User talk:Ground Zero/Archive 4

Dogpatch USA

Dogpatch USA, History, Success is elusive, paragraph 3

The use of the future tense in describing past events is perfectly acceptable, even desirable at times, to place the events in a particular perspective relative to a timeline in an historical article, which Dogpatch USA is. In this article, Odom was looking forward to success in 1972, "but the many unforeseen events of the 1970s would cast a dark shadow on Odom's dreams." The perspective here is Odom's, in 1972, and the events were, for him, yet future. My continued use of future tense throughout the paragraph was in harmony with this perspective. It is acceptable literary and journalistic practice. Examples of such usage abound. I find your changes to past tense to be unwarranted and unjustified. RogerK 01:43, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

My response:

Roger, I see that you are a relatively new editor, so let me add my welcome. Some time ago I did a fairly extensive copyedit to Dogpatch USA in order to help improve. Most of my copyediting was relatively minor -- punctuation, simplifying wording, etc. All in all, I think it is an excellenet article, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. As an aside, that is one of the joys of Wikipedia: being exposed to information that one is otherwise very unlikely ever to encounter.

But back to my copyediting. A day or two ago you reverted a bunch of changes that I and others had made, without paying much attention, it seemed to me, to whether or not those edits improved the article. For example, you put "Dogpatch USA" back in italics in several instances (but not all). I can see no reason why this would be italicized since it is not the title of a book, movie, etc. You also reverted the change from "negative income" to "loss". I restored this because I think that the business terminology would be unclear to many readers, and a simpler term is available.

Most importantly, you restored the use of "would" to express past events. This was an issue on which I tread more carefully because I know that it is acceptable and preferable in some circumstances to use this construction. I canvassed other editors by posting a question on the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk here. Most (although not all) of the editors who commented agreed, some very strongly, that the article would be improved by converting this paragraph to the simple past. Armed with the knowledge that other editors agreed with me, I made the changes. I want to make it clear that I do not believe that this grammatical construction to be incorrect, only that in this case, the article would be improved by describing the events in a simpler grammatical construction. I understand that it is accepted in journalistic and literary circles. We are working on an encyclopedia, however.

I believe that there is support for my view in the Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles:

Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia. The people who read it have different backgrounds, education and worldview from you. Try to make your article accessible to as many of them as possible. The reader is probably reading the article to learn. It's quite possible the reader knows nothing at all about the subject: the article needs to explain it to them.

And here:

Reduce every sentence to its essentials. Wordiness has no place in Wikipedia. Conciseness, however, does not justify removing information from an article.

Using the simple past here is less confusing for readers, especially for those for whom English is a second language.

More generally, there was a lot of wordy and grandiolquent language in the article that other editors and I had removed and you have added back in, such as "unforeseen events transform the high hopes of investors into a financial roller coaster ride which eventually ended in the park's demise." This, to me, is no encyclopedic in tone. I left most of it in, however, because you clearly feel very strongly about it. I made the tense change, however, because I fell very strongly that it makes the article clearer to the reader, and there was no need for it here.

I hope that my explanation of my changes enables you to understand why I made them. Regards, Ground Zero | t 02:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

RogerK's response:

I appreciate your detailed response to my criticism of your edits to the article, "Dogpatch USA", and thank you for your welcome. It's been my pleasure to be associated with Wikipedia since June of this year.

My purpose has been to assist those authors or collaborators who struggle with grammar in articles, and help, if possible, to bring the article to an acceptable encyclopedic status; I have neither the time nor the resources to write articles, and it's not likely that I will contribute in that way. Dogpatch USA was just such an article, and for more than three months I and the person who wrote and researched the bulk of the article, Stuart Feild, worked hand in hand via email to bring the article to FA status, which ocurred on September 19th. During that period I worked on and devoted what little spare time I could find to no other articles, and my wife, who uses another computer in this same room, would jokingly say, "Where are you now, Rog, Dogpatch again?", and I would invariably say, "Yep". The article was described on September 12th, by Pamri (administrator since November 6, 2005), as "very well written", and on September 15th, by administrator Alabamaboy, as an "excellent article" and "an example of an article that can only be found on Wikipedia". I must admit that this was a very gratifying experience, and I felt somewhat like a father who brings home his newborn baby.

I didn't return to the article for many weeks, until a few days ago. As to the points you made in your response, I carefully examined the edits that had been made, and, where I thought the edits were inferior, restored the text to what had previously existed. I did this by pasting and editing excerpts from my archived copies of the article, and that explains why "Dogpatch USA" was restored in italics in some places inadvertently. My apologies for that :)), I didn't realize that it had been changed to non-italic in other places. I restored "negative income" because I felt that "loss" was very ambiguous; loss of what? I would prefer "financial loss" or some such phrase if it must be changed to accomodate those less likely to understand business terminology. As to my use of future tense, I've stated my case and I'll not make any further issue of that, even though I still disagree, but now I disagree with a smile on my face :)). And finally, my use of grandiloquence in the introduction was not intended as such. The intro to this article was a labor of love for me. It was rewrtten many times during the article's development. In the final stage, I used the sentence "But the following years would see a combination of characters and unforeseen events transform the high hopes of investors into a financial roller coaster ride which eventually ended in the park's demise". I felt that it accurately summarized the financial history of the park after its early success, and that most, if not all, who read the article would understand the ups and downs of a roller coaster.

I've enjoyed this discussion and your help. Thank you very much. As another aside, some of the joy of Wikipedia is working with thoughtful and considerate people. RogerK 04:07, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

After carefully considering all that's been said by my peers, I agree that my style is not encyclopedic by Wikipedia's standards. My style is more suited to the documentary, where a certain amount of creativity of expression might excite the reader to view information from a different perspective, rather than subject the reader to a staid or pedantic point of view. In the future I will restrict myself to the guidelines set forth in your response. Thank you again for your help. RogerK 07:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok this thread is dead. thank you for your help --RogerK 09:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

My further reponse:

Roger, please accept my apologies. have been rude in not responding to you. An election has been called in Canada, and I have been spending most of my time on issues related to that. Let me respond to a few of your comments:

• "I did this by pasting and editing excerpts from my archived copies of the article.... My apologies for that :)),

Apology accepted. We all make mistakes, especially when just starting out in Wikipedia. I certainly made mistakes.

• I restored "negative income" because I felt that "loss" was very ambiguous; loss of what? I would prefer "financial loss" or some such phrase if it must be changed to accomodate those less likely to understand business terminology.

Hmmm... I see you point about "loss" being ambiguous. The problem that I have with "negative income" is that it is an oxymoron, and sounds very much like business jargon. "Financial loss" would be a clearer term.

• And finally, my use of grandiloquence in the introduction was not intended as such.

And I think "grandiloquence" was an unfair characterization on my part. There probably should be room for more creative language in Wikipedia, especially in an article about an amusement park.

Again, please forgive my tardiness in responding. Keep up the good work. Regards, Ground Zero | t 18:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I appreciate your reply, and it's my pleasure to work with you here in Wikipedia. RogerK 05:23, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Coast Chilcotin et al

My comments after quotes from your reply on my user page:

Riding articles generally use only the riding name as the title, unless the riding name could be confused with something else, and then "(electoral district) is added. Usually with hyphenated riding names, there is no danger of confusion, so "(electoral district)" is not needed. But if there were a riding named "Kelowna", for example, "(electoral district)" is added to distinguish the article about the riding from the article about the town.

It's required with Cariboo and in certain other cases where I know there'll be an overlap, at least with a historical electoral district vs a historical region, e.g. Omineca, East Kootenay; even Vancouver was a one-riding thingie once upon a time, stretching all the way up to Atlin no less (before floatplanes).

Another thing is that because Elections Canada uses an em dash (—) instead of a hyphen (-) to connect different geographical names, the riding articles also follow that convention, so we have Coast—Capilano, not Coast-Capilano.

I was wondering about that; will fix where needed. NB Coast Chilcotin is unhyphenated for some reason, even in elections canada records. So is its first MP's name, Paul St. Pierre (see discussion page on him; all redirects made as needed. I was wrong about him being "long-time" MP from the area; that was an impression; he was only MP from 1968-72. Trying to find broken-down census and poll data (by community) and also election expenditures, but none of that is on Elections Canada website. Any ideas? Also sources for riding maps; I put up a request on the "batch" section of the Wiki Maps page. i.e. for historical riding maps; most current ridings, if not all (?), have maps.Skookum1 21:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

SDP

There is some silliness going on on the SDP page. I have attempted to write a neutral entry and hope that you are happy with it. Another person is trying to make the page a rallying call for SDP supporters (whoever they may be) ! Your help and support would be appreciated. PaddyBriggs 10:48, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for supporting the separation of pre and post 1990 SDP on Wiki. Can you now stop what I suspect be a continuing edit war by those who (for whatever reason) disagree with this?PaddyBriggs 08:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's be clear about this, whatever Briggs' edits had in mind, balance was not part of the agenda.

And I quote from Briggs' first "edit" (16.10 22nd November)

"More realistically, however, they are probably best seen as maintaining the tradition for eccentricity which has always been part of the British political scene - but with no chance whatsoever of ever being a serious national political force."

Come on Ground Zero, are you really trying to suggest that this is NOT someone with a bit of an axe to grind?

As you said yourself, replacing one POV for another POV is a rather strange way of applying balance - and how strange that our "unbiased" Briggs should not only return to do further vandalism a mere 20 minutes after you had changed his previous edit (the same day), but went so far the second time around as to remove a source link confirming my claims of current SDP council representation. Rather strange behaviour from someone claiming they were wishing to make the article NPOV!

Furthermore, having failed to get away with putting in one rather jaundiced viewpoint (implying that the current SDP being "eccentrics"), he then decides instead to proffer another "On the other hand most political commentators would argue that the centre ground of British politics is already too crowded for a re-launched SDP to be able credibly to find room for national success." - as you correctly pointed out, most would be unaware that the SDP still does exist (and for that matter the Liberals, despite their number of council seats).

Add this to phrases such as "reality check" and the co-opting in of a current Liberal Democrat activist and former Parliamentary candidate to mysteriously "back up" his line within minutes of each other's postings (Mpntod being one Martin Tod) are hardly in line with NOV, no matter how much Briggs may protest this is his intentions.

That the continuing SDP is constantly referred to as "continuing" with inverted commas (inverted commas being little more than another way of saying 'so-called') is another giveaway, look at any Social And Liberal Democrat/Liberal Democrat literature of the period for elaboration. Sorry Ground Zero, but whatever else this may seem, this looks suspiciously like politically motivated vandalism.

As for the "legal" side as to which is/was the 'successor' of the SDP, [ie. "However, legally speaking the Liberal Democrats are the successor party to both the SDP (as existed between 1981 and 1988) and the Liberal Party)] this in particular is utter nonsense. There was no registration of political parties at the time of the 1988 merger vote - this has only been in effect since the mid 1990s in the UK - and as such whilst the vote was enough to legally allow what assets the party's national organisation had to be handed over to the new combined party, they could not stop the party's own local branches (where the active party lay) from deciding whether to join the new party or continue with those wishing to remain as either Social Democrats or Liberals (hence the fiasco in some areas like parts of Cornwall where the party had members from those that had subscribed at each party's national HQ, but no actual branch for fighting any elections with!).

Both Robert McLellan and David Steel consulted with lawyers when Owen & Meadowcroft made it clear they were carrying on, and were told that as both parties were federations there was nothing to stop those that chose to continue as SDP or Liberal Party from doing so under the same names as before. Anyone doubting this need look no further than the one rather obvious giveaway as to just how weak the claims are that the current Liberal Democrats are in any way the "legal" successors of the SDP - that is they were unable to stop Meadowcroft, Owen, et al from using the party logos that existed before.

I am more than a touch cross about this as I have done work for several other minor party pages (Official Monster Raving Loony Party, National Front, BNP, Liberal Party, Commander Bill Boaks, etc) but this is the only one that seems to be subject to a sustained attack, although I am rather amused at Briggs' unsustainable claims that I did my rewrites as a "rallying call to other SDP members" - a fine example of judging others by one's own standards. I wrote this to correct a number of gaps in the knowledge that existed as to post-Bootle events, simple as that.

I did have other information I was going to post up today, but I wonder whether to bother if you are going to allow clear vandalism by politicos for their own ends?

Mark_Boyle 18:59, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Mark Boyle I am sorry that you are continuing your personal attacks on me. Like Ground Zero I am a disinterested observer and my only motivation is to ensure that these articles are as accurate as possible. I am not a "politico", I do not support the Lib Dems or any other Party, and my changes have certainly not been "vandalism". What is now in place seems fair and balanced and I hope that now you have got your splenetic bile out of your system you will accept them. PaddyBriggs 07:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

2006 election and an admin request

I would scarcly worry about that, I mean, that's what we're hear for. I believe you are an admin? I wonder if you might move British Columbia v. Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. to Imperial Tobacco v. British Columbia. The two articles were merged but should be under the latter name not the former per my talk page and that of PullUpYourSocks. Thanks very much if you can help :) - Jord 19:09, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

• Done. - zero.
  • You da man. Thanks. - Jord 19:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

BC Elections/Premiers listings

Saw your improvements to Victoria City; not sure yet if you'd done the same for the Premiers from Lillooet (Davie and Elliott) or those from Cariboo (Walkem and Robson - and Davie again); in Victoria's case the names are listed repeatedly, e.g. Beaven). I'm not sure whether to footnote them each time their name appears, or only when they're Premier OR as in Gawlor's case, the first time they're elected where they are later the Premier, and then again when they're Premier. Footnoting every instance in ridings like Victoria City - which produced a lot of Premiers - might look a bit messy. Robson and others also appear in more than one riding, not necessarily the one they were Premier "from". In the case of Joseph Martin (1900) he wasn't direcltly elected to the House but served as Premier for part of that year; not sure of the details why/wherefore yet; might have been a byelection but also in the constitutional system you don't actually have to have a seat to be First Minister (that's just convention, contrary to popular belief and usual practice). So what to do with all those Premiers? Are there guidelines for this? I gather cabinet positions aren't footnoted; I could list them in Notable MLAs section I guess. Skookum1 19:38, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

• I hadn't seen notation of premiership or prime ministership anywhere else, so you're making up a new format. I thought I'd try the footnoting thing to see if it worked because I though that including it on the line with the name kind of made the box distorted. I hope you're okay with that change. Another way of dealing with it would be to put a footnote beside a premier's name at each instance in the article, with the same number, and then gather all of the footnotes at the bottom of the article. this would avoid footnoting the same info repeatedly. Maybe putting this info only in the "Notable MLAs" section and leaving it out of the table would be a better idea. That way you can even specify what years he served as preem and from where, e.g., in the Victoria—Skeena article: "John Skookum, MLA 1873-1887, Premier of BC 1965-1968 (representing Prince George—Delta)" Just a suggestion. Ground Zero | t 19:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes those little bios are really complicated; I've seen Richard McBride and John Robson show up in four different ridings; maybe more; and not necessarily during their tenure as Premier; I was raised in what was the riding of Dewdney (Mission-Maple Ridge today) and hadn't realized it had been Barrett's seat; though not at the time he took power (our local NDP MLA was the United Church minister in Mission, who is third-generation NDP; grandson of Tilly Rolston, who there should probably be an article about. Anyway, I don't think the election tables are the place for the different successions of different seats. - As an aside, one issue I've run into in terms of applying succession boxes to MLAs is that many old ridings, and many current ones, have two members; it's hard to chart a single-line succession; so you double-chart it; but it gets REALLY complicated to consider doing that if it's Vancouver City or Victoria City ridings, which were up to six members each.

And I think the footnotes in the election table is where they should be; it's different if you were footnoting a source rather than a clarification, but if people don't have to scroll up and down to find out an interesting tidbit, or which explains why the guy with lesser votes won, or who was dating who and so on - having to scroll up and down to find out what ⁿ means - it's probably a good thing. I don't secondary-source specify on some of those footnotes which are lifted wholesale from (public domain) Elections BC online archives; they refer to primary sources like Gosnell or t he Vancouver newspaper or Hansard or whatever; I'll omit that secondary citation since anyone checking the primary citation (Elections BC) will find it.

Saw you liked the bit about LeBourdais. I only met the younger once; I imagine my folks, and certainly people who knew my folks, new Jerry Le Bourdais, who I don't know much more about except the schtick as you've got it now; popular guy, larger-than-life as most MPs for Cariboo have been (Greenaway, Zirnhelt only the most recent; this was Walkem's riding, and Smithe's and Davie's). You saw my writeup on the Murrays? It while I was completing New Westminster's old elections just now I finally spotted where Ma Murray had run - North Peace River (or South?); for the Common Herd Party, and / or the People Party; George's hair almost turned white overnight, they said. She'd originally been a Socred party but when she met WAC or saw him in action or something she took a disliking to him and switched parties; the mere fact of her running - in another party than her husband's - was in those days a scandal in and of itself, never mind her legendary mouth. Woulda loved to be at those campaign meetings....

See you maybe looked over the Barrett article; thanks for the edits on the main page. I'll try and find cites on the dock/rail strike and Barrett's throwing down the gauntlet - and then expecting them to dance to his tune. Check out the link to User:Skookum1/PoliticsOfPrimarySources; the Barrett item is one of many on a theme; the use of "fuzzy history" to distort the past through selective/blind use of so-called primary sources. Primary sources are only valuable if the biases and background and agenda of the author are discerned; otherwise they cannot be taken as entirely factual. There's a raft of these, i.e. particular events where the media retrospect is very different from the way things actually were. I won't babble on about it right now; just wanted to toss it into the mix.

BTW one last thing about the elections tables; sometimes, as down between 1886 and 1916 in New Westminster (provincial electoral district) I have to insert a paragraph or sentence of explanation as to the disposition of the seat at times of redistribution or name change or partition. I don't want to use a heading for this; should the text maybe go in a simple box just to give it "shape"? Ultimately each election can have a commentary attached to it; winners, losers, unusual features opf the election or notable candidates (other than what's already been brought into the footnotes); not always politically notable either; there's an Orvian Tingley (real name) in Cariboo sometime in the early 20th or late 19th C; grandson of Steve Tingley, "bull whip of the Cariboo Road" and driver of the ten-steed viceregal carriage that Lord and Lady Dufferin rode from Yale to Barkerville in the 1870s; the Tingleys are one of the oldest white families in BC; mind you, so are the Carsons in the Lillooet ridings

Which brings us to the touchy subject of political histories of the ridings. Political without being partisan, i.e. political traits/factions notable in the riding, e.g. the heavy leftist flavour of ridings like Comox and the Newcastle (south Nanaimo) ridings, the Bible Belt hardwork crowd in the Valley, the legacy of the British gentry in the Okanagan and so on. Otherwise it's all just numbers....Skookum1 07:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

National Flag of Canada and style ...

Thanks for your note. Perhaps I made the initial edit to the style guide inappropriately (without discussion), and for that I apologised. However, that doesn't obviate the fact that users – and not just me – have and will continue to wikify elements of article titles. More importantly: it should only be done when the rest of the article inadequately elaborates about a topic or does so ad nauseum. I don't think I'm being aggressive with this: it is merely an attempt to bring the guide in step with Wp reality. Forgive any real or perceived faux pas and I will recant the ff statement if you wish. Mea culpa. :) And perhaps this highlights one of those rare instances when discussions on user talk pages (where there's familiarity) is preferred. E Pluribus Anthony 00:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello. The current article/lead is fine (I think ...). Again, my apologies if our discussion got a little inflated earlier: as a portly fella, I can fully relate. :) E Pluribus Anthony 01:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. To clarify, I characterised your decision as a flip-flop because it was initially unclear that you were distinguishing between "the national flag" and "National Flag", both as the lead and in terms of wikifying them. I will retract that, if desired. I also found "Canadian national" redundant and begging for edition, adding fuel to this brush fire.

I am also fine with how the article lead is now wikified (and I don't need to be convinced of that): my point in all of this is that it needn't be one way or the other given this and that in Wikipedia. I disagree with including such unequivocal statements in a document like the style guide that states as much about such (im)"perfection"; this would be different if it was an actual Wp policy, and there are reasons why it isn't. Perhaps I'm also emerging emboldened regarding the parl/constitutional monarchy dichotomy and multiple references in the Canada article et al.; one thing that gets me about this 'beast' is unnecessary repetition (in many Wp articles) without them being effectively wikified or used. I'm not claiming to be a paragon when editing, but we can limit and enhance instances when we come across them.

While I'm all about process and consensus (and a conciliatory version, after mild rigour, is now included in the style guide), I do not think this was an issue deserving of such a dialogue nor one instigated out of dispirit on either end (and I was perplexed by that statement, as I do not advocate doing this to most articles, but bit my tongue then). You feel strongly about this and I do as well; guidelines should be pragmatic and sensible, and it's debatable whether this prior guideline (given precedents otherwise) was either. Shaking the tree sometimes benefits everyone, though; we'll see where else, if at all, this leads to with the style manual.

In any event, I regret if you were hit by any falling fruit, and also have some bumps to show for it ... but I'm less apologetic if the fruit was of the forbidden variety :). E Pluribus Anthony 03:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Prototype

Thank you for participating in the WikiProject on Electoral districts in Canada. As you know there will be an election soon. So this may be the best time for the Canadian Wikipedia community to band together and write these articles on current federal electoral districts. Based on your comments, and the comments of others, I have put together a prototype layout at the above link. The prototype is not a final proposal. It is just a place to start from, where we can discuss and experiment. Please review it, comment but keep an open mind, and help form a consensus. --maclean25 01:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

reply about Victoria City

See note on bottom of my talk page in reply to yours. One other thing, about those preferential-ballot years. I'm going to check out the Eire, NZ and German election pages to see if there's a template for preferential ballots; otherwise should I just go make a template "Template:Pref begin"?

One other idea: shouldn't there by a template like those ones for First Nations, or say on the bottom of the Germany page, with ridings-by-province in each bloc? Also in the long run I think the elections pages, e.g. British Columbia general election, 1903, should list the ridinh-by-riding MLAs elected, i.e. not just the party proportions in the house, but links to members' pages; Red links on existing pages are because articles should be written on each of the MLAs elected; disambigs on names like John Hart and John Oliver fixed, BTWSkookum1 20:58, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

• Personally, I'm not crazy about templates at the bottom of the pages. I think they just add more clutter, and duplicate the work that the categories do. But there are a lot of people who seem to like them, so you probably won't get complaints if you start putting one on. I would agree that the election pages should list the ridings and the members elected. This would be a good way for people to find the riding-by-riding results. Ground Zero | t 22:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• • Is there a way to target a specific table-title from another Wiki page? That could solve that right quick if it were possible as it is in HTML; click here for the 1963 results, the 1909 results etc. I made a stab at the table thing for elections; but I don't understand Wiki formatting parameters and have to plot out how I want to show the division of the house; traditionally government is shown on the left; what I think I'm going to do is a double-column of riding names down the centre of the page, with Government members to the left and Opposition/independent members to the right; reason for this is sometimes they each win one in a two-member riding, or two out of five in the old ridings; so you have to be able to "split" the riding as a "block" in the table; it's really three/four/five seats elected from within the same boundary, at-large like in civic elections. Takes money to win, too, which is why they were instituted....table is User:Skookum1/Templates

• • • Gotta go zzzz.

Note on dash vs hyphen in provincial ridings

Just to let you know, the BC Gov standard is a hyphen, unlike the dash used by the feds; it's also the existing standard in Wikipedia for current provincial ridings; ergo switching your Cowichan changes back.Skookum1 23:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• Ah. That's good to know. Thanks for telling me. Ground Zero | t 23:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a school of thought in the green movement that calls itself eco-capitalist. Harris himself and most of his supporters are in that school though I don't know if Harris uses the term (of course the NDP rarely uses the term social democratic but that's still the objective term used to describe that party). The Green platform is explictly pro-market mechanism for dealing with environmental problems.

If you read the article on eco-capitalism and compare it to the Green Party of Canada's Economic Policy you'll see many similarites eg Genuine Progress Indicators, full cost accounting, green tax shift. Homey 18:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Option Canada

Pretty much all of the information I have on the party is in the Greg Gogan article (and I suspect there were never any other members of significance). My best guess is that it folded into the National Party shortly before the election.

As a sidenote, I was never able to find absolute proof that the "Option Canada" Greg Gogan and that "National Party/NDP" Greg Gogan are the same person -- though I doubt there could have been two people with overlapping agendas and the same name. CJCurrie 23:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

• By the way -- with reference to the above discussion, Jim Harris has described himself as an eco-capitalist (or, at least, the self-description was attributed to him). I referenced the Harris article yesterday; there's a article reference on this point in the footnotes section. CJCurrie 23:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

MLAs category vs Premiers category

I just added a couple of historical MLAs to the MLAs Category. One question - shouldn't Premiers also be listed as MLAs? Reason I'm asking is quite often they're in the House a long time before - or a long time after - they were Premier. Or is the Premiers category a subcategory of MLAs? Don't think so; ultimately there should be a "Category:Members of the BC Privy Council" or "Category:Members of the Executive Council" (noting the difference between those two entities, since the LoO is part of the Privy Council but not the Executive Council"Skookum1 00:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• Havings "Premiers" a a sub-cat of "MLAs" would make sense since I expect that they were all MLAs at some point even though it is technically possible to be preem without being in the Leg.

As far as I can tell from the general election listings, Joseph Martin wasn't sitting in the House in the few short months he was Premier; don't know the story there except that he was inept as well as unwilling. There might have been a byelection, but I think it's more like the party nominated him for power - the unofficial party, Liberals I think; parties surface in the 1898 and 1900 elections but they weren't official until 1903 - but weren't able to win a byelection, or they decided he wasn't fit to do the job long before any seat-opening came up. But once a ruliing/mainOpposition party makes you its leader, you're the Premier/Leader of the Opposition and you don't need a seat in the House to be so; and you can be gotten rid of, theoretically, if the knives are sharp. The British are a lot better at that than we are.....

I think that for federal level categories, Cabinet Ministers are a sub-cat of MPs, so you wouldn't put someone in both categories. I admit to not paying a great deal of attention to categories, though. Ground Zero | t 03:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure they should be subcatted to each other; i.e. they've been MPs at times when they're not cabinet ministers; some Leaders of the Opposition continue to sit as members like Stanfield and Clark did (theoretically a PM could, too, but it would kinda be embarrassing). So it is also with cabinet ministers; there's also the issue of how to trace succession; because departments split and get merged with each cabinet-shuffle; more like you have to follow which ministry/minster is in charge of which department/program. I think if there's to be a cabinet minister category - if there is to be one - that the Preem/PM should be a subcat of that; it's the only way it would work; and the cabinet minister category would be a listing of those MLAs/MPs who, for a few months at least, collected cabinet-level paycheques; and the right to be "Hon. John Q. Leach" (no ", Esq." required). Knighthoods are dicey, too; I'm not sure that someone should be "Sir James Douglas" on a table/calender until the date they're actually knighted; McBride and Trutch and others fall into this category. Wilfrid Laurier became Sir Wilfrid not as a backbencher, but as PM, after all...

Two of my most favourite eclectica-history webpages: http://www.dickshovel.com/two.html http://www.dickshovel.com/two2.html Skookum1 07:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, but ...

Hi there! I hope you're well. I've been around for almost two years and I've thought about the prospect of Wp adminship: in my other life, I've also been an IT administrator, so I'm no stranger to this. I really appreciate your 'vote' of confidence!

However, I think I would decline any such effort for adminship (e.g., as proposed by Nightstallion), at least for now. I'm happy to make quality edits – and have at times made somewhat controversial ones! (though not necessarily out of malice, as you know!) – but I'd rather solicit interest first from users that have some interaction with me and for me to gauge whether or not this would be a worthy venture with a good chance of success on my end. As well, while I have designs on what Wikipedia can be, I'm well aware of what it sometimes isn't. In summary (and a play on your alias): I'd rather wait awhile and until the dust clears before engaging in a potentially limited nuclear conflict. :)

I may change my mind in time, though ... and Ns said he will ask me again! In any event, send me an e-mail if you have any additional feedback. Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 16:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

FYI draft template/box for Legislature/Election results

Had a stab at making a wikitable just now to try and address the composition of the House after each election. Still working out the bugs in Wikiformatting but I think you'll get the idea User:Skookum1/Templates. The first table is from an election where it's all independents; the one below it is the 1907 election; There's another way to do it; one column of government members, another of non-government to the right; or the table as I've drafted it with the riding-name moved to a middle column, Govt members on the left (Premier should be marked, too). I have to go out for the afternoon/evening but this is what I've done so far. Feel free to tweak it if it strikes your fancy. Might be useful for the Commons, tooSkookum1 23:22, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Request

This has nothing to do with Canadian politics, but I'm wondering if you could look over the discussion on Talk:Gregory Lauder-Frost.

I have reason to believe that a small number of people have been attempting to use Wikipedia for narrow partisan ends, writing glowing articles on figures from Britain's far-right. This is potentially a matter of some importance for Wikipedia's credibility.

Thank you, CJCurrie 18:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• I tried to look into it, but I am afraid it is too far along for me to pick up the thread quickly. I will try to follow it from here and see if I can make some sense of it, and join in when appropriate. Ground Zero | t 21:45, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• I think a number of people have had the same response (god knows why I had to be the one to discover this situation ...). My basic position is outlined in a section marked "Observations".

• On a lighter note, you may be interested in Jim Conrad. CJCurrie 21:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Great article! Conrad and Charles Olito would have few things to talk about, I bet. Imagine getting them together with John PC-SC-PC-Reform-CA-Conservative Reynolds.... Ground Zero | t 21:57, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not familiar enough to weigh in on British politics, but I just did want to add in context that I've noticed certain political biases within the texts of Canadian historical/political articles. By this I don't mean 'judgments' but outright propaganda, even when it's subtly put. The example I came across last night is on the Dave Barrett page (q.v. its Talk page). I'll grant that my own writing sometime takes a certain take, but I'm not partisan and will slag everybody equally; in this case what happened is an overt rewrite of the actual history; no doubt using a "primary source" to validate its claim, but no more true for that (especially given the notorious yellow journalism of BC's newspapers since the colony's founding). I think the politics vs encyclopedism is something that's going to be hard to come up with formal guidelines on as all history is inherently political in tone....Skookum1 00:04, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

GLF

Thanks for the cleanup. See also Talk:Monday Club (section marked "Accurate quoting") for what I genuinely hope will be the last of this matter. CJCurrie 23:54, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Kootenay electoral districts page

I know, I know, they're not relevant to election prep but I'm having fun doing them; more obscure BC historical ridings on the way, thankfully only one or two with complete 1871-1986 rosters and the rest all 3-6 elections, 10 tops (as opposed to 34). In the process of doing them I've wound up creating particular semi-disambig pages attached to certain names that always come up, and to the regions those names are part of; so there's what I realize now, as they grow, are actually list pages but I titled them on the model Kootenay (electoral districts), which includes all federal and provincial Kootenay-X or X-Kootenay districts, plus all the successor ridings in the area (which was just originally the Kootenay (provincial electoral district) and the eastern part of the Yale federal electoral district). I've done this also for Cowichan, Nanaimo, , Victoria Vancouver and New Westminster so far; can't see it coming up again except for Okanagan, an area I haven't started in on yet; but each of the listed names, like, 20 riding-names or more attached to it, plus tons of non-name ridings (e.g. Oak Bay, which is/was in Victoria; the riding is now Oak Bay-Gordon Head); on the Comox disambiguation page there were few enough I could just list them there. Thing was on some disambiguation pages there were big lists of Canadian ridings (e.g. for "Vancouver") which were better off being one link to a list-page like this one; or a, hm, directory page?

Don't know what to do about the titles of these pages because everything's so interconnected it would be heaps of work; I've put them in disambigs, but they don't really need that I guess as they're not a lone word or somebody's name people will be looking up; they're more like directories. I think somewhere I saw one (hey, maybe I made it? can't remember) that was "XXXX electoral districts", without the parantheses; almost works/looks better and could be fixed with a redirect.

What I did want to ask you to have a look at and get your feedback on was my attempt to show lineage on the Kootenay page (link above); maybe a table of some kind would be better. Are they box-diagram flowcharts on Wiki?Skookum1 04:02, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

• Those are interesting pages that you've created, I don't think anyone else has attempted to link all of the federal and provincial ridings with similar names before, so there isn't a precedent to work from. I htink people have just relied on the categories by province. The Kootenay page seems to flow well, and I don't think I have any suggestions, but I'll take a second look again soon. Beyond tables, I'm not that code-savvy, so I can't help you with flow charts. Regards, Ground Zero | t 03:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• • I tried looking up flow charts on Wiki but there was only an explanatory article; if there was Wikiflow or Wikichart I'm sure there would have been a link. Given the limitations of wikitable and the templates I've seen made with it, I think I'm just going to have problems with my elections displays, i.e. the composition of the House after an election, as I'll need two colours per row and some fancy box-fiddling for multiple-member ridings. Haven't tried to go over my draft on it yet; maybe later tonight. Will work up one of the interesting elections - 1903, 1920/24, 1933/37, 1952/53 and more recent ones; there's a whole lot of BC general elections pages that are redlinked but not in the system. I've learned enough I've got the confidence to make some rudimentary bone-castings on the electoral histories of certain ridings and candidates, but "no opinions" of the partisan variety will be engaged.

• • As far as the Kootenay page goes, it was necessary because of the ongoing fragmentation and recombining of the electoral districts in that region over the course of the last century and some, beginning with the partition of the original Kootenay riding in 1890; and Yale-East's about the same time (Boundary Country was in Yale-East I think; Grand Forks, Rock Creek, Greenwood). Did the best I could with the hierarchy but it's hard without illustrative maps or box/line diagrams/flowcharts, as some components of older ridings get joined into ones on other "branches" of the family tree. I think it's helpful to people to look back and see where their own riding came from. What's interesting is that the Kootenays seem to have been subject to more gerrymandering than anywhere else, even the mid-Island (Nanaimo and Cowichan). I think it's because of the concentrated labour vote in certain communities - Grand Forks, Greenwood, Rossland, Fernie and Trail, and the more orthodox polity in Nelson City/Nelson/Nelson-Creston and Cranbrook. The diversity was amazing; so was the ability of even fringe hard-left candidates to hang on through thick and thin and populist firestorms elsewhere (Thomas Aubert Uphill in Fernie held out against John Oliver, the Coalition, AND the CCF). Jiggle a boundary here, a boundary there, and you can create "balanced" ridings where labour votes can't prevail; e.g. Fernie is now in East Kootenay, which is usually Reform/Alliance/NeoGrit territory now because Cranbrook's population is so much larger (Cranbrook remained with the old-guard parties when other Kootenay ridings had a leftist rainbow going on) and the coalmines are down in actual numbers of men needed to operate them.

• • I don't think I'll have to do it for other areas. Nanaimo's and Cowichans hierarchies aren't as clearcut, whereas Kootenay's is at least geographical in nature. The Island hierarchies are also much shorter. The one I'm anticipating some complexity to is the Okanagan series, which I haven't started on; but I don't think it's going to be anywhere near as complicated as what I worked out with Kootenay. If I hadn't written that hierarchy page, I wouldn't have mined Elections BC as efficiently to find all the riding names and get them all in the system. As it is there's a few to go, but the hard work was in the Kootenays; Vancouver, the Valley and the North will be a cakewalk by comparison...

• • I'll move on to historical data on the federal ridings next; starting with BC's but I'll move outside BC once I've fleshed out the data. Been pretty interesting going over BC's electoral history with a finetooth comb, that's one thing for sure....Skookum1 06:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

RE: Toronto, et al.

Hello again; I hope you're well. Thanks for weighing in regarding the this issue; it was mildly irksome, and I believe it now closed.

As well, I've noticed recent editions to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. As I mentioned, I'm fine that the consensus – including you – has reasserted itself. I regret if I went about changes there the wrong way (rather erroneously). I was perturbed, though, by PizzaM's later implication; similarly, I regret if I did so to you earlier. I maintain my position regarding the selective wkifiying of titles, but I won't belabour this. I believe this issue, too, is now closed ... right? :) Anyhow, let me know if you've any questions. Happy editing! :) E Pluribus Anthony 05:54, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

• I've moved on. It was an unfortunate episode, but not something that should get in the way of collaborative and collegial editing. I still think you should be an admin, and will try to e-mail sometime when i collect my thoughts on the issue. Ground Zero | t 14:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi there; agreed! Water under the bridge, I just hope we don't get swept up in a backwash later. he he (Also forgive my delay in responding, but I've been, er, swamped.)

I look forward to hearing from you later regarding this or that! E Pluribus Anthony 17:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

FYI

Hello, and happy new year! By the way, do these contradict this? E Pluribus Anthony 07:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Further thoughts on Unionist/gov thing

Posting this here so you'll see it; never know where the best place to put electoral discussions is; presumably on the Elections Project page, or a special subpage of it....whatever. Been thinking about the Unionist thing you pointed out re Borden and the "Government" designation; was the "Government" designation used in the ballot in other provinces, too? Reason I'm wondering is that it has asssociations with the non-party era in BC, and it may be that the Unionist stripe in BC wasn't the same as the Unionist federal stripe; and so the feds opted not to use it and used Government instead ... ?? I'll have to dig up some poop on the BC Unionist Party and see if there's much membership/candidate difference between the federal and provincial ranks, as there is in the case of all current parties other than the NDP.

Been thinking of adapting the layout of the Canadian elections pages for the composition-of-the-House thing I wanted to do for BC's; also the List of Canadian electoral districts, by year/era, i.e. from redistribution to redistribution. The actual B.C. caucus within the federal Commons is laughable until after World War I, by the way; five ridings (six members) until the 1914 (or 1903?) redistribution, then only seven ridings. Add on to that that many of them are by acclamation and some had never seen their ridings, or much of their ridings (Cariboo's original vastness is difficult to comprehend; but then so is Yale's and Lillooet's (provincial riding) and Comox's and Comox-Atlin's; if you know the scale of BC's geography (those were among the original provincial ridings, and Yale and Comox/Comox-Atlin were two of the main provincial ridings. Between Yale, Cariboo and (after 1890 or so) Kootenay, they covered the whole area of the mainland outside the Lower Mainland's tiny, wet pocket; and combined they numbered no more than 2000 electors by 1900; in a sea of natives (in that region, I'd ballpark 20,000, maybe double that by 1900). The turnout in the early elections is laughable, except as was observed about convening juries in these places, British subjects were hard to find amid the many foreigners of all kinds, and the natives.

BTW I've been using the Election Box template on the historical/defunct federal pages I've started in on; came to mind that the FPTP template I'd gotten off a federal riding page, Provencher's. What's the preference? I kind of think FPTP looks dressier.Skookum1 06:55, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

• The designation that I have been using is whatever is on the parliamentary website, except in a cuple of isolated cases where I've checked suspect designations in newspapers and found them to be wrong. The website shows the designations in the 1917 election as being either "Government" or "Opposition" in all provinces. There were also "Labour", "Independent", and "Unknown" candidates, and some "Opposition-Labour" candidates. I have read elsewhere that the Conservative Party was calling itself the Unionist Party (and that is confirmed by the Wikipedia article), but its candidates did not run under the party name. I dopn't known if there was any connection to the BC Unionist Party, or if that was just a coincidence.
• I have been amused by the tables you've prepared for BC ridings during that era: it is amazing how few votes were needed to win, and how many acclamations there were.
• There isn't a universally-accepted standard for the tables. I have been using the Template:CanElec1 tables because it automatically generates a table heading. But then, I have not been doing percentages or changes. There is also a Template:CanElec2 template, and presumably others could be created for multi-member constituencies or other variations. I have posted examples of five different templates at Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Election results. I think the important thing is to get the information in, and if there are minor variations in the presentation, it's no big deal. Keep up the great work.
• Also, I find these templates Template:Canadian elections/parties to be very useful. These create a colour block and the party name in short form linked to the article in one easy template. See Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier as an example. I didn't created these templates in the beginning, but the editor who did so did not object to me adding to her/his list. Ground Zero | t 02:42, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Quick note

Hi. Just dropping by on my way out the door - I spent too much time today inputting a few ridings all those you see in my contribute/edit list except New Westminster are complete so you can go at 'em. Sometimes there's intro material that maybe should be farther below; gotten real good at extracting copy-paste data from Elections Canada; have to hand-calculate the percentages because they don't have them pre-done like on Elections BC. Been trying to figure out some of the electoral boundaries for better mapping later, but without a map showing Land Districts and surveyors-language it's pretty hard to do, other than having a rough idea and looking over the lists of communities, when and if they're broken down by poll area. I had a look at recent poll data in Elections BC, by the way; they mask the community names with numbers, which you have to refer to maps to figure out; used to be a list of placenames; one-step harder government services, if you get my meaning.

I've been trying to dig up stats but the online census is only 1911. Won't take me much longer before all the BC fed ridings/ historical and current, have completed electoral histories; some need commentaries, but that's the interesting part. If you want census files on a given riding, go to Census Canada's Archivianet historical area and search for the riding name; works like a charm. Oh, except one thing - it's PDF images of the original hand-scribed document that you get from the searches, not quick data.

Found out some dirt on the constitutional fracas of the Joseph Martin government in BC in 1903 that's one of the deepest viceregal crises I've ever heard of anywhere in the former Empire. Neat stuff. The old pre-party BC Ledge seems to have been something like a low-class Roman Senate; day-by-day factionalism, personal popularities and rivalries shifting with each round of drinks, who had a fatter patronage/connections train etc....and not a few daggers in the back. The Martin escapade was like a comic opera, with an unsupported Martin, who got in there I can't remember how but it wasn't elected, who maintained the support of the Lieutenant-Governor despite a petition to His Honour by a majority of the members of the House. Six months in within only a small rump to support him, Martin went so far as to open a session and read a Speech from the Throne, and then call an election - in which he went down miserably, of course, after six months or so of misrule and political blockade. During the Speech from the Throne, the Members walked out of the Legislature rather than sit in the presence of the Lieutenant-Governor, and when they came back in the room they sang "God Save the Queen" boisterously, to assert their belief in the Crown and show contempt for the L-G. A vote of non-confidence was held immediately and the ensuing election brought Martin's faux-regime down and ended what had become perceived as viceregal mutiny. The nwe governmebnt (Dunsmuir's) immediately had the Lieutenant-Governor dismissed. Martin stuck around in politics, and was vocal anyway, being a publisher by trade (like so very many BC politicians in and out of the media).Skookum1 01:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

RFA

Just to let you know, I've filed a Request for Arbitration on the GLF/CMC matter. CJCurrie 03:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Further Thoughts on Template:LegSeats2

If we get this down right, it can be applied across the board for US state houses (if there's not something already) and German and Australian and Indian state houses, maybe...

One corollary project that I haven't figured out is a way to represent successive governments and cabinets; this is especially important in the pre-party period in BC (1871-1903) when governments shifted more often than there were elections; the Joe Martin thing I alluded to is one of those instances, but so are the Elliott and both Walkem regimes, and A.E.B. Davie's, too, I think. In the party period, John Oliver was Premier two years before the election (government formed 1918, election held 1920).

There was a certain point where the old practice of calling a by-election to confirm a cabinet minister was abandoned - a dangerous practice for a government, because if he lost it was next to a non-confidence in the Commons and could precipitate a political crisis. See notes on Canadian general election, 1872 in Vancouver (electoral district) (which wasn't the city of Vancouver, but Vancouver Island other than Victoria; the parent of all the Nanaimo, Cowichan etc ridings). Same provincially as federally, although the dates of abandonment of this old convention are different; the feds were first I think. I haven't been able yet to source the provincial byelections pre-1986, and there's lots of them, especially in the old days because of the cabinet minister thing; it may not have applied in BC in the pre-party days, come to think of it. But so with different cabinet shuffles there were probably series of byelections; and in the early days the mortality rate in office was fairly high; the federal elections online show this; BC only goes back to 1986-plus on it in the 1996-2001 historical update PDF. What I need is in the provincial archives; or a long day at the library somewhere, which is the same with any early census data, other than certain years (1911 principally, but not that usable).

Back to the templates: so there's a second one to come showing composition of the government, and maybe composition of the shadow government in the Opposition, critics for this and that, House Whip and House Leader should all be shown sooner or later; it'll be in the bios anyway. Thing is in pre-party BC that the government templates are necessary to the comprehension of the succession of Premiers, as the post dosn't so closely correlate to election dates as in does in post-World War I history. The LegSeats2 template (which I'll use, though maybe adjust a bit, such as those outside colour-columns and spacing) will help out with the composition of the house pre-1903, since "Government" and "Opposition" aren't that helpful; especially because sometimes "Government" didn't win; it was just a slate, not a party, and only a loose one at that.

And ah yes, the bios; I'm looking forward to that part once all the data's done. Turns out one Arthur Bunster, a MacDonald-ite on Vancover Island, stood aside for the Minister of Finance, who represented Vancouver (electoral district) for two years without ever setting foot west of Lake Huron; Bunster turns out to be quite a character; an Irish rogue-cum-brewer, got in heated enmity with Ontarian MP/minister Robert Blake over a negative comment by the latter about BC ("a sterile sea of mountains") and threw wheat from his constituency onto the Commons floor in rebuke; on another occasion in response to being drowned out by catcalls from the floor, during the railway debates, he took off his gloves and threw them on the floor in front of the Speaker, calling out any on the other side to meet him outside the Commons. It is said Robert Blake later picked up one of the gloves, although it is unknown if the duel was ever taken up. His politics were complicated and famously quippy, and he is known to have reduced the House to helpless laughter. Electoral data's one thing; the life stories and political careers of these guys are often way too colourful; the Premiers have all been done, at least at a skeleton level; but they weren't the only players....

One other thing about the templates: they'll provide useful skeletons for the as yet unmade Canadian and British Columbian historical elections pages that need doing....Skookum1 23:11, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Latest Chart Update

Back on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Skookum1/Templates#Your_chart new changes; don't understand how to equalize colour columns, and may have screwed up on line-removals you did; thought I kept the code the same but (see notes on that page); otherwise I think it's looking pretty good; moved the Socialist ridings down to the lower right, as they would be if they were seated; otherwise I think alphabetical order is the way to go; atlhough maybe the Premier/Leader should be at the head of each column? Gotta go; spent too much time on this today already....Skookum1 23:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Adjusted it a bit further; think column should be a tad wider to avoid double-lining of names, titles; and once again whatever it is that takes the lines away while I'm not around puts 'em back again if I try an edit? Is this just a display thing, or is there a tweak of the table-code I'm not getting?Skookum1 00:54, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Federal Election

Thanks a lot for the link! I will try and help out as much as I can. --Omnieiunium 01:30, 22 December 2005 (UTC)