Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Education in Canada/Archive1

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I'm gonna really need help with this project, folks, so any would be appreciated. --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 19:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC) — copied from WikiProject Education in Canada/General Usgnus 17:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I came across the University of Calgary Students' Union page because it had a "need wikification" tag on it. It looks pretty good, though. I would have just removed the tag, but since it's part of this project I thought I'd check in with you first... is it up to your standards, or is there something I can do to wiki it up better? Red Robot 05:47, 29 October 2005 (UTC) — copied from WikiProject Education in Canada/General Usgnus 17:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Has there been some sort of conensus to create this project. I notice that Template:WPEIC-cat indicates a variety of categories are now "maintained" by this project. It doesn't simply suggest talking about changes here, it indicates the category is actually maintained by this project. Perhaps I missed some discussion. Anyway, please point me to it, or I feel the template should be removed or reworded. --rob 11:35, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I am certainly open to it being reworded, what do you have in mind? --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy No ads on Wikipedia. 16:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I went ahead and changed Template:WPEIC-cat to be somewhat softer, take a look. Although, I'm not sure if the wording is good enough. I don't understand the the reason for adding the template, at this stage, especially with a red-link for "proposals". I've gone ahead in the past, and made sub-categories within these "maintained/related" categories, and will do so again without "checking in", since there's nothing here (yet) to check with. Also, one needn't make a "proposal" if doing something obvious like Category:Elementary schools in Province/Territory given there are only five sub-cats of Category:Elementary schools in Canada currently. Making such sub-cats when the article member of each one is created (no sooner or later), would be the best approach. Suggesting some standardized rules for categories is probably a good idea, but where obvious patterns exist, this project should just document what they are, and welcome people to go ahead and make them. --rob 19:35, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] City level categories versus province level

I think it might be good to discuss the idea we should discourage making new city level categories for schools, or if made, they should be additional, not replacement categories (two cats for same school). I see a problem, since the city placement is not obvious. Categories, even large ones, can easily be searched alphabetically, and large size isn't a problem, except maybe in an extreme case like Toronto and Ontario maybe.

As an example, I would want to discourage somebody from ever making "Category:Schools in Calgary" (even if there were ever lots of articles there). The main Calgary boards Calgary Board of Education and Calgary Catholic School District have different boundries, despite their names. A public school in Chestermere, Alberta is outside Calgary Board of Education, but a Catholic school is within Calgary Catholic School District. People almost always know the province, and type of school (elem/middle/high), but often don't know what city it would be classified under. Also, it's not clear if one is referring to the city-proper or the metro-area. I'm only talking about new sub-cats, and have no desire to touch existing ones.

Thoughts? --rob 22:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] CanEd template

The project page link redirects to Wikipedia:WikiProject Airlines - that's kind of screwy....I'm assuming that Airlines is supposed to be changed to the appropriate school name (?), but that doesn't appear to be the case at at least one university page I visited (University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada). Could someone offer some clarification?DonaNobisPacem 23:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I made this fix. Let me know if there's still any error. Thanks. --Rob 00:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Marvelous! Might be interested in joining the project, but all bets are off 'till after Christmas - speaking of which, have a good one!DonaNobisPacem 22:44, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Info box

Regarding recent changes to the info box:

  • The color is not imporant, so if others wish a new color scheme, that's fine. The new color scheme probably looks nicer anyhow.
  • Some of the fields seem overly specific to certain areas, such as school number.
  • Including some fields like Vice-Prinicpal is getting in overly detailed, as a school may have multiple ones.
  • The "Operated by" field, which normally is a school district, is probably one of the most important piece of data, and I don't see why it was removed. One purpose of the "Operated by" field, is people can follow the link, and read district info there, intsead of at the school. For instance, in many districts the same Superindtendent applies to the entire district, and there's no need to repeat it. --Rob 16:52, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi, take a look at the one I am working on Featherston Drive Public School it is a work-in-process but should help us to create a template that would be best. We want to get the best one started early, so we don't have to make amendments later. Battlefield 22:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I modified the table, it now has a box for the school address and phone numbers and the colour scheme seems to be more palatable. Again see Featherston Drive Public School for a working example. Battlefield 17:01, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
What about an "Operated By" field for a school district, foundation, corporation, or charter board
I think that "School Board" would be a better term Battlefield 18:08, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
You can use school board for some schools, but not all. Often school's aren't run by boards. For instance, a church (or some part of it) may run one or more schools. Or in places without school districts and boards, the school could be directly run by some other governmental juridiction, such as a municipality, province, state, or even by a national education ministry (for very small countries). Various charitable foundations, and private for-profit corporations run schools. Plus, "school board" has different meanings, "school district" and "the board that runs a specific school". I'm fine if you use the word "School board", but just realize its not standard. "Operated by" is more generic, but there are admittedly problems with being so generic. --Rob 19:36, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
Added: By convention when giving labels, we capitalize only the first word in a multi-word label (article title, section name, info box heading), unless it's a proper noun. --Rob 03:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to help. I'm new to wikipedia but i'm a teacher. I hope this was the right place to edit to say i want to help! JamieJones 04:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Why do we have three different templates for schools ? Wouldn't one be better ? Battlefield 13:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
We might have more than three, as I doubt anybody is keeping track. Unfortunately, nobody has come up with a "one size fits all" approach yet. Schools across Canada are pretty variable, and its hard to set a standard, although there is some move towards that. Some fields just don't make sense for in some places. Also, not all editors agree on what should be included. Some editors don't think telephone and e-mail belong, as they encourage unsolicited phone calls, spam e-mail, and go against the "spirit" of WP:NOT (we're not a phone directory). There's been no consensus on what to include, but hopefully there will be eventually. Also, I think it looks really awful when an info box is added, with multiple fields left empty. A field should really only appear if it is actually filled with something, IMO (others disagree). --Rob 20:53, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] French language categories

I propose Category:French schools in Ottawa become Category:French language schools in Ottawa, like Category:French language schools in Ontario and Category:French language schools in Alberta. I think it's clearer, and a better standard that can be extended globally (where "nation" vs "language" is an issue). As a comparison, a Canadian owned Francophone company operating in Ottawa wouldn't go in Category:French companies in Ottawa, but would go in Category:French language companies in Ottawa. I would have used the word "Francophone" but I didn't only because not everybody is familiar with it. But, if people decide the word "language" is redundant, than I suggest renaming the other categories to remove it. --Rob 14:37, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

ps. Somebody knowing more than I might know if there's even enough French language schools in Ottawa to warrant a separate sub-category. Burying articles in these subcats may give them less attention. --Rob 14:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
List of schools in Ottawa Battlefield 15:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
A better option would be to shorten the other categories ex. Category:French schools in Alberta the "language" portion is not needed Battlefield 16:10, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
A reason I like the the word "language" in there, are cases of a nation's schools in another nation. There are "American schools in Japan" which are on Army bases. There are can be "French schools in CountryX" in the both the national and linguistic sense of the words (e.g. a school for French embassy staff in a foreign country). Specifying "language" makes clear how you're using the word. Also, sometimes within Canada, the word "French" means community, not just language. In Alberta or Ontario, when I hear the term "French school", I think of a school actually run by the French community (e.g. a Francophone school board). I don't think of a French immersion school run by the English school board. But, it's not a huge deal, so how's this as a compromise: If you agree to change every article/sub-cat that's under Category:French language schools in Canada outside Quebec to drop the word "language" and WP:CFD the orphan cats, I'll accept it. --Rob 01:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative/separate/special programs categories

Can we have categories for:

  • Alternative schools (elementary and secondary)
  • Separate Schools (religious and private)
  • Special programs (public arts based schools)

[edit] Info Box Templates

I created a userbox for the various Faculty pages at McGill University [1]. I'm not sure if they'll apply/be useful for the other university's pages. I will also be creating an info box for the university level page (as opposed to faculty level, as this one is) in the next week or so. Not sure if this is of any use to anyone.... You can see it in action at McGill University Faculty of Arts. pm_shef 07:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

So how do I go about making this template "official"? pm_shef 18:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
My opinion would be to make this generic, so it can be applied to any college/university. There isn't anything in your table which is strictly Canadian, so the first thing I'd do is look through all of the existing infobox templates. More than likely, you'll find a template that someone has already written which may look similar to the table you have. Otherwise, if you want exactly the look and colours that you've created, I think it needs to be turned into a proper generic template. Re-implenting the size/alignment/colour scheme you have into every article defeats a large part of the infobox role -- a single location which groups together all of the text in related articles. --Stephane Charette 21:17, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yet more information and questions on infoboxes for Canadian schools

For anyone like myself just joining the Education_in_Canada project, I've gone through and had a peek at many (all?) of the existing infoboxes related to schools:

The "WikiProject Education in Canada" page specifically mentions and gives an example for Template:Infobox_Education_in_Canada. While I really like how it looks, the example given (Featherston Drive Public School) seems to indicate it is very difficult to use, having to embed colour, spacing, and alignment information into each article.

Considering how I'm about to embark on adding several dozen new schools, I was reluctant to use that infobox. But doing a search, I've found another 2 examples that attempt to use that infobox, and seems to indicate it is simpler to use than indicated by Featherston Drive Public School. The tricky bit that has me worried is, those 2 other examples are not working correctly:

  1. Loyola High School (Montreal)
  2. Terry Fox Secondary School

Thus, I would like to solicit advice and/or opinions from those of you familiar with templates and infoboxes on how to approach this topic. --Stephane Charette 21:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I've updated Template:Infobox_Education_in_Canada to turn it into a full-fledge template with *many* optional fields. This should make like easier for everyone. I've also update the 2 perviously broken school pages that were attempting to use this template: Loyola and Terry Fox. --Stephane Charette 14:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
For anyone else wanting to use an infobox to create a new school article or upgrade an existing one, there are now more than a dozen examples of the template Infobox_Education_in_Canada. --Stephane Charette 09:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Should we have a note in {{Infobox Canadian School}} advising people to use {{Infobox Education in Canada}} instead? — Usgnus 20:04, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Done. I'm also adding the schools that use this older template to the section below listing the school articles that need to be updated. --Stephane Charette 00:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Schools that use the deprecated Template:Infobox Canadian School

  • Before we convert any of the following, I would like to improve the Template:Infobox Education in Canada to add some of the optional fields and features in Template:Infobox Canadian School. — Usgnus 05:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I made my changes. Take a look — Usgnus 23:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Victoria High School

  • done by Usgnus (16 May 2006)

[edit] West Vancouver Secondary School

  • I converted this to Template:Infobox Education in Canada. Do a diff, and you'll see how few changes were needed. — Usgnus 23:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
    • What a coincidence. When I added optional parameters to {{Infobox Education in Canada}}, I simply chose the obvious words. Looks like the choice of obvious words is not as wide or varied as one would think. --Stephane Charette 09:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Wow. I take it back. The work was in making the template accept a truckload of ever-so-slightly differently named parameters. Nice job. (I worry about the cost of future maintenance to the template, but that is a different story...!) --Stephane Charette 09:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
        • At some point I can go in and enter some comments to help future editors, --Usgnus 15:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
          • I added some comments for some of the more complicated features --Usgnus 16:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sir Winston Churchill High School

  • done. I might need to change the template to move communities and feeder schools lower in the box. Actually, if anyone wants to change the order of the fields, let me know. --Usgnus 16:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I put the communities and feeder schools at the bottom of the box (right before the Last Updated field). --Usgnus 17:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Western Canada High School

  • done --Usgnus 16:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Argyle Secondary School

  • done by Usgnus (16 May 2006)

[edit] Sutherland Secondary School

  • done by Usgnus (16 May 2006)

[edit] Montgomery Middle School

  • done by Usgnus (16 May 2006)

[edit] Centennial School

  • done by Usgnus (16 May 2006)

[edit] Canadian school articles that are in need of cleanup

[edit] Meadowvale Secondary School

[edit] Terry Fox Secondary School

  • NPOV issues (academics versus athletes?) --Stephane Charette 23:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Fixed by anonymous IP. --Stephane Charette 00:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featherston Drive Public School

  • still uses the old infobox template format (and is listed in Template talk:Infobox Education in Canada as the school to use as an example for future school articles) --Stephane Charette 23:22, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Fixed. --Stephane Charette 09:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Not fixed. User SirIsaacBrock (talk · contribs) keeps reverting the article to remove the infobox templae. --Stephane Charette 18:17, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
        • I think the solution is to improve the template. The padding could be increased and more options could be added. — Usgnus 18:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
          • This is done. A neutral 3rd party administrator went in, fixed up some stuff in the template, and it has been in the article for a while now. Problem solved. --Stephane Charette 00:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] College of Toronto

  • Which is not to be confused with User:College of Toronto, nor User talk:College of Toronto. I predict problems in cleaning up this mess...!  :) --Stephane Charette 00:02, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I tagged the article with {{wikify-date}} and did some very basic changes. I'm pretty sure WP:AGF applies. --Usgnus 00:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
      • My fist comment was badly worded -- what I meant is the article appears 3 times in Wikipedia -- once as an article, once as a talk page, and again as a user page. Your {{wikify-date}} was to only 1 of the copies of the article...you missed the other two.  :) I've also noticed it is {{copyvio}} from the school's web site, so I've tagged it as such. Strangely enough, I cannot find a reference to this school on the web site for Ontario's Ministry of Education]. --Stephane Charette 01:09, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] David and Mary Thomson C.I.

  • This one is a classic. --Usgnus 23:34, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Nice find. I've cleaned it up a bit to get things started. Article needs a bit of flesh. --Stephane Charette 00:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Here is something else that has come up for which we don't have guidelines: members of student councils at the various schools. In this case, one editor has filled up the article with bullet lists going back 5 years detailing the names of the various people on student council. I believe the argument against listing all those student's names would be:
  1. it is not notable (see WP:NN)
  2. it is not verifiable (see WP:VERIFY)
  3. it is not encyclopedic (see WP:NOT)
  4. it does not meet the search engine test (see WP:SET)
If someone else can head over to the school's talk page, or to the user's talk page. I've tried to remove this and explain to the user in question, but my edits get immediately reverted. --Stephane Charette 01:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Norfolk County, Ontario

Many of the schools in this county need work:

[edit] Important AfD!

  • The article for the G10 Group of Prestigious Canadian Universities is up for Deletion, please go and support Education related articles in Canada!!! pm_shef 03:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Might it make sense to Categorize this Project

Has there been any talk about breaking down this very ambitious project? I might suggest breaking it down by:

  • Province
  • Level
No talk yet, though it is obvious from recent submissions that people are making we do have some provincial breakdown. For example:
I wouldn't mind re-working this whole project to identify exactly what we want to do. It doesn't seem as if any of the original people who started the Education in Canada project are still around to contribute or comment, and we could do with a bit of revamping and refocus here. To add to your questions:
  1. What is the scope? I had assumed it was K-12 Canadian school articles, or school boards for Canadian schools. Specifically, I was excluding college and university articles. Is this what you mean by level?
  2. Clean the slate for contributors, and going forward asking people to add their names to a specic area of improvement, or to a specific geographic area so we have a better understanding of what we have covered and what isn't.
  3. Come up with a specific set of guidelines as to what kinds of things we want in Canadian school articles, how we want it to be formatted, and how we plan on upgrading the numerous articles that already exist.
  4. Related to the item above, what kinds of things we're not looking for in articles, and try and establish a guideline that will help us determine when something needs to be deleted, moved, reverted, fixed, etc.
  5. We need people across many geographic areas willing to go out and get pictures of (or information on) schools for us -- I've been trying to work with several school boards in Ontario to get them to release to wikipedia photographs of schools that can be used (I now live in BC) but it would be much easier if an existing Wikipedia member could go and take a snapshot of the specific schools.
  6. Wikipedia categories. How to deal with it. In some places, we have a category for the entire province, in other places we categorize by schools boards, in others we categorize by city or town...we need a standard way to do this. A recent example: A school in Welland, Ontario -- should the category be "high school in Ontario", "French high school in Ontario", "High school in the Niagara region", or "High school in Welland"?
    I did some category cleanup today. Here's what makes sense to me...
    Education in Canada > Schools in Canada > Schools in Ontario > High schools in Ontario > School instance
    Education in Canada > Schools in Canada > High Schools in Canada > High schools in Ontario > School instance
    Education in Canada > Education in Ontario > Schools in Ontario > High schools in Ontario > School instance
    For major cities, there would be another layer; for example,
    ... > High schools in Ontario > High schools in Toronto > School instance
    ... > Schools in Ontario > Schools in Toronto > High schools in Toronto > School instance
    ... > Education in Toronto > Schools in Toronto > High schools in Toronto > School instance
    --Usgnus 07:37, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
  7. Templates for us to use:
    1. Infobox. I drastically updated the infobox earlier this year, but more work probably needs to be done. ({{Infobox Education in Canada}})
    2. Footers. We have several zones where a footer exists to show all schools in a city, or within a school board. This needs to be standardized. Recent examples:
      1. Windermere_Secondary_School which uses {{VancouverSchools}}
      2. École élémentaire Jeanne-Lajoie which uses {{CSDCSOSchools}}
      3. {{NVSchools}}
      4. {{WVSchools}}
      5. {{RichmondBCSchools}}
  8. Do most elementary or primary schools warrant their own articles? Should we merge all stub articles into the school board/district articles? How about middle schools? --Usgnus 06:01, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
  9. ...what else did I miss
--Stephane Charette 21:52, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
  1. Do we include private and public schools in the navboxes? Wakemp 03:59, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming convention for school districts?

Hey, we're having a little trouble over at Talk:School district 36, British Columbia.

It seems important to include the following information in the title:

  • It's a School District
  • It's in a specific province
  • It covers a certain area
  • Its assigned number (atleast in BC)

but to include all of this makes the name really long. There are only 4 or 5 BC school districts with articles, so it wouldn't be hard to adapt them to a new convention.

Any thoughts? -- TheMightyQuill 10:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I've also left this comment here:
Spilling over from a discussion at Talk:School district 36, British Columbia, I must say I find the BC school board naming conventions...hmmm...unfortunate. If I'm moving to Vancouver for example -- or for the rest of the world not living in Vancouver -- it it unlikely I would know to search for School district 39, British Columbia. More than likely, I'd search for "Vancouver school board". As it turns out, the actual article is called Vancouver School Board, and the "school district 39" is just a redirect page, which demonstrates how the numeric titles are not helpful. Before the rest of these redlinks get filled in, shouldn't we drop the numeric school board designation and use the names that people would likely use to search for information? (I'm also using this article to compare ease-of-use between BC school boards and Ontario school boards.) --Stephane Charette 21:38, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

We've decided to go with the following convention: [[School District ## CityOrAreaName]] as in School District 36 Surrey -- Usgnus 16:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox again

Since the {{Infobox Education in Canada}} template is used only for schools and not other educational institutions, should we merge it into {{Infobox Canadian School}}, in effect renaming it. Then its name will be more consistent with the other school templates (see above). -- Usgnus 16:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I'd say leave it. At the moment, we have about 158 schools that use {{Infobox Education in Canada}} and zero articles that use {{Infobox Canadian School}}. While we could redirect to prevent having to fix up all of the existing schools, the current template also happens to reflect the name of the wikipedia project (WikiProject Education in Canada). --Stephane Charette 18:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't mind fixing all 158+ schools. Let's not let that affect our decision. I'm thinking of people who are creating a new school article and look for a template to use. They might search for infobox school. "Education in Canada" is a pretty general name for a pretty specific usage. -- Usgnus 18:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Navigation Boxes (Footers)

Let's discuss standardization of navboxes. Here are the ones I know about:

I am partial to BbySchools. -- Usgnus 03:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

The Richmond and the SD36 examples are purely public schools while BbySchools, NVSchools, and VancouverSchools mix public and private. This may be more of an issue in other Provinces where there are multiple boards for a given area. Wakemp 04:05, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I propose creating a template (called CanadianSchoolNavBox) that would be called by the above templates and any new templates that are created. Check out User:Usgnus/NavBoxTemplate and User:Usgnus/NavBox. -- Usgnus 21:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Any chance this could be implemented using:
  • <div class="NavFrame" ...
  • <div class="NavHead" ...
  • <div class="NavContent" ...?
This way if the look-and-feel of navigation boxes is extended, we'll automatically inherit the new functionality. For example, by using NavFrame and NavHead, we'll automatically have the little [Hide] in the top-right corner the way navigation boxes are supposed to have. For example, see Template:Alberta. --Stephane Charette 02:40, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I changed the examples. -- Usgnus 03:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I like it. I'm ready to convert. Note this url:
We already have many templates that start with the name "navigation bar". Shouldn't we name this one in a similar way? And now that I take a closer look, if the title was a full parameter, then it could be a purely generic two-column template that could be used for *any* type of navigation bar, not just for schools.
Lastly, we should also come up with a naming convention for the instantiated templates as well. Looking at the existing (non-school) navigation bars, and the few we already have for BC and Ontario, perhaps something along the lines of:
  1. {{Navigation bar SD36}}
  2. {{Navigation bar Surrey Schools}}
  3. {{Navigation bar School District 36 Surrey}} (to match the SD article, e.g., School District 36 Surrey)
Personally, I like #3 with allowances for variations based on the short school district name versus the full name. The reason I say this is for the following: if I take a look at the largest French-language school board in Ontario, the name of the article is Conseil scolaire de district du Centre-Sud-Ouest. But I don't want the navigation bar to be:
  • {{Navigation bar Conseil scolaire de district du Centre-Sud-Ouest}}
Instead, I'd like to use the short school board name to get to this:
  • {{Navigation bar CSDCSO}} (...which also matches the redirect page CSDCSO)
--Stephane Charette 04:32, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Now that I think about it some more, I think we should make the navbar more specific rather than generic. We can associate it with WikiProject Education in Canada, and make it easier for editors to set up the categories to match our categorization scheme, i,e,, using secondary_schools=, middle_schools=, elementary_schools=, private_schools=, other_schools= as optional fields. As for the naming, maybe the metatemplate can be called "Navigation Education in Canada". For instances, #3 sounds good, but I think the "bar" is unnecessary, and we can allow for regional differences. I also like the idea of including private schools or combining two school boards covering the same geographic area as in Calgary. -- Usgnus 14:08, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I made the changes. I like it better, and if you look at the template instance, it's much cleaner. You can use district= or city= and even override the "Schools in" with a prefix=. I added Usage info as well. -- Usgnus 15:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Usgnus, I like what you've done. Go ahead and move it to the template namespace so we can begin converting the few navigation boxes we already have. Do we go with {{Navigation bar Education in Canada}}, {{Navigation Education in Canada}}, or does someone have a 3rd suggestion to offer? --Stephane Charette 17:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I also like the template and appreciate all the work on this, as for the name - shorter is always better in my book, especially for a template. Wakemp 17:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
How about "NavBox Education in Canada" or "NavBox-EIC"? -- Usgnus 19:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
You did the work, Usgnus. Pick one from the few proposals in the thread, and we'll work with it. (...but "EIC" isn't very obvious to people who are browsing templates and aren't aware of "education in canada" as a project name...) --Stephane Charette 19:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I did some template browsing, and it appears that using Navigational or Navigation in the name is the exception rather than the rule. Let's create a category Canadian education navigational boxes. Then we name the master template "Education in Canada schools" and the instances "CSDCSO schools", "North Vancouver schools" and "Surrey schools". Furthermore, after reading about the costs of transclusion, do you think we should "subst" the master into the instances? -- Usgnus 19:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

(resuming the thread at the left border)

I was really hoping we could have something like "Navigate", "NavBar", or "NavBox", etc..., somewhere in the name of the template. Otherwise, when looking through lists of templates, "Education in Canada schools" doesn't really give any insight into the purpose of the template. Look at these 2, for example:
This way we're somewhat standardized in our naming conventions. --Stephane Charette 21:52, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I see your point, but almost no navigational templates have "navigation" or "nav" in them, whereas almost all infobox templates do. Let's go with "Navbox Education in Canada" (consistent with Infobox) for the master. Do we still need to discuss the instance naming? -- Usgnus 21:56, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Do you think we might need a navbox elsewhere in the project? Should we call it "Navbox Education in Canada schools" or "Navbox Canada schools master" instead? -- Usgnus 22:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Call it {{Navbox Education in Canada}}. Then individual board instances can use the district name, such as {{Navbox School District 36 Surrey}}. --Stephane Charette 23:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I created the master and updated {{WVSchools}}. I think when we are looking at large cities, we should consider using the city or region name so that it's more natural to include private schools. -- Usgnus 05:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I put all the templates into the category Category:Canadian education navigational boxes -- Usgnus 18:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Joining

Can i join in this project? i've added Westdale Secondary School and cleaned up Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board so far...i'm not new to wikipedia but AM new to the talk/discussion page... zeChinaman 16:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Yes, you and everyone are welcome to join. All WikiProjects are open to anybody, and they're pretty informal, so there's not actually a huge difference between people who list themselves as members, and other people who happen to be active in the related articles. BTW, on talk pages, its best to click the "+" button up top, and your message goes at the bottom of the talk page (no big deal). --Rob 01:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


ah...thanks very much...now is there a process for nominating/creating new categories? zeChinaman 19:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and propose -- this is the right forum to discuss it. --Stephane Charette 19:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CEGEP spelling

These schools in Quebec have a variety of spellings in various articles. There's CÉGEP, CEGEP, cégep and cegep. Should we try to settle on one variation? I'm in favor of using the "most English" variant, but I'm not sure which that would be. I've seen Cégep very often on the (French) schools' English language websites, but I'm not sure that's definitive because in other cases foreign language schools refer to themselves in their native language but wikipedia still translates them. Is there perhaps a Canadian English style guide that we could refer to? Cpastern 18:47, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

If you look at http://news.google.ca/news?q=cegep, you'll note the following distribution in English-language news articles:
  • CEGEP (used 23 times)
  • Cégep (used 5 times)
  • Cegep (used 4 times)
  • cégep (used 1 time)
I'd say we should use the dominant one typically used in English-language news: CEGEP. --Stephane Charette 17:18, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I would have liked to check the Canadian Press Stylebook, but I couldn't get a hold of one. I looked at the Montreal Gazette online and cbc.ca and based on those would confirm what you say, that CEGEP is prevalent. Cpastern 15:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A brand new Wikiproject Education in Canada

[edit] Proposal

I re-wrote a large part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Education in Canada page. For the past few months, we've been using the discussion page to communicate and the main project page has been more-or-less ignored. I think it is time the page was updated to reflect some of the new ways we're currently looking at the school and school board articles.

Please have a look at it here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Education in Canada/Revised.

I don't expect it to be perfect right off the bat. But what I'd like to do, if enough people are OK with it as a starting point, is to archive the current existing Education in Canada page, and then replace it with the revised version. At the same time, I'd also archive the discussion page and start a new one. Nothing gets deleted during the archive -- we'd still have access to any old discussion should we need to look something up.

Let me know what you think. --Stephane Charette 06:42, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories and tasks

I like what Wikipedia:WikiProject Education in Canada/Revised#Categories says. The one part that I'm not clear on is the concept of "owning" a task. What's that mean? For instance "AB schools" is listed, but I can't see how one person can "own" that task. --Rob 08:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
You are correct, an entire province is large to have as a task. However, at the moment we only have coverage for 3 provinces and 0 territories according to the users I know about. So the tasks simply highlight some glaring holes. I could have broken them down to specific school boards for example, but I thought it was unecessary to do so since no-one is even available on a province-wide scale. If someone wants to step up and take a chunk of Alberta, then we'd modify the task to indicate which part(s) are still left. --Stephane Charette 08:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colleges and universities

I don't think we need to de-emphasize the universities and colleges. -- Usgnus 18:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

In regards to 'de-emphasize the univesities and colleges', I'm not sure what else to do. We don't have any suggestions as to how to format university articles, or templates to use, or how to break it down into manageable articles, etc... Note that there is a university and college project, which does deal with all of this stuff. This is why I wanted to distance ourselfs somewhat from C & U. --Stephane Charette 22:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Should have added the link to it: Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities, where the title states: WikiProject Universities is aims to standardize coverage of Universities and colleges. --Stephane Charette 22:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I think Canadian Universities and Colleges fall under this project. It is Education. Ardenn 18:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree, it is education; however, what should we do about it? We could add a "college" and "university" (or "college & university"?) section to the new project, but what will we put in it? None of the templates apply to C&U except for {{Canada-university-stub}}, and this is already documented in the new proposal. None of the categories we have are for colleges or universities. The only list we have for C&U is called List of colleges in Ontario, and that is also already documented in the new proposal. This is why I was suggesting that Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities may be a better place to discuss C&U. --Stephane Charette 19:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Here is what I was thinking: that the new proposal (being discussed) would be a definitive list of things that we know we want to do, and how to do them. For example, I tried to document how a typical elementary or high school article gets written up -- which templates we typically use, in what order we place them, what category to use, etc... The intent was to get the project to a state where any new editor who decides to join this afternoon can look through the project's main page, and instantly (relatively!) know what needs to be done, and the recommended approach.

What I didn't want -- which is how I feel the current project page looks like now -- is a loose collection of information, some of which may be current, some of which is heavily out-of-date. For example, until recently, the main project page had the entire text of the Infobox Education in Canada imbeded within, and the original author's idea was that each school would reproduce the entire template (subst:Infobox Education in Canada) instead of referencing the template.

Instead of adding blank or incomplete sections to the new project stating "Colleges and Universities", and then leaving those blank or incomplete, I think we need someone to champion the Canadian College and University topic, propose some templates, categories, best-use practice, etc..., and get a discussion going on the talk page. Once we know what we want with the C&U, then we add it to the project page or spin off a related sibling project Canadian Colleges and Universities. Otherwise, the project page will turn into a discussion page, and/or will be confusing to the users who simply want to know how they should proceed with C&U articles. Comment? Agree? Disagree? --Stephane Charette 19:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of subst on talk pages

Plus, I didn't know that {{CanEd}} was to subst'ed. There are over 350 talk pages with the non-subst tag. -- Usgnus 18:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Thats a good point. Subst just makes them harder to change and to find (with "What links here?"). --Rob 18:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
We don't have a choice. The Wiki rule is that talk page template must use subst, unless it is a template that breaks when substituted. This is available in several places on Wikipedia. Here is the most direct quote I could find in the shortest time[2]:
When using template tags on talk pages,
don't forget to substitute with text by
adding subst: to the template tag.
--Stephane Charette 22:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok, here is more info on using 'subst' for talk pages: Template talk:Subst and WP:SUBST. --Stephane Charette 22:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I didn't know that. In that case, I suggest, if we continue use of {{CanEd}} that we consider making a category for it, to place the relevant talk pages in their. Otherwise, we'll never be able to find the articles where its located. I find this rule rather perplexing, and I'm not sure of the benefit of the template at this point. --Rob 23:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
My interpretation of the substitution guideline (arguments against substitution) is that {{CanEd}} is best NOT subst'ed. -- Usgnus 23:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
As part of wikipedia's vandal patrol, and when using VandalProof, we're constantly reminded to always subst templates on talk pages. Combined with the sentence "When using template tags on talk pages, don't forget to substitute with text by adding subst: to the template tag", I take this to mean we're supposed to subst. Having said this, if the general consensus is that we'd rather not subst for technical reasons such as having the capability to use what links here, then let's decide now and ensure the proposed project page reflects that decision. So now we have Usgnus' point of view, my point of view...who else wants to voice their opinion? (Usgnus, no hard feelings, right? I'm not trying to be confrontational, I just wanted all the cards out on the table.) --Stephane Charette 02:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
But don't they mean user talk pages? How often do you need to substitute a template on article talk pages because of vandalism? -- Usgnus 03:22, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I never differentiated between user talk and article talk. I know when I added templates to school talk pages, I always made certain I subst: the templates, thinking that was the right way to do it. If I may say, I think Usgnus' position is clear on this topic. I think I'm on the fence, seeing that there definitely is a benefit to having the capability of clicking on what links here. Is there someone else who can voice their opinion so we can put this topic to rest? --Stephane Charette 04:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Check out WP:TTALK##WikiProject notices. All examples are used without subst. -- Usgnus 17:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the references to subst: on the re-written project page. I've updated the Decisions from previous discussions section to specifically state the the templates should never be subst:. --Stephane Charette 04:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Navboxes

The statement "all schools should have a navigation bar linking together schools from the same school district" is good advice only for smaller school districts. This would become unweildy and unmaintable for larger districts. For example the 200 schools at the Calgary Board of Education was to big (in my opinion) to have in the main article, let alone, to show at the bottom of every school for navigation. Also, I disagree that such navigation is useful. Two schools in the same district may be a great distance from each other, but a city may have many cases of adjacent schools from the different districts (e.g. separate/public). --Rob 18:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Didn't know we had such large school districts! Ok, how about we reword it to indicate a preference for the navboxes when applicable, and then can list exception cases where that doesn't work and possible solutions. --Stephane Charette 22:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
That sounds fine. BTW, TDSB has 558, so the CBE is not that big. --Rob 23:19, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section headings

in the structure section there are suggestions

  1. History
  2. Academics
  3. Athletics
  4. Departments
  5. Staff
  6. ...need more examples of section headings

my concern is....should we really be disclosing staff names? and wouldn't athletics fall under extra-curriculars? and is it feasible to talk about the departments w/out mentioning teacher's names? zeChinaman 21:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Only add what is relevant or notable enough to be put in the article. Take only the headings that apply to the specific school article, not all. And also remember WP:CITE: the information you are putting in the article must already have been published, preferably in several places (WP:NOR) and isn't first-hand information. The distinction may be harder to see for students like yourself still attending school. What I'd like to see is a school article that effectively makes use of several sections, so we can provide examples of decent non-stub school articles. Anyone know of such an article? --Stephane Charette 21:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
newspapers count? if so then the local paper has quite a few articles on the atheletics :D....i do not think that the music festivals have publications of winners...drama productions are almost always a first hand source? and math contests can be verified through their sites...
zeChinaman 22:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
As editors working on high school and elementary school articles, we run the risk of frequently sailing too close to WP:NN. I think an article about how the grade 10 field hockey team lost yesterday's game against Main Street Secondary School is likely to result in the entire school article winding up on AfD, even if it there was an article about it in the local paper. --Stephane Charette 23:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Time to make the shift?

How do we decide if and when we go ahead with this new proposal? (BTW, thanks to everyone who has commented so far!) Are there objections to having this proposal be the new project page? If so, please raise a new subsection here so it can be discussed, and hopefully addressed. If there are no big objections, when would people be OK with me archiving the current project page and the talk page? --Stephane Charette 02:23, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Anytime is fine with me. -- Usgnus 19:11, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright and images

on a completely different tangent...any1 know the copyright laws/procedures for uploading pictures belonging to the school but approved by a teacher/the administration for encyclepedic purposes? because i could prob get some pics of my school off the media arts teacher....thx for answering zeChinaman 21:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier to simply take a new picture of the school with a digital camera that you or a friend owns? Versus trying to find the forms and seek approval for a picture that someone else has taken? If you insist it has to be their picture you want, then see WP:BRP. --Stephane Charette 21:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


ah yes...that is ideal...only drawback is the shoddiness of my digi cam...:P zeChinaman 22:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clubs and Extracurriculars

  • Has there been a discussion in the past about the inclusion of clubs and extracurricular activities on High School and Elementary School pages? For example, are just general lists of all the clubs and teams at a school permissible? It seems a bit unwieldy and unnecessary... - pm_shef 00:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't bother putting a list of clubs or sport teams into stub articles. It look forced. For articles that are well fleshed-out, adding list of clubs and teams can easily be made to look nice, and relatively easy to fit into the flow of any article. --Stephane Charette 01:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)