Talk:Dawson Creek, British Columbia

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Featured article star Dawson Creek, British Columbia is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
Main Page trophy This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 17, 2008.
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[edit] Flag

Its flag uses a Canadian pale with its iconic Mile "0" (located in the center of the town) displayed in the centre. The yellow represents canola which turns the countryside yellow in July. The deep blue represents the nearby rivers, Kiskatinaw and Peace rivers and possibly Dawson Creek. source?

[edit] Translated to German

Hallo everybody: I translated this very fine article to German, where it is now to be seen on de:Dawson Creek. Suggestions and critics are always welcome. Thank you! 217.185.194.34 11:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC) de:Benutzer:Chigliak (talk)

  • That is great. There are many native Germans in and around Dawson Creek (German is probably the second most common language here in Dawson). Please check back in a few weeks as I will be updating the article with 2005/6 data. --maclean25 19:06, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you... I will do so. 217.185.194.25 20:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC) (dial-up account of de:Benutzer:Chigliak (talk)
Just happened to see this while sending/saving comments below. Wanted to add that the Cariboo, the South Cariboo in particular, is known for being heavily German more and more in recent years, andthere's other patterns to German immigration in BC, historically and today (I was raised in the Central Fraser Valley....); I'd jibed somewhere, but in seriousness, about a History of German immigration to Canada and Scandinavian, Irish, Scots, Italian and other relevant equivalents, since the huge History of Chinese immigration to Canada shouldn't be the only one. I think a title like History of German settlement in British Columbia might work better; the provincial title actually because of the important German role in the colonial era, and in the early provincial days when, though part of Confederation, European immigrants to BEC were of a difffrerent ilk than the farmer immigrants on the Prairies or the religious immigrants that came later (Mennonites, Moravians etc). I won't go on about this, just wanting to ask MacLean25 to keep handy his German-BC stats and keep an eye out for materials worth putting in that. The Germans were the third/fourth largest in the country for a long time, and were very prevalent in BC right from 1858 onwards, and in some areas still are; theres' also a whole story to pre-WWI German culture/society in BC (see Talk:Werner von Alvensleben and also the first section on my current pre-soon-to-be-archived talkpage) and a luminary cast of characters throughout, from "Dutch Bill" Dietz who found Williams Creek and so created Barkerville to the Kosters and Krugers and Richters of ranching/orcharding and poitical fame. No, I'm not German; I just think it's rich material, and an important and historic part of BC's "cultural diversity", which so manyh people think is about colour (usually their own).Skookum1 (talk) 04:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] population 11,000?

Not notable. Especially not on the front page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.15.161.188 (talk) 00:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you question whether the population isn't notable, or the article itself? I'm a bit lost on what you're saying... crassic![talk] 00:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a troll. He's having his yuks both here and on MediaWiki. I've reported it for vandalism. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 01:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, alright. crassic![talk] 01:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Seriously...

This is the best we could do for "Today's Featured Article"? I've never even heard of this place :P —Moo [T • C] 01:36, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

And you are who, exactly? Never heard of you...Skookum1 (talk) 19:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Then be thankful you've been given such a great opportunity to learn about it! Things that most people have never even heard of are the ones that make the *best* featured articles of the day, imo. --86.135.181.196 (talk) 01:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
While normally I would absolutely agree with you, I'm really not sure why this article deserves front page status. Some small town in Canada? No offense to those who live in the area, but why would an international audience care about this? I certainly wouldn't expect my dinky hometown to be a featured article, no matter how well written it may be. What's special about Dawson Creek? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.201.158.102 (talk) 02:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Because, unlike a lot of articles, this one seems to have no errors, missing citations, etc. A lot of articles fail the criteria for becoming a FA – this one meets 'em all. If you look at the past FAs, I'm sure there's a few that you wouldn't particularly care for. crassic![talk] 02:18, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I live in Dawson Creek, that's what's special about it! stop dissing the fact that an article about my hometown made front page. if you don't like it don't read it. But for those of us who live here, it's nice to know that someone does know our town exists and someone does know the importance of its history. -Briana

And Briana is the reason a lot of us put in work on articles that other people think are obscure or don't matter. Thank you, Briana. And you're right, your town's history is important, even if unimportant people don't think so...important locally but also as it happens important on a continental scale, though most residents of the continent don't know (and don't know much about the rest of the continent, either)Skookum1 (talk) 19:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, you may be right on that, but somehow I feel a featured article needs to be not only technically proficient, but also interesting to at least a decent number of people. I take your point that there have certainly been FAs before that didn't exactly pique my curiosity, but this seems different in that the only ones who would actually want to know about this town and read up on it are those that ALREADY know this town. I don't imagine many people browse Wikipedia to bone up on their random-small-town demographics.
Really, I'm not trying to be a troll or anything, and I mean no disrespect to those who obviously put effort into producing this article. Just doesn't seem to fit the bill. But, eh, I can live with it. 76.201.158.102 (talk) 02:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, lucky for you, it's only 24 hours. :P crassic![talk] 02:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a great article, and is informative and interesting. No reason why it shouldn't be featured. Basser g (talk) 02:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a great article about something real. Seriously, does anyone want more FAs about tv show characters and more pop culture references? Blueshirts (talk) 03:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

There have been smaller towns on the main page: Neilston population of 5,000 - here --maclean 03:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to add that most small towns, anywhere, have a great amount of potential detail; it's one reason why I'm interested in Wikipedians for Local history [[See Talk:Local history...so many small places have long, complex histories, even in BC hwere few non-indigenous communities date back further than 120 years; Dawson Creek is only one of many towns, living and dead, in British Clolumbia alone that could have articles of this quality/l.ength - and/or be worth FA status either on their stylistic/formal merits or on the fasxcination of the subject; hopefully both. Dawson Creek and its neighbours FtStJohn are, also, two of the most booming places in BC right now, and something of "the new country" in the way the industrial rfrontier used to be in BC in other areas; for an area that was essentially nothing in the scheme ofthings in BC until the Alaska Highway came long, it's among hte most important areas of the province; and the main cash cow in coming years, and the economic engine of the north; Dawson Creek may be small, but it's mighty; as with other industrial smalltowns (Ocean Falls, Bralorne etc in their day). The Shishalh and Skwxwu7mesh communities are small too; but any of htem might warrant FA status some day, irrespective of their populations. Naika kwatah (Chinook for "my too bits").Skookum1 (talk) 04:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Can't see how anyone would question the importance of Dawson Creek. A simple look at a map and an understanding of a) northern geography, b) WWII history, c) the economy of Alaska (influenced by the highway that technically begins here) and d)access for scientists and travelers to some of the last great remaining wilderness lands in North America make the place notable far in excess of its size. But they don't seem to have taught much geography to the younger folks who tend to look at Wiki, so I guess surprise is not in order here. Sensei48 (talk) 06:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, Dawson Creek is not very important. But that's not the point. This featured article shows everyone who's working on small town articles how it can or should be done. It will have a great effect on improving wikipedia!--24.85.68.231 (talk) 06:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

plus it was a great show! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.234.243.2 (talk) 08:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Count me among the Wikipedians who believe that articles like this, though perhaps somewhat dry, are the meat and potatoes of Wikipedia. We encourage FAs from all walks of article type, from Pokemons to pop stars to populated places. All of those editors that do the work deserve the recognition that comes from having an FA, and the perceived importance of the article is always going to be biased one way or another. Some people think we shouldn't have the pop culture articles on the encyclopedia at all, because it isn't serious enough. (I'm not one of them, but at least make sure it's notable!). Good work. --Dhartung | Talk 08:14, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • It's almost refreshing to see the bitching at something totally not pop culture, especially video games which seem to get yelled about every single time (though I wonder how many had a quick thought it was Dawson's Creek at first). Look people. It's very VERY simple. The daily FA is not about the contents of it, it's about the quality of the ARTICLE ITSELF. We're not showing off a certain person/thing/place/concept/whatever, we're showing off that, hey, here's an example of what the best Wikipedia articles look like. It doesn't care if it's about a city of 10 or 10 million, about a movie that's a classic or that 'you' have never heard of, if it's a Baroque composer of overplayed music or a living game music composer. All of these have a place in TFA as how the VERY DEFINITION of TFA is. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, good point. To be honest, I simply didn't know the specific qualifications for TFA. If this is true, then I indeed stand corrected.76.201.158.102 (talk) 14:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Someone put a 8=====D at the top of the page so I took the liberty of deleting it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.225.136.79 (talk) 13:30, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! We encourage anyone seeing vandalism to remove or repair it. Be bold! --Dhartung | Talk 23:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Um, yes, but do we normally want to have the various obscenities (including this ASCII one) transplanted here? Not that I mind, it just seems that IPuser99.xxx.xxx.xx is having us on....Skookum1 (talk) 23:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If this is of interest to anybody, you can find the featured article criteria hereThe discussion (in which you could have participated) whether this article meets that criteria is archived here. Puchiko (Talk-email) 17:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

In response to meeting the criteria for FA status: while I'm not sure about this article (it was too bring to read in its entirety), but many FA articles I have read have (minor) grammatical errors and employ a mediocre writing style. In fact, if judged by the majority of FAs I'd have to say most hardcore Wikipedians aren't very good writers (they're okay). But that's what you get when you have neophytes and novices writing articles instead of experts. Nonetheless, I appreciate the service, donate to it, and I get a kick out of FA articles about seemingly useless topics. I should add I'm an editor, writer, and former English teacher. But I'm not expert either. Arthurian Legend (talk) 19:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Interestingly, the original form of Featured Article was called Brilliant prose, for articles that were voted "well-written and complete", but that was long ago replaced by more objective standards of verifiability and citation. It is true this, combined with committee editing, does not always mean articles that flow the way that one would hope. Also, Featured Articles on the main page are always heavily edited while there, and even pretty good writing can deteriorate during that period. What usually happens is that the main editors get it in shape before it goes public, then wait until the flurry is over to begin knocking the additions into square. --Dhartung | Talk 23:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Another problem is, that though the standars at WP:Featured article candidates have increased in past years, we still have lots of featured articles that were promoted when standards were less strict. Therefore, they might not be as good as the ones that are getting promoted now. But hey, this is Wikipedia, if you feel the article's prose isn't as good as it could be, hit the edit button and improve it. Puchiko (Talk-email) 10:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

What is at issue is not whether this is a good article, its whether it is notable enough for the main page. I suspect that there might be some FAs that have never been on the front page that might have more international and historical notability. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 22:08, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

But "more notable" is not a criteria for TFA. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I think the fact that Wikipedia can cover such a small town in great detail just shows how powerfully it can harness the long tail. Plus, Dawson Creek should be notable for having the best bus station coffee in North America! --Padraic 17:39, 20 April 2008 (UTC)