasting their bios from their campaign websites. Certainly they are entitled to an article; I would like to see more candidates with articles. But the content needs to be encyclopaedic. I am fixing what I can, but with 308 ridings, its not a one-person job. Please, help! Carolynparrishfan 13:49, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright on photographs in Canada

See {{PD-Canada}}. Also see the template's talk page: use with care. What do people think about my use of this (see Image:M O Hammond 1910.jpg)? Lupo 09:17, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Updating the CCOTW page

I think I'll be updating the CCOTW page with my new template and transcluded discussion system soon (within a few days). If anybody has objections, please state them. Don't worry about offending me - I'd rather get this right, than implement a system everyone dislikes. Mindmatrix 18:12, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Done, after a bit of a delay. I still have to update the history and removed nominations, which I'll probably format using the new system for consistency. Mindmatrix 20:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mass-move of Ontario Regional Municipality pages

(Forgive me if this is Ontario-centric; I couldn't find an equivalent Ontario page)

I saw a comment on this on DoubleBlue's todo list, and commented on it on his talk page, but he doesn't have time recently.

Basically, it would go as follows: Name Regional Municipality, Ontario —> Regional Municipality of Name, Ontario.

Some proofs of this, shamelessly copied from DoubleBlue's page: [2], [3], [4]

I am rather new here and have no idea what would the procedures be to have this accepted by a wider community. I imagine there'd be some opposition if I went and moved the pages by myself right now, not to mention that some Regional Municipality of Name, Ontario pages exist as redirects and would have to get deleted first.

I have now found Wikipedia:Requested moves, and am just gathering support (or lack or criticism) prior to listing these moves there. --Qviri 06:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

If this gets approved, and someone moves these pages, I'd be more than happy to help out with redirections and fixing of old links. --Qviri 04:29, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and I suppose a unification at Category:Census divisions of Ontario might be useful too. Right now we have both Category:Peel Regional Municipality, Ontario and Category:Region of Waterloo, Ontario. --Qviri 04:36, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
I have now left messages on talk pages of respective articles. These are the pages listed at List of Ontario Census Divisions#Regional municipalities (Durham, Halton, Niagara, Peel, Waterloo and York) with exception of Muskoka District Municipality, Ontario (which I don't really know how to move... District Municipality of Muskoka or District of Muskoka? The latter seems to be used more commonly) and Oxford County, Ontario (which is named correctly).
Some stats: of the six pages in question, five already list the name Regional Municipality of <name> as the first name in the article. For the one that doesn't, Halton, the official website is titled (both in <title> tag and in the title bar) as Regional Municipality of Halton. All three that have infoboxes also list the Regional Municipality of <name>. --Qviri 06:30, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I am completely against this. Statistics Canada uses "XXX Regional Municipality" for every last one of them. Plus, this is just how things should be named. Look at the county articles. They're not at "County of xxx" -- Earl Andrew - talk 07:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but on the other hand, it's the City of Toronto and the City of Hamilton and the City of Ottawa... Not Toronto City, Hamilton City and Ottawa City. --Qviri 18:54, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Statistics Canada uses Placename Municipalityclass as a convention for its lists for convenience sake only. Regional districts in BC are a similar case, with them actually using both XXX of YYY and YYY XXX formats, but StatsCan uses YYY XXX exclusively. The Tom 20:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree to move. 'Regional Municipality of' is the proper legal form used by the governments themselves in most cases (ie. Regional Municipality of Waterloo vs Wellington County). David Arthur 18:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd also support the move... Stats Canada may use that formatting, but to be honest the only place I've ever seen it is here, on Wikipedia. I side with the point above. Also I'm not sure if this counts for anything, but dmoz also uses the proposed type of formatting. Mrtea 14:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm also in favour of moving the articles. It is far more appropriate, and correct, to use the legal entity names. We should not use idiosyncratic forms used within one government department, especially one which does not have the authority to define the names. Mindmatrix 16:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Either "Regional Municipality of X" or "X Region" would technically be fine as a naming convention, as long as we were consistent about it, but "X Regional Municipality" is a weird hybrid that results from conflating the legal designation "RM of X" with the informal term "X Region". It is never the proper form. Statistics Canada's job is to compile census data — their usage does not dictate the official forms of municipal names...especially when both legal and common usage differ. (And that "Region of Waterloo" thingy just makes me wince; nobody uses that form for any purpose, ever.)

That said, my personal inclination would be that the articles should be titled with the legal "Regional Municipality of X, Ontario" form, but the categories should use the informal "X Region, Ontario" format. Bearcat 17:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll agree with moving the categories to "X Region, Ontario". Any other opinions on this? --Qviri 05:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I've now listed the article pages on WP:RM. I'll wait a bit more before listing the categories on WP:CfD. --Qviri 23:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The pages are now moved, I've listed the categories for renaming. --Qviri 17:49, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Editors in high places

The edit history of the 192.197.82.201, 203, and 205 IP addresses are of some interest, as they are apparently the IP addresses for Parliament Hill. Conservatives seem to have been especially busy. - SimonP 05:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help: book throwing in the commons

Not sure if anybody can help. I'm looking for the name of the MP that threw a lawbook (you know these things named by color?) on the floor of the commons while in session. Can anybody help? Circeus 16:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline of the Canadian federal election, 2006#Campaign

Is it just me, or has nobody been updating this part of the timeline recently? Either that or it's been a pretty uneventful campaign as of late, but there are no events listed on this timeline between December 1 and December 15. Anyone wish to fill in the gap?  Denelson83  05:05, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] William "Duke" Procter

My attempt to start an article on this subject was the victim of speedy deletion. I may not have made a strong enough case for notability; I can't tell any more. Since it is linked from Deaths in 2005, I think that it might have been more appropriate to flag it for attention if it was somewhat skimpy. I was a bit peeved to find it gone. Mr. Procter, of course, was one of the last remaining Canadian World War I veterans. I thought that I had referenced material from the CBC on his life. --Big_Iron 18:17, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I've restored it, it should never have been speedied. - SimonP 19:34, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Government of Toronto > Politics of Toronto

I noticed that a user named User:Tarret has created a new page called Government_of_Toronto. The new page is almost exactly the same as the government section on the Toronto page, except for one new paragraph. There might be a need to expand this section, especially for early Toronto history but does the text need to be duplicated? What's the policy? Atrian 04:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a fair bit to write about this subject, so I say let it grow. - SimonP 14:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, expand. However, I wonder if the title should be changed: Government of Toronto, to me, sounds odd – qv Government of Canada, Government of Ontario, et al. Perhaps Politics of Toronto, Municipal governance in Toronto (or of), Toronto municipal governance, or similar would be better?
Moreover, this summary/overview article can't be everything to everyone: the article is unnecessarily excessive and, given the abundance of information in it and redundancy with (underused, methinks) subarticles (new and not), the Toronto article needs a thorough pruning. I'll get around to this (again) at some point. E Pluribus Anthony 15:43, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Based on the title form for other political/government articles (e.g., Politics of Canada, Politics of Ontario, et al.), I've moved this article to Politics of Toronto. Enjoy! E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 18:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of Canada-related topics

The above referenced page might make a good visit for anyone reading this message board. No one seems to be using this page. It could be a useful resouce if people providing Canada-related topics were to note them oo this page...maybe not. I will watch it for a few days and see if this note provokes/ stirs any interest. Thanks for reading this! (Stormbay 23:32, 30 December 2005 (UTC))

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