User talk:AshleyMorton

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Welcome!

Hello, AshleyMorton, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!  --Khoikhoi 04:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Populated Islands in Canada

I added those four over breakfast, and there were to be others coming which would outrank them, i.e. Graham, Moresby, Princess Royal are all inhabited, but larger than the Gulf Islands; I'll wait until I have the entire BC list done and then compare and insert appropriately. I thought this was about population ranking, not pure size (otherwise where's Banks Island, for example - where Resolute is)? Saltspring is on the current list, and while it may be the most populous of BC's islands (other than Lulu/Richmond) it certianly isn't the largest (not even in the Gulf, where it is exceeded - I think - by Texada and Quadra in size.Skookum1 20:30, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Newfoundland and Labrador WikiProject

There’s now a WikiProject for Newfoundland and Labrador. We hope you’ll join us in making Wikipedia a great source of information about the province and its people. OzLawyer 17:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics, "Racial" Statistics

For those who may notice an odd trend in my editing lately, I've been working on a number of Demographics sections for different populations (provinces, cities) in Canada. I found a number of the sections contained "fiddled" statistics that artificially bundled together a number of different groups and called them "White" (Canadian = white? I don't think so), bundled together African and Caribbean origins and called them "black", etc. We all know that discussions of ethnic origin are much more complex situations than that, and that, if done improperly, they can be very harmful.

As a result, I've taken the step of putting tables in to replace this information in a number of the articles that are effectively regurgitation (referenced, of course) of the 2001 Census data for those places. I believe that using Statistics Canada's descriptors and data is the most NPOV and respectful way to do this challenging task.

However, I would like to add the footnote that, in a number of these situations, I don't think that these numbers are really needed AT ALL. I put them in place because I don't like deleting entries outright, so I figured this was the least harmful substitute. However, I would be happy to have someone delete the ethnic origin information completely so we can get back to discussing culture and cultures, rather than race. AshleyMorton 21:46, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I saw your comments on the British Columbia talk page. As far as I am concerned, you are absolutely and totally correct in what you are doing. This is the only referenced & NPOV way to go: use the straight Statistics Canada self-reported numbers on ethnic origin rather than fiddling with numbers to meet some USian or other concept of "race". Keep up the good work. Luigizanasi 05:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I saw your revision of the Saint John, N.B. article. Good job. Those earlier stats really weirded me out. I'm not totally in favour of the StatsCan ones either, but as you wrote, it's a compromise of sorts. I think if StatsCan is asking those questions in the first place, why Is Canadian a choice? Or American? Maybe the purpose is to blur the lines. I don't know. Anyway, I like what you have done. DDD DDD 01:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Keep up the good work.DDD DDD 04:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Regarding your User Page comments on "Race," ethnicity and culture -- I too couldn't agree with you more. Good work. I'll try to help as much as I can. User:OldCommentator 17:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Regarding your userpage - I agree with your principle, but you give the example of muddling together African and Caribbean to get Black - as far as I know, Black is the prefered term at Statscan ... do you have some reason to believe this is not the case? The 2001 census data for Scarborough, Ontario lists Black as an ethnicity [1] and I've been sorely tempted to move the current African + Caribbean currently listed to Black, but a bit nervous about one of the contributors there getting uppity about it. Anyways, in the spirit of this, and with your apparent interest in the issue, I wondered if you'd give me an opinion on the issue. WilyD 17:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Sorry for intruding.., but don't confuse ethnicity and visible minority status. They are two different things. If you look at the 2001 Census questionnaire (PDF), Question 17 asks: "To which ethnic or cultural group(s) did this person’s ancestors belong?" This is what determines the "ethnicity" data. The detailed responses to that question are here. Visible minorities are determined by a completely different question, No. 19, which asks: "Is this person: White, Chinese, South Asian, Black, etc.". Data on visible minorities is here. So the two sets of numbers are completely unrelated. You can't add African + Caribbean to get Black, or make any assumptions about the relation between people's ethnic origin and "Visible minority" status. On the page you linked, "Black" referes to people who have said they are a member of that visible minority, not to people who are ethnically "Black", whatever that means. Luigizanasi 00:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, sorry to talk here on your userpage, Ashley, but I think this is mostly the answer I was looking for ... that my language was imprecise. But doublechecking Scarborough, I see we explicitly say both Visible Minority Group and Caribbean and African-Canadian in a way that likely needs work. Thanks, such as it is. WilyD 00:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the concept I believe in has been clarified above - that is to say that you can use "visible minority status" if you want (as long as you use that term), but I believe "ethnic origin" is much more valuable, for several reasons. Here are some:

  • The StatsCan statistics do not include aboriginal-identity people as "visible minorities". I believe this is because they are generally trying to track immigrant populations, but you end up with the "non-visible-minority" category lumping together "white" and "aboriginal" - a weird combination, in my mind, when you are still going to specify black, Asian, etc.
  • The StatsCan stats separate out Korean, Japanese and Chinese, while lumping together all of "Black" and all of "Latin American". I don't understand the justification of this - some sort of analysis that Korean and Japanese facial features can be distinguished on the street while, say, Somalian vs. Ghanian can't be? I don't believe that the category choices are appropriate or neutral (not that I'm even sure what they're trying to prove, just that they don't seem appropriate to me.)
  • Many Canadian cities are >90% "White". To have a stat that says "97% White, 3% Other" is useless. As a result, the "Ethnic Origin" data give at least some hints as to the background of the city, in those cases.
  • If you want to know "racial" information, you can, to a great degree, discern it from "ethnic origin" stats. The converse can not be said.

AshleyMorton 01:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hagenborg

Thanks for correcting and expanding the article. I created it trying to knock off a redlink at the list of regional districts. I have never been to Hagensborg (or anywhere near it) :-(. --Usgnus

[edit] Cleanup of the article for St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

Hi, great work on the article cleanup, it's starting to look much better. HJKeats 15:12, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Collaboration for Wikipedia:WikiProject Newfoundland and Labrador

A new article SS Florizel of Newfoundland and Labrador context has been created and we invite you to contribute to the article to firstly get it up to DYK status and hopefully to feature article status. The article is about a bit of Newfoundland's marine history and the sinking of the SS Florizel and it’s many passengers including a little girl Betty Munn. If you have any knowledge of the subject please pitch in add/edit and if not specific knowledge of the article if you could help by generating articles on any of the red-ink (wikified) topics, would be great. Thanks so much to help on this article. As a suggestion, maybe every Monday we could offer up a new topic to collaborate on and then pool our talents on that one. Oh and BTW did you catch the article that OzLawyer create on the Newfoundland Tricolour that made it to the Did you know? column on 5 July 2006.! HJKeats 23:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Students' unions category discussion

Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 22 ---Usgnus 15:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics

Thanks for your help with the religion stats on Alberta! I agree with your recent efforts and think that being more specific is always better. But that is why I have to disagree with your rvt to my changes at Prince Edward Island. The groups listed in the demographic tables should link to information about xxxx-Canadian (or some such) because it is more specific, even if it is a red-link because tells readers (and potential editors) where WP has holes that need to be fixed, it's also more consistent, and allows a new article on, for example, Togolese Canadians to be instantly linked to from relevant articles. Just a thought. Kevlar67 08:01, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Demographics

Thanks for backing me up, if we were to change the name east Indian to something else or just Indian it would add to the confusion and then we'd also have to change every other page where we used stats can anyways. It wouldn't really make sense. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TotallyTempo (talk • contribs) 18:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Danny Williams

I agree, a pic with his eyes open would be fantastic. However, there's a bunch of people enforcing a rule that says fair use images should never been used to illustrate living people. They've been slash burning a bunch of the premiers, from PEI to Nunavut. I don't personally agree with this, but I've been preemptively trying to make sure every important politican has a free image, by begging people on Flickr to license their images as CC-BY. I expect the people to come hacking through Danny's article in the next couple of months, so when they do, we do have a lesser pic to replace. -- Zanimum 19:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commons Photos

I have just spend one weeks vacation on the west coast of Newfoundland and photographed quite a bit of the small coastal towns, post offices, lakes and Long Range Mountains. I have started adding the photos to the article List of communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, you can link there from our Wiki article by the same name. I will be adding more later and feel free to use them while expanding the communities articles WayneRay 14:16, 14 August 2007 (UTC)WayneRay

[edit] Canadian cities

Thank you for the edit to Trois Rivieres. We always get folks trying to bump their city up. I caught the Ottawa change, but missed the one for Trois Rivieres. Benkenobi18 19:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnic/Ethnocultural Group/Origin/Origins/Ancestry/Identity a.k.a. Ethnicity

Thank you for correcting the links in the stats I added to the Nfld demographics page. I agreed with 99% of them. However, I am distressed by 'Newfoundlander' almost self-referentially linking back to 'Newfoundland and Labrador'. I know thats the way I linked it but it still distresses me. I wish someone would write an article on it since Statscan has now included it as an ethnocultural option. And I also can't help getting the feeling that 'Black' and 'African (Black)' are somehow somewhat distinct, which of course would imply another article, but since neither of these are going to be written by me that is all moot.

I checked the actual Statscan questionnaires and I think probably the most accurate description for answers to the question would be 'ethnocultural ancestry'. I wish we could use that term altho' I haven't seen it anyhere on Wikipedia. Statscan does use apparently more or less interchangeably 'origin', 'origins' and 'group' none of which strike me as entirely accurate for various reasons. I do like 'origins' when there is a more pronounced geographic aspect to the groupings though. Statscan also uses the term 'Ethnicity' for the subject in general and I believe one can speak of Ethnicities. I really do not like the notion of a 'group' though ... I hope we can avoid that loaded term. I don't really have terribly compelling arguments for most of these semantic preferences however. I think Statscan is deliberately blurring the groupings which is why I like 'ethnicit(y/ies) which sounds vaguer and I much prefer the more accurate 'ethnocultural ancestry' but since it is nowhere about I shall try to adhere mostly to the prevailing consensus for now. --Paulalexdij (talk) 07:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I have actually now gone and used the term ethnocultural ancestry and I think I might have changed an ethnic origin or two to ethnicity. Of course they could be changed back if necessary. I am going to respect the prevailing standard on Canadian linking to Demographics of Canada ss well as the other points you brought up and will change them to be like that if I se them elewhere. PS. I'm not sure if I'm breaking protocol by writing all this on your talk page rather than mine? Cheers ...
--Paulalexdij (talk) 02:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)