Talk:Ottawa/Archives/2007

WP:CCT

As part of the wikiproject WP:CCT: Could we please discuss the possibility of adding time to this article. My last edits on the main space of this article added the current city time and date. I don't completely object to the removal of the date and time from the article because, 1) it was not 100% correct. For example it said 14 January when in fact it is still the 13 January. The time was however correct. Is there a solution for this? Maybe? However, 2) It is allegedly, according to the person that removed the date and time, a significant burden on the server. I think this would need to be discussed because, the first problem deals with formating, a problem which might be easily fixed, whereas the second problem may be biger. If we can continue this discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Current Local City Time that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! --CyclePat 02:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Request Move

The request is based on the principal that the common denominator, per the new category UTC-5 demonstrates that cities generally have the state or province name. Ottawa should redirect to Ottawa, Ontario and not vis-versa. This will help when categorizing cities. --CyclePat 00:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, in that there are other cities that do the same single city format Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. Can you explain how having the City,Province (or state) format better helps in categorizing? Agne 00:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

This matter is addressed at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements):

Places which either have unique names or are unquestionably the most significant place sharing their name, such as Quebec City or Toronto, can have undisambiguated titles.

There can be no doubt that the capital of Canada is the "most significant place" with the name Ottawa.

However, I believe it is possible to change the appearance of the article name in category lists (like how we change "Michael Ignatieff" to be listed as "Ignatieff, Michael"). That change might be worth pursuing by someone with the markup know-how. -Joshuapaquin 00:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe the script I added for the city template infobox adds the category. I can't see how we could fix it unless we changed the pages manually somehow.

See [Requested moves for the nomination and see WP:CCT to voice your opinion. --CyclePat 04:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

This move discussion is located at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Current_Local_City_Time#Move_and_Rename_cities —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.51.9.156 (talk) 06:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC).

Oppose. There has already been extensive discussion of this at the Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board and a fairly firm consensus was reached in favour of the current system. - SimonP 17:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose: The name is unique, it is the Capitol of Canada and I see no benefit to using a longer article name. Alan.ca 17:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Strong Oppose We have already decided that a city like Ottawa can be undisambiguated because the former Ottawa redirected to Ottawa, Ontario. Following policy blindly for the sake of following policy is what we've decided against. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 18:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. It does not appear that you even reached a consensus on your project page to start this move. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 19:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose also, for the very good reasons given above. —Grstain | Talk 19:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I would just like to point out that currently the list at category:UTC-5 only has a couple cities that do not have the format <city>, <province> and that includes, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. What you are sugesting by saying "oppose" in bold is that I will be removing the those cities... they do not conform to the common denominator and placing them within in the list as they currently appear is an annomily. They will hence have their own seperate category. However, what you are sugesting is a type of POV fork and I personnally do not appreciate having this option which violates more than just a naming convention but wiki policy. --CyclePat 21:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I've gone to said category, all I can see is your project page, its associate talk page, and Connecticut. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 22:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You don't need to remove the cities from the template; their 'anomalous' appearance in the category list is hardly fatal to the usefulness of their place in the category. I also think your understanding of content forking is, quite frankly, completely wrong. -Joshuapaquin 22:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:NC:CITY states:

"Places which either have unique names or are unquestionably the most significant place sharing their name, such as Quebec City or Toronto, can have undisambiguated titles." Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements)#Canada

Tell me what policy you have to support your proposed move. So far all I'm hearing is "common denominator": '...I must again state that the common denominator stipulates that cities should have a format of "<city>,<province>."' Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Current Local City Time#Comments That isn't a Wikipedia policy; in fact, go there and look at figurative uses: I doubt that's what you meant.

And I still can't see anything other than Connecticut in the category to illustrate what the name problem is. Is it a browser-specific problem or what? --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 22:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I fixed the template. You should be able to see the information now. I was just perusing the stats can and noticed that they have township, town, village, Indian Reserve, Indian settlement, unorganized, county, Local government district, Rural municipality, Resort village, Northern hamlet, Northern town, Municipal district, County (municipality)], Summer village, In British Columbia: Subdivision of regional district, Regional district electoral area, District municipality, Nisga'a village, in the Yukon: Teslin land, Settlement, in NWT & Nunavut: Hamlet, etc... Take for example Red Lake Township vs Red Lake Town. Or take for example Park (North) Rural municipality vs. Park (North) Local government district. If we are going to call New York (City) or New York City or New York... then we should have an obligation to maintain that standard throughout the entire wiki project. The reason on having a standard name is obvious but why you ask does CCT project care. Because the use of templates... something, will need to be changed, no matter what to fix the listing problem or sub-categorization. One part organizing the implemention of WP:CCT Project involves a throughout list of the cities listed by their time zone. Any obvious derivation from the "common denominator" sticks out like a soar thumb. In writting an essay for Univesity you are asked for example to pick a standard of reference and stick to it. Similarlly you wouldn't switch halfway through the numbering of your pages from regular numbers to romain numerals or start adding a verbe in your essays sub-titles when throughout the entire process you never used a verbe (ie.:Running a proper citation system vs Proper citation system.) If we call all the places city, township or all of the afformentioned terms... then we should be consitant. Do too the new category generated by the template infobox city we can easilly identify these anomilees. --CyclePat 02:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the StatsCan site has to do with the topic. Are you suggesting we take every place name in Wikipedia and attach (town) or (rural settlement) after it? And when you start implementing the time zones for Europe, are you going to change "Paris" to "Paris, France" and "Berlin" to "Berlin, Germany" and on down the line through Africa and Asia? I've seen the category page finally, and I note that Lima, Quito, and Toronto all fit in there; no disasters resulted. So why do the names need to be changed? The naming conventions have been arrived at through consensus; and as I pointed out on a similar discussion -- for which I was labelled rude -- that there was no such consensus reached on the project talk page. I am not yet convinced of the imperativeness of this move for a project whose benefit to WP has not yet been fully demonstrated. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 03:18, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay! Well, I don't know... does Paris not have a region to which it belongs other then the country? Oh! Yes... There's Paris, Ontario... but that's not a city yet! That's still a town. Paris Town could have worked no? But what happens if we atually have two cities... I'm trying to see if there is going to be a problem with making a category... And you know what... as my stats show. Maybe only 0.2% to 1% will be an anomolie. So perhaps I should just continue working until there is actually a problem. (Obviously if the naming convention you talk about is sound, then I shouldn't have any problems!) Okay! Makes sense. Thank you for the feedback. (you may check my user talk page for my recent comments on the same subject). --CyclePat 04:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• 'Oppose for reasons cited above by User:Royalguard11. Ground Zero | t 17:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Orgin of the name

Which is the origin of the name Ottawa, and what does it mean? Aaker 21:42, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a Native term, though I don't know what it means. It's likely the same origin of the Ottawas in the US. I presume it's related to Odawa, whose meaning I also do not know. Good question! --RealGrouchy 20:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

See Ottawa (tribe) for your answer.Emile 22:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

This should be added into the article somewhere. It took me a while to find teh Ottawa (tribe) article and it seems like an obvious bit of information for this core article (even if it is kind of embarassing that the city is named after a tribe from so damn far away). Jeremyclarke

Was the city named for the tribe, or was it named for the river (which was named for the tribe). I think it was the latter - the river had the name long before the city did. I think that needs to be confirmed and referenced, then added to the article. - Eron ^Talk 17:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Population

Should we be using the 2006 census data already since they haven't yet accounted for the undercount? I understand the data is supposed to be roughly 3% under the actual population figures. Jamincan 22:05, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that? The figure is the most recent official figure, so long as we link to the source, it seems right to include it (especially when augmented with a link to Canada 2006 Census where, if there is an undercount issue, it should be discussed). If it is significant, perhaps an addition to the footnote is possible to explain, but a quick Google News Canada search for census undercount only turned up references to an undercount in NWT in the 2001 census (so that 2006's 11% increase may be greater than the actual growth in that area). - Cafemusique 23:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I dug this up from the Statscan website: [Differences between Statistics Canada’s census counts and population estimates].

On the other hand, population estimates provide a more accurate measure of population counts. Population estimates are the official figures used for counts of the Canadian population.

That's sufficient to convince me. I'll go ahead and make the change. Jamincan 17:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I can't do that right now, so I won't be making the change as I said. Jamincan 17:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with the complete replacement. The census figure is a fact, the population estimate is just that. I think that both should be included to provide a fuller picture. I won't touch the article yet, because I'm not sure whether there is a good way to include both figures. - Cafemusique 01:49, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Reading the note regarding the difference though, it seems that Stats Canada is actually saying that the population estimates are more accurate than the census numbers, and that these numbers are currently only useful for comparing trends between the 2001 Census and this one, as the difference would be similar across censuses. It's only till early 2008 that the census numbers will be adjusted to reflect the actual population in the city. I don't really see how it's helpful to include a figure that Statistics Canada readily admits could be over 3% under the actual population. Jamincan 04:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

My problem with the estimate is because it depends on whatever assumptions Statistics Canada has made in interpreting results. The number of people counted is a fact; the population estimate is an educated guess. Neither of them will give the exact population of the city. To counter your last sentence "sound bite," I don't really see how it's helpful to include an estimate from the same people who didn't realise that hotel prices had risen by 30% and instead calculated that they had dropped, and didn't correct the mistake for more than two years. [1] If you can't interpret the data you have, how can you start interpreting what you don't have? That said, it seems we have about a year before we need to worry about this (since we don't currently have both sets of figures). And maybe as I learn more about this, my opinion will change. - Cafemusique 11:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Is this not a discussion that should be raised in a more general context, such as at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/discussion, given that the issue applies to a lot more places than just Ottawa? Skeezix1000 12:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I think most people realize that a census figure is a snapshot of a number that's constantly in flux — because people are constantly being born, changing residence or dying, the 2006 census figure was technically already inaccurate two days after census day, let alone nine months later. And yeah, when you're talking about 32 million pieces of paper, some get missed, or counted twice, or lost in the mail, or never filled in to begin with. But the undercount is a statistical assumption that's never actually factored into the official census data itself; it gets taken into account in the unofficial annual estimates, but the official "on census day itself" number is never revised with an undercount adjustment. My suggestion, accordingly, is to just use the census figure as provided; remember that as long as we label the data properly (i.e. don't label an off-year estimate as an official census), we can quote off-year population estimates like the one that's going to come out this year anyway. Bearcat 18:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The opening line is ridiculously misleading. Quoting the StatsCan CMA population figure which includes Gatineau, and then moving right on to say that Ottawa is a city in Ontario is not at all consistent. The article should either use the true Ottawa figure, or mention that the capital of Canada is actually the National Capital Region, which includes parts of Quebec. Meanstream (talk) 12:37, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree, it's silly to give the metro area including areas outside the province and then say that it's the second biggest in the Ontario. I've tried to fix this in the article. TastyCakes (talk) 16:06, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

How are the population stats misleading ? The "metro" area includes portions of Quebec, and Ottawa "proper" is the second most populated city in Ontario. They are two separate stats, both correct.

Demographics 3

There was a huge chart for the demographic page that was utterly ridiculous and too big, and took a huge portion of the article. I got rid of that massive chart and put all the important demographic information into 3 paragraphs with many cited sources unlike the chart before. - Galati

Capital needs to be sourced

Are we sure the capital of Canada isn't Toronto?--67.175.156.20 19:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a citation for your incorrect statement? --Sigma 7 20:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I know Im a few months late to point this out, but...April fools. Durr.Archatheron 03:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

2006 census

"Old" Ottawa's population isn't independently reported by the Canadian Census anymore...2006 census figure is calculated by summing all of the former city of Ottawa's component census tracts. Marathone 09:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Metropolitan Population

I think there has to be some sort of consistant standard for population, and also, any changes have to be documented. I reverted the population back to the population that is shown within the citation; however, the ~1.3 million population figure for the metropolitan area is properly sourced to the City of Ottawa's own census. The significant departure from the 1.15 million or so estimated by Statistics Canada can be accounted for by the large difference in area. I struck out the paragraph mentioning this since it seems to confuse things further. First, when mentioning metropolitan area, it links to the page on the National Capital Region, yet the population listed is for a larger region than the National Capital Region. Also, the CMA is generally regarded as the accepted delineation of a metropolitan area, and is far more useful for comparison purposes. If we are to include the 1.3 million figure, it should be clear that we are referring to what the City of Ottawa calls the Greater Ottawa-Gatineau Area and create a new article on the subject. That said, I'm not necessarily convinced that the figure merits inclusion when examining the source closer. Jamincan 11:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure where the source is for the 1.3 million? The city of Ottawa web page? Could you point it out, please? Ottawa does not conduct its own census, so presumably it is using Statscan figures, and simply adjusting the "metro" area to be larger. Statscan establishes its CMAs pretty carefully, with criteria to ensure that the region actually functions economically and socially as a metropolitan region. Perhaps the City was simply expanding the area to increase the population as a means of civic boosterism? Skeezix1000 12:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Here's the link: [2]

I suspect that it has more to do with the fact that the city was is more interested in studying the commuting patterns across its borders. Their definition of a metropolitan area seems to simply include the neighbouring municipalities of Ottawa and Gatineau. Jamincan 22:50, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

New Pics!

I felt that this article lacked photographs of the city's neighbourhoods and streetscapes, so I have added some dynamic images to add some colour and life to the article. Feel free to move some of the images around if you feel they are more appropriate in another spot. Let's make this page exciting! Trappy 18:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)