Talk:Ottawa/Archives/2008

Motto

Camerons don't have an exclusive right to march through the city with bayonets fixed. I'm a Gov Gen's Foot Guard, and I do it all summer, every summer. Is anyone familiar with what the Freedom of the City actually means for the Camerons? -- Draco Emendator 06:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not sure of the particular situation of the Gov Gen's Foot Guard, but the only reference I could find regarding the privilege of Freedom of the City is from this site: http://www.saintjohn.nbcc.nb.ca/heritage/3far/Freedom.htm which seems to be consistent with the description here. Jamincan 13:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Content of questionable value. I think the 'motto' section should be removed. Waste of space, only your grandmother cares, irrelevant - the list of reasons goes on... Seriously I don't think the article is desperate enough for content to warrant this being in here. Natanza (talk) 19:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Tourism

This is a question for any Canadian who can answer - Is Ottawa as big a tourist destination for Canadians as Washington, D.C. is for Americans? Being an American, I am not very familiar with Canadian tourism. Chaz 16:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm an Ottawa native, and I'm guessing it isn't. DC seems to be marketed as a patriotic pilgrimage for Americans, to visit the nation's democratic institutions, war memorials, statues of Jefferson and Lincoln, and other monuments. Ottawa is more frequently promoted for its natural beauty (lots of green space), summer cultural festivals (like the jazz festival), and of course the Rideau Canal and Winterlude in winter. So the fact that it's the capital is less of a big deal, and this probably makes the city seem less special as a potential destination. Sure, people visit Parliament and the War Memorial, but they're not as emphasized. So Washington is billed as a unique place in the US, while Ottawa is mostly promoted for activities you can also do in the bigger cities that lie on either side of Ottawa (Montreal and Toronto). Emile 18:19, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

But as Ottawa natives, we don't get the same marketing as other cities presumably do. There are lots of people who come to visit Ottawa, i.e. school trips, etc., and a good proportion of the country's population have visited Parliament Hill (citation needed ;) --RealGrouchy (talk) 03:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

No more pictures?

I think I am coming from good reasoning by suggesting we avoid any more pictures.

Outback-Alex (talk) 05:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we need a picture of Ottawa's skyline; most city pages do. M.nelson (talk) 01:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Most city pages do... need a picture of Ottawa's skyline?! You get the point. M.Nelson (talk) 06:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Nickname

The portion of the infobox has proven problematic, much as it has for other cities and places. For inclusion in the infobox, I would suggest that a name has to be widely-recognized as a nickname for Ottawa. Yet, names get added to this list without any sources or any proof that they are widely-used names for the City. Just recently we've had reversions over whether "613" is appropriately included in the list. Heck, I was born and bred in Ottawa, and never heard it referred to as O-Town, O.T or The Big O. Are these actually nicknames in wide circulation, or the ruminations of a teenage vandal? Who knows, because none of the nicknames have been sourced. The list even included "the Nation's Capital", which isn't a nickname per se, but a descriptor.

I have removed all of the nicknames except "Bytown". In keeping with WP:V, nicknames should only be added to the list if they can be sourced. In other words, please provide some evidence that the nickname has some widespread mainstream usage. Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

BTW, Bytown is not only the former name of the city, but is currently used routinely as a nickname for the city. As a resident of Toronto, I can tell you that the sportcasters on the radio here use it all the time whenever the Leafs are playing at Scotiabank place (e.g. [1]). Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I have lived in Ottawa my whole life and now attend uOttawa. The 6-1-3 phenom has been going on ever since area code nicknaming started in the US. As for O-Town, it's Ottawa's response to T-Dot, and in the University community, it is extremely widespread. It's hard to find a definite source for it, but both these nicknames are being used in blogs and stuff constantly. Devahn58 (talk) 15:15, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

First, you always need a source, as per WP:V. It's not good enough to cite something as "local only" and then say that it's hard to find a source.

Second, for a nickname to appear at the top of the article, it should be a recognized nickname for the city. Remember, this is going at the top of the article with the other key information about the city -- this is not just a collection of whatever nicknames we can think of. You need a source that shows that the term has widepsread usage, either in the population at large, or in a particular segment of the population. In other words, you need reliable sources to back-up your assertion that these are popular nicknames for Ottawa. Finding one or two random incidents of usage on the internet is not sufficient -- that doesn't show that the terms are popular/widespread or recognized nicknames of Ottawa, merely that they are used once or twice on the internet. In fact, the one source you have found doesn't even do that -- it does not support the proposition that people refer to Ottawa as "the 613" (all it says is that there is a concierge service in town names "VIP in the 613", a name that was likely chosen because it rhymes). What you really need is some sort of discussion or analysis of nicknames for Ottawa in a reliable source. Keep in mind also that personal blogs are usually not considered to be reliable sources in Wikipedia. Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

The additional source you provided (a nightclub directory named O-town.ca) doesn't get you where you need to be either. I'm not doubting that either of these terms may be used all the time to refer to Ottawa and that they are widely recognized nicknames for the city -- we just need sources to back it up. Random examples from the internet don't show that these are widely used nicknames. Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Nicknames for a city are going to be next to impossible to put on wikipedia, mostly due to the lack of literal useage. Having lived in Ottawa my entire life, I have heard numerous nicknames for the city, and it's various neighbourhoods. "O-Town", "O.T.", "6-1-3", "Villa Cappa", "Cap City", the list can go on... the only problem is that they are not written down anywhere. This is all slang, used in passing, not in writing. I think this whole subject should be dropped, and leave it as "Bytown" for now, or you can quote lyrics from local rap groups? O-Man613 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 14:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC).

How about official events that use O-Town in the title? http://www.otownhoedown.com/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.246.171.192 (talk) 20:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Climate Statistics

On there, it's written that Ottawa has the 3rd coldest temperature ever recorded in a capital city other than Moscow and Ulaanbaatar. Actually it has the 5th coldest temperature ever recorded. Astana, Kazakhstan was -51.6 and Minsk, Belarus was -39.1 which are both colder than -38.9. I thought you could make the changes. Here is the website with the source. http://www.mherrera.org/temp.htm Deneb1978 00:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I doubt the source that says ottawa's record snowfall is 73 cm on March 3-4, 1947. The environment canada website for Ottawa records a daily snowfall of 40.6 cm on March 2, 1947. The weather event may have deposited 73 cm of snow, however the date may be debatable. http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climate_normals/results_e.html?StnID=4337&autofwd=1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.234.223.100 (talk) 18:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The record is for a 24-hour period only and also from 1 AM to 1 AM, which means that snowfall that started at 7 AM and ends at 7 AM the next day, it will count from between 7 AM to 1 AM only as a one-day snowfall and the other six hours for the next day. I think it is better to keep the 73 cm, because it is clearly a one-event snowfall even though it was snowing beyond the 1 AM to 1 AM timeframe in which Environment Canada classes one-day event precipitation. There have been several snowstorms that dumped over the 40.6 cm 1 AM to 1 AM record (I may think of the Blizzard of March 1993 as an example). Also these are the airport numbers, and locally there were higher amounts, for example on the December 16, 2007 snow event, there was locally 50 centimeters on eastern parts of the city (closer to Embrun and Russell) and on March 3, 1999 there was 50 to 65 centimeters in western sections of the city (near Arnprior). --JForget 20:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

And we could add also the storm that dump 50 to 60 cm of snow on March 8-9 this year as well.--JForget 15:07, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Demographics Section

There's a huge difference between the text and the chart. Someone needs to fix this up. Ihaveacomputer (talk) 01:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

This section is really contradictory and is poorly written. It should be removed until something more readable is written up. Examples

The top three Ethnic divisions are listed as Canadian, French , English… What is Canadian? Canada is an immigrant country. How can there be nearly 500 000 Canadian in Ottawa when there are almost 1.9 million Canadians in the metropolitan area?

Other misleading divisions are Chinese and Asians… are Chinese not Asians?

JusticeBlack (talk) 20:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

While the ethnic divisions don't appear logical, I believe those statistics are based on how people identify themselves and do not necessarily indicate someone's actual cultural background. I'm not sure how this could be clarified in the article...--Ducio1234 (talk) 22:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Pictures

There are problems with three of the pictures. The picture CorktownFootbridge.jpg overlaps the picture OttawaWarMemorial.jpg and goes outside of the wikipedia page. The picture Ottawa_Parliament_Panorama.jpg also goes outside of the wikipedia page. The picture Parliament_Hill_at_sunset.jpg overlaps the text "Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton". Please fix it if you have sometime. Thanks ~~nobody special~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.70.110.4 (talk) 20:46, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I fixed up the pictures. I resized both of the panorama pictures and removed the sunset picture because the picture was off topic with the subject "events" and was overlaping text. Hope it was helpful 55CDs (talk) 17:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I have edited the page to remove out-of-context photos from individual sections and to fix positioning problems. I intend to also add a photo gallery at the end of the page where photos which don't really fit with any particular section can be placed. 67.70.46.129 (talk) 19:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Morgan's Grant in Geography and Climate

Morgan's Grant is most certainly not southeast of Riverside South, as the article seems to elude, but Rather in the North end of Kanata. Also, it had been a part of the city of Kanata for years before amalgamation, so I'm not sure if it warrants mention in this section. 199.246.40.54 (talk) 19:37, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

This makes no sense

The year 2007 was notable for having no lasting snow cover until the third week of January. It was also notable for having lasting snow cover from the first snow fall in November, with the 2007-2008 winter season snowfall (436.7 cm (171.9 inches))[10] coming within 10 cm (4 inches) of the record snowfall set in 1970-1971 (444.1 cm (174.8 inches)).[11][12] High wind chills are common, with annual averages of 51, 14 and 1 days with wind chills below -20 °C (-4 °F), -30 °C (-22 °F) and -40 °C (-40 °F) respectively. The lowest recorded wind chill was of -47.8 °C (-54.0 °F) on January 8, 1968. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.246.134.147 (talk) 16:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree and it was not sourced so I have removed the introductory wording. Cheers! DoubleBlue (talk) 16:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It makes sense to me, although I argee it's not the clearest sentence. The 2006-2007 winter there wasn't snow until January, the 2007-2008 winter had the second greatest amount of snow on record.--Ducio1234 (talk) 16:55, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

"The year 2007" had no lasting snow cover until January and "also" had lasting snow cover since November? I'm sorry but that nonsensical. I suspect that you are correct that it was discussing the previous and following winters but it was unsourced, I couldn't easily find a source, and suspect it wasn't that notable anyway so removed the first sentence and the section before the comma of the second sentence. DoubleBlue (talk) 17:00, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the more I read and think about it, I agree that that is exactly what it was trying to say so it's not nonsense but it was pretty confusing wording. Cheers! DoubleBlue (talk) 17:01, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Feedback

I'm a wikipedian trying to decide where my next Canadian vacation is going to be. I don't know Ottawa at all, so I wanted to see if there was a good summary of landmarks, museums, etc. here. I like what was attempted with the map with the various points of interests on this page, but I must say I find it tedious to roll over the tiny little stars to see the balloon text pop up and tell me what location it represents. Perhaps the sheer volume of Ottawa landmarks makes it difficult to put compile it all into a brief, easy-to-read wiki section, but may I humbly suggest that this map still needs to be made more user-friendly? RPM (talk) 06:35, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Cold war

Is the Cold War thing, started in Ottawa real? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.34.250.69 (talk) 02:26, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Huh? I've no idea what you are asking about. DoubleBlue (talk) 03:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Did you follow the link to Igor Gouzenko, perhaps? If you had, you would have discovered that yes, it was real. I also added a reference to the relevant section of the story. Also Google for "Igor Gouzenko Ottawa" and you'll get plenty of information to feed your curiosity. --RealGrouchy (talk) 03:44, 23 December 2008 (UTC)