Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/discussion/Archive 1

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[edit] Someone needs to get this started!

  • I came across this, but it seems nobody is here! I'm going to look up all the Canadian Wikipedians and ask them to join up. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 03:49, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
    • About time. I'm on hand to help if I can, but as I'm not Canadian, I don't have the knowledge at hand to draw up to-do lists. Ambi 07:04, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Hell...some of us didn't know this existed! Bearcat 03:02, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Flatiron Building

The article on the Flatiron Building (Toronto) needs a PD photo. Rmhermen 23:12, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Steven Truscott

Nobody ever wrote up Steven Truscott before today? Wow. Bearcat 01:48, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] List of Ontario communities

Clarification question: for List of communities in Ontario, how exactly are we defining communities? Are we listing every named neighbourhood in Ontario right down to the level of local housing developments, or is there a minimum standard? Should we go right down to local subdivisions like The P Patch in Sault Ste. Marie, or should we only include communities that have, for example, their own postal code designation or their own telephone exchange code? Bearcat 00:38, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The eventual plan is to only list census subdivisions (municipalities, indian reserves) you can see the grand list on the talk page. Lists of neighbourhoods and ever little community or whatever should be listed on the page for the municipality it is in. However, all the communities on the current list must have a link to the municipality its in within its article before we can make the change. Earl Andrew 01:03, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A few suggestions

There are some utility links in Wikipedia space that may be helpful to us if we want to try to coordinate our efforts.

  • Wikipedia:List of lists and Wikipedia:List of lists/uncategorized may be helpful in catching and categorizing Canada-related lists.
  • Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics is a list of suggested articles that haven't been created yet. I haven't systematically gone through them all (there's 78 pages worth!), but just on casual scanning I have caught some Canadian articles in the list. Maybe if we each volunteer to go through one page at a time...?
  • Special:Allpages is an even nastier piece of work, but it might help to catch Canadian-related articles that haven't been categorized. Again, maybe if we each volunteer to go through one page at a time, it might be easier for everyone.
  • It might also be worth starting a list of Canada-related topics that haven't been written up, if anybody wants to do that. Maybe just a barebones list on which people can add any redlinks they come across (or create) but don't feel knowledgeable enough (or interested enough) to write up themselves...?

Any other ideas? Bearcat 03:34, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There are a number of red links at List of members of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada if anyone is interestedAndyL 04:25, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • I'd like to see some work on having all the communities in Canada eventually completed. A very big project indeed, but still an important one. Earl Andrew 21:19, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I'd actually like to see Rambot eventually accomplishing that task. Denelson83 22:26, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • hmmm... Rambot has its flaws. Although I would not be opposed to the idea, I think user generated articles are far more superior. (obviously). However we could use it to put demographic information on existing pages. There is also the issue of uninocporated communities which need articles, and there are many of them. Especially in Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. Earl Andrew 22:48, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • No matter if we go the bot route or not, lots of communities need things beyond bare statistics; a claim to fame or a slice of the atmosphere elevate such an article beyond dull stubdom. Official sites are a start; Googling, checking travel guides and gazetteers, or a remembered impression of a visit can add that extra touch to even the smallest town's entry. Radagast 01:48, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)
      • The bot route can be a start, to get something in there quickly, and then somebody can go in, clean up and add stuff. It doesn't necessarily have to be either/or. Bearcat 05:36, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I'd also like to see all of the Members of Parliament get pages too. Earl Andrew 03:25, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Would it be possible to come up with a list? For Australia, we now have a list in a subpage of every federal MP and Senator without a page. If Canada has the same, maybe I can help in a couple of months. Ambi 04:01, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • A list is easy enough to do... Bearcat 05:36, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • There has to be some uniform layout for the community pages as well. I have added a couple communities with what I think are nice formats that maybe we could apply to all communities at Wasaga Beach, Ontario (I just noticed the cleanup stub but I thought it was nicely done) and Ladysmith, British Columbia SD6-Agent 10:45, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I dont mean to boast, but my method should probably be used as it is the most prevalent. However, someone made a system which is rivaling mine as well which we could use. Here's an example of my method: Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/Community template. Earl Andrew (NOTE: Moved to separate template page because the section break for Communities was acting as a section break on this page, making the page difficult to use properly. Bearcat)
  • Have we yet figured out how to get a complete list of all places in Canada? Perhaps StatCan has a complete list for purchase? ;) SD6-Agent 11:01, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal

There's been some discussion at Talk:Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal about changing the name of the relevant article; I'm thinking a change to Canadian sponsorship scandal is in order. If I see no objections, I'll move it, probably tomorrow. Radagast 01:16, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

That's reasonable enough - we don't have United States Republican Party War on Iraq, for instance. Much as that might... *stops myself, muttering "NPOV! NPOV!"* Samaritan 01:22, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why not just Sponsorship Scandal? That is what it is generally called, and Google turns up no other uses for the term other than the Canadian one. - SimonP 01:37, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
That said, a good call... Samaritan 01:58, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I don't understand this. As far as I can see, it is a scandal involving the Liberal Party of Canada, so why should it not state this in the title? This tells me, as a non-Canadian, specifically what the article is about. Canadian sponsorship scandal is too vague, and Sponsorship Scandal is outright laughable. Either one could also be considered POV, I think, for trying to hide the party's involvement. Ambi 04:25, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It's not nearly so much about their internal party affairs as their conduct in government. The term "sponsorship scandal" is in common use in Canada; googling shows that "federal sponsorship scandal," as an exact string, beats "liberal sponsorship scandal" by about 4640 to 2030 results. "sponsorship scandal" gets 40700 (of course, including both subsets, our own current "Liberal Party of Canada..." usage, perhaps an obscure sponsorship scandal or two elsewhere, etc. Samaritan 06:10, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
If this were Canadipedia, then this would make sense. However, it's not, and this is why it's too vague to an international audience. If not the current title, at least mention something that makes clear that it's Canadian.

Did a search for Wikipedia articles with "scandal" in the title, these were the top 20:

  • Black Sox scandal - involved the White Sox, so the name of the party is kinda in the title but not really.
  • US Savings and Loan Scandal - The title mentions nationality but not which savings and loans companies or political parties were involved
  • Pacific Scandal - involves the allegations of bribes being taken by Canada's Conservative government of Sir John A. Macdonald. Not even the nationality is mentioned in this article title.
  • Watergate scandal - no nationality or party mentioned in title
  • Timeline of the Enron scandal - has the company name in the title, no nationality.
  • Harken Energy Scandal - mentions the company name in the title, but not nationality.
  • two articles on scandals in general, not relevant
  • Burrell scandal - a scandal in 2002 which arose from a number of allegations about the behaviour of the British Royal Family and their servants. Burrel was the butler who at the center of this, not sure if it counts. No nationality mentioned.
  • Spiegel scandal - mentions the name of the magazine at the center of the scandal, but not nationality
  • Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal - names the organization, nationality isn't relevant here I suspect
  • Teapot Dome scandal - named after a geological formation, doesn't name the parties involved or the nationalities
  • Profumo scandal - named after the person at the center of the scandal, no nationality
  • Siemens scandal - mentions the company involved, but not the nationality (no, not German; this scandal led to the downfall of the cabinet of Japan)
  • Iran-Contra scandal - both Iran and the Contras were involved, but the real scandal was the American Republican involvement and that's not mentioned in the title
  • Whitewater scandal - named after a company involved in the scandal, but doesn't mention the Clintons or the nationality
  • Monica Lewinsky scandal - mentions one of the two major participants in the scandal but not the individual who was actually scandalized or his nationality
  • two redirects to previous articles on this list
  • Fatty Arbuckle scandal - redirects to Fatty Arbuckle. Doesn't mention nationality.

Based on this, it looks to me like it's not unreasonable to call it the "Liberal sponsorship scandal", or just the "sponsorship scandal", and that the nationality is a needless redundancy unless it's actually being used commonly in the news to refer to this case. Personally, I think "Sponsorship scandal" would be just fine; the title should be whatever the thing the article is about is most commonly called, and as a Canadian who's exposed to lots of Canadian news that's all I ever hear it being referred to as. The involvement of the Liberals and the mention that this scandal is set in Canada should be left up to the article text itself, IMO; there's no need to cram all that information into the title. Especially since as far as I'm aware there's nothing else that's called "the sponsorship scandal".

See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions, specifically Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) which says in part: "When choosing a name for a page ask yourself: What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine? The Wikipedia is not a place to advocate a title change in order to reflect recent scholarship. The articles themselves reflect recent scholarship but the titles should represent common usage." In a nutshell, "sponsorship scandal" is the common name for this thing and scandals are called by their common names here on Wikipedia. Bryan 06:22, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, this turned out way longer than I was expecting. Shall I pare it down and/or move it over to the article's talk page? Bryan 06:25, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It needn't be. I just think it's wrong that you're looking at this from an entirely Canadian perspective, when it's meant to apply to a global audience. The US election is probably most commonly refered to in the US as "the election", but the title of the article is U.S. presidential election, 2004. While "Sponsorship Scandal" might be understood Canadian audience, for all I, as an Australian know, it could be in Mozambique. Please, it's not a big thing - just have a title that describes what's there! Ambi 07:16, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
But "the election" is clearly ambiguous, there are elections going on all over the place all the time. "Sponsorship scandal" isn't ambiguous, as far as I'm aware. If failure to include geographic information in the title of a scandal is a problem, then pretty much all of the scandal articles I mentioned above are incorrect (and I just found Category:Scandals, which had a whole lot more without geographic information in the titles). I don't believe that's the case, though; check out the common names Wikipedia policy I linked to above. Bryan 08:15, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
But none of those are specifically national, and none of those alternate names is quite so vague as "Sponsorship Scandal". It's equivalent to renaming "Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal" as "Sex abuse scandal". Ambi 08:53, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It sounds like there's enough differing opinion to put this to a vote. I'll set it up at Talk:Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal. Radagast 13:40, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

It is done. Sponsorship scandal is the new title. Radagast 13:51, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ontario highways

A very persistent anonymous person has been asserting that our 400-Series Highway articles are plagiarized from onthighways.com. Could someone look into this more closely? Adam Bishop 19:36, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

NOTE that link should actually point to The King's Highway. Onthighways.com is not Cameron Bevers' site. Bearcat 08:45, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The anon has signed up for an account: User:Cameron_Bevers. Darkcore 22:48, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
While I feel the need to clarify that I'm not the "plagiarist" in question, I am familiar with Cameron's site and have previously noted this comment posted there. I have not previously attempted to investigate the validity of his claims. However, I have to note that facts and figures (his primary claim of plagiarism) are most certainly not copyrightable as intellectual property. Photos can be copyvio; actual text can be as well. But if the original authors of the Wikipedia pages in question simply cite some of the same facts and figures in an article that isn't a textual replica of Cameron's page, that's not copyvio. Compare Ontario provincial highway 409, one of the pages on which Cameron inserted his plagiarism claim, to Cameron's 409 page, or Macdonald-Cartier Freeway to his 401 page. You can't copyright the length of a highway; you can only copyright the specific wording of the sentence in which the highway's length is noted. If another resource presents the same information in different words, it's not plagiarism even if they used your site for reference, because you don't own the information. You only own your presentation of the information. And on that basis, I see nothing to support a plagiarism claim. I think we need more evidence here. Bearcat 06:28, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I would like to admit that I am one of the persons who used information from his site for wikipedia articles. Information that has since been deleted. However, I did make sure to cite the information with a link plus as Bearcat mentioned you cannot copyright facts. That is what I did. I did not copy and paste his words on to the page. I just mentioned the facts. However I am feeling a little guilty about this, as I have emailed Cemeron before about photos for my website which he allowed me to use. (photos on my site by the way I have released under fair use). Earl Andrew 19:09, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think that part of the problem with the 'plagerizing' problem was that none of the pages were actually cited. Very few if any actually said "Highway 401 was named in 1952" this information Courtesy Cameron Bevers (for example). Anyone attending any sort of post secondary institution would not citing that type of reference would be a no-no. A healthy compromise on this issue would be to place an outside link for history information that Cameron has worked so hard to provide. Btw the Highway 404 page here resembles the 404 page on OntHighway.com. Now this information obviously can't be copyritten, but some of the control city information should be cited, as it is nearly word for word what appears on the Onthighways website, (which certainly would constitute plagerizing). --24.103.215.190 22:47, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think that may be a fair solution. Bearcat 22:59, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Considering that this entire issue was brought up due to my actions on Sunday, I feel that I ought to throw in my "two cents worth". I have actually been keeping an eye on this website for several months now. My main concern with what has been taking place here is the obvious lack of any source acknowledgement. When I began "editing" these highway pages on Sunday, I was very careful to only delete information that was clearly obtained from my website. Anything that constituted "common knowledge" was deliberately left intact. Anyone with an odometer can measure how long the 401 is, so the length of that highway clearly constitutes "common knowledge". Anyone who has any background in the recent upheaval in Ontario's Highway system knows all to well about the mass downloading that took place in 1997 and 1998. It would therefore not be appropriate for me to delete a reference to the loss of portions of, say, Hwy 7 in 1997-1998. This information has been well documented in several different sources/publications, so the fact that my website also states this information does not give me any rightful ownership claims to these "facts".

However, it is NOT "common knowledge" that there was a Hwy 2A that ran from Windsor to Tilbury in the 1930s. Although this is also a "fact", it is one that was only found through years of hard research. Likewise, it is NOT "common knowledge" that the QEW from St. Catharines to Niagara Falls was once called "The Homer-Stamford Motorway". This last piece of information was actually obtained from a personal one-on-one interview that I had with a former Department of Highways employee several years ago. So, I challenge the person who originally wrote the QEW page to give me a list of their sources. Did (s)he just happen to interview the same Department of Highways employee that I did, or was the information merely copied from my website as I suspect? These are just two specific examples of pieces of information that I have very good reason to believe were just copied from my website. However, you can all be assured that I will not delete (or even question the source) of any information that is clearly "common knowledge". If you are going to obtain information from my website that is not "common knowledge", I ask that you properly credit my website as the source.

In terms of photograph usage, I am generally very open to people using my pictures. Having said that, I insist that you email me to ask first, and that all users credit me (or my website) as the source beside the photo. I was extremely upset when I visited the Wikipedia website on Sunday, and saw my photos for the QEW, 401, 409, and 427 being used without my knowledge or permission. I welcome Wikipedia users to reinstate those four photos at their earliest convenience, providing that the source is appropriately credited.

In conclusion, I am not trying to be difficult or stubborn, nor am I trying to make money off of my research. My highways website is free for anyone to view at their leisure. All that I am asking is to be acknowledged and credited for information that I have uncovered only through countless hours of research on this subject. Thank-you! Cameron Bevers 05:26, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying, Cameron. I have a better understanding of your concerns, and can more easily see where the issue lies. Thus, I'd like to propose that all Ontario highway articles on Wikipedia should provide a link to the appropriate page on Cameron's site. But I'd also like to extend the invitation to Cameron to get involved here as well. One of the challenges of this site is that since we don't always know exactly what other people are contributing, we don't necessarily know about copyright issues such as this until they're brought to our attention. But even if some of us do make mistakes sometimes, it's an excellent project with a great bunch of people involved, and I do think Cameron would be a very valuable contributor. Whadday'all say? Bearcat 23:53, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I know I'm a little bit late coming into the discussion, but I am very happy to say that I have had the pleasure of reading Cameron's excellent web site. In fact, I have spent many hours reading about the history of the highways of our great province, even before I was interested in editing Ontario highways on Wikipedia. I also have enjoyed reading OntHwys and I am a member of the ontroads Yahoo! group. That being said, I have tried my best to avoid any sort of copyright infringement. I appreciate all that Cameron has done, and I wouldn't want to diminish it in any way. As a fellow Waterlooian, I say thank you to Cameron Bevers—can I buy you a beer or something? --timc | Talk 03:13, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Elections

  • Re: Category:Canadian federal elections, I note that about half of them are named with the format YYYY Canadian election, and the other half are named Canadian federal election, YYYY. For consistency's sake, we need to determine which naming convention to follow, and then move the pages that don't fit it. Bearcat 04:14, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Are we going to vote? If so, I vote for Canadian federal election, YYYY, for one thing it makes the important "federal" distinction, and I like the date coming after. Pdefer 04:37, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)
      • I prefer the "YYYY Canadian election" format. I don't think the federal qualifier is implict and thus unecessary. For instance no one would think Prime Minister of Canada could be confused with the Prime Minister of Quebec. The "Canadian federal election, YYYY" format is grammatically awkward and unnecessarily long. - SimonP 23:54, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)
  • Followup: Because after a week there had been no further response to this discussion except for Pdefer's, I changed the YYYY Canadian election articles to the Canadian federal election, YYYY format. SimonP raised his concerns at that time. The articles can be subsequently changed to the YYYY Canadian election format if that is the consensus, as long as all the election articles are changed. Please, however, let's discuss and decide on what the convention should be. Bearcat 00:01, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • I say go with the Canadian federal election, YYYY format, as it's the more specific of the two. Denelson83 03:50, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • My vote is for Canadian federal election, YYYY. The most improtant identifier is 'Canadian', not the year, so that is a more logical sequence. Kevintoronto 17:04, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Agreed, plus the Cfe, YYYY format is consistant with those used for other elections on wikipedai. -- Jord 02:04 17 Nov 04 (UTC)
      • I prefer the format "YYYY Canadian election" as one can use that in the body of articles without alteration. EG One can write "The Liberals won the 2004 Canadian election" while "The Liberals won the Candian federal election, 2004" is quite awkward. If people really feel the use of the word "federal" is required to distinguish between federal and provincial elections then lets use the format "YYYY Canadian federal election". AndyL 03:16, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
        • Agree with AndyL. YYYY Canadian election is much less unwieldy. [[User:Premeditated Chaos|PMC]] 22:07, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The vote seems to be 5 in favour of CFE, YYYY and 3 in favour of YYYY CE. Although I voted for CFE, I don't feel strongly one way or t'other, I just really want it to be settled. Props to Bearcat for sorting this out. Does anyone know how to set up a 'bot to change all of the links in articles from "YYYY Canadian election" to the Canadian federal election, YYYY format? Kevintoronto 20:36, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What about the option for XXth Canadian general election? --timc | Talk 03:02, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Can we put some effort into ensuring all the articles have both tables and text? At present several have one but not the other. See Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/Elections for details AndyL 03:07, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

AndyL, I've set up new tables for 1887, 1891 and 1896. Kevintoronto 20:36, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • NOTE: This naming issue was originally raised in Feb. 2004 at Talk:Canadian federal election. I preferred the YYYY at the beginning so that one would not need to use piped links all the time due to non-grammatical flow of the YYYY at the end. RedWolf 17:20, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

I'm surprised nobody though of checking whether there was an exisitn decision.

[edit] Candidates of the Canadian federal election

I noticed in this article, Results of the Canadian federal election, 2004, that there are quite a lot of article/stubs about failed candidates of the last election. Do you think this is worthy of a new category, say Category:Candidates of Canadian federal elections? This category would be part of Canadian people? Another side of me wonders if you are notable just because you have run in the election. This will mean a lot of articles about people who may or may not be worthy of articles. Comments please. --YUL89YYZ 18:25, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

  • Here is an example, not to pick on anyone, Michael Oddy --YUL89YYZ 18:27, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
  • "Candidates for the Canadian House of Commons" would probably best be in keeping with the existing category for those elected, "Members of the Canadian House of Commons", I think. And, uh... no comment about the worthy-of-an-article bit at this time, except that VfD precedent seems to show a major party candidate for the federal legislature of a major en country is putatively worthy of an article, at least if a few people push for it. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Rebecca Blaikie and to some extent Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/David Varty; there are probably other examples of which I'm not aware. Samaritan 20:13, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Both this proposed category and the existing Category:Members of the Canadian House of Commons need to be subdivided. In Canadian history there have been thousands of MPs and several times that number of major party candidates. - SimonP 21:02, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
    • How would you suggest to sub-divide it? Current and past? I am not sure I would divide the Candidates one. I welcome your comments. --YUL89YYZ 21:30, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
      • It could be candidates by election and MPs by parliament. The difficulty with this is that long lasting MPs will be in many different categories. Alternatively the division could be by party, but this would need massive Liberal MP/candidate categories. A division by province would create a similar problem with too many MPs and candidates from Ontario and Quebec. - SimonP 22:32, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
  • I've voted on VfD in favour of keeping non-elected candidates where there was some other criterion of notability as well (eg. Rebecca Blaikie, David Watters), but have avoided voting on candidates whose only notability is having stood for election and lost. I'm not entirely convinced that we need a category for these people, other than possibly Category:Unelected Canadian political candidates who are notable enough for other reasons to not be deleted, which might be a bit much. I fervently disagree with the notion of Wikipedia including every person who's ever stood in a Canadian election and lost. Bearcat 16:57, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Thanks to all, I have created the category Category:Candidates for the Canadian House of Commons --YUL89YYZ 21:41, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Report on the categorization of Canadians

[edit] Disambiguations

I note James Endicott (1865-1954) in the box at the top of this page. Wikipedia policy is normally not to disambiguate by years of life, but by (a) occupation (eg. Moe Berg (musician)), (b) location if the occupation isn't enough (eg. William Whitehead (Canadian writer), since there was another writer named William Whitehead in the UK), (c) sublocation on the rare occasion that even the country isn't enough (eg. the two Fathers of Confederation named John Hamilton Gray, who at least were kind enough to be from different provinces.)

I've moved the title to James Endicott, Sr. temporarily; I don't know if this is really the best choice, but James Endicott (1865-1954) is definitely not in keeping with Wikipedia convention in these matters. I mention this because the page is less than a month old. Bearcat 17:21, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What I have done for example if there is two people from Quebec with the same name, I will use their city of birth to disambiguate. For example André Bachand (Quebec City-born politician). Earl Andrew 18:10, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm a bit leery of that approach, too -- since neither André Bachand was notably associated with Quebec City in their professional careers, that title tells me absolutely nothing about which one I'm going to find when I click on the link. Whereas if they were disambiguated as André Bachand (Tory MP) and André Bachand (Liberal MP), or something along those lines, it'd be more straightforward. (If they'd both been in the same party, then I'd go André Bachand (Richmond-Arthabaska) and André Bachand (Missisquoi), but luckily they weren't.) I guess what I'm saying, in a nutshell, is we can't just use any old obscure detail to disambiguate; the title needs to be as unequivocally clear as possible about what the subject is going to be. Years of life aren't a clear disambiguator, and I don't think city of birth is, either, if what the person is known for isn't directly associated with that city. But YMMV. Bearcat 20:30, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Disambiguate by occupation or point of fame first, nation second, regions last. More people are going to know the occupation or point of fame than are going to know the region or city of birth. I mean, I could tell you Avril Lavigne is a singer, but I couldn't tell you her place of birth off the top of my head if you paid me. It goes the same for most politicians - I know who Paul Martin is, but I've no clue where he comes from. It just makes things easier. [[User:Premeditated Chaos|PMC]] 20:43, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Actually, most people that I know (my self included) know Avril is from Napanee and Paul is from Windsor. The problemw with putting their parties in is that what if they change parties? Earl Andrew 03:51, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The thing is, most people will name a person by occupation (or point of fame) before they name them by birthplace, especially a famous person. Think about a conversation between colleagues discussing someone: "Do you remember that guy James?" "Oh yeah, I know him, he works in Accounting." "No, not that James, the supervisor." "Oh yeah, him!" is a scenario that's a lot more likely than "Oh yeah, I know James, he's from Anytown." "No, the other James, from Othertown." "Oh right, him!" [[User:Premeditated Chaos|PMC]] 05:19, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I am aware of this, but they both were politicians. Earl Andrew 06:55, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I'm arguing for a general case. Obviously there's going to be your rare exception, as in both of the Mister André Bachands. But let's say there's two John Smiths. What's the likelihood they're both Canadian rock stars? [[User:Premeditated Chaos|PMC]] 03:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Neither of them is currently in the House of Commons. If one of them changes parties in the future, the titles can be changed at that time to reflect a new point of disambiguation; right now, avoiding the party names on the grounds that one of them might someday return to politics under a different party affiliation is pretty much akin to saying that MuchMusic should be titled The Canadian music video channel established in 1984 by CHUM just because Much might change its name in the future. Bearcat 15:49, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In regards to the Endicotts, I don't think it is correct to call the article on Endicott elder "James Endicott, Sr." for the same reason that "George Bush, Sr." is incorrect. The younger Endicott's biography, written by his son, refers to James Endicott and James Gareth Endicott, not Sr. and Jr so I don't think the elder Endicott's middle name was Gareth. Quite possibly he hasn't a middle name. They can't be distinguished by profession since they were both missionaries. The only way to distinguish them, therefore, is by period. The only other alternative I can think of is to call one Right Rev. James Endicott and the other James Gareth Endicott since the younger Endicott didn't have the title of Right Rev but I don't think its wikipedia style to include a title in the name of a biographical article.AndyL 17:13, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I guess the elder can be James Endicott (church leader) since he was Moderator of the United Church of Canada while his son was not. A James Endicott disambig page should be kept (thereby excluding simply having him as "James Endicott") since the son isn't widely known by his middle name but is generally known simply as James Endicott (or Jim Endicott). AndyL 17:25, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration of the Week

One of the nominees at Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week is Underground Railroad which may be considered quasi-Canadian given that for many the last stop in the Underground Railroad was Canada. Anyone interested in voting for the nomination can go to Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week and add their name. AndyL 21:46, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Meanwhile, there seems to be a critical mass growing to revive the Canadian collaboration of the week - come vote on our first article! Closes next Friday at 18:00 UTC. Samaritan 18:58, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Serving in more than one provincial legislature, post-1867

A while ago, I created a web page for Gulzar Singh Cheema, a Liberal politician who has served in the provincial legislatures of both Manitoba (1988-93) and British Columbia (2001-2004; he served as a minor cabinet minister in the Gordon Campbell government), before unsuccessfully running for the House of Commons earlier this year.

In the article, I mentioned that Cheema may be the only Canadian politician to have served in more than one provincial legislature since Confederation (the caveat added because, obviously, there were politicians from the Province of Canada who served in the Ontario and Quebec legislatures). Someone has recently challenged me on this point, although without providing any other examples.

So, I'll pose the question here -- can *anyone* think of a Canadian politican other than Gulzar Cheema who has served in the legislature of more than one province since 1867?

(And, just to clear up any confusion: I can think of people like Sharon Carstairs who have *campaigned* at the provincial level in more than one province, and there are obviously figures like John Turner and Tommy Douglas who represented *federal* ridings in more than one province ... but these examples don't count for the present challenge.) CJCurrie 06:46, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think I wrote an article on someone a few months ago who served in both the BC legislature and a legislature in the Maritimes as well as the British House of Commons but I can't remember his name. AndyL 07:31, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh, gosh, that's an interesting question. All the interprovincial politicians I can think of didn't quite meet just these requirements. For brainstorming value, though: Gordon Earle was chief human rights officer in Nova Scotia and ombudsman of Manitoba, both possibly officers of each legislature. Depression-era BC premier Duff Pattullo has been a Yukon official [1]. Howard Pawley came to Windsor to teach and would make a fine Ontario MPP. (Meanwhile, wags have it that Howard Hampton's real dream job is head of Manitoba Hydro.) Tony Penikett has been mooted for political office in BC. I have hazy memories of other ex-Yukon MLAs getting around a bit politically - a visual memory of one being mentioned in Preston Manning's "My Canada" as an early RPC activist, and a sense of something else - but nothing concrete. I do remember talk of a former Prince Edward Island environment minister running for I think federal office in Ontario (Peterborough? Tory?) in the 90s. Counting fed/municipal candidacies, Tooker Gomberg, rest his heart, and John Turmel go without saying; fewer may remember now-Toronto councillor Adam Giambrone's federal run in Quebec while a student there. John Paul Harney had made an oddly reverse migration, a federal win in Toronto to an obscure leadership of the Quebec NDP. Joe Peschisolido switched provinces, then parties. Anjd who was the Alliance MP who had been a member of a dubious national parliament in Africa? Samaritan 09:48, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Belinda Stronach

Could somebody revert our "Belinda Stronach is a socialist" friend. I've exhausted my three reverts of the day. - SimonP 21:31, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

The page seems to be protected. Spinboy 22:42, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The page seems to be Locked please unlock it the truth must come out yes Belinda is a Socialist or to be pocitaly crect Belinda is a Social Democrat. - michaelm

Please see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view - AndyL 08:35, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] New Stubs

I created a stub today for geography articles in Canada. {{Canada-place-stub}} is the template thingy. Spinboy 00:11, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I also created one for biography articles in Canada. {{Canada-bio-stub}} is the template. Spinboy 00:51, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
One now created for gov articles in Canada. {{Canada-gov-stub}} is the template. Spinboy 23:05, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Actually, we don't consider it really necessary for you to tell us that you're doing this. We don't have a problem with this, so you can carry on without notifying us. Just put your entries into Wikipedia:Template_messages/Stubs. Denelson83 23:26, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I just let you all know so you have it for use. Spinboy 23:31, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm glad you've let us know and I've made much use of your creations already. Samaritan 06:36, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] CFD

Category:The Greatest Canadian is up for deletion on WP:CFD because there is already a list at The Greatest Canadian. -- Beland 02:23, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] CanWest Global Communications

User:68.146.219.50 effected a patently anti-Semitic pov series of edits to CanWest Global Communications. It included a mix of head-slapping racism ("But Izzy, with even more brass than is customary for his tribe, made his directive public,") falsity ("That's more than 80 per cent of all of Canada's mass media..."), falsity with racism ("...in the hands of one Jew,") misrepresentation of genuine fact ("the editorial content of all of his newspapers would be homogenized"), and - on the other hand - some genuine and relevant fact I didn't want to just revert without addressing in some way. Hence the new, heavily sourced section on Editorial controversies, and two critical sites added to External links. Improvements much welcome - and we may all have to watch this one. :l Samaritan 06:33, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Expand and improve

The way the "expand and improve" list is currently organised it is far too long to be useful. I'm wondering if a) we can prune it a bit and b) if we can organise it in order of priority so that those of us with some time can be directed to tackle them in some sort of order. I understand prioritising will have to be somewhat subjective and arbitrary but unless we put the list in some sort of order, either most pressing first or oldest article first (so in future new cases are added to the bottom of the list) in order to direct our work the list won't be of much use. AndyL 15:16, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't see a real problem with its current organization; its length, I think, is the more troubling aspect. Any attempt to impose 'priority' would be futile, in my opinion; I say let people tackle what they can, as they come. Radagast 18:01, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
Rather than prioritize, we could categorize; perhaps 'People', 'Events', 'Places and Organizations', etc... Radagast 16:58, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Blah

G'day y'all from down under. would one of you mind verifing the claims made at blah "[blah is] a word to describe a person from the province of Saskatchewan, Canada." Thanks. The bellman 05:32, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)

I've killed that. It strikes me as somebody trying to make a funny; it certainly isn't a standard feature of Canadian slang. Bearcat 19:15, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Federal government departments

Just noticed that someone's taken it upon themselves to move all of the articles on the various federal government departments so they're titled in the format Department of Health (Canada), Department of the Environment (Canada) etc. As per federal legislation, that's their legal names, but the only people who actually use them are government lawyers and perhaps high-ups in the Treasury Board writing very large checks. As far as what names are actually used, by both the departments themselves and by the layman, we see the XXXX Canada format used, ie Health Canada, Environment Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada etc. (There are four exceptions... Dept. of Cdn. Heritage, Dept. of Finance, Dept. of Justice and Dept. of National Defence...where the legal names are used exclusively. Dunno why, but that's the way they do things.) Anyway, the below template links to things where they should be.

Departments of the Government of Canada Flag of Canada
Agriculture and Agri-Food | Canadian Heritage | Citizenship and Immigration | Environment | Finance | Fisheries and Oceans | Foreign Affairs | Health | Human Resources and Skills Development | Indian and Northern Affairs | Industry | International Trade | Justice | National Defence | Natural Resources | Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness | Public Works and Government Services | Social Development | Transport | Veterans Affairs

Admin help will be needed to move stuff back, but before I go through that process, can I get some feedback here? Agree/disagree?

Would Crown corporations fall under this structure as well? Denelson83 22:22, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"Department of Canadian Heritage" is used because "Canadian Heritage Canada" would sound down-right silly. "Heritage Canada" is a separate, not-for-profit organization. As for the others, maybe it's just that the Finance, Justice and Defence types takes themselves so seriously.
There are many people who refer to the departments by their legal/department name and not the more modern FIP one. DOT for Department of Transport (also MOT, although only Ontario AFAIK has a "Ministry of Transport". Also, most average citizens refer to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), although for the latter, its acronym is similar to the US DVA and Treasury Board's FIP has been trying to change this, although many Cdn. vets, as well as the public & even those working for the dept. usually always refer to it as DVA. Nobody outside of senior government 'crats seem to refer to them by their FIP names/acronyms such as Fisheries and Oceans Canada (FOC) or Veterans Affairs Canada :(VAC). Transport Canada vs. DOT is a mixture it seems.
Federal Identity Program (Treasury Board program) vs Legal Name. This is always a vexed question. Not all departments like their FIP name e.g. the Dept of Justice seems happier with the full name rather than Justice Canada website. Even the latest bills creating new departments tend to use the full legal name and make no mention of the FIP name which is presumably assigned afterwards in collaboration with Treasury Board. The FIP is really a kind of "branding" or "marketing" program. One thing you can count on is that any entity with the word "National" is on the endangered list. The National Library and National Archives were recently renamed Library and Archives Canada. It won't be long before the National Gallery gets renamed. --BrentS 01:47, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Minister Responsible

The pages Minister responsible for Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Status of Women were proposed as redirects at the bot-assisted redirect project. I really have no idea what a Minister Responsible is. I've tentatively followed the suggestions, but this decision should be reversed if this governmental position also exists in some other country. The article on Government of Canada was no help whatsoever. --Smack (talk) 04:18, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ministers normally have departments that report to them. A "Minister responsible" has responsibility for the government's policy in a particular area, but does not have a department that reports to him/her. Often there will be a secretariat or office within another mnister's department that supports the work of the "Minister responsible", e.g., I expect that there is an Office for Official Languages somewhere in the Dept. of Canadian Heritage, and an Office of the Status of Women in wherever Citizenship has ended up. I think that "Ministr responsible" was largely supplanted by "Ministers of State" during the Mulroney era. They had responsibility as described above, but only attended cabinet meetings when their issues were being discussed, analogous to the concept of junior ministers in the UK. Late in the Chreien era, "Ministers of State" became "Secretaries of State" serving the same function. If there continue to be "Ministers responsible", I expect that the difference between them and S of Ss is that the MRs are full members of cabinet even though they do not head departments, whereas the S of Ss are not full members of cabinet.Kevintoronto 13:57, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Let me try to explain. In most acts, there is a minister listed as responsible for that act. For instance, technically, the Minister of Industry is the Minister responsible for Corporations as that is defined in the Canada Corporations Act. It is unnecessary to style him as such as the act saying "The Minister of Industry is responsible for the administration of this Act." Some acts do not spell out who the Minsiter responsible is and, if there is to be a minister held accountable for that act, one must be designated as such. Ministers of State (and Secretaries of State - which were only used under Chretien) are different. A Minister of State operates under a memoradum of understanding from the Minister responsible for a certain agency or area of government policy under which the Minister delegates some of his/her powers to the Minister of State. - Jord 16:28, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Jord, I hadn't noticed that Martin had switched back to Ministers of State from Secs of State. Thanks for pointing that out. The issue of "Ministers responsible" is broader than just responsiblities for certain acts. In Martin's ministry, for example,
  • the President of the Treasury Board is also Minister Responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board (which would otherwise fall under the purview of the Minister of Agriculture)
  • the Minister of Canadian Heritage is also the Minister responsible for Status of Women, which would otherwise fall under the purview of the Minister of Citizenship
  • the Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, is also the Minister responsible for Official Languages (otherwise Citizenship), the Minister responsible for Democratic Reform (?), and Associate Minister of National Defence
  • Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec is also the Minister responsible for the Francophonie (otherwise Foreign Affairs)
Kevintoronto 17:38, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
There is a difference between a Minister of State and a Minister responsible. A Minister of State is "attached" to a certain minister by a memorandum of understanding that delegates duties to a minister of state, thus giving the minister of state the legal authority to act as Minister under certain circumstances. For instance, there would be a memorandum of understanding sent to Carolyn Bennett saying that the Minsiter granted her authority to act as Minister of Health with respect to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
A Minister responsible for an item is merely granted that designation by the Prime Minister (through the Crown) and is asked to develop, consult and/or speak for the government on that area of government policy. The position has no legal authority to act with respect to any government department. I've asked the Library of Parliament to provide me a brief on this, which I'll add to wikisource, as I get the feeling you aren't going to take me at my word.
- Jord 18:27, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
No, no. Now it's clear. Your first explanation wasn't that clear to me, but maybe I'm just being dense. I follow your second explanation, and have no reason to believe that you would lead us astray. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. Carry on with your excellent work. Kevintoronto 18:43, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Probably me, I am tired. In fact, when I called over to the Library I was explaining what I wanted and said to them I was having a hard time getting it into words and she said that what I had just said (what I put above there) worked pretty good. I guess it is a good thing to talk things out in your head. Sorry for being touchy, it's been a long week. Thanks to you too Kevin! - Jord 18:59, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Provincial lieutenant(-)governors

Another issue where we have to have naming consistency, but don't at present: I note that some of the provincial lieutenant governor articles refer to "lieutenant-governor" with a hyphen, and others refer to "lieutenant governor" without one. Which is the normal convention for this office, and why aren't we using that consistently? Bearcat 18:24, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Section 58 of the constituion refers to them without hyphen. However the practice seems to very from province to province... I just checked two at random and they were different. New Brunswick's has a hyphen [2] and Nova Scotia's does not [3]. - Jord 01:26, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why isn't this over to the talk page?

I think the page is a bit overly busy, and besides, should discussion be taking late on the Talk page rather than the notice board itself? --Circeus 21:15, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think you missed the point. This notice board is a discussion page in its own right. Just look at the other regional notice boards. Most of them are full of discussions. Denelson83 22:14, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio

I notice that Embrun, Ontario has been removed as a copyright violation (and with good reason, there's even a typo reproduced) Would a copyvio section be a good idea for pending tasks? Dhodges 01:57, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Historically copyvios have been added – well, at least one was added, by my hand – to Articles in need of serious rework at the top (with a parenthetical noting the copyvio). Samaritan 04:38, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I have added a "copyright violations" section to the to-do list on this page. Feel free to use that. Denelson83 08:18, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lieutenant Governors redux

Did we, at some point, decide that articles on lieutenant governors would refer to them by their entire title, including "The Honourable" and post-nominal letters? (See eg. Norman Kwong, Lois Hole; see also link to Lois Hole in Norman Kwong's article; see also this anon user whose only contributions have been to add this very thing to some, but not all, articles on LGs.) Bearcat 05:43, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Due South

Questions for y'all...on January 15, an anon user split the article on Due South into two separate articles, which treated the 1994-1996 and 1997-1999 blocks of episodes as two entirely separate television series. Samaritan and I both consulted outside references and determined that this is not consistent with the way the series was actually packaged and produced, but the Internet Movie Database does treat them this way. I reverted the changes on January 16. On January 20, the same anon user came back, and edited the article to refer to the two blocks as separate series again (although he didn't split it this time); he also added the assertion that spinning off new series with identical titles "is a common phenomenon in Canadian television". So...

  1. Should we treat Due South as one series or two?
  2. Can anybody even think of one other example of Canadian television doing what this user calls a common phenomenon? I sure as hell can't. Bearcat 06:45, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • One, of course. The likeliest explanation is that the editor is confusing the British use of "series" to mean season with the North American use of "series" (including a set of seasons). Samaritan 22:26, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Whither Canadian current events?

I've been sporadically updating the Canadian current events page myself, but it really looks like something of a losing battle. What we've got now is pretty miserable, and I'm of the opinion that unless a whole whack of us want to throw ourselves wholeheartedly at it, it might make more sense to shelve the notion of a dedicated Canadian page for the time being and unsqueamishly put Canadian news stories on the main Current events page. Thoughts? -The Tom 03:50, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep: I was about to agree, but then as typing this I changed my mind. There can be little doubt the Canadian page is suffering, but it makes a bad situation worse to merge our (usually) insignificant events onto another page. It won't take much to keep it off the deathbed. - RoyBoy 800 00:05, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A modest proposal

Category:Members of the Canadian House of Commons is starting to get as out of control as Category:Canadian politicians once was. We've occasionally discussed finding ways to split the category up, but nothing's ever come of it so far. Here, then, a thought: would "Members of the Canadian House of Commons from (province)" be a good idea? That way, we could also file each category as a subset of "(province) politicians", and remove strictly federal politicians from the actual "(province) politicians" group, so as to better manage those as well. Bearcat 10:33, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have also thought about this. How about two catgories Category:Current Members of the Canadian House of Commons and Historical Members of the Canadian House of Commons? This way we have a category only with the current members. (This can also apply to the Category:Canadian senators). If you want a provincial distinction for the historical ones I have no issues with it. --YUL89YYZ 11:00, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

If no one has any objections I can start moving people into the Historical Members of the Canadian House of Commons category. I think it makes sense just to leave the current Category:Current Members of the Canadian House of Commons alone for now. I'll wait until next week if I don't hear any objections and I will start the move process. --YUL89YYZ 19:21, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

That's a great idea. In your last paragraph, do you mean that you will leave the current Category:Members of the Canadian House of Commons alone, or do you intend to move the current members into the new Category:Current Members of the Canadian House of Commons? I like the idea of splitting that category into a new Historical category, but to leave the current members in the already-existing category. --Deathphoenix 14:27, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I will leave the current category alone. I already started (slowly) moving the historical ones. --YUL89YYZ 17:19, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

--How about Category:Members of the Canadian Cabinet current and/or historicalAndyL 12:37, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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