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Sovereigntist

FYI, Sovereigntist has been proposed to be renamed, see Talk:Sovereigntist 76.66.195.196 (talk) 03:47, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Category to group Inuit/First Nation proposed territories?

Back when working on Inuit issues, I ran across several proposed Inuit territories, similar to Nunavut but in locations currently falling in other provinces. In particular, Nunavik in Quebec and Nunatsiavut in Newfoundland and Labrador. Is there any category to group these in with similar claims of other aboriginal groups in Canada that want to form their own administrative units? I'd thought they could fall within Category:Proposed provinces and territories of Canada, but not seeing it there. I know there are a couple other First Nations proposed areas up in Northern Canada, but I'm not easily finding them by perusing the First Nations and Aboriginal categories. There has to be some more intuitive way to group these together and make them easy to find. Suggestions? MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:44, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

How about Category:Aboriginal land claims areas of Canada? Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 05:11, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

FAR for Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

I have nominated Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:12, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

template:Canada Provincial Parliamentary Delegation

FYI, {{Canada Provincial Parliamentary Delegation}} has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.192.55 (talk) 07:08, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Forces

FYI, there is a debate on the naming of the various CF articles, see Talk:Canadian Forces#Maritime Command, or Canadian Forces Maritime Command

76.66.192.55 (talk) 05:47, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Hydrographic Service

Do we have a list of Canadian Hydrographic Survey Ships? We have CSS Acadia... but I can't find an associated list, or any other ship that's not a CCGS survey ship (Coast Guard).

76.66.192.55 (talk) 00:02, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Canadian history author John Melady article nominated for deletion

A quick note to point out that Canadian 'popular history' writer John Melady's article has been nominated for deletion (and now re-listed for further discussion) based on a lack of "notability". Please see the article's talk page for links to references that potentially refute that contention. Are there any other notice boards where this information might be appropriately posted? cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 12:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The references and citations that document the subject's notability should be in the article, not its talk page. The AfD process is your opportunity to improve the article. PKT(alk) 13:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
In my opinion, the AfD process is an opportunity for *all* of us to improve the article if we choose to. Being of a 'certain age'; I have to admit to the fact that some of the more "fiddly" aspects of properly constructing citations can periodically be a challenging experience for me. I added the references temporarily to the articles talk page in order to quickly inform other editors involved in the AfD and perhaps forestall its deletion. I apologise for any inconvenience that might have caused. Just to clarify something for some editors; I am not the author who is the subject of this article. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 14:21, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Books on prime ministers / premiers

Here's a worklist for creating books on the various Canadian premiers at both the federal and provincial levels.

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:16, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Books on Canada and its provinces

Same, but for provinces this time.

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:16, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Adding Coordinates to Electoral districts

A number of Canadian ridings are tagged with {{Coord missing}}, for example Barrie (electoral district) (see Category:Canada articles missing geocoordinate data for more). Is there any convention to adding coordinates to electoral districts, aside from selecting ones that are clearly within the boundaries of the district? With places (cities, towns, lakes, etc.), the Geographical Names Board of Canada database offers official coordinates, but I don't think anything of that sort exists for ridings. One option might have been to use the location of official riding returning offices, but they do not exist outside of election periods. According to the Elections Canada web page I have just checked for my riding "Each returning officer maintains an office open to the public during an election period. These offices are closed after election day." --papageno (talk) 15:32, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they should be included. If we can't use the location of an office for the returning officer, we'd have to use the geographical centre of the riding. Some ridings have bizarre shapes, for which the "centre" of the riding would fall in another riding. I've previously requested some mechanism for polygon mapping (allowing us to define the boundaries of the riding, instead of a single point), but I don't think there's anyone working on that yet. Mindmatrix 21:33, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure how best to resolve this one. I suppose we could theoretically choose the location of the returning office in the most recent relevant election, but then we'd have to make a point of updating each article every time we get sent to the polls. (And in the age of minority government, blecccccccch.) Or we could remove the {{Coord missing}} templates, but they'd likely get readded again as I think a bot does most of that. But I don't know what other options there are. Bearcat (talk) 00:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
MPs office? -- Earl Andrew - talk 01:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Similar stuff at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates/Archive 25#Use of co-ordinates in parliamentary constituencies. I didn't read the whole thing so I'm unsure how the "dim" would work. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 05:14, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks folks for the input. I am going with adding coordinates using the {{Coord}} template with the "dim" (viewing diameter) parameter set to an appropriate size. For the actual coordinates, I'm using the constituency office location. I've also added a comment just above the Coord template "<!-- Coordinates are location of constituency office -->". A few changes so far: Ajax—Pickering and Barrie (electoral district). I've already come across a case where the MP has two constituency offices, and I simply chose one of them: Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing. I will also propose on the talk page for the {{Infobox Canada electoral district}} that a coordinates field that uses the Coord template be added; think I'll wait a beat for any other comments here first. --papageno (talk) 19:58, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
There has been no comment yet at the discussion Template_talk:Infobox_Canada_electoral_district#Adding_coordinates_field_to_Infobox_to_add_coordinates_to_Canadian_Electoral_District_articles. If anyone would like to chime in … --papageno (talk) 14:42, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Request for Comment: List of cities proper by population.

There is a new RFC at Talk:List of cities proper by population#Guiding principles for List of cities proper by population that asks which definition of city proper to use consistently for the purpose of List of cities proper by population. The outcome of this RFC can significantly influence the representation of Canadian cities on this list. One option on the RFC could result in the removal of all Canadian cities from the list -- BsBsBs (talk) 05:43, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Roy Brown (RAF officer)

Before I go haring off onto a WP:RM request, does anyone thing that the disambiguator for Captain Brown should be something else? It used to be Roy Brown (pilot); being that he was a pilot for the Royal Navy, attached to the Royal Flying Corps, in WWI, and postwar, was an airline founder, and attempted to join the RCAF for WWII.

76.66.193.119 (talk) 07:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Murat Akser AfD

This unreferenced biography of a Turkish-Canadian film director has been nominated for deletion. If anyone here would like to take an interest, please visit the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Murat Akser discussion page.--Plad2 (talk) 23:24, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

David Johnston dispute

Could we please get some additional input at a dispute at Talk:David Lloyd Johnston#Daughters' jobs, which centres around the retention or removal of detail about the bio subject's daughters' current specific employment and positions therein. Thanks. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

That was unnecessary. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:39, 4 August 2010 (UTC) (Struck after previous comment retracted by poster.) --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 12:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
What exactly was unnecessary? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:08, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Your entire post was unnecessasry. An editor has come here seeking wider input to a content dispute, framing the request in a neutral fashion. You have responded in an unacceptable way: 1) you are discussing article content on a noticeboard page, which is not the right place. Do you have a point to make which relates to all or a large set of Canadian articles, or just this one? 2) you are personalizing the discussion unnecessarily - "pouting and stomping of feet" is a gratuitous insult, regardless of whether it's correct. Do you think no-one else can spot that sort of behaviour without you helpfully pointing fingers? 3) You are trying to pre-load the discussion by stating your own content position at the noticeboard so the last thing outside editors see is your own view of the dispute just before they click through to look at it. While I don't often (almost never) agree with Miesianical, they are making correct use of this noticeboard, you are not. Franamax (talk) 04:42, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Struck my response to post now removed by the author. Franamax (talk) 06:48, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Sharon Johnston date format

Talk:Sharon Johnston lists the issues. 3rd Opinion has been requested. I feel that whatever the 3O offers will not bring the subject to conclusion. Feel free to add to the discussion there. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:31, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Register of Historic Places

I am starting to see articles about historic/heritage sites in Canada mention that the property in question is included in the Canadian Register of Historic Places.

A point of clarification: while the Register is a very worthy endeavour (the first national database of historic sites in Canada, which also attempts to standardize the background information for each site), inclusion in the Register does not in itself impart any heritage/historic status. It is merely a database. Sites are included on the Register because they are designated as National Historic Sites of Canada and/or are designated at the provincial or municipal level as being of historic significance. It is the designations themselves which are significant, not the fact that such sites subsequently get listed in the Register. Inclusion in the Register is merely a byproduct of the designations, and it is the designations that are worth mentioning in an article.

I'm not sure that it is even worth mentioning in individual articles that a site is included in the Canadian Register of Historic Places. However, at a minimum, the article in question should mention the actual historic/heritage designation, rather than merely referencing inclusion in the Register. The Register contains all the necessary information about a site's designation(s) -- we should be treating the Register as a reliable source respecting a site's historic status, rather than treating inclusion in the Register as some sort of notable fact in and of itself. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:00, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

List of universities in Canada

We're trying to figure out at List of universities in Canada if University Canada West should be included. Any thourghts would be welcome.

Comments sought at Citizens for a Canadian Republic

This article was nominated for deletion in November 2008 with a result of no consensus. The editor who had nominated the article for deletion has tagged it for merging to Republicanism in Canada. Some more input would be helpful. freshacconci talktalk 12:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

History of Canada

Was looking for a last fast look at the History of Canada article before i put it up for GA review. See if spelling is ok etc,,,Moxy (talk) 16:30, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Check out WP:CAPTIONS. I think most of the images should not have a period at the end of their caption, with the exception of all the multi-sentence captions (and any others that are presented in true full sentence form). - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 01:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Ok will look and make it all better thank you for your advice Floydian..next suggestion is...???Moxy (talk) 01:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Review in progress Talk:History of Canada/GA1..would love some help with Canadian English..pls help its our second most important article ...Moxy (talk) 03:15, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Notification of renaming proposal

Should the titles of the articles on the immediate predecessors of Elizabeth II contain the phrase "of the United Kingdom"? Please see Talk:George VI of the United Kingdom#Requested move and comment there if you wish.--Kotniski (talk) 07:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Alberta place names

A discussion has begun at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alberta#Standard for including Alberta in place name on the implementation of CANSTYLE#Places, please participate there. 117Avenue (talk) 00:51, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Lulu Island is "on the mainland"

User:JimWae and I seem to be at odds, there's already being 2RR on both parts, this doesn't need official mediation but it does need clarification, or at least better wording of what JimWae has tried to add; see my correction and note also a few previous edits. This seems specious to me to have to explain at all; like explaining that Burnaby Lake is on the mainland even though it's a lake....fact is the concept of the mainland doesn't end until the Fraser's outer estuary, i.e. outside the Sand Heads west of Lulu/Sea/Westham Islands. JimWae contends that the idea that islands are included even though they're not "mainland" is necessary for "those not familiar with the area" is a stretch; we don't stop to explain standard English idiom/geographic references for second-language speakers of English all the time, do we? The addition he wants sounds like jejune clutter to me, like saying "the Fraser River is part of the Lower Mainland, even though it's water"....Skookum1 (talk) 20:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Further to the above, though saying much the same, I just left this post on user talk:JimWae.Skookum1 (talk) 20:53, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
See also Talk:Lower_Mainland#Mainland.Skookum1 (talk) 21:02, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Correction to above: I have only reverted once, Skookum has twice reverted. Also, my concern very much includes people for whom English is their first language. Please see the discussion Talk:Lower_Mainland#Mainland--JimWae (talk) 21:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Lower Mainland#RFC on "Lower Mainland". So far my points have not been addressed. I am not contending that Richmond (and other islands) are not part of the "Lower Mainland" (capitalized). I have demonstrated that Richmond would not ordinarily be considered part of the "mainland" (lower case) and advocating a simple sentence making it clear that numerous islands (also not part of the "mainland") ARE part of the "Lower Mainland" --JimWae (talk) 17:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Wop May

FYI Wop May has been requested to be renamed. 76.66.197.151 (talk) 05:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Throughout 2010, many Wikipedia editors have worked hard to more than halve the number of unreferenced biographical articles (UBLPs) from more than 52,000 in January to under 26,000 now. The WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons has assisted in many ways, including helping to setup a bot which runs daily, compiling lists of all articles that are in both Category:All unreferenced BLPs and have been tagged by a WikiProject. Note that the bot does NOT place unreferenced tags or assign articles to projects - this has been done by others previously - it just compiles a list.

Your Project's list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Unreferenced BLPs. Currently you have approximately 1022 articles to be referenced. This has risen over the past few months, due to either articles being assigned to WP:CANADA or having the UnreferencedBLP tag added to them. Other project lists can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/WikiProjects. To narrow down your list, you can also use the WP:CatScan tool, to search using article categories, rather than project tagging. As an example, this search generates a list of the 11 articles that are marked as unreferenced BLPs and are under the Category:Politicians in Alberta.

Your assistance in reviewing and referencing these articles is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, please don't hestitate to ask either at WT:URBLP or at my talk page. Thanks, The-Pope (talk) 12:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Canadian barnstar image

There is a discussion here which members of WP:CANADA may be interested in. → ROUX ₪ 01:54, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

One for the Canadian music crowd

Caribbean music in Canada needs some major work. As written, it seems to imply that the Caribbean music genre has really only existed in Canada since 2000 (which is absurd) and that it consists exclusively of soca and calypso. Like, hello — reggae? Zouk? Merengue? Lillian Allen? Leroy Sibbles? Sattalites? Hell, even Parachute Club had enough of a Caribbean influence going on to bear at least cursory mention. Anyone able to help get it up to scratch? Bearcat (talk) 02:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Date format used on governors general of Canada series

Extended discussion and RFC on date formats

An interesting scenario has developed at Talk:David Lloyd Johnston: Over the course of a few months, back in 2009, I worked extensively at bringing all the biographies of Canada's governors general into some kind of consistent set-up (though the task isn't yet complete); infoboxes, lists, section divisions, and etc., but, specific to this, I also gave them all the same date format. At that time, the majority used DD MM YY, so I brought the others in line with that.

However, after further investigation, prompted by the objections of a user to the employment of the DD MM YY format on David Lloyd Johnston, it's been revealed that the vast majority of these articles actually started out using MM DD, YY and were at some point changed to MM DD YY.

The user wants to return them all to MM DD, YY, and change the three that actually began with MM DD YY. WP:MOSDATE uses some loose wording, but the gist of its message seems to be: always use in an article the format first used in the article. However, some of these pages were changed to DD MM YY as much as seven years ago, meaning a pretty strong consensus established by silence. So, this matter seems to fall into a grey zone between the MOSDATE guideline and the CONS policy, with the neither officially supported nor officially disallowed matter of maintaining consistency (which seems to have support at Talk:David Lloyd Johnston) thrown into the mix.

I wanted to get some input from further afield. If anyone has an opinion, please share. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:59, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

IMO, they should be MM/DD/YY format as that is how the calendar is typically noted in the majority of Canada. Same reasoning as why we say July 9 instead of 9 July. Resolute 23:04, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
We are talking long date formats The majority of article original used the American format (Month Day, Year) and they were changed to British format (Day Month Year). WP:DATE and specifically WP:STRONGNAT indicate guidelines for this situation. User talk:Miesianiacal stated that they should be "consistent with the others in the series" Ħ MIESIANIACAL 19:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC) and I do not want to return them all to the American format, I am merely following MIESIANIACAL's suggestion that they should be consistent. However Rrius stated that "aside from the usual ipse dixit 'we must have consistency!', no, there is no real procedure.". So the issue is not the date format but rather whether they should be consistent or not. Talk:David Lloyd Johnston#Date format has more of the discussion. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
As for consensus, the consensus seemed to be keep consistency and so WP:DATE takes precedence in that case and since the majority of dates would have to be restored after being changed, we would find the new "consistency" policy on GG of Canada articles changing them over to American date format. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
I tend to agree with User:Resolute: I tend to see more use of American date formats as well, but the official guideline is that Canadian articles may use either British or American date formats. To that end I have started a list at Wikipedia talk:CANSTYLE#List of date formats used to record the frequency of use. It's an informal list, but interesting. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:07, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
The date format is an issue if you don't ignore the very evident fact that some of those articles have sat with the MM DD YY format for five to seven years now. MOSDATE - which is only a guideline, as opposed to the policy of CONS - doesn't cover what's to be done when a date format was changed, but the change was allowed to stay for years; and these are not low-traffic articles. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 02:12, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
So they were changed against WP:DATE guidelines and now you're suggesting that we use those same guidelines to accept those very changes? In effect you're using one part of WP:DATE to go against another part of WP:DATE. Which editor was requesting consistency again? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
No. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:23, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
Honestly, I don't think the historical format is important at this point. The question is whether we can achieve consensus on how we format it into the future. MOS:DATE muddies the water for us by stating Canadian articles can use either consistently. However, I believe it is demonstratably true that English Canada consistently uses M/D/Y while French Canada often uses D/M/Y. This being the English Wikipedia, I am inclined to go with the English Canadian format. Resolute 19:19, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
This is not the first time in the last few months that this debate has erupted, and I suspect even if we resolve it here for the GG articles, it will flare up again sometime soon on some other series of articles. Everyone has made valid points, but can we not just ignore the history up until this moment, and the various spins being put on it, and pick one date format for Canadian articles (the current guideline for Canadian articles practically invites battles), enshrine it at WP:CANSTYLE and any other necessary guidelines, and be done with this debate???? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:22, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
Good luck arriving at and enforcing a consensus on this one. My vote goes to the American spelt format (Month day, year). The bots going around the site are changing ISO dates (which are no longer supposed to be used) into American format, and that's how I have always written my articles and references. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 14:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
I too have seen the ISO-date removing bots which got me interested in the date formats issue. In support of User:Skeezix1000's comments I have started to tabulate an officially sanctioned lists of date formats used in Canada. Feel free to add information there if you have it. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:11, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
ISO-8601 is apparently the "official" one according to the CSA. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 17:16, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
If you have a link to verify that CSA use ISO 8601 would you mind adding it to Wikipedia talk:CANSTYLE#List of date formats used? Thanks. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:37, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
They sell their manuals for extrodinary prices, but I think this may verify it.[1] It mentions that their standard is less comprehensive, but not in conflict with ISO 8601, which essentially means that they use the same formats.
@Skeezix: this was tried before, but consensus seemed to be to leave it up in the air. –xenotalk 18:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I was well aware of that prior discussion when I made the above plea. The lack of consensus seemed to stem from the fact that there does not appear to be a clear preferred usage in Canada. But I would have thought that the pointlessness of having discussions such as this one on a routine basis, on something as trivial as date format, would make some editors see the value of adopting a consistent standard. On Wikipedia, we routinely adopt standards for the sake of consistency, even when practices out in the big wide world might not be as cut and dried.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
So far only one institution has been listed at list of date formats used used in Canada that accepts either. No institution has been listed that accepts only the British format. None of those who have indicated that both formats have offered any proof of that. The fact the majority of the articles were in American format speaks volumes. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:43, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I've changed a 2 prime minister articled to MDY format, the DMY format just seems a bit out of place in those articles. For example, I googled up a letter from Mackenzie King, and he used MDY format in his letter, I think this just proves that the MDY format is most commonly used in in Canada (as did John A. Macdonald [2][3]) (I'm in Canada, and honestly, I haven't seen the DMY format used). Doesn't really matter, but some DMY dates look a bit out of place. Connormah (talk) 18:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, but I've reverted those two changes for now; either is acceptable and multiple discussions have established that there is no clear preference. (Neither is "official" in Canada anyway.) --Ckatzchatspy 18:55, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
For now? Acceptable? Silly! One is more accepted in Canada and definitely seen more often in Canada. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Nowhere have I stated that it was official - I stated that the DMY format looks out of place in the articles. I'd like them to to MDY dates, it is most common in Canada (even they used the style in letters back then). Stephen Harper, Paul Martin, Jean Chretien, Kim Campbell, Brian Mulroney, John Turner, Joe Clark, John Diefenbaker, Louis St. Laurent, Arthur Meighen, R. B. Bennett, Charles Tupper, Mackenzie Bowell, John Sparrow David Thompson, John Abbott, and Alexander Mackenzie all use MDY, I think those 2 should also, the other style looks out of place. Connormah • talk 22:55, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support MM DD, YY as the more natural form used by the majority of Canadian English speakers and reliable sources. –xenotalk 18:26, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Can we do a straw poll to determine how divided this discussion is? From what I can tell, most of us are in favour or unopposed to month day, year as spelt out, and either dd-mm-yyyy or yyyy-mm-dd in shorthand. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 15:37, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

This is the sort of behaviour with which we have to put up. The comment reads "making consistent w/ other gg articles per talk; pending agreement on which fmt to use across all articles". The article's talk page clearly points consensus against changing the format and points-out that there is no policy or guideline to indicate that consistency across articles is required. While the debate is ongoing the change was made. I appreciate bold edits, but not when the topic is being discussed. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:55, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

One of the five commenting editors was ambivalent about consistency across the series of articles, the other four were in favour, including yourself[4][5][6]. You held that position even though carrying it out in practice would mean changing at least three articles from their original date format.
So, my edit was based on that last information available to me; it dealt with the matter of consistency - not under debate - rather than the matter of which date format to use consistently - here under debate. My edit summary made that clear. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

RfC on date format for GG bios

What to do with date formatting across the entire series of biographies on Canada's governors general. Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:21, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Presently, we have 27 biographies of governors general of Canada using one date format and one biography of a soon-to-be governor general using another date format. What to do with that situation seems open to interpretation and any move has the potential to just start another dispute, possibly across multiple articles (as may already have begun). In light of that, I'd like to get wider input on what steps to take next, so that whatever decision is reached here can be pointed back to should a dispute over date formats in this series erupt in future.

Some background:

25 of the 28 biography articles started out using MM DD, YY. Between 2003 and 2009, 15 of those pages were changed by various users so as to use MM DD YY. Over a few months in 2009, I changed the then remaining 12 so as to use MM DD YY and match the majority. All these changes caused no issue until I recently attempted to change the newest article to the series, David Lloyd Johnston, so as to align with all the rest. The breakdown follows:

As I see it, there are a few options available:

  1. Leave things as is; 27 articles with DD MM YY and one with MM DD, YY, all future to always use first used.
  2. Make all governors general's bio articles (and all in future) use DD MM YY.
  3. Make all governors general's bio articles (and all in future) use MM DD, YY.
  4. Return all changed formats to the original; 25 using MM DD, YY and 3 using DD MM YY, all future to always use first used.
  5. Keep all pre-1952 governors general's bio articles with DD MM YY (format related to Britain) and return all post-1952 governors general's bio articles to MM DD, YY (first format used), all future to always use first used.
  6. Get a consensus to change WP:STRONGNAT to allow only MM DD, YY for Canada-related articles; pre-1952 governors general's bio articles use DD MM YY (format related to Britain) and post-1952 governors general's bio articles now and in future use MM DD, YY (format related to Canada).
  7. Get a consensus to change WP:STRONGNAT to allow only MM DD, YY for Canada-related articles; all governors general's bio articles now and in future use MM DD, YY (format related to Canada).
  8. Get a consensus to change WP:STRONGNAT to allow only DD MM YY for Canada-related articles; all governors general's bio articles now and in future use DD MM YY (format related to both Britain and Canada).

It should be kept in mind, though, that WP:STRONGNAT states "Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that nation. For the U.S. this is month before day; for most others it is day before month. Articles related to Canada may use either format consistently." The articles on governors general prior to 1952 have strong ties to two particular English-speaking countries - Canada and the UK.

Comments

  • Support 4 - I'd prefer to see consistency across the series, so either #2 or #3 is actually my immediate choice. But, on further thought, I don't think such conformity could be maintained in the long run, especially as it would be supported, even if by consensus, on no policy or guideline. So, though not my favourite, #4 seems the most practical; it might lead to conflict over WP:STRONGNAT on articles on governors general prior to 1952, but its conformity to MOSDATE's guidance to keep the original date format plus a consensus here established to take that route will help quell any future distrubance. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:04, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support 0 (i.e. change the single one using month-first to day-first), or if there's consensus against that support 1. That's what requires the least effort. A. di M. (formerly Army1987) (talk) 16:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
Just a comment: if you support changing the current odd one out to DD MM YY, then you support option #2. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
Err, yeah. A. di M. (formerly Army1987) (talk) 17:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Too many choices. My preference would be all long date formats in Canadian articles move to American Month DD, YYY including the GG articles.
Comment on 1: 26 articles since the Jean and Johnston are both currently in American date format. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
So you support either #6 or #7.
Jean still uses DD MM YY. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 00:13, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
You changed it prior to applying here. Anon changed it back prior to my comments here. You just changed it to British format. I restored to original format as per anon and comments. Please leave until decision has been made as changing away from original format 18 months ago was against Wikipedia policy on date formats. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:00, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
I put it to where it was when this date matter started; that is per WP:BRD. Why you keep changing it while this discussion is going on is beyond me; I've pointed out BRD to you before; it seems you never read it. The anon isn't an authority you have to follow. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 01:10, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
I thought that the anon put the date format back to where it was 18 months ago? That too was before this date matter started and is in accord with Wikipedia policy. Why you keep changing it while this discussion is going on is beyond me. I've pointed-out WP:MOSNUM to you before; it seems you never read it. You aren't an authority anyone has to follow. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:07, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
You are contributing to the disruption, not helping end it. I put the article back to where it was when this dates-on-governors-general-bio-articles matter started - about 10 days ago - not before. That keeps the page at it's longest-standing form while discussion about what to do with it takes place. That's the jist of BRD; it's not BRDRRRR. Even you stated you were going to wait for a consensus here before making any change to that article; you then reneged on that position and used the anon as an excuse before trying to pin the blame on me.
One wonders what interest you actually have in this matter, given that your preferred outcome has yet to be fully expressed. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 03:28, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry. I say that as one who is simply correcting the disruption you started 18 months ago. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:40, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
The edit histories show clearly that there was no disruption 18 months ago. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 03:51, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
My mistake. you changed it approximately 17 months ago. I was giving you a bit of additional lead-time. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:39, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
And still, no disruption until 15 days ago. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 13:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
And still against wikipedia's policy of changing established date formats. A policy you knew about before May 24. And who was it that made that original change? Why do you suppose this anon decided to make this change? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Whether it was with or against guidelines (not policy) is irrelevant to the fact that there was no disruption until 17 months after I made those changes. Whatever happens to that page now is supposed to be decided here - within in the context of all the articles in the series, including the majority changed by other editors before I changed the ones I did - not by an anon who's never edited the page before and refuses to participate in any discussion. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Have we not exhausted the who-did-what-when argument? Isn't the real issue whether or not we adopt a date format standard, and not whether an edit 17 months ago was kosher or not? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Precisely. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Your right after reading WIKI-Dates....so i guess #2 since its all British style already. 04:41, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
The only reason it's all British style already is that M took the time to make it so. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:54, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Not at all true. Check your facts before commenting, please. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:43, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
So realy the question is should we be using British or Canadian style....i see most are using British in this series as on now, i think the real overall question should be British or Canadian format ...Moxy (talk) 15:26, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
# There is no official Canadian style. American or British long date formats is the question.
# The reason that the articles are mostly using British long date format is that one editor decided to make them all that way. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:41, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Comment 2 is not at all true. Check your facts before commenting, please. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:47, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Are you calling me a liar for stating what you have repeatedly said? Talk about uncivil. The fact is simple the date formats were in a mixture of American and British 18 months ago. Is that not at all true? You then decided to modify the American date formats to British format. Is that not at all true? You then recently attempted to change David Lloyd Johnston‎ to the American long date format to match the other GG articles. Is that not at all true? Several editors including myself took exception to that and would not prevent it. All of this is true. If there is anything which I have just written that is not true please correct it otherwise please explain why you're calling me a liar. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm saying you're negatively misrepresenting what I've done; again. The series was already mostly using DD MM YY when I started changing the others; that's why I changed the others as I did. This has been said a dozen times over the past ten days, both to you and in general. It clearly says so once more above. It is clearly illustrated in the list I compiled above. Instead of acknowledging the facts supported by evidence, you've yet again (twice this time) named me as the person who made the articles mostly use DD MM YY - indeed, you only ever single my name out, as though to infer it was I who made them all use DD MM YY - when both are demonstrably false. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:03, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Come on you 2 stop your childish behavior, This is not tit for tat ...we have now seen multiply pages full of you two arguing...could this stop now!!Moxy (talk) 15:58, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
I apologise for making others witness to this, but WG has made it a mission to use false malignment of my character as a weapon with which to win an argument. It's irritating and in every way against WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
. Right. I have maligned your character by you calling me a liar. The GG articles, except Johnston and Jean, are in British format. Of the remainder you admitted to changing several articles to unify them (no single quote since you've stated that on several occasions). No maligning there. If I misrepresented something I trust that my point-by-point accounting will satisfy you. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:14, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
I admitted to changing several. You said I made them mostly use DD MM YY. That is false. You only ever raise my name in relation to changes made to the date formats across this series of articles. Why? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
The sentence was: "The reason that the articles are mostly using British long date format is that one editor decided to make them all that way". "mostly using British long date format" Jean and Johnston are not. Excluding those, "one editor decided to make them all that way". I never indicated that you changed them all just that you decided to make them all follow that rule. You're reading between the lines. I know you only changed 1/3 of the GG articles personally, and did so to unify them all to British format. Had you know of the policy you likely would have sought consensus before changing as you're doing now. Also I never raised your name until you identified yourself. Sorry if you inferred information not contained in the original message. I was in no way suggesting that you changed all of the GG articles to British long date format. I recognise now how this could be inferred though. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment - seriously? If any of you live or have been in Canada, if I'm not mistaken , you would see that British date frmat is RARELY, if ever used here. The date format simply looks out of place in Canadian articles. Connormahtalk 06:09, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
  • As above, support option 3. English Canada does not use the British/European date format. The articles should be formatted to reflect common usage, and that is M/D/Y. It is honestly silly to me that this is even controversial. Resolute 13:33, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
  • 3 & 7 (though 7 probably needs a net-new discussion). English speaking Canadians and reliable sources use the MM DD, YY long format both in natural speech and in written form. –xenotalk 13:40, 19 July 2010 (UTC) [except where STRONGNAT would favour British spelling as with the British Lords pointed out by Bearcat below. So I guess I should've picked #6] –xenotalk 19:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
  • 6 or 7 - I have truly no desire to see this discussion replicated over any other Canada-related series of articles. Either we adopt some sort of standard for Canada-related articles, or just don't bother (because adopting a standard for the GG articles won't really solve anything, as we'll be having this same discussion 6 months from now about provincial capitals or National Historic Sites). --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:18, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Agreed, and I would suggest a de facto standard already exists, it just is not being followed in some areas. A very large majority of articles on Canadian athletes uses MDY. Entertainers typically uses MDY. Writers seems to be a mess, and politicians seems to be a mess. Resolute 17:00, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
Politicians are quite often a mess and Wikipedia has little to do with that. Entertainers are usually more of a mess. I'm glad they're not in Wikipedia. I agree with Skeezix1000. We need a standard for all Canada-related articles. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

For the record, the reason the current practice was originally left as "use either one as long as consistency is maintained within any individual article" is because the prior attempt to define which format should be the Canadian date standard bogged down in conflicting claims about which form was more common, with conflicting sources brought to bear. And it does look like that's happening again. But that said, the one position I find utterly absurd and indefensible is that we should have one standard for GGs, a different one for Canadian entertainers, and on and so forth — we need to either choose one standard for all Canada-related articles or maintain the existing default position of consistency within a single article with no overriding rule beyond that. The pre-1952 GGs, who were British lords, are a special case since their links to Canada are invariably secondary to their links to the UK — but if month-first is decided as the "Canadian date style", then Massey through Johnston definitely need to stay consistent with that rule. We most certainly should not impose some arbitrary dictate that all GGs are subject to British date style just because Monck through Alexander are. Bearcat (talk) 00:46, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

And incidentally, I suspect that government sources use the "19 July 2010" format because the date format in French is unequivocally "le 19 juillet 2010", so using British date format makes things more consistent in the translation. But government usage doesn't automatically constitute a binding standard that all Canadian English writing is required to follow; as noted, the vast majority of Canadian media and other writing uses "July 19, 2010". Bearcat (talk) 01:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Where do they use British date format? I have not seen it. The sources I have show American date format. Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Canada-related articles)#List of date formats used. You'll have to show that the government uses this format. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:18, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
For starters, [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], ad nauseam. Government usage is clearly variable. Dl2000 (talk) 02:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Funny. Lots of letters from from the prime minister's office use MDY. Connormahtalk 02:52, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Same with the GG. Connormahtalk 02:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support 7, and modified 6: with the possibility of exceptions for all articles prior to a certain point (say, 1931) as a compromise. The exceptions would be determined by consensus at those articles, based on the article's links to UK/Europe (per current WP:STRONGNAT/etc). My reasoning for MM DD, YYYY is that the majority of style guides (at the time of writing; I notice it has now been expanded) support this style, as do all major news organisations (Globe, Canwest/Natl. Post, Sun Media, and Toronto Star; also CBC News and CTV News). PS, note that I don't have style guides for these; since each is internally consistent, I think it's clear that they are stylistically bound to this format. Additionally, rather than a simple tally, this list includes all major news organisations in Canada. -M.Nelson (talk) 01:01, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
    • News media styles need to carry much less weight since Wikipedia is not a newspaper; it is more appropriate to focus on non-industry-specific standards such as The Canadian Style or scholarly styles such as Athabasca University Press [18] or the University of Toronto Press (no online guide seems handy, but their books tend to avoid American formats e.g. [19], [20]). Dl2000 (talk) 02:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
      • Newspapers don't carry any less weight than a university press' publication guideline since wikipedia is no more a newspaper than it is a doctoral dissertation. This wealth of style guides should really be added to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Canada-related articles)#List of date formats used. Ironically, they make provision "if technical manuscripts require a different number style, consult your AU Press editor." --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:37, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
        • I'd actually say Newspapers carry more weight. Not much, but a bit. Wikipedia always tends towards common, everyday usage. If we compared a selection of newspapers from each city across Canada, it would give us far more insight than the individual style choices of select institutions. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 19:37, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
          • I'm with Floydian on this one. Our job here is to write for a general interest audience, not an academic one, so sources which elucidate common everyday usage carry far more weight than sources which reflect the preferences of academic editors or other cultural elites. Remember, a university publishing house can publish work which describes something as "post-poststructuralist post-deconstructivism" with impunity; our role here is to put such locutions into layman's terms. Bearcat (talk) 19:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support 2 and 8 and have all of my life on and off Wikipedia anywhere not explicitly calling for American. Except on my blog which insists upon mdy despite my setting it as dmy. Yes i do say "4 July" when speaking. I happened to have a teacher early in school who taught dmy and it stayed with me these past few decades as the American style crept into ever more common use. I realise this is not the regular practise these days but I prefer formal to common. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 15:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
So because you were taught this from an early age, you think we should use it across all of Wikipedia, even if most Canadian English speakers and reliable sources do not? –xenotalk 16:00, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I happen to have had teachers who, from my early age, insisted on me writing Month Day, Year. First in Winnipeg and then then various suburbs of Vancouver through until my graduation from university, where at the latter of which had I not used that date format on some papers, I would be deducted marks on my papers. I trust our mutual experiences cancel each other out. Also, your spelling appears to be British English, not Canadian English where the word is spelled (not spelt) "realize" not "realise". --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I think it is well obvious that i am in the tiniest of minorities on this matter. That doesn't mean i shouldn't support it just because i am the only one. I am not the one who drafted the options. It would be rather hypocritical to vote for an option i myself do not use. If you look at my language userbox closely you will see that i declare i use a mash of non-American English variations. You then perchance will see the connexion to my vote here. Personally i find it incomprehensible that people don't like and use day month year. If you want to get into common usage then it would be about time to welcome honor and neighbor into Canadian English as the standards thanks to influence from our neighbour to the south who has an additional colour in her flag.
I would have taken the reduction in my grade. On a few occasions i did just that. I once quoted Geo. Washington exactly as he spelt it when he put pen to paper. It cost me 10% because "original spelling retained" was unacceptable to my professor but misquoting was unacceptable to myself. Somehow when quoting Shakespeare it is acceptable to use EME. :P I typically go to great lengths to ensure i don't use EME when writing on WP because i do often use it personally. However i do use mdy here on things American because i realise that i am in the minority. I don't like it but i do it. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 17:23, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
People voting per "ILIKEIT" without any tangible justification will just lead us back to the no-consensus we had last year. I like MM DD, YY - but I can also point to countless examples of where it is used - on gc.ca, city, and provincial websites, in national news sources, by major education institutions, the list goes on. –xenotalk 17:35, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Well it was you who hinted a few hours ago at there being a discussion on this but thought not to provide any direct link. That left me reading many pages in hopes of finding what you alluded to. Reading many pages that might be what you were getting at, finding a massive discussion here to first read, and coming in at the last minute with a vote what do you expect? I didn't have months or even hours to prepare a proper vote by the time i was done reading. Until you commented at the tv show i thought this was not even an issue on WP - i don't often read domestic articles. I was quiet overwhelmed by what i found and most certainly unprepared for it. I gave it my 9 cents and set about to present a more appropriate vote but voting closed. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 17:58, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Just trying to convince you of the merits of going with the flow =] –xenotalk 18:04, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I see þe merits flowing but þt sayde i feel anye option to ryde the tyde has long since passed me by for this lyfe as my mynde is set. As much as i can i think i will holde to my Englyshe. For i am one of þe delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ who eschew select modernisms. :P 18:38, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
This is an unexpected turn of events. So it seems we have a suggestion to escew the "new" Gregorian calendar in favour of possibly the Julian or some other form. Shall we add that to the poll once clarified? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:07, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
select modernisms..... Yes, that is it. And we should also all use nothing more recent than 16th century English. Stop me if you think this has gone beyond a funny comment to xeno... or i could just do so myself. I never spoke ill of the Gregorian calendar. Poll it if you want. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 21:21, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Support 2 —Kmsiever (talk) 23:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Recap and suggestions for moving forward

Okay, the above discussion seems to have run out of steam, and this is where we appear to be now (someone please check that I have correctly compiled this - I appreciate that some people supported options with caveats (and Bearcat didn't even necessarily endorse the need for any standard, but seemed to support #6 or 8 if there is to be a standard), but this just a very general headcount so as to assess next steps):

  • Option 2: 5 in favour (A. di M., Moxy, D1200, Mkdw, delirious & lost)
  • Option 3: 4 in favour (Connormah, Floydian, Resolute, xeno)
  • Option 4: 1 in favour (Miesianiacal)
  • Option 6: 7 in favour (Walter Görlitz, Floydian, RP459, Skeezix1000, M.Nelson, Bearcat, Xeno)
  • Option 7: 4 in favour (Walter Görlitz, xeno, Skeezix1000, M.Nelson)
  • Option 8: 2 in favour (delirious & lost, Bearcat)

It would appear that we have neither consensus for a particular specific option, nor do we have strong consensus on the more basic date format issue (which, according to my count, is 8 in favour of the "U.S." format, 5 in favour of the "U.K." format, albeit some of those votes may have been dependent on what type of article the editor in question was in favour of standardizing, and it may not be fair to look at the numbers in isolation). The poll conflated two issues, which are related to a degree, but I think ought to have been assessed separately: what to standardize (if anything), and the preferred date format. We can either wrap up this discussion right now on the basis of "no consensus", or we can do a new two-step poll, which first asks whether to standardize (GG, all Canada, no standardization), and assuming we get consensus on the first step, the second question would be on date format (MM DD, YR or DD MM YR) (the issue over what to do with pre-1952 GGs could be handled as a clean-up question afterwards). Either we are prepared to do a new two-step poll (which, I would hope -- *knock on wood* -- could be kept relatively straightforward, quick and acrimony-free), or we should just throw in the towel now. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:19, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I still maintain that we should have a standard for all articles with strong national ties to Canada. Such that the earlier GG's (i.e. pre-1952) have stronger national ties to Britain, we shouldn't focus on that specific sect of articles because of that issue. If no consensus has been reached here regarding governor-generals, they should be returned to the date format in which they were created (status quo per the guideline). –xenotalk 17:23, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I was hoping that we wouldn't all just rehash arguments made above, but discuss where to go from here. Are you saying throw in the towel, conduct a new two-step poll, or do you have another suggestion? Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:28, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I guess that depends on if consensus has changed since this. –xenotalk 17:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Again, you've raised that before (see discussion above). We all know about that prior discussion. The question is do we attempt to find a consensus here and now, or do we throw in a towel (or option 3 if someone has any other suggestions). The question you're asking is the actual issue we've been debating for some time now. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:37, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
(If i can get an edit in) Re xeno's first comment here: That would be changing all of them save for three on the list. All but one have existed as DMY for more than a year, some over 5 years. Maybe i misunderstand the guideline but that proposal makes me think the RfC was just lip-service to this issue on governors general and the action to take was already determined barring an massive sway in favour of DMY. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 17:39, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Only because a users took it upon themselves to ignore the generally accepted guideline and change them to D M Y from their original format. –xenotalk 17:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
You might want to check that again. It is 5 users who made the changes. Some close together, others scattered over the years. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 17:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't particularly matter who or how many, what matters is generally-accepted guidelines were ignored to change all the articles to British format without consensus to do so. –xenotalk 18:21, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
You're right, I'm not sure I understand. We could take a new poll but as you pointed out using governor-generals as the focal point has just muddied the waters. So it should be for Canadian articles in general. –xenotalk 17:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I clearly did not explain myself well, because you are both just rehashing all the arguments made above, which was not the question I asked. What I am asking is this: in light of the fact that we (once again) do not appear to have strong consensus for any option, do we just throw in the towel (and let this issue be debated on an article by article basis) or do we conduct a simpler, two-step poll in an attempt to find a consensus: the first question would be what to standardize (if anything), and the second question (if we get consensus on the first) would be what date format to choose. xeno, in your comment above you are expressing your opinion on question #1 -- I am not asking for your opinion yet. I am asking the more fundamental/basic question of whether or not there is an appetite for another poll. Sorry for any confusion - I hope I have explained my question more clearly. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:47, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I thought that polls were evil, and if taken incorrectly can really hurt. (That latter phrase was a joke). It seems to me that a majority have already spoken on moving all to Month DD, YYY. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:50, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
A majority doesn't necessarily equal consensus. You're free to argue 8-5 is consensus, though. In my opinion, the last poll was so muddied by various options, I'm not even sure that the numbers mean much. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:55, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Majority isn't consensus. You're right. However it's a major foundation of consensus. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:07, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Where it is a large enough majority, yes.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I support taking a poll on whether we should take another poll. –xenotalk 18:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Throw in the towel, then. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Eh? I was joking but serious. =] I think settling on a consistent form will alleviate conflict and disruption. –xenotalk 18:17, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
This is the third discussion, fourth if you consider the RFC above as "inconclusive" and the present discussion as new and distinct, I've participated in on the subject. All the while there are articles that have sat in the wrong format having been moved to that state against Wikipedia policy. I am in favour of any action that will move us past the "yes we should" "no we shouldn't" discussion and the actual bytes-to-the-database state of change. In short I'm tired of discussion, accusations, insinuations, and am quite ready for action. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
"Wrong format".... isn't that what just came to no resolution? I propose adding this to wikipedia:perennial proposals and just accepting variation. This is date format. Is it really that important? Either are acceptable to most people though there is usually a personal preference. It is not like this is a proposal to use the Julian calendar or some other significant change. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 18:46, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
You would think that would be the case, except that we've recently had battles over date format at Canada Day, Victoria Day, the GG articles, and possibly others of which I am not familiar. To the extent some of favour adopting a standard of some kind, it is to avoid having to endure more debates over this relatively trivial issue at more articles. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:29, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

This is my interpretation of the results:

  • Options 2 (5 votes) and 3 (4 votes) are opposites; voting 5 to 4 obviously means no consensus. Therefore, we won't set a standard for "all GG articles".
  • Options 6 (7 votes) and 7 (4 votes; all voted for 6) both agree that Canada-related articles should use MM DD, YYYY, and have significantly more support than 8 (2 votes though I can't find Bearcat's vote in the discussion) which argues the opposite.

As such, I think that there is consensus to set Canada-related articles to MM DD, YYYY, though there is "no consensus" on what to do with the GG articles (particularly those pre-1952). Moving forward, how about:

  1. an outright RfC on MM DD, YYYY for all Canada-related articles past a TBD date (prior articles determined case-by-case based on UK connections, as is the status quo)
  2. pending support, an RfC to determine this date

I could go through my reasoning for how I'd !vote both times, but that's for the RfC: what we're looking for at the moment is the most effective way to proceed with the discussion. If you want to argue why you'd vote "no", then please wait for the RfC; if you'd like to propose a more effective RfC altogether, I implore you to do so. -M.Nelson (talk) 18:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with your logic of how you counted the "votes" (you treated it as two separate polls, thus allowing you to ignore a number of votes where assessing support for MDY).(FYI, if there was to be a standard, Bearcat supported a standard for all Canada-related articles, but didn't express an opinion on date format, so I counted him for both 6 and 8) Having said that, I am all for any simple straightforward question. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:41, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
The number of options made it, in essence, two separate polls; if a user wanted to vote for solely GG articles, they could pick 2 3 4, and if they wanted to vote for "all" articles, they could vote for 6 7 8. In my opinion, the best way to streamline this is by having an outright RfC on MDY; note that the existence of a vote doesn't imply a choice for its result.
Floydian below also suggests an outright RfC on MDY, but doesn't allow exceptions as I do. I didn't see consensus for standardising ALL Canada-related articles; I saw consensus for standardising all those apart from GG pre-1952 (which was no consensus). As such, I think that it would be most effective to 1) confirm consensus for the majority of articles 2) achieve consensus for determining exceptions (which I prematurely set as "pre-date" rather than "exception to be determined"). I haven't yet read the discussion following Floydian's suggestion, but I suspect that there will be opposition as there is no middle ground (there appears to be no allowance for pre-1952 GG articles, for which consensus was not determined above).
Either way, Floydian's simple framework looks to have the potential to determine some kind of broad consensus (or at least debate on the fundamentals); I'll throw my two cents in down there rather than continuing here. -M.Nelson (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I thought RfCs were supposed to remain open for 30 days or until consensus was reached, whichever comes sooner. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 21:51, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

It's still technically open... –xenotalk 21:53, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
It is, but the heading of this section and the "new poll" that follows seems to pretty well imply that the RfC is done with. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 05:01, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
The poll is to determine if we should give up or not. However, the clearer options are leading to a more definitive outcome methinks. The RfC is still open, so anybody else is welcome to !vote or to add comments. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 05:08, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

new straw poll

Let's not interpret and muddle and correlate. Let's take a two step poll. This way there are only two choices for a total of four options. Let's stop focussing on just the governor generals and move on to Canada as a whole. Otherwise, I will be opening a new discussion immediately afterwards for the rest of the country. Date formats should be set at the national level, not based on the category of the article. As for the pre/post 1952 thing, were the pre 1952 GG's a commonwealth GG, or the Canadian GG? If the latter, they are Canadian articles. If the former, British articles.
So, that said:
POLL A: Standardization
  1. Standardize date formats across ALL Canadian articles
  2. Keep the status quo and revert articles to the format used when the article was most significantly expanded
POLL B: Format
  1. MM DD, YYYY
  2. DD MM YYYY
For both polls my vote is #1. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 18:49, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
1,1, for reasons previously mentioned. –xenotalk 18:51, 22 July 2010 (UTC) With the understanding that "ALL Canadian articles" means "any article where the strongest national tie is Canada"
For Poll A my vote is NEITHER as that typically means articles would go MDY either way the pole turns out. As such i don't think i really have an option on Poll B but it would go for #2 if i do. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 18:57, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
If option 1 was chosen for Poll A, the results of Poll B would be used. Poll A would be invalid if no consensus can be reached on Poll B. Think of it as two separate questions instead of one building on the other: Do you want a consistent date format on Canadian articles (regardless of what format that is) or no? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 20:21, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
No. I object to consistent date format. Since the poll gives no option for that i can not select anything in poll B. As to Poll A, 'keep the status quo but revert' is somewhat a blatant contradiction. If it was simply "keep the status quo" then that would have my endorsement. Keeping the optional format of date whilst forcing most everything to mdy is a complete joke of an option. It is about as close to listing the same thing twice as could be done. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 22:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
No you're misreading. Option two is to revert articles to the date format they used when they were most significantly upgraded. I'm of the belief that the style a stub uses can be changed by someone who is writing it as a fully fledged article. Essentially it is keep the status quo, and revert articles where the style has been changed. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 03:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Not misreading. You believe the outcome to be different. I believe it would put most every article to MDY, which makes it about as close to the other option as you could get without outright listing the same phrase twice. As i wrote somewhere, from years of reading i have noticed that most every article starts off in MDY. I would have to call it vandalism to revert formatting on an article that has existed as such for the majority of its life just because 7 years ago someone wrote 4 paragraphs using MDY to start it. I seriously am in favour of Let It Be here. The policy of first use and revert all others is uber petty to begin with considering there is no nationally accepted format. Something about bickering over date format seems to clash with WP:DENY in my mind. How about a brilliantly simple idea, so long as it is consistent within any given article at any given time then who cares how that article started off.
And in a sense i am saying F*** IT to all of this because as xeno and i had some back and forth about, the principal article on this matter (Canadian English) has existed for years with mixed formatting within the article itself. Not one edit could i find in the last 4 years that was to change it to a uniform format, until xeno got into it today after my mentioning it. I call this prima facie evidence that this here is mostly a puff piece. If anyone really cared then they would have looked to that article in the first place to make sure it had its dates in order. It only serves to prove that really either is acceptable in this country. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 04:28, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Poll A: Standardize (or standardise for my British friends)
  • Poll B: 1. MM DD, YYYY.
It's better to have everything set one way than constantly arguing about a small minority of cases. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:18, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
1,1, per Xeno. Connormahtalk 20:43, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support all poll options, i.e. throw in the towel. I don't see standardization as an option, since the choice would be essentially arbitrary. I think it's fair to say that the majority of Canadians can read and write either date format with equal ease and don't really care all that much. We can go to the main government website [21] and read DMY or go to the federal public service style guide [22] which prefers MDY. We can read the Globe and Mail style guide [23] ("Canada's preference tends to be day, month, year") or look at the Globe's actual articles which seem to use MDY. MDY seems to me more useful for timeframes where the month is "important" such as the unwinding of a current news story; DMY seems better for matters "of record". I would love to see standardization, but I would lean toward DMY then for an encyclopedia. If there's to be standardization, I think it will need to be done the hard way, topic-by-topic, with towels thrown in along the way. Even for the G's-G, the argument to use "British" notation for older ones is spiked. Take a look at how Viscount Monck's appointment was officially announced. [24] There is nothing to be standardized to. Franamax (talk) 20:52, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
    What's even more strange is that www.gc.ca uses D M Y but almost every single child of gc.ca users M D, Y. –xenotalk 20:55, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
At least we don't have those credit-card slips anymore that said you bought $20 of gas on "8/7"! Franamax (talk) 21:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Franamax, if this were an isolated discussion, I'd agree with you. But the number of battles in recent months over what I would have thought was a trivial issue has convinced me that consistency/standardization is the way to go. A look at any of the Wikipedia Manuals of Style shows that we often adopt standards here on Wikipedia (for reasons of consistency and stability), even if usage in the real world is not nearly as cut and dried. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Firstly, do you mean trivial as in "duh, it should obviously always be x/x/x", or do you mean trivial as in "why do people keep trying to change the way it was written in the first place"? Second, you want consistency (which I agree is good), but you want consistency over a hopelessly nebulous topic: "ALL Canadian articles". What about MOST? It's an entirely Canadian effort and was widely reported within Canada. But it's a scientific effort too, and dates within that topic area tend to be DMY, including many of the US-related ones. For some amusement, take a look at some of the NASA satellite articles, their date formats are all over the map. Maybe we should export our little contretemps to some other projects. ;) What is to be the definition of Canadian? This renders the whole thing unworkable. Franamax (talk) 21:56, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the problem is. That kind of issue comes up with spellings sometimes, and it's settled with WP:ENGVAR. We'd presumably do the same thing here. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 00:34, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Look at the battle that you know have over standardisation at all. I think again it is just me but maybe others will say boo too. I for one will never use mdy on a Canadian article. Someone can follow me and change each edit but it won't come out of my fingers that way. Alternatively i can make sure to never edit anything to do with Canada, not that i do much anyway. I am whole heartedly entirely against forced mdy. I find it a bastardisation of the language that i would rather have nothing to do with, however most tv shows are American and for that i concede. How many of you that like mdy would secretly loathe dmy should it be promoted to standard and sneak in mdy wherever you could. Or maybe start a new RfC/poll to request an immediate change. Or even simply write it so out of long engrained habit and not even notice until you had a flood of talk page warning templates advising you that correct Canadian English is contrary to the way you write the date (which would be most presumptuous to claim). Not to mention that WP is a trend-setter and if dmy is outlawed here it will to some degree ensure it appears less in society too. xeno saying "sod the D M Y format" [25] is exactly what i think of M D Y but i am not telling you to do away with M D Y. If you weren't trying to force me to write the date the way you like it i too would be in a position to call this trivial. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 22:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Just use whatever style is being most used within the article/section you are editing, if you have something to add, go ahead and add it. Don't worry about date styles, do what seems natural and let someone else fix it up. Dates not being in your preferred format should never prevent you from editing. And WP is a trend-setter in matters of writing style?[citation needed] :) Franamax (talk) 22:20, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
People tend to write in a manner similar to what they read and hear. A lot of people read WP. The trending may talk a long time to be seen but it is present in WP itself in that clause from somewhere about using whatever date format was first used. And yes i know it is considered bad form by WP to cite WP. Too bad. I would guess it is likely that upward of 80% of articles were started in MDY and that most Brit articles were converted when someone found this most egregious error on any given page. delirious & lost ☯ ~hugs~ 03:34, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
So in other words if the GG web site is using Month DD, YYYY, then the article should be using that format as well? Not sure what that means for historical articles. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:41, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
Websites are good for providing convenient links to text that the website itself has chosen to produce or reproduce. They are much less useful as a style guide. For any DMY format you can link, I can find a MDY site too. And if I watch long enough, I can see changes of style on the same website. That avenue of speculation is empty. Franamax (talk) 23:06, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
So you're suggesting that there are two official web sites for the Governor General? This is the one of which I'm aware. Where is yours? (Front page currently has two dates in Month DD, YYYY format. Similarly the government page on the GG designate is using that format.) --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:08, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I suggest no such thing, nice try though. My suggestion is that your avenue of speculation is empty, as stated above. Where is your link to the official GG pronouncement that the date format used on the GG site (or in legislation) is the official date format to be used for all things Governor-General, here and forevermore? If you have such a source, please present it. Franamax (talk) 02:24, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
You're right. You didn't suggest it. You stated it outright. In response to my question, "So in other words if the GG web site is using Month DD, YYYY, then the article should be using that format as well?", you stated, "For any DMY format you can link, I can find a MDY site too." The GG article uses Month DD, YYYY. I believe the point to which I was responding was people will use the date format they see most often. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:54, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
  • A2, which renders the B options meaningless. Strongly oppose B1 - if there should be standardisation, it should be to B2, as it remains a valid format for use in Canada and is not a problematic format in the international context of Wikipedia. Regarding edit wars, this is more a problem of enforcement rather than guidance - MOS:DATE is actually quite clear. There is no evidence that standardisation will reduce edit conflicts, particularly if it excludes a superior date format and there would still be significant time spent in conversion that would be better spent in sourcing articles, countervandalism, etc. Dl2000 (talk) 02:27, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

It's dumbfounding how much arguing goes on about date formating on wikipedia. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:08, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

You should see how much arguing about date formatting happens outside of Wikipedia! --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
  • 1, 1 per many above. The North American date format should be used on all North American articles. The "international context" of Wikipedia is that we reflect the major local variants of English, so what other parts of the world uses is utterly irrelevant to the question. We standardize by Canadian standards in this case, not European. Resolute 20:58, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
  • 1, 1 per above discussion. MM DD, YYYY is the standard commonly used throughout Canada. -M.Nelson (talk) 22:09, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Drive by IP changes July 17-19

Extended content

I've lost track of things (concerning this topic). Why has an IP been allowed to make across the board changes to the GGoC article infoboxes? GoodDay (talk) 22:17, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think an anon has been allowed to make changes across-the-board. I know of one change to the Jean article. The change made to Jean was to return the date format to where it was 17 months ago, or so the summary implies. Do you know of others? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:41, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
The changes made by the IP on July 17-19 (even if reverts), shouldn't have occured, as the IP wasn't a part of the discussion & basically appeared out of nowhere. GoodDay (talk) 22:46, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand. Either what the anon as to do with this straw poll or why an anon isn't allowed to change an article. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:51, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
The anon didn't take part in any of the discussions. He/she shouldn't have made any changes concerning the discussion topic. GoodDay (talk) 22:55, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I suppose we need to ask anon or at possibly M for clues. I have some theories but there's no evidence that anon actually knew of the wider debate. I am assuming that anon only knew of the debate on Talk:David Lloyd Johnston#Date format and then made the change to Michaëlle Jean. Again, without asking anon (with rotating IPs) there's no way of knowing with any level of certainty. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
At this point, I think we are safer looking for "earliest or most substantial contribution" for guidance. I would frown on any edit-warring over this and I think I'm sufficiently non-committal on the topic to protect articles as necessary. Diffs will be helpful. Franamax (talk) 22:55, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
The anon is an individual who's had a grudge against me ever since he ended up a minority of one in a dispute at Crown corporations of Canada (GoodDay will recall this as he was involved, somewhat, in the related discussion); the anon has used the IPs 205.250.72.1 (talk · contribs), 205.250.66.41 (talk · contribs), 205.250.67.46 (talk · contribs), 205.250.74.156 (talk · contribs), and 205.250.67.225 (talk · contribs), and has followed me from Crown corporations of Canada to Debate on the monarchy in Canada and now to some of the articles on Governors General of Canada. He was made explicitly aware of the RfC on the matter of date formatting on Canadian governors general's bio articles in my edit summaries (eg. here), but refused participation in either that discussion or the one at Talk:Michaëlle Jean/Archive 2#Date. Given that, plus the fact that he's never edited the articles before and didn't return to their original date format any of the bios changed by other users, I suspect his only motivation is to aggrivate me. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 00:40, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Damn those ducks! - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 15:24, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
The anon may a valid account used from a different IP and have edited articles from there. Other than that agree with Franamax re: earliest or most substantial contribution. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:40, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
It looks like a case of WP:STALK, to me. GoodDay (talk) 18:46, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't see it as a case of WP:STALK which states, "proper use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing errors or violations of Wikipedia policy", and the edits that anon has made certainly fall into that category. I don't see tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behaviour. It's a clear case of not being civil. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:15, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
It's not so cut and dry. The anon "fixed errors" according to WP:MOSDATE, but with a willful, repeated dismissal of the wider context and debate about such and with a scope limited to only the articles I changed the date formats on, suggesting no interest in resolving the bigger matter, just in baiting me into an edit war. The edit histories of the various IPs used show no activity on articles other than those the individual has engaged me at, and some messages left my talk page, while not clear personal attacks, were certainly meant to provoke.
I'm not terribly concerned with it at the moment; I'll just contend with this individual through the normal channels of dispute resolution. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
There's a lot of conjecture in those last words, but I trust that you have done your due diligence and your claims that anon is being malicious is verifiable. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:25, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
The anon is Po' Buster, a banned sockpuppeteer. I'm not afraid to make that claim based only on observation. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 02:59, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Actually, I don't think it is Po' Buster/PhiltyBear; PB was in the southern Ontario region, whereas the 205.250 anon hails from Abbotsford, BC. I, like you, also initially suspected the anon was PB, as each's edits have overlapped at points. But IP lookups confirm their geographic diversity. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 05:06, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
My reverse IP lookups show Chilliwack, not Abbotsford. They are neighbouring municipalities however. City centres are about 35 KM apart. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Summary

After the passage of 30 days, I've broken down the results of the two above polls as follows:

  • A. di M.: DD MM YYYY (all)
  • Moxy: DD MM YYYY (all)
  • Dl2000: DD MM YYYY (all) & whatever was first
  • Mkdw: DD MM YYYY (all)
  • delirious & lost: DD MM YYYY (all)
  • Kmsiever: DD MM YYYY (all)
  • Connormah: MM DD, YYYY (all)
  • ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ: MM DD, YYYY (all) (x2) & MM DD, YYYY (after 1952) DD MM YYYY (before 1952)
  • Resolute: MM DD, YYYY (all) (x2)
  • xeno: MM DD, YYYY (all) (x2)
  • Miesianiacal: whatever was first
  • Walter Görlitz: MM DD, YYYY (all) (x2) & MM DD, YYYY (after 1952) DD MM YYYY (before 1952)
  • RP459: MM DD, YYYY (after 1952) DD MM YYYY (before 1952)
  • Skeezix1000: MM DD, YYYY (all) & MM DD, YYYY (not all) & MM DD, YYYY (after 1952) DD MM YYYY (before 1952)
  • M.Nelson: MM DD, YYYY (all) (x2)

Each (x2) means the person voted for the same outcome in each of the two polls.

Even though there seem to have been contradictory votes cast, the majority appears to desire consistency across all the governors general's bio articles: out of 15 total votes, 10 without question, an additional 3 saying they want both consistency and inconsistency. What's nearly tied is the format to be used: of those who expressed a want for one format used on all articles, 7 favoured MM DD, YYYY and six DD MM YYYY. So, where does that leave us? Should we get an impartial party (an admin, I suppose) to close this? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:03, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Completing this

I'd like to see results actually come of this. There is clearly a strong consensus for both consistency and the Month DD, YYYY format. I suggest that this be implemented in both citations, prose, and tables. WP:FAC will call out date inconsistencies. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 00:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Conclusion

This is a surprisingly divided issue, with no possible solution that will please everyone. On the one hand, there is fairly strong consensus on making date format consistent across the Governor General articles (both by number of editors who expressed that position, and by strength of argument). The problem mostly lies in the fact that if there is a desire to standardize, then there also is need to have agreement on what, exactly, the standard will be. The manual of style is no help in this case given that it explicitly allows either of the more popular formats in articles on Canadian topics (day first and month first).

I see two way out of the predicament, both of them taking the desire for consistency as a given:

  1. Have a fresh poll with exactly two options (DD-MM-YYYY and MM-DD-YYYY) and a set end date, and go with a simple majority; or
  2. simply pick month-first by virtue of being the most common on the English Wikipedia even though the day-first format would be allowable.

Given that the latter option can be adequately covered by the first (since anyone who would pick that one can simply vote for month-first for the same effect), I recommend you go ahead with the poll, pick whatever the result is, and run with it. In the end, it's only a question of style, and either option works. — Coren (talk) 02:40, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

ISO 8601 is the ONLY choice

I am astonished that there is ANY discussion at all of what date format to use. The days of 2-digit yy are gone. The days of yy/mm and dd/mm are gone. The days of d.m.y (e.g. with dots) are gone. The days of using / are gone. There is only one standard to use that the's the ISO 8601 date format (look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601). It removes all doubt. It doesn't matter if you are Canadian or American or European or whatever. Simply put dd/mm and mm/dd are severely deprecated and should never be used again. Arguments that Canadians use this or that or Americans use this or that are nonsense. It's so hopelessly mixed up now that the only solution is to use yyyy-mm-dd format.

Furthermore, Wikipedia (of all places) should standardize on ISO 8601 as the requirement for all dates within Wikipedia, especially since Wikipedia is globally used and globally edited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.230.128.43 (talk) 22:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Hwy43 (talk) 22:49, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Good God. A cogent, well-informed, intelligent, consistent opinion that will end a million little instances of bickering all over Wikipedia. You must be new around here. →ROUX ₪ 06:41, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm in favour of the format, but the only choice? Disagree. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:44, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
It is certainly the only choice that has no bias or favour to any one nation over another, and is meant to be an international standard that everyone can understand that makes any sense. →ROUX ₪ 06:49, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Even if we adopt ISO 8601 for short date format, we would still need to deal with long date format. –xenotalk 14:16, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

David (?) Sho

Could someone help me to write the surname of this man properly? I know that he is (was) a director of a chernobyl fund in Canada (I suppose that its official name is "Canadian Relief Fund for Chernobyl victims in Belarus"). I tried to find its official site from yahoo.com, but all links don't work at the moment. Ang15 (talk) 12:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

David Shore is his name. If someone was going to try to help, thanks. Ang15 (talk) 19:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Category:Ontario communities with large francophone populations

FYI, Category:Ontario communities with large francophone populations has been nominated for deletion. 70.29.210.72 (talk) 02:20, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Why are templates not working on this page?

List of peaks on the British Columbia – Alberta border has {{reflist}}, {{Canadian Rockies}} and {{Expand}} on it, but they're not functioning as templates; reflist shows up as a redlink, the others are working as article links. I've tried re-placing the brackets on them, still doesn't work. Maybe this is happening on other pages; or is there maybe some kind of code in the table above that's negating the template function?Skookum1 (talk) 17:44, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Extended discussion on the number of {{coord}}, {{BCGNIS}} and {{cite}}-xxx templates
I have also looked at this page...From what i can see is a size problem (to many templates)..the page has 5 times more then the norm. So i guess that Wikipedia automatically implements Wikipedia:Template limits to make the page readable to people. Moxy (talk) 17:52, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
At first, I didn't think this was the problem, but a simple preview of any edit on that page should confirm it. A warning is delivered stating "Warning: Template include size is too large. Some templates will not be included." in lovely red lettering. Mindmatrix 21:28, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd say a combination of the number of {{coord}}, {{BCGNIS}} and {{cite}}-xxx templates, although the number of references alone is certainly up there past where it starts to cause problems (I've seen complaints after about 140 sources). To get technical, when you submit an edit the preprocessor takes everything inside of squiggly braces and substitutes in the contents of the referenced page. Then it looks at those contents and expands everything in squigglies there, and so on. There is a hard limit to how large this "template expansion" can grow. Both the coord and cite-xxx templates use sub-templates, so there is an expansion issue when using lots of either.
Staying technical, you can experiment with a sandbox page including just a few of each template used and see which ones could be a problem. When you preview the page, view the HTML source code (in Internet Explorer, View->Source) and search for "NewPP limit report". The line just following, "Post-expand include size" shows you how big the substitution process has grown. This page hits the 2,048,000-byte size limit. One way to fix it is to use the sub-templates directly, i.e. {{Cite web}} instead of {{Cite bivouac}} or better yet, {{Citation/core}}; and {{cite bcgnis}} instead of {{BCGNIS}}. Figuring out which one is causing the biggest problems won't be all that much fun. Franamax (talk) 22:31, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Hm. Well, somewhere I read recently that list pages do not citation after cttation; that, like disambig pages, they just don't need references. Perhaps here all could be "a reference derived from:[next line] BCGNIS[next line], gnis[next line], and not pinpoint each page in each system directly. If i didn't want to have made the table sortable by height, latitude etc, it could also be broken up into Peak and Monuments 1-50 (as I've just found out Monument 1 is at Eagle Point, at hte head of hte canal; the boundary is not defined only by peaks, i.e. on the ground). So maybe a sortable list is superfluous; this is not a list of the top ten peaks in height or prominence, as on Geography of the North Cascades, it's just a list period; and it has lots and lots of coord templates on it, too of course...
But what you say about replacing them with where they've come to redirect to - templates which were invented by people not even using the templates, just wiki-tinkering the code and "kmproving it" by making it more elaborate, well....the cure is worse than the disease; thos templates are not only longer in name, they also contain more code-fields to fill out, and are time-killers; somebody's litttle box of "look what I made" joy, but to people actually using the templates, they're cumbersome and pointless; the templates were created to speed up th citatino process, not SLOW IT DOWN. But the ones above, in this discussion, were functioning just fine; but now I guess because of the redirects off them, or whatever they are technically - a template front-end I've heard them called- all of a sudden things that were working before aren't workign now. So like I expected this is proof that template is a system gobbler; when I objected to it because of all the page-length it eats up - relative to content (VolcanoGuy said something about this too) - I was told that at some higher level, coders were being told to write enhancement as if server and processer space/power weren't an issue, write as a blank slate; so the templates have been growing, and requiring not just more time from writers and editors using them, but also squeezing content off pages, or into the consequences of its existence; "deprecating" in the process something that was easier to use, fast, and didn't take up MORE CODE THAN NECESSARY. To me it sounds like the cnsequence of the "upgraded" and "redesigned" templates are what the problem is here; that reflist worked just fine when I made this page, and nothing's been added to it, other than the See also for Extreme points of British Columbia, which I started on tonight. So if it's got too many templates, or the processing power required because those tempaltes are on logner the primary templates, is a good reason why the new template system is cumbersome and winds up having consequences for content; a caes of throwing out the baby to put more soap in the bathwater. The BCGNIS, gnis, and CGNDB and bivouac templates did NOT need improving; I think the first one to follow the "cite [name]" formula was "cite bivouac". See template talk:cite bcgnis for my further thoughts about what to do with the new templates, and tonight you've given me an even stronger reason to oppose their existence, because of the damage to articles and teh strain on processing power they case. What should go here is not the citations, but the expanded templates; revert to the original acronym/name-only ones, they were as simple as pie and didnt' "eat" pages.....
I just looked at List of Boundary Peaks of the Alaska-British Columbia/Yukon border which is the BC-AB border list's sister page, an d it has 257 references;tempaltes, not the "mere" 246 that this one does; but reflist and otehr last-end-of-page templates work fine there; and it has just as many coord templates, at least.....so why one pge turns in a bad result, and the other works, maybe you guys can tell me. But I'm sticking to my guns that none of this happened until the code-ster who "deprecated" the earlier simpler templates realacedd them with his pet projects, "improving" them to the "cite [name" versions with all their fields and extra codee etc. Content priorities should trump code-flatulence any day; havingt to delete content to make room for interface tweaks is not encyclopedic behaviour, its' obsessive code/programming. And it as done with a smug behaviour, and "sneaky" surreptitious behaviour, and without consulting those who created the template or those who used it (actually I think it swas mkdw or maclean 25 I'm not sure, who got a notice but they ewren't around). "Don't fix what ain't broken" should be a wiki-maxim. If more and more code-obsessed so-called "admins" keep on revamping interfacde, without thought to content, it's time to bring in limits on how many admins there are, and what purposes code expansion is to be used for. To me this code "improvmeent" was just a case of digi-jerking off, and nothign more. And in this case it's harmed a page; time to revert and ditch teh "cite" series of templates, and go back to the roots.....Skookum1 (talk) 22:59, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
tl;dr, dude. Can you condense this text wall into something readable? Anyway, the simplest solution to me is to dump the coordinates from this table. They are meaningless to most people, so are of limited value in this context. People interested in the geohack links can go to the article of the peaks they are interested in. Resolute 23:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Though I did catch "just a case of digi-jerking off", and I would remind you Skookum that Wikipedia has a policy against making personal attacks. I would advise you to retract that statement and avoid making further insults. Resolute 23:12, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Fixed the problem here. I moved the references out and put them at Talk:List of peaks on the British Columbia – Alberta border/References. The references need to be put into the individual articles something like this. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 01:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Resolute, there's a good reason to keep the coordinate links there. The list is given from north to south so using the {{GeoGroupTemplate}} will show all the peaks on one map in that order. If there was a Category:Peaks on the British Columbia – Alberta border and it used GeoGroupTemplate it would show all the peaks but in alphabetical order. There are a lot here so its hard to see but look at Victoria line or River Cam. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 01:31, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Skookum, it's not the number of templates included in the text that's important; rather, it's the total number of template transclusions that must be performed by the software. Many of the templates on that page call one or more other templates, so there are over 500 transclusions on that page. For example, {{BCGNIS}} calls {{Cite bcgnis}}; as Franamax notes above, you can resolve part of the problem by simply calling the latter template directly, instead of using the wrapper template. If using those is cumbersome, as you note in one of your posts above, then the solution is to coordinate an update of those templates into a single, better template which resolves both of these problems. Mindmatrix 14:49, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

@Resolute - you can wiki-cop/schoolmarm all you want Resolute, see WP:IAR; as is typical when I get p'd about something stupid that's been doing, y'all cry "personal attacks" instead of considering the background or actually working towards a solution. You're only here to attack ME, by taking something I say/do and invoking a wiki-guideline so you have something to tut--tut about, instead of trying to find a solution for what's pissed me off.Skookum1 (talk) 18:58, 14 September 2010 (UTC) @MindMatrix &CBW: my whole point about the BCGNIS-cite bcgnis issue is that this page was written BEFORE User:Droll decided to 'improve'/deprecate the template I'd asked to have created (BCGNIS) and created his new code-baby which isn't user-friendly and is also code-heavy. Asking ME to avoid the transclusions caused by HIS "deprecation" of a perfectly useful, clean-code template by ME rewriting this page - nope, sorry, that's just not on. What needs to be done here is for "cite bcgnis" to get tossed out and thrown in the "unnecessary and cumbersome" bin where it belongs. {{BCGNIS}} only "calls" {{cite bcgnis}} because of the aggressive way in which the former was supplanted over the former, and nobody actually USING the former EVER asked for a new template. It was this dispute, in fact, with Droll keeping up pretending as though somehow histemplate was superior, and Plastikspork I think it was keep on rationalizing it, and coming up with "it doesn't matter how much processing power" rationalization (clearly in error) that saw me driven away from Wikipedia a few months ago; THIS IS THE CORE ISSUE. The intransigence of the code-warriors and interface-tweakers. What needs to be fixed here is not rewriting the page to add even MORE text/bytes by filling out that damned "cite bcgnis" template, but doing away with it entirely and going back to the simple-code {{BCGNIS}} - not what's there now, but what there was before Droll and Plastikspork, neither of whom habituate those templates (other than botting them across pages I'd created using BCGNIS long ago). I WOULDN'T have created all those pages if I'd had to use such a cumbersom template; since it's been instituted I've also been ignoring them entirely and just copy-pastsing the BCGNIS URLs directly (e.g. on Extreme points of British Columbia (and don't anyone offend me by going in there and replacing them with "cite bcgnis" to "fix" my omission). If anything on this page, I'd go back in and place the straight URLs, rather than kowtow to this template-obsession; tweaking the interface only requires more and more housekeeping in so many, very many cases; all over my watchlist I see bot-fixing going on all the time, I see very very little content-adding. And to thosee who say "take the coordinates off this page" they're not needed, that's a very narrow point of view; being able to GeoHack them was part of the point of making this list in the first place. What needs doing here, instead of coming up with ways to sabotage and delete/remove information, is actually getting the peaks in sequence (as the border often goes in horseshoe formations, unlike the AK-BC/YT list where, for the most part except the extreme northwesterly part of the list, they DO run in "latitude order". The page needs work; but it doesn't need a make-work project caused by the thoughtless and wanton implementation of a template created by a user oblivious to the realities of why the predecessor template was created in the first place (to save time) and the circumstances in which it might be used (pages with lots and lots of citations using it). Asking ME to pick up the pieces and do the housekeeping required in the wake of the new template's implementation is not just mildly insulting; it's patronizing. Again, the solution here is to do away with the new "standard" cite+name template series; there's NO REASON at all why the original, ultra-simple {{BCGNIS}}, {{CGNDB}} and {{gnis}} templates had to be deprecated, except the ego-obsession of someone who's taught himself wikicode and wants to prove what he can do by rewriting stuff that didn't need rewriting; all done without the thought of the needs and desires of actual content-contributors like myself. This has all been a CFWT and it's damaged a page that I spent, obviously, a great deal of effort creating. And now *I'm* being asked to fix the problem; well, the way to fix the problem is to throw out the new template which has caused the problem related to this page, and resinstate the original templates, and chastise Droll for heedlessly and arrogantly creating an uneeded, problem- causing template in the first place.Skookum1 (talk) 18:58, 14 September 2010 (UTC) @

Dude. Unclench. → ROUX ₪ 19:21, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I'll "unclench" when this stupid new template is deleted and its predecessor reinstated; what I'm hearing is a lot of rationalization about how to adapt to the new one's existence when there was no good reason for it being made in the first place.Skookum1 (talk) 20:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
So edit the fucking template to stop causing these problems. Seriously. Do you want to make this place better or do you want to post walls of text bitching about what other people have done? Either do something or stop complainin; these are the only options available to a grownup. Be part of the solution, else you are part of the problem. Complaining on the sidelines is the latter. I do understand where you are coming from, but... do something or shut up. seriously. → ROUX ₪ 07:07, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Oh come on Roux, stir the pot much? You of all people do have some understanding of how templates work, or at least you know enough to know how complicated it all gets when you get down to the engine room. So I'll mirror everything you just said, right back atcha dude. I'm working on getting a fix, care to join me? Franamax (talk) 08:15, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not stirring the pot. I honestly don't give a flying whosit whether templates work on this page or not. But hwat I'm seeing is Skookum posting GIGANTIC WALLS OF TEXT bitching about the issue instead of doing something. So I am saying.. do something or shut the fuck up. Which is me doing something. Whether Skookum chooses to listen or not is their choice.→ ROUX ₪ 08:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
About this template limit thing, and on the same point see Wikipedia_talk:Template_limits#Yeah.2C_well....Skookum1 (talk) 20:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
And because there are more than 200 coordinates on that page Template talk:GeoGroupTemplate#Long-list-warning option needed is of interest. It might be worth considering splitting the page up. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 06:25, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
There are 257 coordinates and twice as many citations (maybe more as gnis, bcgnis AND CGNDB were all used, though mostly only gnis and bcgnis as cgndb is redundant to bcgnis....usually) on the equivalent Alaska-BC/YT list, and THAT page does NOT have the same lack of function to reflist as is happening with this one. NB in some cases, and as I have been advised by the gnis coordinator, the US coordinates are different from the Canadian ones, for abstruse reasons I won't get into here; so there might be a proper need for both sets of coordinates to be shown, when there is a variance (in re npov/globalize). But despite that, again, the Alaska-BC/YT page still works, even though it has more list-entries and twice as many geo-nis references....Skookum1 (talk) 06:39, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Update

User:Droll has been working hard to revise the underpinnings of {{BCGNIS}} and {{cite bcgnis}}. I've reverted CBW's fix that got the page working again and it is now once again loadable with no errors - but feel free to revert if you still see breakage in whatever browser you use. But we're not necessarily done here, because the "BC/AB Peaks" article now looks kinda silly with a huge reference list below its actual content. Compare for example the "CaliPeaks" list, which has much more utile links, albeit without a legend to explain the acronyms. It's not strictly a CWNB issue now that I can see, but further comments on article style for these long lists would be welcome. Se also here for other dicsussion. Franamax (talk) 08:11, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Franamax, and Droll, for all your recent work on this. Pfly (talk) 08:22, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

File:Halifax Flag.svg

FYI, Image:Halifax Flag.svg has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 06:20, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

List of tallest buildings in Regina

FYI, List of tallest buildings in Regina has been nominated in deletion. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 04:48, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Canadian military mottos

FYI, a bunch of Canadian military motto articles are up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Naval Vessel Mottos: United States. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 05:34, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

RDs do not have "seats" and are given WP:Undue weight

I stopped by the Port McNeill page today as someone had put in a personal review of the nasty kind, and puttered around fixing a few things; with this edit I removed yet another instance of the mis-use of the term "seat" in reference to regional districts, "as if they were counties, which they're not", as I have to say so very often. The location of a regional district's offices does not make that town a "seat", it's totally an external wiki-ism which has nothing to do with how English is used in BC, or with what regional districts are. That this was used in a section introducing tourism is even more off-base; regional districts are not tourism regions (in this case, the tourism region is "Northern Vancouver Island" though in usual BC parlance it's "the North Island"). Regional districts have been given WAY too much importance in Wikipedia, and their use as location /region descriptors MUST be phased out; they're ONLY relevant in relation to municipal services and inter-municipal organization; I think their categories should be ditched altogether too, but that's a bigger issue; so much else gets "deprecated" around Wikipedia it's amazing to me sometimes how much resistance there can be to something that SHOULD be "deprecated" (="done away with"). But largely this post involves asking the rest of you "if you see a BC town article where it says it's the 'seat' of a regional district, please take that out and put in something like "is the location of the head offices of the regional district"; there's no other significance to an RD's HQ than that; the term "seat" implies "county capital" and there's no such equivalence, nor is that in any way a "BC usage", unless you're using a source which has gone and used Wikipedia as a source....Skookum1 (talk) 19:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's another example of the mis-use of using RDs as if they meant anything. "Wow, Honey, we're just south of 100 Mile - that means we're just leaving the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, woo-hoo!". Using RDs as location descriptors is pointless as well as stilted and artificial and totally completely a wikipedia-ism. If you see crap like this please get rid of it, and certainly don't add any more...I did get a kick out of the "somewhere in the South Cariboo" bit; 100 Mile is pretty much the main town in the South Cariboo....but please note that term also includes areas of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District (specifically Clinton, which bills itself as "the Gateway to the Cariboo" but so do Lillooet and Cache Creek...). Sure, there's a sign on Highway 97 marking the RD boundary...somewhere along the route you'd also see a sign telling you which Forest District you were entering/leaving too, but that's just as non-relevant as RD info for an encyclopedia write-up; different in the infobox, where school districts, land districts, forest districts, health regions etc should ALL be given equal weight to the RDs.......anyway no doubt I'll see more of this as I go through BC town/place articles....I'm just asking for those of you out there who frequent the same articles to keep an eye out for this kind of stuff and change it accordingly; if you have any questions about how better to word/locate something shoot me a message.Skookum1 (talk) 19:48, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Are there not occasions when the mention of a RD is alright? I noticed recently that an editor added to the Price Island page, "Price Island is located within the Kitimat-Stikine Regional District." By itself, this seemed fine to me. Certainly RDs serve some purpose, and there are times when someone wants to know which RD some place is in, no? Is a simple, isolated statement like this is acceptable to you, Skookum? And this is not to say "school districts, land districts, forest districts, health regions etc" could not also be mentioned. RD "seat" though, I'll keep an eye out for. I assume RDs are frequently thought of as similar to US counties (I used to think so). Towns in US counties fought (sometimes hard) for the status of county seat. It meant getting courthouses, sheriff funding, etc etc etc. As far as I know neither of these things applies to RDs. Pfly (talk) 05:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Governor General

This is just a notice requesting that members of this project keep an eye on pages related to the governor general or places where the governor general is mentioned. Eager editors are already updating articles and infobox fields to show David Lloyd Johnston as governor general, but Johnston will not be viceroy until the moment he's sworn in later today. I've added hidden explanatory requests in various apt places, but additional vigilance will likely be needed. Cheers. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 11:06, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I have also reverted some of this additions...its still a bit early ...he could decline LOL :) We cant add it till its official ..Moxy (talk) 13:42, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
The swearing-in starts at 10:00 am, according to the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Some users seem to believe that because the Chief Justice has been asked by Jean to act as Administrator of the Government, Jean has ceased to be governor general. That is not the case, though: Jean's commission from the Queen must be terminated before Jean ceases to be vicereine. There's no evidence such an event has taken place. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 13:50, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
You misconstrued my message - the commission ceased before the swearing-in and as CBC alreaady mentioned, Chief Justice is acting as the administrator of government - and as such, Jean can't be the GG - the two posts are mututally exclusive!--Cahk (talk) 14:32, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Where's the proof Jean's commission ceased before Johnston was sworn in? And how is the chief justice acting as Administrator of the Government when Jean is neither dead, incapacitated, removed, or absent? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 14:52, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Within the hour (once Johnston is sworn in), it won't matter anymore. GoodDay (talk) 14:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
The proof was in several comments made on the CBC's coverage of the swearing-in. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:57, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Media banter isn't proof. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:04, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
It wasn't banter. It was a statement made several times. It's citable and I would argue that the CBC is both WP:V and WP:Reliable. It's moot now anyhow. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
The prolonged passage was related to the arrival of Johnston accompanied by a judge whose name escapes me, who was the temporary GG until Johnston was sworn-in. they were both riding in the limo from Rideau Gate to the location where the installation was to take place. Perhaps if you had watched it and actually assumed that other editors understood the topic we're discussing instead of assuming bad faith when it disagrees with your understanding we wouldn't have all these problems. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:59, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps if you stopped assuming in bad faith that someone else was operating in bad faith you wouldn't imagine problems that never really existed. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 19:08, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Canadian American

FYI, Canadian American has been requested to be renamed. It apparently revolves around rules of grammar... 76.66.200.95 (talk) 04:49, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Clusterf**k on Bridal Falls vs. Bridal Veil Falls

Bridal Veil Falls, British Columbia has been mistitled since its origin; I noted this on its talkpage, an IP user has blanked that and moved said content to Talk:Bridal Falls, British Columbia. Bridal Veil Falls is the waterfall, Bridal Falls is the community. Bridal Veil Falls (British Columbia) redirects to [[Bridal Veil Falls Provincial Park], as it should be, but Bridal Veil Falls redirects to Bridal Veil Falls, British Columbia, which is the community article and SHOULD be titled Bridal Falls or Bridal Falls, British Columbia. Both those redirects exist, and go to the mis-titled community page.....too many redirects in the way and no name changes I can revert, so would somebody with admin status please revise all of these; and again, note the IP-blanking of one talkpage where "moved to redirect page" I had to figure out what they mean. Any links on the Bridal Veil Falls disambiguation page should probably be checked once the straightening out is done.Skookum1 (talk) 20:18, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

A quick check of the map shows that Skookum is right on this one - I did the page move back to Bridal Falls, British Columbia, and it appears that the articles are the way they should be.....but can someone with admin powers please verify this? PKT(alk) 21:02, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

William James Wanless

Biographical article of Sir William James Wanless ( who was a Canadian born surgeon and Presbyterian missionary who founded a medical mission in Miraj, India and led it for nearly 40 years) is approved for DYK By today evening it will appear in the "Did you know" section on the Main Page of English Wikipedia.-- . Shlok talk . 09:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I've nominated Mother and Child Reunion at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests for October 14, 2010, the anniversary date of the episode's initial airdate. Please visit the page and say whether you would like to see it on the Main page on that date. Thank you. Matthewedwards :  Chat  15:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Two Solitudes (Canadian society)

FYI, Two Solitudes (Canadian society) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 05:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Category:Historical Chinatowns in British Columbia

I just created this because the terms of its parent category Category:Chinatowns in Canada weigh in favour of current Chinatowns (including those only described as such, not named as such, which I think is inappropriate). Some towns in BC had no Chinatown, but were predominantly Chinese in character/population; some of these have articles, others needing them are Keefer('s), Granite Creek, Antler Creek and especially Richfield...also Centre City (north of Dease Lake); also Quesnel Forks and/or Keithley Creek, I think, but I'd have to check. Other cities/towns which I'll check were I think Kamloops, Ashcroft and I'm not sure where else; not included are cannery towns where much of the labour was Chinese; the sense of "Chinatown" infers Chinese businesses/settlement - and again, I have reservations about simply categorizing a place as Chinatown because it has Chinese businesses; otherwise Kingsway, Metrotown, 41st & Granville, 1st & Renfrew, Grandview Highway, East Broadway (all Vancouver) etc are also "Chinatowns" but that's a stretch. The historical category is necessary because of the number of BC towns which had actual Chinatowns, or which were, again, predominantly Chinese; some like Barkerville and Lillooet were both.Skookum1 (talk) 02:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

PS adjusting my own supposed parent category above, I'm wondering if historical Chinatowns or quasi-Chinatowns would simply belong in a BC-only category: too late now, it's created....Port Moody comes to mind also, also Ladner, Kelowna and elsewhere; I'll look into itSkookum1 (talk) 02:16, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Right to counsel

I think we may want to expand coverage about Canada in Right to counsel, considering the recent Supreme Court ruling. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 12:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Minister of Justice (Canada)

I think Minister of Justice (Canada) should be merged into Department of Justice (Canada). If "minister" has too much content, then turn it into "List of ministers of justice" WhisperToMe (talk) 22:21, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

  • Oppose ...This kind of thing has come up before (perhaps someone else will remember the title of the thread, because i cant find it)...If i recall correctly the decision/consensus was to clearly separate the "Departments" from there "Ministers" as to avoid overwhelming the "Department" articles (The Canadian wikipediers have done a good job of this so far - see: Structure of the Canadian federal government, Office-holders of Canada and Canadian Cabinet#Current Cabinet). A good example of what we hope to achieve with all offices and there ministers is like with the Prime Ministers (who are mentioned in a even a balanced manner at "Government of Canada and Canadian Cabinet"). In this case is taken even a step further..with the separation of tittle (duties) and office holders - i.e Prime Minister of Canada (about the position of Prime Minister) and List of Prime Ministers of Canada. That said i can see y we could merger, but then think this will discourage the expansion of information on the Ministers and would not be the normal format as per above links. I actually think we should separate the List of Minister of Justice into its own article and the article about the Minister of Justice (Canada) should be more about the duties of this position, but this will happen in time and would not be encouraged with a merger. Moxy (talk) 03:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose - mon dieu, no. The office and the Department/Ministry which that office oversees are very, very different things. Might as well merge Prime Minister of Canada and Government of Canada. → ROUX ₪ 03:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Watchlisters unite

One for the willing watchlisters: both yesterday and today, two different anonymous IP numbers (both of which, curiously, resolve to Manchester, England) have made edits suggesting that Lawrence Cannon was officially sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister of Canada yesterday, citing only "inside sources" as their proof. While it certainly isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility that this is true, of course, we can't claim it here without properly verifying it in reliable sources — of which I have yet to find even one that confirms any such thing.

So if it is true, then can anybody help with a genuine source? And if it isn't (which appears more likely), then could a few willing watchlisters help keep an eye on things for the next couple of days in case the anon comes back for more? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 19:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't appear to be true, at least according to my internet. Watchlisted. -M.Nelson (talk) 19:46, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Heritage Rivers

I've noticed that many of the pages about Canadian Heritage Rivers are stubs or otherwise of poor quality. Some are tagged as needing cleanup, more footnotes, unreferenced, etc. The Bloodvein River page even has a peacock template on it. I noticed because I was reading about the War of 1812 (its bicentennial is coming soon) and the death of Tecumseh on the banks of the Thames River. I checked the Thames River (Ontario) page and found it rather lacking (eg, no references). I made a few minor improvements, then, after learning that it is a Canadian Heritage River, I looked at other such heritage rivers. It must be relatively easy to find good info about these Canadian Heritage Rivers—it was for the Thames River at least. Seems a shame for most of the pages to be stubs and/or poor quality. Since I don't have much free time for editing, I thought I'd mention it here. Pfly (talk) 06:39, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Criticism of Nortel

FYI, Criticism of Nortel has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 06:20, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Sports: Canadian Women's Hockey

Hello I made some updated by pages Montreal Stars and Canadian Women's Hockey League Only verify if everything is correct because I am new member on wikipedia . Tanks --Charlesquebec (talk) 15:54, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Montreal Carabins Good evening, I redid all the page ( history of club, men soccer team, women soccer team and women hockey team) --Charlesquebec (talk) 01:33, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Place name spelling problem

Please help resolve an issue that has come up on the WP Help Desk. Is there an authorotative source for the spelling of Canadian place names? See Wikipedia:Help desk#Brights Grove, Ontario, thanks. Roger (talk) 10:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Variable importance?

Just doing some NB assessing and did the Atlantica Party. Is there a way to split the importance? I'd like to give it a Bottom for New Brunswick, as "claiming to be active also in New Brunswick" isn't even a Low in my opinion, but it needs a Low for the Nova Scotia project. Thanks for the help! - Wmcduff (talk) 14:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not aware that a different importance level can be given for NB as opposed to NS, but somebody else might know of a way. That having been said, the article is rated "low" for each of the provinces, which seems to be what you want according to your question. Importance ratings can be assigned for the cities of VAN, TOR, OTT & MTL if the article in question is assigned to the related Wiki sub-projects. PKT(alk) 18:40, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
It's kind of a moot point, as there isn't any such thing as a "Bottom" level of importance anyway — "Low" is the lowest importance class it's even possible for an article to have. Bearcat (talk) 01:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Oh really? - Wmcduff (talk) 10:37, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
"Bottom" importance is currently used by only eight WikiProjects. It is not a standard feature across the whole of WP. Roger (talk) 12:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
I figured as much. I like the idea because I'm mildly OCD and it appeals to me, but just wanted to point out it does exist, and it happens to be on the NB Assessment page, so I figured it was fair game... - Wmcduff (talk) 13:44, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre

FYI, Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.198.128 (talk) 05:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI, a bunch of Canadian military related articles have been prodded for deletion. See:

76.66.199.238 (talk) 08:30, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

CFB Rivers

FYI, CFB Rivers has been prodded for deletion. 76.66.199.238 (talk) 05:47, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Ontario municipal elections

Just a heads-up to everyone: with the close of polls just two hours away, I've placed a 24-hour semi-protection on the highest-visibility pages (i.e. Toronto municipal election, 2010 and its subpages, Ottawa municipal election, 2010 and Ontario municipal elections, 2010) to hopefully keep a lid on the typical vandalism and other assorted nonsense that typically accompanies election results night. Established users will still be able to edit the articles; only unregistered IPs and newly-registered users are locked out.

I've left lower-visibility topics (smaller cities, etc.) unlocked for the time being; however, if you notice any apparent vandalism taking place on any of those articles, please consider locking that page down as well (or requesting that an administrator lock it down if you can't). Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 22:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I need some help with a dispute at Talk:Timiskaming District municipal elections, 2010 -- Earl Andrew - talk 22:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Canada

Tempers ran a little high at Canada - please take a look and discuss at Talk:Canada#northern_North_America to help everyone reach consensus. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Sports: Women's soccer

Hey everyone, I am a new wikipedia member. I wish to work on the pages on the women's soccer. I began with the page of Laval Comets and Quebec City Amiral SC. And I modified the page of Amy Walsh a player of soccer whom I like very much. Also I opened a page for Maroua Chebbi. It was not easy for me because I am new member on Wikipedia. I wish to continue at the level of the other women's teams of Quebec ( Carabins, Rouge et or, Vert et Or ) and for Canadians women's soccer ( Ottawa Fury,Toronto Lady lynx, Vancouver Whitecaps Women, ...)

You can read 4 pages and say to me if everything is correct. I would like to know how to put photos on wikipedia pages.

I seeks for a bilingual wikimentor (English-French) to help me to understand better all the facets of Wikipedia. Tanks

bonjour vous tous. Je suis nouveau membre sur le Wikipedia. Une façon pour moi de mieux maîtriser la langue anglaise. Je me cherche d'ailleurs un parrain bilingue (anglais-français) pour m'aider afin de mieux comprendre toutes les facettes du Wikipedia. Merci --Charlesquebec (talk) 13:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I maked important update on Ottawa Fury Women, Hamilton Avalanche ,Toronto Lady Lynx and London Gryphons --Charlesquebec (talk) 13:17, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Winnipeg Centre

Winnipeg Centre electoral district is listing as having the second lowest income, after Vancouver East. However, Winnipeg North has income lower than Winnipeg Centre and higher than Vancouver East. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.33.10.73 (talk) 15:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

When I hear "Winnipeg Centre", I think of Winnipeg Center (CZWG), the Winnipeg Air Route Traffic Control Center ... 76.66.203.138 (talk) 06:51, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Plymouth

There is a discussion at Talk:Plymouth, requesting that it become a disambiguation page. I don't believe that the English city is the primary topic, as Plymouth, Massachusetts (including Plymouth Colony) and Plymouth (automobile) are more well-known in the U.S. and Canada. OSX (talk • contributions) 21:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Someone was counting up the votes recently, and seems like Devon is getting the upperhand. I personally think that shows regional bias, unless Canada and the USA don't count for anything in figuring out English usage. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 12:44, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Lists of curling clubs

FYI, the list of curling club articles for seemingly every province and territory of Canada have been nominated for deletion. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of curling clubs in New Brunswick . 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

CSTC HMCS Acadia

FYI, CSTC HMCS Acadia has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:36, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Due South fans ...

Hi all

Can anyone help with refs and more info on Ramona Milano (played Francesca Vecchio) ?

I have had the article rescued from deletion and put in a bit of info but wondered if anyone out there might have more relevent refs, as I am not in that part of the world, or might be able to put some more detail in there.

thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 02:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to help with WikiProject United States

Hello, Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 13! We are looking for editors to join WikiProject United States, an outreach effort which aims to support development of United States related articles in Wikipedia. We thought you might be interested, and hope that you will join us. Thanks!!!

--Kumioko (talk) 03:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Snowbird (ornithopter)

Hello, I'm trying to create an article on the Canadian aircraft "Snowbird" that recently became the first human-powered craft to fly by flapping it's wings. See Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Articles for creation/Snowbird (ornithopter). It was rejected by WP:AFC because it was lacking sufficient background (See the talk page for the comment that accompanied the rejection). Would anyone like to assist me in building up the article to be able to be moved into articlespace? 76.66.200.95 (talk) 10:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

What has happened to the Snowbird since its flight? PKT(alk) 11:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
According to the official website, it is in storage, since it broke some linkages during its last flight. I didn't add that since it requires use of a primary reference, instead of secondary and tertiary references, which all the current references used are. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 07:00, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
See WP:PRIMARY for instructions on how to use primary references. (Carefully). -- Quiddity (talk) 19:47, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
It's been revised with some information from primary sources. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 10:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
It has been tendered for evaluation at the incubator. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:56, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Military history of Canada during World War I

FYI, Military history of Canada during World War I has been requested to be renamed. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:32, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Need some assistance...

A user has been creating a new article about Thornton, a community within the municipality of Essa, Ontario. Initially he created an unreferenced stub written in the style of a tourist brochure ("list of local attractions", etc.), so I redirected it back to the municipality; then he recreated the same article but "referenced" it to the Statistics Canada census profile of Essa as a whole (which, as those of you who've ever worked with the Stats Can website know, provides basic demographic numbers for a municipality as a whole, but contains no verifiable information at all about any individual communities within the municipality) and to the individual web pages of specific entities that happen to be listed in his text, such as the fire station and the library and the junior hockey team — but it's still fundamentally a brochure rather than a neutral, properly referenced encyclopedia article.

Could somebody take a look at it and make a judgement as to whether there's a salvageable encyclopedia article to be cobbled together, or whether it should just go back to being a redirect again? I fully support properly written and properly referenced encyclopedia articles about individual communities, of course — but so far, this just ain't either one of those things. Bearcat (talk) 06:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Heres a ref for the Trans Canada Trail bit, if you go with salvage (I think you should, I've written articles on smaller places!) From the Essa township website. The Interior(Talk) 07:02, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
So have I — but four photos with no descriptive text, from the township's own website, doesn't constitute "substantial coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the topic", which is the bottom-line criterion when it comes to evaluating whether an article is properly referenced or not. Bearcat (talk) 07:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it's not great. Apparently "Ontario Place Names 2007 David E. Scott" has an entry on Thornton, maybe an Ontarian can look it up. The Interior(Talk) 07:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Canada-related articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

If you have already provided feedback, we deeply appreciate it. For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 16:31, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Outline of Canada

There is currently a deletion request concerning the Outline of Canada article. Pls join in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Outline of Canada. Moxy (talk) 19:36, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of Canadian WikiProjects, portals and main articles

I have gone ahead and made a page similar to that used by the US and Ozzie projects to navigate projects, portals and main pages
Pls see Wikipedia:List of Canadian WikiProjects, portals and main articles and update edit etc.. at will (its a new page). I have linked it up on our project page and portal template.Moxy (talk) 05:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the outlines garbage. We shouldn't be encouraging such a ridiculously useless duplication of content. → ROUX ₪ 09:53, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Not sire y user:roux keeps deleting the outline...if you dont like it get it deleted dont make the article orphan because you have a POV over them. Most would see this as vandalism.Moxy (talk) 15:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
If you don't like outlines, for whatever reason, you should seek consensus for their deletion. But as long as they exist, you should have a better reason than not liking them for deleting all links to them. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
This is WP:BRD at its most basic. Moxy made a bold addition, I reverted it. It is now time for Moxy to discuss why links to this garbage should be included. Outlines are wholly useless, and duplications of existing content. Many, many editors have objected to the very inclusion of them; there was supposed to be an RfC which was eventually abandoned due to the stonewalling of the person responsible for the nonsense. → ROUX ₪ 01:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the bold change was your removal of the outlines, and the reversion was Moxy restoring it. As much as I agree with you that those Oulines lists are junk, misconstruing BRD is not going to let you keep them out pending a discussion about them. Speaking of unnecessary duplication of content, I would note that this page is simply a less detailed duplicate of the Outline of Canada page, but with project links added in. Resolute 01:34, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Actually, no. Moxy created the page in the first place (boldly), and I reverted part of that creation back out of existence. Whatever, I've just spent twelve hours on my feet and I honestly don't give a fuck. These blindingly stupid outlines are a cancer and need to be eradicated. Unfortunately, dealing with the sycophantic few who have been somehow persuaded that there is some benefit (they have yet to show a single one) is beyond tiring. Include links to this garbage if you want, misunderstand BRD if you want, contribute to Wikipedia mindlessly duplicating itself if you want, do, in short, whatever the hell you want. Just know that it is beyond stupid to support this drivel that masquerades as content. → ROUX ₪ 01:41, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Lets talk about the project page for a sec. You came along and deleted a link that has been here since 2008. With the reasoning for the link being deleted as "nonsense". Then I revert your deletion thus starting the WP:BRD cycle on the project page. So really its up to you to explain Y the link should be deleted and not the other way around. Currently it seems your going around to pages and deleting this links because "you" dont like them. As you yourself have stated the RfC on the matter was not conclusive. Yet here your are taking it upon yourself to delink the article and making it an orphan (even in a purpose built article). As for the page i created i was simply following the norm as per Wikipedia:List of U.S. state portals. Perhaps its best to bring up the pages you dislike for deletion at (Wikipedia:Deletion process) and or you could bring up your concern at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of Knowledge. Now on the matter that they are "garbage" as you put it on yet another deletion. I believe they are good and in fact think there better then the old indexes and is y i crated the page (so thanks for calling me "beyond stupid ). Could we get a third party to look at all this pls and see if his deletions should be reverted again? Because currently there are some typos. Moxy (talk) 02:28, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Merci Moxy pour cette nouvelle page. Thank you Moxy for this new page. --Charlesquebec (talk) 19:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, having contributed quite a bit to the British Columbia Outline of Knowledge, at User:Transhumanists's invitation (he also wanted me to help on Saskatchewan but other than structurally I don't know enough about the place to add much), I've found it quite useful for revealing "holes in coverage" and also weaknesses in category and topic structure. I remember the RfC on the Outlines, and also that it came to be somehow resolved and that these articles are now in articlespace, or some of them are anyway. There was an argument that List of British Columbia-related topics covers the same material, but it's never updated and is also only alphabetical, rather than being easy to use by subject, as the Outline is.....I don't see why the fuss is, or why the attempt to remove it from this project's listing of related projects. There's lots of other garbage kicking around Wikipedia that needs attention/deletion first (though I don't think the Outlines are garbage).Skookum1 (talk) 02:32, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
that list should be renamed Index of British Columbia-related topics... it's part of Wikipedia's Index Navigation Scheme (which used to be linked to from the sidebar... what happened to that?) 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:55, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Its actual at Index of British Columbia-related articles and is the norm for the Canada Indexes. as per - Index of Alberta-related articles, Index of Newfoundland and Labrador-related articles and Index of Quebec-related articles etc..That said is the norm everywhere else to have the ending as "topics"? And can some one pls fix Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada#Outline and index either revert Roux edit or fix the title of the section and the fact there is not "guides" listed but only one one if we are to blank out the Outline. I just simply reverted his blanking again. Moxy (talk) 06:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
This is getting out of hand. this edit by Roux left us with a nice red link to Canada topics when he blanked out the link again. This has to stop now we dont have time to clean up after this guys bulling POV edits. At this point i think we need to get admin involved....He seem not to understand this links were added a long time ago and its up to him to seek consensus. Not sure how one can respond to edit summary like its "garbage" and "nonsense". And" BRD is not a justification for imposing one's own view, or tendentious editing without consensus." Moxy (talk) 14:33, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
You appear not to understand a few things. First, NPOV is required only in articles. Period. I am most certainly allowed to have the POV that Outlines are pure garbage; just as you appear, inexplicably, to have the opinion that they aren't. Or by 'POV' do you mean 'doesn't agree with me'? Second, as I posted on your talkpage, you simply do not understand BRD. You made the bold edit to add the nonsense link, I reverted it. That means it is time to discuss and arrive at a consensus. If the consensus is to keep the link in, fine, but that has not been explicitly discussed and it needs to be. → ROUX ₪ 01:22, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
Have you not listen or read anything here?? Not one person believes what you have done is right! You are clearly trying to orphan the article by deleting the link all over. Your doing this with the position the Outline page is crap (again you have been told that its not a valid reason to go around deleting the link all over). You also seem to not understand that its you that did the bold edits in delinking the page all over. It was added to the project page in 2008 (that i did not add) and to the template 6 months ago (that i added in place of the index). So are we to believe that every edit before is bold and its always you that is reverting bold edits everywhere months and even years after the link was added?. And yes your pushing your POV by deleting the link in multiple page. You keep saying the same thing over and over pls discuss and we are and noone thinks your in the right (yes some think the Outline is crap aswwell but think what your doing is wrong). Do you have a better reason for your behaviour besides the fact you dislike the link? I do think the pages are helpful and is y i keep reverting your deletions of them all over. All this started because you saw i made a page with this links, so you took it upon yourself to remove them all over Right? I reverted you and here we are with you and your great ability to dismiss all that has been said. Again the links have been there a long time, this means its you that did the bold edits and me (and all other here) that are waiting for a better reason for them to be delink all over besides "I dont like them". The pages are there if you have a problem with them get them delete (again you have been told this). Lets look at your wonderful edits thus far - first we have the "rm the outlines nonsense" edit, were you removed the Outline but did not rename the section to reflect this fact nor did you bother take the time to fix the line from plural to singular. Then we have edit #2 the "ugh, removing link to the silly outlines nonsense" one that left us with a very useful link to Canada topics that you again did here. The first two edits were the original reasons y i reverted besides the fact of the edit summaries. Shall i go on? At this point i would be very embarrassed if i were you. sorry that was a bit meanMoxy (talk) 04:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
I am not trying to orphan the Outlines garbage; I am trying to remove links to it from a project that is attempting to improve content, not support nonsense. You appear not to understand, again: NPOV is required only in articles. When you understand that, there will perhaps be a point in discussing this with you. → ROUX ₪ 12:01, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Since Moxy has, for some reason, refused to actually start a discussion in favour of editwarring and blatant misrepresentations of policy (again, Moxy, this may be difficult for you to understand but NPOV applies to articles only; when you understand this, please feel free to join the discussion), see here for a discussion. → ROUX ₪ 15:29, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
    What do you expect to accomplish by repeatedly attacking other editors in this debate? You defeat your own discussion by making it so personal. Focus on the content, not the contributors. Resolute 15:34, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
    The same thing that Moxy expects to accomplish by doing the exact same thing? → ROUX ₪ 18:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
  • The outline seems to add additional information, so it sounds like a good thing to me. Even though I don't like the concept of Outlines to begin with, the fact is that they exist, and community consensus (apparently) supports their existence. Roux, even if "NPOV applies to articles only", you can't go on removing links to outlines simply because you don't like them (aka your POV, in Moxy's words). Calling it NPOV and discounting it that way is ignoring the source of the problem— you simply don't like outlines. -M.Nelson (talk) 15:57, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Furthermore using words like "garbage", "crap", and "nonsense" from the outset isn't very conducive to a civil discussion on the subject. Roux obviously has his mind set so I don't see how the 'Discuss' part in BRD will lead anywhere; at this point it's just WP:TEND. -- œ™ 16:47, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I am always willing to have my mind changed, if someone presents a well-reasoned and cogent argument. No such argument has ever been presented for the existence of these nonsense pages. → ROUX ₪ 18:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
It would seem there's two simultaneous issues going on here: 1) what state should the project page and template remain in while 2) discussion takes place on the project page's and template's content. I've nothing against the outline and index in question, so I'm fine with the inclusion of links to them in both the project page and the template. I'm also, though, fine if someone wants to start an AfD for those pages and they disappear. However, it's obvious that, as those links were there for some time (months in one case, years in the other, even if the pages they linked to were retitled over that time), they should remain until a consensus is reached to remove them or the pages are deleted. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 14:21, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

FLRC

I have nominated List of Northwest Territories general elections for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:33, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

List of last surviving Canadian war veterans

FYI, List of last surviving Canadian war veterans has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 05:37, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

FYI, List of last surviving Canadian war veterans has been requested to be renamed, but it seems like an incorrect proposal for merge instead. See talk:List of last surviving Canadian war veterans. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 07:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

FYI, it is now nominated to be merged into Last North American veterans by war along with Last surviving United States war veterans. See Talk:Last surviving United States war veterans. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 07:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

What a bloody mess. AFD, move and merge discussions were all initiated at once, there are two separate discussions going on two separate pages, and it is not helped by the creation of new lists while the merge discussion is ongoing. The consolidated discussion is at Talk:Last surviving United States war veterans#Merger proposal. Ughh.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

"Canada was still legally a colony instead of a fully-fledged member of the sisterhood of nation-states" - input welcome

We could use the assistance of history and constitutional buffs. There is language in the Constitution of Canada article which states that Canada was a colony until 1982. It has been marked with the {{dubious}} tag, and we are trying to make heads or tails of it. Assistance/input would be very welcome. Discussion is at Talk:Constitution of Canada#"Canada was still legally a colony instead of a fully-fledged member of the sisterhood of nation-states". Cheers. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:29, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

There's a related discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_November_16#Category:Acts_of_the_United_Kingdom_Parliament_involving_the_Dominions.Skookum1 (talk) 22:10, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Winnipeg Grain Exchange

I have created the article "Winnipeg Grain Exchange". Suggestions, please :) « CA » What your problem? 19:29, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't have time to take a good look at the articles at the moment, but is this the same thing as Winnipeg Commodity Exchange? -M.Nelson (talk) 20:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
This reference says yes, the Grain Exchange is the predecessor of the Commodity Exchange. A merge is in order. PKT(alk) 20:48, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
yes together they would make a better article.Moxy (talk) 23:25, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Is okay? I have done something wrong? « CA » What your problem? 10:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, it is the predecessor of the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange. Is okay? « CA » What your problem? 10:15, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
All ok. They together might make a better article thats all.Moxy (talk) 19:33, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Project look update

I have been bold this weekend and have created a project header for us all to navigate our project (that has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception) I have add this to the top of all relevant project pages (as seen at the top of this page). See Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Tab header for header page. I have also created a new WP:Canada page called "help" See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Help pls add what can help us and the newbies to this page. I am aware of Template:WPCanada Navigation but find this to be not to newbie friendly and complicated in general for no reason. All the best ...Moxy (talk) 23:01, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Nice job! Bearcat (talk) 23:14, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Sorry about the red someone is editing in the middle of me doing it ..will fix it all up soon. You guys ok with the red??Moxy (talk) 23:35, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
'Sorry'? For what? As my edit summaries said, I was matching the colour to the rest of the Canadian templates, in fact the specific red called for by the government for use in graphic depictions of the flag online. What, exactly, will you 'fix'? Nothing is broken. → ROUX ₪ 23:39, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
I meant the big red line ..Fixed .. not sure y the tab thing is not working on two tabbed pages but o well all looks good. Moxy (talk) 00:02, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
It is too wide for the thinner browser windows. Should this be fixed? 117Avenue (talk) 01:47, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Interesting ...not sure here anyone else see this in this way? Dont want people to have to scroll...is it just this tabbed page or all of them for you ?? Moxy (talk) 01:56, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
I can see the 'Deletion Talks' tab and half of 'WikiProjects', but then I have to scroll to see 'Assessment'. It's not a deal-breaker, but it's not what you intended, I'm sure. PKT(alk) 02:21, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
At the window width I'm using right now I can only see to half of the "Deletion talks" tab. Same with all the other tabbed pages here. Otherwise, seems very nice. Pfly (talk) 02:28, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Dame let me work on this...I dont want people to have to scroll at all. Question 2 does it also do this at Wikipedia:WikiProject United States as there has been no complaints there. There is {| border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="background: transparent;" |- | valign="top" | {| border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="background: transparent; float: right;" |- | |} that might help. Question 3 do portals work normally for you guys? Just wondering because i use the same coding there to? Moxy (talk) 02:44, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Answer 2: On WPUSA I can see almost all of the tabs - just the edge of the last tab is off-screen. Answer 3: I can't recall seeing many of those tab bars before tonight. PKT(alk) 02:48, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Ok i added some coding to only on page Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Help.... does this help in anyway??Moxy (talk) 02:57, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Didn't seem to change anything for me. Like PKT, for me the final tab is cut off on the United States WP. Pfly (talk) 03:00, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
very odd...I cant realy fix the problem without posting here everything i try because all is ok for me every time. let me talk to a few people (by email) see if i can solve this. Do you think we should remove it if i cant get this done fast... or is it still ok the way it is (as in useful). I hope this is only seen by a few editors in this manner. I take it portal:Canada is all ok right as it also has the tabs? Could be just to many tabsMoxy (talk) 03:06, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
It's no big deal for me as is. Portal:Canada requires a little scrolling too. Admittedly I'm using a somewhat narrow window in order to have other windows open, etc. A bit of scrolling isn't that unusual for me. Pfly (talk) 03:38, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
The problem is too much side by side text. How about the titles with multiple words get broken into two rows? 117Avenue (talk) 03:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
What do you mean by a problem with the portals? I left a message at Template talk:Articles by Quality, for being too wide also, but never got a reply. I have had to side scroll Portal:Alberta since you added that template there too. 117Avenue (talk) 03:58, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
OK got an email back and was told that its realy a personal setting and/or nonmax window size on the users end. Regardless i have implemented your suggestions because we should try and solve this for all. That said i do see the scroll bar when using my blackberry and when i minimized my normal PC windows.Moxy (talk) 04:17, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh hey, not sure what you did, but the tabs all fit just fine now. Looks nice. Pfly (talk) 04:46, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank god i been at this all day..........good good good enjoy guys ..ps looking for a copy edit of my latest article Former colonies and territories in Canada.Moxy (talk) 04:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Width looks good now (unless I shrink the window ridiculously small), good job! I just went through the tabs, some have a shaded background, are they all supposed to? 117Avenue (talk) 05:11, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
yep they all should shade when there the one seen..Thats what i will be working on next..Think is because some are real sub pages and dont work the same way...in the end i will get it :).Moxy (talk) 05:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Nice work! The project was in need of an update. I was little tired of seeing the word "Beer" flash before me all the time. :-) Pfly (talk) 05:54, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
The tabs look pretty good for me now, Moxy - well done! PKT(alk) 12:46, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Done Moxy!!! 87.2.85.223 (talk) 22:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC) I have a question about one of our sub projects Assessments. I can't find the normal page for "/Ottawa articles by quality statistics" so as of now its missing at -->Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Assessment#Canada-related assessments done partially as part of WikiProject Canada and partially as independent projects........can anyone help me here??Moxy (talk) 22:05, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I. 87.2.85.223 (talk) 22:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
yawn. Good night, 87.2.85.223 (talk) 22:12, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

 Done I am all done ..pls fix anything you see that is wrong or missing (spell and grammar check of our main project page would be appreciated). I have tried to link (in a relevant place) all our project pages. Did this after realizing some pages are only looked at by only 1 or 2 users a day. Hopefully with the new layout (not all that different) pages like Cleanup listing, Unreferenced BLPs, New articles, etc..will be seen and thus more action taken on them. I can only guess that Template:WPCanada Navigation (that i have reordered) is not used very often and is y i did all this. Moxy (talk) 18:51, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Great Fires in Dawson City (3)

Please see Talk:Dawson_City#Three_Great_Fires, re the List of fires page. I've added New West, Lillooet, St. John's, and Vancouver; lots more CanCon needed.....Skookum1 (talk) 07:15, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Unreferenced BLPs

The bot creating http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Canada/Unreferenced_BLPs is ignoring the fact that Al Mackling is now referenced and does not have a Unreferenced BLP tag. Can anyone point me to who would be interested in this information? Many thanks, Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 18:13, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Since its a bot generated list, it may not change (be updated) until the next bot posting on the 24th of this month. Moxy (talk) 18:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
It won't Dashbot runs once a day on these pages, and it looks like you made the change to that article about a half hour after it last ran. I'd expect that you will see that article drop off the list in about 4 hours. Cheers, Resolute 18:54, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
OK. I see my problem, the top of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Canada/Unreferenced_BLPs says, "This page was last updated on 2010-November-23.", the bottom notes "This page was last modified on 22 November 2010 at 21:11." Different days, time zone related obviously. I looked only at the top of the page. Many thanks for all your help. Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 22:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Last North American veterans by war listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Last North American veterans by war. Since you had some involvement with the Last North American veterans by war redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). 76.66.194.212 (talk) 07:02, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Halifax

FYI, the usage of Halifax is under discussion at Talk:Halifax, West Yorkshire (as neither are the Canadian city, should this be listed at the Canadian requested moves list?) 76.66.194.212 (talk) 05:36, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

3RR on Victoria, British Columbia needs action

I spent a few hours the other night building the ethnic groups table for that page, corresponding to similar on those for Vancouver, Abbotsford, Williams Lake, Prince George, and user:UrbanNerd has now three times reverted/deleted them, and has "instructed" me to observe WP:BRD. His rationale is that the table is "unneeded" and "enormous", and that minor ethnicities don't matter, but my problem is the resulting highlight given the visible minority table that remains, even though it includes groups who are of a lower percentage than teh groups he doesn't want to have in the article....There are more French (of all things) in Victoria than Chinese, but because of his insistence (now taking the deletion-axe to cited work that has precedence elsewhere) that ethnicity tables should not be included, we wind up not having an idea of the TRUE ethnic character of the city, including its larger-than-usual British but also other components; there's only 4.4% Chinese in Victoria, and 9% Scandinavians; but apparently this is "unneeded" and too cumbersome; similarly the Dutch at 4.5% and the French at 10.5% are "unneeded" in the article, similarly the Germans at 13.8%, and the Ukrainians 4.4%....yes, Victoria is 1% black, but isn't it equally important that it's 22.26% Irish (in 3rd place, and ahead of Canadian, which is unusual)....yet there's a lot of other more junk-like content on that page, which also takes up space - including about four or five panorama shots, that's far more "junk" in nature. Needless to say, as you can tell, the bias against showing ethnicity tables and emphasizing visible minority tables is really grating to me. I remember, also, the separate Demographics of Abbotsford article, now submerged back into the city article as Abbotsford, British Columbia#Demographics. Perhaps the ethnicity table there has been "pruned", or maybe even deleted by another "bold" editor who believes in junking cited information because he finds it obtrusive; hell, I wish I could junk all the obtrusive information and "junk articles" I find constantly. He's reverted my work three times now, doesn't seem to give a fig for what I had to say about it, and has thrown a guideline at me to justify his deletion of what (to me) is necessary material. I do not like having my inheritance show up in an article only as "not a visible minority" (for the record, I'm Norwegian, French-from-France, Irish, English and probably a few other things). Victoria's Britishness, and its very multi-ethnic flavour, is represented statistically only by an ethnicity table; whereas featuring groups that are much smaller than the city's major ethnicity simply because they have a skin colour is noxious.....then lecturing ME about "being bold" LOLSkookum1 (talk) 05:48, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

So, turns out the Abbotsford article is missing the ethnicity table I'd made for the Demographics page, and the text compresses things, talking about people by race, though at least mentioning the Dutch and Germans in passing; though dwelling on matters to do with smaller groups "because they are visible". I'm pretty sickened by this; it's bad enough the federal government is cancelling the long form, where the ethnicity tables come from, there's no reason for Wikipedia to join them in junking the data simply because someone else thinks visible minorities are more important to mention...this does a disservice to ALL Canadians, and puts the lie to the myths about multiculturalism being rooted in the country's multiethnic character; instead, Wikipedia articles increasingly talk about race, and focus on that....Skookum1 (talk) 05:54, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
I went back to pick up a factoid from the table and discovered that UrbanNerd's most recent re-deletion of the ethnicity table also wound up making the whole rest of the page after the Visible Minority table part of that table; so this wasn't a 3RR on my part, I'm repairing damage - if he's so insistent it should come out he should try using something else than a chainsaw. I think the solution here is a separate Victoria demograhpics article, though it should probably be for Greater Victoria, not Victoria city along...I continue to be irked that anyone would think that ethnicity data in a province BUILT on a diverse range of ethnicities, including a diverse range of European ethnicities, is unimportant and should be deleted....Skookum1 (talk) 06:01, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Too long; didn't read LOL :) jokes. I do have to say the chart is mighty big and very very detailed. Not sure if i have ever seen one that detailed before. Not sure people will like it, but i do think its very very informative. Moxy (talk) 06:53, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Short attention span and Wikipedia:Learn to read complicated stuff, it's good for you. The original tables for Vancouver and Abbotsford had such detail, I think the Vancouver one may be truncated at 20 or 25 ethnicities, not sure; so far Williams Lake's is unmarred/unattacked. All ethnicity figures are inexact and projections only, based on the 10% sample of the long form....so all those saying "10" for the number of persons actually means only one person who filled out the long form was of that ethnicity; needless to say this doesn't pick up any neighbourhood or family concentrations, since the long forms are evenly geographically distributed. In the case of "obscure" ethnicities like the Bosnians and Icelanders, that they are present at all is notable, likewise the Tigreans; Icelanders are so few in Canada (or anywhere) that any number of them in three figures constitutes a notable concentration (Blaine, which has the largest Icelandic population in the US, has 150). In cases like Kitimat, where the Portuguese rank sixth and form a notable local community, listing the zero percentages for blacks and filipinos without mentioning the Portuguese is....well, unacceptable; I found it interesting looking up Trail's and Revelstoke's, both with notable Italian histories, to not have the Italians show up as significant, relative to other etchnities; as expected, throughout the Kootenays, Russians rank very high because of the Doukhobor presence; and everywhere in BC the Germans, followed by the Ukrainians, are notable non-British presences; similarly the Scandinavians though when you "cut them all up" by particular nationality (including Faroe Islander) their numbers don't seem so impressive; except that they're higher than in Eastern Canada proportion-wise. And like I said, that Victoria's French population is that large is quite remarkable, relative to other similar ethnic tables for other towns/cities in BC. Trim it down, maybe, but to see it deleted for spurious, kinda harsh, reasons, just ain't right.Skookum1 (talk) 07:21, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
The chart is ridiculously long, and was reverted. User:Skookum1 re added it and refuses to follow BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Other demographics articles like Demographics of Toronto , Demographics of Montreal, Demographics of Ottawa, use only the top few ethnicities and lable all the other 150+ races as "other". And remember these are articles ON demographics solely, not city articles. The list is way too big, and if skookum refuses to BRD and continues to openly attack me on the talk page, and 3RR I will be forced to report him. UrbanNerd (talk) 20:29, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
It was YOU who reverted my work three times, and on your lasst reversion (a 3RR) you damaged the rest of the page, such that all following content was (ironically enough) made into part of the Visible Minorities table. As for "bold, revert, discuss", if that rule were in force then all kinds of stupid excess I see unfolding, and unchallenged - and uncited - on various pages. As for openly attacking you, if that's what's called laying out the reasons for why what you did was wrong, and why ethnicity tables BELONG as part of any city profile (instead of just the ongoing emphasis on race).....if that's attacking you, then you should give your head a shake about your aggressive deletion of the CITED table I made up, which as I said (and you continue to ignore) is present on other city pages; shortening it would have been one thing, but you just wantonly deleted it and gave me a "hang on there, fella" edit comment and talked to me like I was a newbie. People citing guidelines as clubs gets to be a tiresome game; I'm talking VALID CONTENT, you're talking "space"....yet you know what: Jimmy Wales himself, turns out, told the writers of cold and templates and stuff not to worry about length or size, write as if there was endless storage space; that apparently doesn't apply to content, where some people keep on wanting to keep things down to soundbite length, or selectively picking WHICH data is more important than OTHER data based on .... well, based on "space".....yet did you take issue with the number of space-consuming panoramas on that page? What about other stuff that takes up space? Directory listings of radio stations and TV channels? Bulky, visually-grabbing climate tables? Trivia? I repeat, it's you who attacked me; if you think a long explanation of why you were wrong is an "attack" that's pretty funny.....there are those around here who know I've been holding my tongue, and trying - yes, trying to be polite. But I am long winded; some people see that as a rant, or as with you, an attack. Well, if you don't want someone to hit back, try not hitting them FIRST.Skookum1 (talk) 01:04, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, the full table was excessively long. A better version would be to show the top 10 or so, with everything else compressed into "other". PKT(alk) 21:16, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Note: This is the diff and section under discussion. (Please link to diffs, when discussing specific content, otherwise every discussion-participant has to research it themselves. Thanks!) -- Quiddity (talk) 23:13, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Comment: The table is large, but it could be collapsed, like such data is in many other articles, eg Civilization (series), 82nd Academy Awards, and Google Street View. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:13, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
A collapsed table would be fine, of course; e.g. as templates like {{Kootenay Lake steamboats}} can be....the same should be done to the Visibly Minority table. The reason I didn't truncate the table with "Other" was because, so far as I understand, doing that departs from the source, in teh same way that not using StatsCan's terminology in the Visible Minority tables is a no-no, and otherwise not reporting the source accurately, or taking a point of interpretation of the data (such a a cut-off point for exclusion) is effectively original research. Also, some of the lesser-numbered ethnicities, as I've mentioned about the Icelanders, are so rare to start with that any concentration into the three figures is notable...that could be dealt with in the text perhaps, as also with mention of the Tigreans, which no dobut there may be some press copy as to where there's a relative colony of them there, respective of other less-numerous ethnicities. NOT representing these peop[le except by racial group is not acceptable; and of course there's more ethnicities, vastly more, than the five or six groups the government and academia have tried to reduce us all to statistically. but because such information is long and detailed - that's no reason at all to delete it; all the more reason to find a way to include it (and not attack those who contributed it).Skookum1 (talk) 01:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
A collapsable list is a great idea and may alleviate the problem. And Skookum please grow up, by the looks of it you're a grown man, please start acting like one. UrbanNerd (talk) 17:21, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Hm, perhaps you should take your own advice - that's an overt personal attack now, though no less grating than the other comments you've made in support of your aggressive - and wrong - deletion.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:09, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
UrbanNerd, while it's true that Skookum can come off a bit angry sometimes, there's a huge difference between being a bit hot-headed and "acting like a child"; for one thing, no matter how angry he gets I have never seen Skookum attack the person he's talking to the way you just did. That comment was inappropriate, so as an administrator I need to remind you that Wikipedia has a rule about civility. Things can get pretty heated around here, yes — but there are ways to disagree on an issue without insulting the person you're disagreeing with. HTH, HAND. Bearcat (talk) 19:05, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Bearcat, would you please restore that table and add collapsibility? I would have done so, had I known how....the remaining Visible Minority table had major problems, including percentages which were for hte CRD, not the City of Victoria, and omitted a number of groups (totallying 3.9% of teh city's population, and also needlessly included the percentages in BC). Other pages where similar deletions of ethnicity tables have taken place, such as on Abbotsford's, should also be restored using the "collapsed" function....I know how to do it for templates but not for "class=wikitable".Skookum1 (talk) 19:26, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure about using collapsible tables in articlespace, I think it may contravene our WP:ACCESSIBILITY guideline. Can the table have an arbitrary cutoff, say 3%? There is actually a long overdue discussion needed here on the broader issue of ethnicity data from the Canadian census, what with how it adds up to well over 100% and only some communities have the detailed profiles. Franamax (talk) 22:08, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
To be honest, I don't know how to make a template like that collapsible. I know how to do it in navboxes, but not in tables. Bearcat (talk) 22:44, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
To collapse a table, just add the keywords to the table class:
class="wikitable sortable collapsible collapsed"
Still the potential problem with accessibility though. Franamax (talk) 22:59, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

[undent] What about using <small> for less space (as I do for coords on list-type sections/pages? But given it's not just ethnicity tables, but things like economic sector/income, age strata, other demographic realities other than race/ethnicity, and this being a capital city, I think there's a good case for Demographics of Victoria, British Columbia or Demographics of Greater Victoria, British Columbia (since "Demographics of Victoria" may exist for Australia...). As for places that profiles aren't available, that's "publicly" available; detailed community-by-community breakdowns are available but only on CD....I've looked through the early hand-written censuses, also, for certain towns; such ethnic breakdowns can be traced all the way back, just like bushels of wheat produced, cattle slaughtered etc.....the rider to all this is that the Harper government has done away with the etchnicity questions, along with the rest of the long form, as of the next census.....Skookum1 (talk) 23:09, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

For other reasons was looking at the San Francisco Bay Area article - its Demographic section is typical of US city/place articles, and also of those from the UK and Australia and elsewhere. There are some topical demographic pages in the US (SFAIK ethnic data is not easily recoverable from the US census....) but overeall they always discuss age strata, income strata, fields of employment, I think birth/death rate and so on. "Demographics" isn't just about ethnic/racial matters. I've long wanted Canadian articles to have "richer" demographics, by way of more meaningful content (this includes things like trade/productivity figures, which STatsCan and the BC Ministry of Economic Development both track, among others including hte Conference Board of Canada). So if the demoagraphics section is "too long" already, given all the rest that can and should be added, it seems in the case of most major cities, at least, that a separate, fully-written demographics page be created, with only condensed information on the main city page. The data's out there; but to have someone delete it no sooner than it's tableized, then have to argue about it for four days back into existence.....is Wikipedia about content, or brevity?Skookum1 (talk) 04:32, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I've tried to re-add the table, using the collapse code given above by Franamax, and it's not working - nor is the sortability working - see Victoria,_British_Columbia#Ethnic_origins and this insert edit. Once it's figured out, re-completing the truncated Vancouver table, restoring Abbotsford's table, collapsing Williams Lake's etc, and being able to add to other articles is on the order paper.....for now the table is uncollapsed, but not by intent; if someone would please properly collapse it instead of wantonly deleting it again, taht would be very.....Wikipediean of you.Skookum1 (talk) 21:33, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, it works, and my edit was the last....maybe I was looking at a browser-cache copy of it once I'd added it or something like that.Skookum1 (talk) 00:08, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Places-cum-communities (dab issue)

Continued from here.
 I'll continue this here because it's getting too lengthy for the noticeboard. The discussion on neighbourhood dabs was tangential to the one on unique placenames not taking dabs (which as I originally understood it was to only apply to major cities, now seems across-the-board). I'll see if I can remember who else was in the discussion...it's either in this talklpage's archives somewhere, or in one of the other related discussion boards or sub-WP discussion boards, and was over a year ago, maybe more like coming up on two. The idea is that there are places that are well-known by, and enjoy "most common use" as, their comma-province formations. That they happen to be in municipalities, some right from the start, or absorbed into municipalities as in the case of (very) many, and in some cases were actual separate municipalities....this is especially the case in the Lower Mainland, where what had been district municipalities, taking in a large group of diverse localities with unique identities, were turned into cities- as especially in the case of Abbotsford, which was formerly tiny Village of Abbotsford, the municipatliies of Sumas and Matsqui - each as big as Chilliwack or Langley in area, with Matsqui the most populous of the three, which were known as "MSA" and that's still in the name of the hospital there, I think, or at least in common reference to it. The three of them together, with Langley I htink, were the Central Fraser Valley Regional District. Upon amalgamation, areas which had been unincorporated, namely the southwestern spur of Sumas Mountain, which is where the new Sumas-Mission bypass is, and including Clayburn...Kinnaird may have been part of Sumas Municipality, I'm not sure about Clayburn but I think it was unincorporated; both were created as company towns. But it's not just them; Bradner, Mount Lehman, Clearbrook - all were, and still are, commonly referred to in comma-province formations. I looked at the Chilliwack category, where only Yarrow has comma-province (as it should), but constructions like "Sardis, Chilliwack" and "Rosedale, Chilliwack", just aren't right (this also relates to amalgamation as Rosedale and Sardis and Yarrow were distinct communities within the old District Municipality of Chilliwhack [sic]. But then there's Agassiz, which even when it was all there was, really, in the District of Kent, was always "Agassiz, British Columbia"; Harrison Mills is part f the district, which in recent years was extended eastward to inclue Ruby Creek, British Columbia. but "Kent", in that area, means (when not referring to the municipality as such), the area between Agassiz and Agassiz Mountain, i.e. Kent Prairie. So "Ruby Creek, Kent" isn't right. Similarly Laidlaw, now a part of Hope, should remain "Laidlaw, British Columbia", ditto "Haig, British Columbia" as opposed to "Haig, Hope". Haney, British Columbia vs Haney, Maple Ridge.....and Hammond (Port Hammond which doesn't need a dab), right on the border between the formerly very rural Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows municipalities, and pretty much the only "town" of any size in the area other than Haney, has always been "Hammond, British Columbia", or "Port Hammond, British Columbia". And in response to Hwy43, I'll try to get at that webmap but it would be very odd of Abbotsford didn't name Clayburn as an official neighbourhood, given its age and identity (read its article...and the BCGNIS background on it and Kilgard). There's a host of examples that come to mind where comma-province is common usage and long-standing identification of such places; Brackendale, Cloverdale, Tsawwassen, Fort Langley, Silverdale, Whalley ...even Deep Cove is not "Deep Cove, North Van", but still "Deep Cove, British Columbia"...and when there were former municipalities, as with Rutland and Okanagan Mission, they existed as separate places before being amalgamated into Kelowna - so "Rutland, Kelowna" just isn't right; it's an imposed, external paradigm, and not the local usage....I remember the policy discussion/explanation/decision, it's "back there" around here somewhere....and it makes sense. "Matsqui, Abbotsford" just ain't right, ditto "Clearbrook, Abbotsford", "Bradner, Abbotsford" and "Mount Lehman, Abbotsford" and all the rest; I've created Aberdeen's with ", Abbotsford" - I don't think it was ever a postal address, though it was s small separate community (just SE of Aldergrove)....though there is a municipality called Abbotsford, usage remains that Abbotsford means the old city core, Matsqui and Huntingdon are still separate communities from the old core village ("Matsqui" is much larger than Matsqui Village, still, and can refer to the whole of Hatzic Prairie and some of the slope facing it, likewise Clearbrook although there the line has always been blurry (because South Fraser Way was the municipal extension of Abbotsford's mini-urban core; the "urban" core of the old District of Matsqui was what's now called Matsqui Village, the downtown of Sumas, if there is one, and only of sorts, was Huntingdon (Sumas was very rural).....Webster's Corners is in the City of Maple Ridge; but it's caleld WEbster's Corners, British Columbia, likewise Whonnock, Albion etc. others however are "new" or "created" or recognized as "Silver Valley, Maple Ridge", for example; they're areas, not former identities/communities in the same way....Skookum1 (talk) 06:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Skookum1, I don't quite understand your choice of title for this discussion. Nonetheless, I think I may have found your previously recalled policy guidline. Were you recalling CANSTYLE's neighbourhoods/communities guideline (third paragraph in particular)? Hwy43 (talk) 06:54, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
that would seem to be the passage, though it omits the common case in BC where numbers of self-standing communities formed many district municipalities (some having reached incorporation as cities - Surrey, Coquitlam, Abbotsford e.g. though still retaining distinct community-identities within them. Also places that had historical PO addresses, which may no longer be listed on the Canada Post link given in that paragraph, are generally included in BCGNIS descriptions, sometimes with a BCGNIS "dab" of "former post office"). Clayburn and Kilgard were, I think, company towns, also, as well as postal addresses....which may still "work" if mailed. It's different with newer neighbourhoods which have emerged since the city's formation, and also in areas which are notably urbanized and the old identity, if any is submerged; but that's definitely not the case with Bradner, Mount Lehman, Huntingdon, and in Chilliwack such as Rosedale or Sardis. I dno't have admin access to overrule and redirect these as they should be, otherwise I would have just done it (as I did for Rutland and Okanagan Mission and a few other places).Skookum1 (talk) 08:26, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
Shorthand for "places that have independent identities and have only become neighbourhoods [of expanded cities/municipalities)". "Discrete communities" with clear separate histories, and long-standing "postal identities" separate from that of the district municipality (many of which have become cities since) they were absorbed into, or formed into. BCGNIS still distinguishes between "Abbotsford (community)" and "Abbotsford (city)", for example. I'm from Mission District, in Ruskin, went to school in Silverdale; both commmunities, like Stave Falls and Silverhill or Steelhead that may be "in Mission", meaning the municipality, but in any of them the question "are you going into Mission" means the old Mission City core. Ruskin has a ", British Columbia" dab because it's both in Maple Ridge and Mission, Hatzic is similarly astride the Mission border, or more like right up against it (since Hatzic Lake and Hatzic Prairie are somewhat distinct from it). Abbotsford is still Abbotsford within the City of Abbotsford, and any reference to Haney or Cloverdale or Clearbrook or Hammond/Port Hammond will, if referring to where it is, add ", British Columbia"; only rarely "in the Clearbrook neighbourhood of Abbotsford"...that's a non sequitur because, partly, "Abbotsford" still means the farther end of South Fraser Way, past Essendene and around the rail crossings.... It's different with Kitsilano and Grandview and so on within Vancouver, or neighbourhoods in definitely-urban/suburban areas....."Kitsilano, British Columbia" and "Grandview, British Columbia" don't work for that reason.Skookum1 (talk) 07:34, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify the rule a bit, because I think some people may be misunderstanding it: the rule is not that a community inside a larger municipality must always be disambiguated as "Neighbourhood, City" instead of "Neighbourhood, Province"; instead, Skookum is correct that it's a matter of context and history. Our primary source for making the determination has traditionally been the Canada Post address database; a community that's recognized by them as a distinct mailing address can be at "Neighbourhood, Province" regardless of its own legal status.

For example: I live in the Toronto neighbourhood of Cabbagetown, but my correct mailing address is "Toronto, ON" rather than "Cabbagetown, ON". However, there are other parts of Toronto (e.g. Willowdale) where the official mailing address is "Neighbourhood, ON" instead of "Toronto, ON".

Now, to use some of the examples Skookum raised here, according to the Canada Post database, the Rosedale in Chilliwack has a mailing address of "Rosedale, BC" — so it should indeed be at the province-dabbed title instead of the city-dabbed one. Similarly, Mount Lehman, Clearbrook, Cloverdale and Sardis are recognized postal addresses as well, though Bradner's recognized mailing address is Abbotsford rather than Bradner, Haney's is Maple Ridge rather than Haney, and I wasn't able to make any determination at all for Huntingdon as it came up empty.

I also want to clarify that there's no reason why we're permanently restricted only to Canada Post as a source for this kind of thing; if there are other reliable sources that can help to resolve any disagreement about whether to name a place "Neighbourhood, Province" or "Neighbourhood, City", then certainly they can be noted for discussion as well. But what is important is that we look to reliable and/or official sources for these things, rather than letting individual Wikipedians use "but this is what *I* call it" as a source — and we all need to understand that the existing rule is not that a community that's part of a larger city must always be disambiguated by city instead of province.

There are some communities that are more correctly titled "Neighbourhood, Province", and some that are more correctly titled "Neighbourhood, City", and any individual city can have some of both — Skookum is correct that it all really depends on the individual situation. Although as an encyclopedia which requires verifiability in reliable sources, we can't use an individual editor's perception of what's seen as more idiomatic in everyday speech as our source; we need a recognized, objective, authoritative source which can clarify how the community is officially seen, which is why the Canada Post database was brought in. Bearcat (talk) 21:33, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Bradner's address may now be Abbotsford, following amalgamation/centralization, but see its BCGNIS about its long-standing postal-independnece; I don't know why Haney's doesn't but it's equivalent to Agassiz and Cloverdale re Kent and Surrey (at one time Cloverdale was the only real urban settlement in the then-District of Surrey, other than Brownsville (now Bridgeview), but that was more of an exurb of New WEst than it was a real town). A case-by-case basis is more relevant than postal addresses, as you observe, though it takes knowledge to know when e.g. Brackendale, British Columbia or [[Garibaldi Highalnds are OK, whereas Valleycliffe, Squamish is the way it is for other Squamish neighbourhoods. Valleycliffe is right in Squamish; at one time Garibaldi Highlands and Brackendale were outside its boundaries...and they're still separate communities/commercial foci....I'll make a list of things I know need changing "back", though some that didn't require admin assistance I've done already....Skookum1 (talk) 21:44, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, as an encyclopedia that's being constructed in the now, there are going to be some cases where what was true 100 years ago and what can be properly sourced as being true now are in conflict; there are several neighbourhoods in Toronto, too, which were once separate municipalities in their own rights but are more properly titled "Neighbourhood, Toronto" now. The rule also isn't that any place which has ever had its own post office always goes to "Neighbourhood, Province" regardless of which way it's seen today; the separate post office can serve as an explanation for why a neighbourhood might still be seen as comma-province instead of comma-city, but it doesn't determine that in the absence of sources which demonstrate that the neighbourhood is still seen as comma-province.
What ultimately matters more than anything else is having actual sources that can be brought to bear. What's important is that we not be arbitrary about it, and look to real sources rather than getting into circular move wars based solely on individual users' perceptions — the question of whether it's "Bradner, British Columbia" or "Bradner, Abbotsford" is a matter of what verifiable and reliable sources you can add that speak to how it's seen today, not necessarily how it was seen 100 years ago. I'm not making a judgement one way or the other, because I'm not familiar enough with it to make that call — I'm just saying that one way or the other, we need a strong source. Canada Post isn't necessarily the only possible source, if you can provide a good source which demonstrates that "Bradner, British Columbia" is still considered more appropriate and correct in the November 30, 2010 here and now — but the fact that it had its own post office 100 years ago doesn't really demonstrate that.
It's not that Canada Post trumps common usage just because it's Canada Post; it just trumps unsourced assertions. The gold standard on here isn't necessarily truth; it's verifiability in reliable sources. If you have reliable sources which demonstrate that Bradner is currently (i.e. today, not in 1912) seen as comma-province instead of comma-Abbotsford despite Canada Post's official designation, then by all means bring 'em on.
And there are also likely to be some cases where a neighbourhood doesn't actually need (or isn't sourced enough to actually support) its own separate article anyway...but that's a separate discussion, obviously :-) Bearcat (talk) 22:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
that would have only been since amalgamation - late 1980s or in the 1990s I think - before that Bradner was part of Matsqui, and it wasn't "Bradner, Matsqui" anymore than it would have been "Clearbrook, Matsqui" or "Huntingdon, Sumas". But also in the mainstream press and travel magazines, when Bradner is mentioned (it's famous for its flower fields, particular daffodils, and is featured in spring editions of the papers/news), it's always "Bradner, British Columbia". "Abbotsford", when not referring to the municipality, still refers to the area of the old Village of Abbotsford (even when used within the City of Abbotsford, which is utterly huge and also still dominantly rural outside the core and with many "discrete" communities.Skookum1 (talk) 23:31, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmm - article on Tienanmen re Vancouver

I guess this could be in the Requests for Comment on the noticeboard, but there are issues here I'm just not certain what to do with; a SPA had tried to add this as an external link (rather than a see also) on Chinatown, Vancouver. I have to go to the gym, just found it and gave it a WP Canada and WP Poiltics template, will see what y'all have to say about it later....Skookum1 (talk) 00:22, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

BC Liberal leadership race article

I placed this on the "current events" section on the noticeboard and then went back to have a look at it; a lot of awkward formatting I haven't fixed yet; each candidate-section had a campaign-website link and not as refs; I didn't ilke the look/feel of the result so removed them; if any experienced editors think that shouldn't be and maybe those should be ext links or refs (instead of inline ext links) then by all means fix that....my reasoning is that eac h of the candidate's pages, and the party's page, already has that link; Wikipedia's aim should not serve as a directory for campaigns. Also, issues relating to each candidate, including criticisms of them in the press or from notable blogs, should be on this page; it shouldn't just be written by and for the Liberal leadership race folks.....Skookum1 (talk) 18:57, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

List of BC ministries?

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive?" might be the best foreword to this....ministries change names and portfolios within them get shuffled so often that any such page, e.g. List of British Columbia government ministries would have to have a "current" section and "historical" section, and the latter would be quite large and, er, complicated, and would need to be almost a logic tree (as on New Westminster (electoral districts) or Kootenay (electoral districts). What used to be stand-alone ministries, e.g. the Minister of Mines, are now in combination portfolios, currently I think (as of the recent shuffle) "Ministry of Mines and Resources", as "Ministry of Energy" has been removed from what used to be Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (and used to be Energy, Mines and Resources, well-known as "EMR" even after the addition of "Petroleum"). Many mines-related powers and policy directions now also appear to be with the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations, the controversial new mega-ministry. The old Ministry of Education has gone through various mutations; it was for a while Ministry of Education and Child Services, then "and Child Development". The Ministry of Highways is no more, it's now a Department of Highways and what's not in the private sector now (construction, maintenance etc) is part of some other ministry, not sure which. Anyway there's lots of politician articles which red-linked mininstry/minister titles so it would seem that a list page would help highlight which ones need doing; is the name I've suggested workable or could someone come up with something better?Skookum1 (talk) 01:57, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

And should the subarticle titles be "British Columbia Ministry of X", "BC Ministry of X", or "Ministry of X (British Columbia)"?Skookum1 (talk) 02:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
"Ministry of X (British Columbia)" would match WP's convention as far as I can tell. PKT(alk) 16:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
OK, I'll try and get started on it soon; somewhere in a news article lately I saw a list of current post-shuffle ministries, and know some of the historical ones and can find others.Skookum1 (talk) 19:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Cameron Bar Indian Reserve No. 13, pop. '0'

This IR article and a few others have bugged me for a while, as being created seemingly at random; others are railway points such as Lucas, British Columbia and Taft, British Columbia, which I BCGNIS'd tonight. Another IR that comes to mind is 105 Mile Post, which isn't near 100 Mile as you might think, but near Ashcroft; also '0'. Historically, who knows, and there may be a particular land history to this one. I've redlinked Cameron Bar as the source name, fairly obvious but it's not indepednently in BCGNIS as a landform; at some point List of bars and mine workings on the Fraser River is out there (a friend has published a paper and website which covers all mine workigns from about Texas Creek/Nesikep or Lytton all the way up to Big Bar, including photographs; I'll come back with the link, it's pretty amazing; also he shows hte distinction between Chinese and non-Chinese workings and knows the history of many of the claims. Cameron Bar could be named for any old Cameron, but it might well be Cariboo Cameron; other Cariboo names are linked to the same area, e.g. Van Winkle Creek and Van Winkle, British Columbia, near Barkerville, with Van Winkle Bar near Lytton, which in turn was named for a Van Winkle Bar somewhere in Cailfornia; and the guy's name actually was Van Winkle.

Anyway, in some cases I've referred Indian Reserves in vast rural areas to the band article, e.g. in teh Chilcotin and Omineca-Nechako, but at other times to the nearest town, unless there's a reason the reserve should have its own separate article, as in the case of a very populated reserve like Lytton IR No. 1 or Mt Currie or the Westbank Reserve(s), Tspentinkum IR No. 9 (sp?) and 10, I think it is, which have high non-native populations (likewise Capilano IR No. 5, hwich includes Park Royal et al...). In this case the Fraser Canyon is a heavily-named strip of distinct localities; this isn't in Lytton, I'm thinking it's near Kanaka Bar or maybe Siska. But for now it's uninhabited, and it's in the "populated places" category, which just ain't right. BCGNIS/BC Names uses "locality" in many cases, I'm wondering if we shouldn't have Category:List of populated localities in British Columbia and Category:List of uninhabited localities in British Columbia - there are surprisingly many, from Hells Gate to Metsantan (look that up in BCGNIS, it's also called Caribou Hide), and Taku; of course related to ghost town categories, but not the same thing. Many IRs are also hunting camps or fishing locations/camps, some of course are cemeteries; I create those separately as redirects to wherever they're going (unless they have a reason to stand alone) and place them in the Cemeteries in BC category; and not all cemetery IRs are only cemeteries; e.g. Fort George IR No. 1 in downtown Prince George is the old site of the HBC post Fort George, and though it's where the cemetery is, it was/is also a village (not so much anymore; and the adjoinning "skid" part of downtown - the skiddiest, that is - is also referred to as Fort George. The other Fort George IR, No. 1 vs the cemetery's 1A i think, is about 10 miles up the Fraser or Nechako somewhere; similarly of the Dog Creek IRs only one or two of them are actually in Dog Creek, British Columbia, which is also a non-native locality/ranch like so many. Cameron Bar No. 13 I'll try and merge to a nearby locality/populated place article....but maybe a good idea is a subcat of "uninhabited Indian Reserves" (my natural preference for the wording, being from country where that terminology is standard English and nobody's ever heard of the Wikipedia style guide....and likewise the localities hierarchy; there are hamlets and such too in BCGNIS; and they distinguish between community and settlement, and NB a PO listing might be for inhabitants of a vast region, as was the case with Bridge River (in BCGNIS, the PO article one of three listings).

I've been trying to make sense of some things on List of settlements in British Columbia, but Lucas and Taft and such don't come up in BCGNIS in any way indicating people live there; and if you didn't know there's an icnreasing number of railway-point stubs, often in addition to another locality with the same name; I'm not sure why WP:TRAINS people think that's a good idea, but there's quite a number of them; see e.g. Category:CNR railway stations.Skookum1 (talk) 07:00, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Created

Hi, I have created the article "Canadian Forces Artist Program" How's? « CA » (talk) 17:10, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

« CA » does not seem to be very strong with english (no offence). I am currently reworking the article. --Natural RX 18:24, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
RX, not is CSOFC, is Canadian Forces Artist Program. PS: Thanks for collaboration! « CA » (talk) 18:52, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Why you have deleted two references? « CA » (talk) 18:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Mandarin/pinyin on Cantonese-speaker articles

I took the Mandarin and pinyin and other transliteration systems off the Jenny Kwan and Alexander Won Cumyow articles, as I see no point in giving spellings/pronunciations in a language neither of them spoke; it's like, as I said in the edit notes, giving Russian characters or Hungarian-alphabet spellings. The Chinese characters remain. Providing the pinyin and other Mandarin-related versions is a bit standard in Wikipedia, but I see no reason why it should be the case for people who don't speak Mandarin, and whose names, if used in Chinese publications, appears in characters which can be pronounced as Cantonese.Skookum1 (talk) 19:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

That's weird for "Alexander Won Cumyow", having lived and died before pinyin was invented. 65.95.15.116 (talk) 06:05, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Tom Flanagan

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Tom Flanagan (political scientist)#Assassination talk. Elizium23 (talk) 05:05, 7 December 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

Attack activity with unref tag

I guess maybe I should take this to WP:ANI, dunno. An editor, apparently disgruntled over Lines of equal latitude and longitude, which got deleted (it was his pet page), has been going through BC articles and adding "unreferenced" tags, even when the articles are unreferenced; two I noticed and fixed so far are Skookumchuck Hot Springs, British Columbia and Tulameen, British Columbia; both could use refimprove/line cite work and cleanup, but both had references; t he latter I added BCGNIS to, which was missing. By the look of teh user's contributions, they appear to be only articles I've worked on....but on the other hand, it's hard to find BC place articles I haven't worked on.....don't know what further action to take right now. What I do know is we wind up spending a lot more time arguing about article and category titles than we do actually expanding or creating articles.....(in general I mean, not to do with this particular escapade)Skookum1 (talk) 19:53, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

This edit is particularly aggressive; re-sectioning the References section to External links then adding the unreferenced tag; on another Seton Portage, British Columbia, he/she added a section heading in the middle of existing refs as "further reading" when really they're primary sources......this is nuisance editing, entirely unconstructive and also deceptive/dishonest.Skookum1 (talk) 20:43, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Just fixed Slocan Park, British Columbia, which similarly had an unreferenced tag added at teh same time as retitling "References" to "External links". Would somebody please bring this editor to heel? I mean, so I don't have to in my usual questionable style?Skookum1 (talk) 21:01, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
More of the same on Spillimacheen, British Columbia.....Skookum1 (talk) 22:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Based on my cursory glances, the activity doesn't appear to be vandalism. When I look at these articles, they look unreferenced with external links listed under section headers accidentally titled as References instead of External links. Had ref tags been used in the first place, this could have been avoided. Based on what I've observed, I'm unable to see this as axe-grinding based on some past controversial event. It looks moreso like the editor is attempting to make constructive edits based on genuine, surficial observations. These, and all other articles in a similar state, should have their references (which look like external links) converted to ref tags to avoid other editors from making similar observations. It shouldn't be the responsibility of this editor to convert the external links to ref tags, but if he/she volunteers to do so on behalf of past editors, good for him/her. Hwy43 (talk) 05:34, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I'll re-emphasize what I said below here; there were numerous instances of blatant re-titling of existing References sections at the same time as the unreferenced tag being added; in teh same edit; that's not bot-o-mated activity, can't be; if the other several dozen (couple of hundred) are all just the unref tag, my guess is a bot. But a bot can't deliberately fiddle with page-content, and it just happens that this started on pages connected with me in some way (including where I'm from, which is Seton Portage/Shalalth and yeah, I'd line cite both if I could but even if I had the referenced books handy, at least one isn't page-numbered. My point remains; there were numerous decidedly deliberate "unreferencing" of pages to justify adding the tag; that's nuts, it's make-work, and it reminds me too much of the Demon of Useless Tasks in The Phantom Tollbooth". Instead of adding the ref tag, why not just add a reference? It takes only a few google clicks, and if same person had looked at other BC stubs, or even noticed the references on many of them, which were to BCGNIS, a primary citation for any location in BC, it takes twenty seconds; apparently it takes only five to add an unreferenced tag, though.Skookum1 (talk) 08:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
It IS vandaliam when the references section is retitled "external links" and the unreferenced tag is added in the same edit (I've fixed at least seven last time); in one case "Further reading" was used to "remove" two references, and over and over pages that were referenced or had external links-that-were-obviously-references had the unreferenced tag removed; in some cases I've placed the refimprove tag. There was a wanton side to this activity, and you should appreciate that this started in the wake of a certain someone's pet article getting AfD'd into the dustbin....; from an initial bout of revanchism, what appears to be bot-written activity proceeded to go through all kinds of BC stubs, in alphabetical order, and as it turns out there's a WHOLE batch created a year or two ago by User:Kyle1278, who hasn't done anything since, which consist of nothing more than the unincorporated settlements category, the location map with its coords pinned, and a lede "X is a settlement in British Columbia". These are sometimes obscure neighbourhoods, e.g. Yennadon, British Columbia, which is in Maple Ridge (and has a history to go with that article, I've just never taken the time), or old cannery or mining towns about which a great deal more could be written; and it's easy enough to add the BCGNIS ref for each one, partly to confirm otherwise-uncited coords; but I suppose its' easier to botomate a whole lot of work for someone else to have to do it manually....Skookum1 (talk) 08:46, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm finding more and more of these, the latest on Birch Hills No. 460, Saskatchewan. Like the BC Government, it seems the feds are in the habit of rearranging their website maps, without bothering to create redirect pages and just sending you to a 404. I guess it's a way of cost-cutting, i.e. off-loading costs/time on the public as a way of ratiionalizing justifying the ministry exec's pay bonuses and related layoffs.....Could there maybe be a way to identify pages with older StatsCan links, maybe a certain series of URL-identifiers, and is it possibly to parse the StatsCan cites so these might be automatically updated? the reason I was looking for Birch Hills is because in relating to List of Canadian census areas demographic extremes I was wanting to get the citation for this town's Norwegian-Canadian population, which is (apparently) the highest proportion in CAnada (to the point where there's a local dialect of Norwegian particular to the settlement); still, even if it was there, because the prejudicial nature of StatsCan against providing detailed information for individual settlements, in preference for large lumpings of rural areas, as with regional district electoral areas in BC, it may be impossible to cite that. Though it IS possible to cite that there are, e.g. 2 black people in Smithers and 4 Filipinos in Williams Lake....I'm gonna go look at hte "ethnocultural portrait" pages (which are kept separate from "Community Profiles") to see if Birch Hills, either the RM or the Village, is included; probably not, they're under 5,000 population, which is the cutoff for EC portraits....(NB even though Lytton and Lilloooet have "metro" populations well over 5000, because they're cut piecemeal into municipality and IR subdivisions, StatsCan doesn't give any more detailed figures for them....divide and conquer, etc....Skookum1 (talk) 17:25, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

As an example, for Saskatchewan there's only one rural municipality that has over 5000 peole, and therefore has an "ethnocultural portrait", Corman Park No. 344, Saskatchewan.; as it turns out Corman Park has a 43.4% German CAnadian population - very high- but I'm not sure it should go on teh demographic extremes page because there could be (and likely are) smaller places that StatsCan hasnt' deigned to tell us about; and while it could take some digging in the BC and AB listings, such that there might be a higher German proportion.....oh, and btw, on the demographic extremes page the "First Nations" listing shows Nunavut as the highest proporton; I think I changed that wording because of course Nunavut is not First Nations except only in a tiny minority (Inuit are not First Nations...).Skookum1 (talk) 17:38, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
As for the dead links,,,,y StatsCan moved this is beyond me, but most can be found at 2006 Census release topics and for your ref thats needed then link to Saskatchewan then page 3 of the chart here PS for Birch Hills No. 460 it says 701 ... 935 is for just Birch Hills...02:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, suffice to say there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of such deadlinks, and I'm not into going through them one by one, especially using something cumbersome like "cite web" templates; this was a heads-up to anyone working on tidying up, or who might know a faster way to bulk-do them....and as noted, ethnocultural figures are not readily available, except maybe on bought-CD-format, for census areas under 5000 - excluding tons of places where it's very, very relevant (if non-native communities were treated with the same precision as IR-by-IR listings are, this wouldn't be the case, but it's another example of biased collection of statistics combined with biased selection of materials leading to biased content/anlysis....Skookum1 (talk) 02:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Close a move discussion

There hasn't been any discussion on Talk:39th Nova Scotia general election#Requested move in quite some time. Is there anyone outside the discussion willing to close it? 117Avenue (talk) 01:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

blog-originating news stories re BLP

I've written about this elsewhere, and this one item concerns Christy Clark, but does a story have to hit the national media before the source story/analysis/story can be mentioned? BC blogspace is afire with news of a memo exchange between Dave Basi and Erik Bornmann which includes damning political facts about Ms Clark and her brother, Bruce, who is involved in her campaign; as with a link left on her article's talkpage concerning the recently-unsealed "BC Rail warrants", there's stories the Liberal-allied media are wilfully ignoring (or in CBC's case, following suit) will simultaneously doing a sell-job; IMO wikipedia cannot be limited to mainstream news sources only; yeah, it'd help if The Tyee and the Straight and Monday Magazine also broke this story, maybe in fact they will; but it does a disservice to the "citizen journalist" who got the leak, found the memo, or linked up existing known evidence....many major news stories of teh last year about this case, i.e. those in the mainstream media, originated weeks before in blogspace; and the major media in BC have also moved to prevent blog-reporters from having "court accreditation as journalists" and so on; anyway in this particular case the blog is that of Alex G. Tsukumis (link is the article/memo in question), often a controversial blogger (i.e. to other bloggers) but also nationally-notable, likewise Sean Holman, Laila Yuile, Mary Mackie and certain others whose work the national media has recognized, often unwillingly; there's a few issues in the linked memo, the veracity of which is under discussion in blogspace, though neither Bornmann nor Basi has seen fit to deny its authenticity; see Sean Holman's site for more (,not a blog, he's a highly-respected independent journalist).

I thought about taking this to WP:BLP but the context of what's in these memos really needs a Canadian context to discuss, and some awareness of the political liabilities at stake; too many wiki bios are used as pamphlets, or sanitized to the point of being info-tinsel; all of teh candidates on both sides right now need their articles worked up to something more than resumes; but in doing so, awareness that the usual sources, the newspapers and TV networks, are POV to start with, and often extremely partisan as they are in BC; and as before in BC the revolving door between broadcasting and the House is wide open; Rafe Mair and Bill Vander Zalm both had radio shows and are naturals with the mic, and Laila Yuile, the blogger who broke the story about the highways contracts and the secret tolls on the Sea to Sky Highway, is a popular and respected radio talkshow guest and would have her own show if the talkshow owners weren't also heavily partisan, like the newspapers and networks...Moe Sihota, Norm Spector, Dave Barrett, Judi Tyabji and others also have been on both sides of the media/politician fence, among many others....this may sound POV to someone from outside BC, it's just realpolitik BC-style. The blogs have become the new-news media, the real investigative reporting, not the ambluance-hunting and drug/sex pandering of the tabloid media; they're where the news is, and where the facts are coming from....so - given some validation of this memo, which I have yet to see (but only started looking), does a published memo from one party in the transaction to another party in teh transaction constitute a public document, a reliable source? If Tsukumis' blog is notable, and this is a valid document, is this not a "blog as a reliable source"? It's certainly a fact[ (well, if it's a fact - but it's the kind of thing that if it's a fraud, Basi and Bornmann can sue Tsukumis to the nth degree).

Now, I could jsut go add some of this to the Christy article, and there's stuff from just-released/unsealed Reasons for Judgment from Justice Bennett that include Lekstrom and Falcon as well as more about Clark; but as it is the BC Legislature Raids article has been fallow for a long time, needs serious updating - and splitting in various ways (see its talkpage). This may not be big news back east of the Rockies (the media are doing what they can to keep it under wraps) but at some point it's going to be; the calls for a public inquiry are mounting, and the two months between now and the Liberael convention is a l-o-o-o-n-g time in BC politics, at the pace it's been at lately; which is full-tilt....Christy's conflicting and curious statements about the HST etc are also hot stuff in the papers as well as the blogs; but so far mostly the "election" page has stuff about her standing in the polls...and one reason I'm also "coming here instead of there" is because I don't want to be seen to be doing overtly POV activity just on their articles; I have semi-COI issues here because of my participation in BC blogspace; but it also means I know enough about what's going on to recognize what's missing, and what the issues with what are reliable sources and which are not; and what are distorted and half-reported sources, such as the Sun and Province....the Times-Colonist is actually showing signs of journalistic morals of late, and smalltown papers such as those in Terrace and Salt Spring and Powell River are treading where the corporate media refuse to go; to the truth. Maybe I should compile a list of credible "reliable" and/or "verifiable" blogs and independent journalists; vs. the raving loony crazy ones, or the overtly partisan and party-associated ones.

I know what Wikipedia can be, and what it must not be; I'm hoping for the former, keeping an eye out for the latter...Skookum1 (talk) 07:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Blogs are often bad sources to use. See WP:RELIABLE. PKT(alk) 14:10, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
There are bad blogs, to be sure, but there are also bad newspapers.Skookum1 (talk) 20:44, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
WP:RS, WP:SPS. Most blogs simply will not pass as a reliable source, no matter how highly you may trust the authors. As this is also a WP:BLP article, you will require impeccable sources for any contentious statements added. I have a suspicion that you are not going to get the answer you are hoping for on this question. Resolute 16:20, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I've read through RS/RELIABLE etc....blogs are not blanket-excluded, the issue is reliability/verifiability. Taht someone uses a blog site to publish independently-researched news doesn't make it not-news. Tsukumis' blog, like Yuile's and others, are cited by national reporters/papers and Laila in particular is highly-regarded as a proper journalistic source. Does it take "accreditation from a recognized news source" (i.e. one of the corporate monopolies) in order to establish so-called "reliability" or "verifiability". Because there's lots of very pointed cases where corporate-published columnists/reporters have published op-ed/advertorial as if it were fact, often even fudging facts...I guess in this case the proof will be in the pudding once the "Tsukumis memo" or perhaps the "Basi-Bornmann memo" is finally addressed in "real" news media....problem in CAnada, and especially in BC, is that the news media are in the business of suppressing news and re-hashing issues, rather than reporting them honestly....and so some stuff doesn't reach the light of day, or like the deleted emails thing, gets coverage for maybe a week, and then gets bounced by some other issue and let go fallow.....are indepedent political blogs for countries like China and Iran to be used for sources, or only official mouthpieces of the ruling party/government, as in China or Iran and North Korea? Because that's what hard interpretation of the so-called "no blogs" rule implies....and then there's Sean Holman, who's not a blogger, but an indepedennt reporter; does his lack of corporate accreditation/affiliation mean that he's not a reliable source; even though he's a source who regularly reports things the "reliable" sources eventually HAVE to report. And once they do, do we credit them, or the reporter/blogger who actually broke the story? In Tsukumis' case, this isn't an op-ed piece; it's a released memo - not sure how it was leaked to him....and in places like BC Mary's and Laila's blog, they publish documents that the major media won't, ranging from hansard debates to court judgements to reprints of reporting from the smaller BC dailies; I know in those cases, as I hvae done above, I just link to the actual documents. But if the Sun and Province pretend something doesn't exist, or don't report on it, is its fate sealed in Wiki-terms? Someone btw went and deleted Georgia Straight and Sun articles (on Clarks' BC Rail connections/question with an edit comment claiming they were blogs, ditto the attempt to "brand" Tieleman on a POV fashion "because he's a blogger" etc; all that's been reverted, of course. A journalist who publishes his columns from other papers on his blogsite, yes, for sure, likewise Rafe Mair. But given that much political debate/news reporting in BC is NOT happening from so-called "reliable sources" (the major media), there's abig information and credibility gap there; Wikipedia's anti-blogging rule needs exceptions....actually I think the exceptions are already there, as I recall reading over WP:RS etc....verifiability is the issue here; if Tsukumis' memo is real, just because it's on a blog site shouldn't mean it's not "verifiable". If Basi and Bornmann attest to its veracity, as one or the other of them may, then it's been verified.Skookum1 (talk) 18:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't really care about the specifics. Ultimately, the onus is on you to show that the sources you wish to use are considered reliable, or the edits face summary reversion. I would suggest raising your question at WP:BLPN, as the editors active there are more apt to give you a proper answer. They might appreciate if a question posted there was done so with more brevity than here. Resolute 20:30, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
I'll take it to BLPN, then, but it's hard to be brief when so many known facts are to be accounted for, as here on Powell River Persuader's blog, the first three articles are replete with known facts, though strung together with probable-cause-and-known-effect, and actual "news" articles (from mainstream papers are used as his own cites, as are often enough in the other blogs also; the Big Papers don't connect the dots, and make a point of not doing so....Skookum1 (talk) 20:41, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

On the log for December 16, an editor is nominating unused templates, including about ten related to Canada. Most of them don't seem necessary, but I encourage others to check and see if some of these templates have value and can be utilized. Resolute 20:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

"harmonizing RD naming conventions"

I've tried to reverse some these name changes, but apparently I can't because an admin made them....the fact of the matter is, whether article titles or category titles, that the regional districts THEMSELVES, and ALL BC government pages (including BCGNIS), AND all federal sites (including StatsCan and CGNDB) use the hyphen, and NOT a dash. The hyphen is readily citable, and it's not like there's not an "existing standard" before Wikipedians got to gether to decide on a new one and impose it. It's not just the dash - on some there's space-dash-space. It's like Elections BC using only a hyphen in compound names - we adopted that because it's the existing usage, similarly the dash is used by Elections Canada so it's on federal-riding articles. Changing the hyphen to a dash is like changing the spelling, like adding accents that aren't there. These naming conventions were around a lot longer than Wikipedia has been (since RDs were first founded in 1966-1967), and there's no way that a cavalier attitude by people wanting to "standardize Wikipedia's appearance", as was one rationale given to me, is sufficient reason to override existing spelling conventions and normal usages. They also p' me off because they're not typable, and need copy-pasting to use (or extra fiddling with &mdash. ALL OF THESE, including the category names, need to be changed back to what the reigonal districts themselves use, AND StatsCan AND BCGNIS and the UBCM etc etc etc. Wikipedia does not have a right to create/enforce new spelling/conventions on places/topics that have their own.Skookum1 (talk) 21:44, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I just discovered Tatshenshini–Alsek Provincial Park which similarly has supplanted a "wiki standardization" instead of using the punctuation/spelling of the source, which is BC Parks and BCGNIS, and both of which use a hyphen ONLY. I really wish "you people" would stop fussing with "standardizing Wikipedia's appearance" and actually pay attention to how English is actually used, rather than imposing new standards created by ad hoc committees of people who don't really know about the subject matter, and evidently don't care about what the source-usages are. The regional districts, and it seems the provincial parks, should observe what is used in BC, by BC governents, organizations and bodies, rather than decide that "wikipedia standardization" trumps all else. Never mind that "wikipedia standardization" often means "more work for regular contributors", in this case copy-pasting article titles instead of just being able to type them. Wikipedia should reflect reality NOT dictate, or create it....Skookum1 (talk) 19:30, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
aS recommended by I can't remember who, I launched requested moves on the affected articles, so that once they're changed a bulk CfD can correct the category titles back to where they should be.Skookum1 (talk) 05:49, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Mis-named category: abuse of "Metro Vancouver" term

I noticed Category:Metro Vancouver electoral districts on Langley (electoral district) this morning, and it's quite grating to see. Metro Vancouver is the governing body of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, not the name of the regional district, and its promotion/mis-use results in a lot of non sequiturs like this one. Metro Vancouver does not have electoral districts (other than electoral areas, namely only one - "A"), and regional district governments have no role in defining electoral districts nor in their groupings. The regional divisions on British Columbia general election, 2009 and on Canadian federal election results in Greater Vancouver and the Sunshine Coast do not delineate or group anything by regional district. I'll file a CfD on this one, and also think the main Category:Metro Vancouver and is offspring are all in error...noting WP:COMMONNAME but also dismissals of newspaper usages in re the "leadership election" renaming debate, and that it's really only the newspapers that are "pushing" the Metro Vancouver usage (i.e. meaning the GVRD, and also the metropolis at large), and re the legal name (the GVRD), I fail to see why Wikipedia has so enthusiastically embraced the "nouveau" rebranding pushed by the Metro Vancouver board (but still not accepted as a name either by the province, or by various organizations, including sub-boards and sub-agencies of the Metro Vancouver organization, which still use "Greater Vancouver" in their names. I'd submit that "COMMONNAME" if you look past the Sun and Province overuse of the term, is actually still, to most people, "Greater Vancouver"....as always I don't like anything regionally-defined by regional district that doesn't have to do with regional districts'. Which provincial and federal election articles explicitly don't.Skookum1 (talk) 19:40, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

The category's contents include Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission and West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, which include areas very explicitly not part of the GVRD - i.e. the Sunshine Coast RD, the Squamish-Lillooet RD, and the Fraser Valley RD; another sign that classifying/grouping things by regional district (properly named or not) just won't wash.Skookum1 (talk) 20:10, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Come on, man - just fix the mistakes. WP:BEBOLD! PKT(alk) 22:25, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
It's gonna take a CfD to do that, even though I believe this is non-controversial because it was in error and a speedy should suffice; but I know better; the overall solution is for a renaming, also, of the whole Category:Metro Vancouver hierarchy; it's a bit reminiscent of the Haida Gwaii/Queen Charlotte Islands re-re-move debate, i.e. most common usage vs. a POV/rebranding agenda. Even Category:Member municipalities of Metro Vancouver isn't formally right, if it did exist, because the Metro Vancouver board is composed of the mayors of those municipalities, not the municipalities themselves (which are part of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, so-named). Templates and articles I can change to the right usage I mostly have, though not all; categories as you know take group action and that odd beast called "consensus", which all too often follows neither logic nor cited sources. I'll launch the CFD (among others that need doing, including the noxious use of a Wiki-dash instead of a hyphen in RD categories with double-barrelled names). And we'll see where that CfD goes....Skookum1 (talk) 22:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
If you want the category wiped off the face of Wikipedia, then start a CfD. However, in the meantime, you should remove the offending category from the offending articles. PKT(alk) 22:43, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Instead of a blanket-CfD for the hierarchy? In other words, just create Category:Greater Vancouver Regional District and subcategories, then migrate all articles to it, thereby depopulating the Metro Vancouver category-hierarchy. Isn't that POV-forking? Or should I just go ahead and do it, like I did with the creation of the Category:Lillooet Country, Category:Robson Valley et al or Category:Settlements in the Similkameen or Category:People from the Simlikameen - which reflect real BC usage, rather than classifying things by (very erroneously) regional district. Every time I see "Metro Vancouver" plastered in categories or articles, it makes me think the CanWest style guide has taken over Wikispace.Skookum1 (talk) 22:49, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I can't be the only one who is frustrated with the copyright restrictions on items from the Government of Canada. Particularly, it is very difficult to find good pictures of MPs, or public servants, because of these restrictions, unlike the more liberal copyright restrictions on the United States Government items. An image of our MPs, dressed formally, unlike file:Leona Aglukkaq.jpg, should be more easily obtainable, in Canada, rather than having to depend on the more liberal American (or other) copyright laws, which has put much of its information in the public domain. NorthernThunder (talk) 11:05, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

No more frustrating than a group of miners copyrighting a sentence and thus us not being allowed to show it. Government produced material should be public domain though; I'm not sure what they're so protective over. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 17:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Because everything produced by the Canadian Government, regardless of what it is, has a copyright protection for 50 years. There are some things that have to be specifically placed into the public domain, which was done in on instance to put "O Canada" into the public domain. Even for the items that are public domain, such as the flag, there are restriction for what can be done with it or to it. What you are able to do is ask the MP in question for a permission to use the image under a free license or look at Flickr. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
There are example e-mails at Wikipedia:Example requests for permission. 117Avenue (talk) 23:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
I see none there that suggest how to request a picture from a Canadian politician. NorthernThunder (talk) 03:53, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
I would take Crown Copyright and Freedom of Panorama over America's Mickey Mouse Copyright Acts any day. There are certainly some frustrations, but I think we're a little better off overall. Resolute 23:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
I believe the original question is referring to licences, not copyright (despite the phrasing). That is, why are government-produced works licenced using Crown copyright with restrictive re-distribution rights, instead of being more freely licenced or simply put into the public domain? Mindmatrix 16:24, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
I took it as being less a question and more a general complaint. I agree with the complaint, but Crown Copyright is just one of those quaint little nuisances we inherited from the Old Country. Overall though, we have PD for pre-1949 images as opposed to pre-1923, greater freedom of panorama, and a copyright term of author's life +50 rather than +95 (or longer, depending on how much money Disney wants to spend lobbying for perpetual copyright). It sucks having to work harder for images of public officials, but overall, we still win. That said, it would be nice if parties or individual MPs/MLA's, etc, were willing to license good photos for our use. Resolute 17:12, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree that Canada (currently) has a better copyright environment, but we lag significantly behind when it comes to being able to use government works. Everything the US government and its employees produce is automatically PD (though some of it may be inaccessible), unlike the situation in Canada. This is slowly changing (eg - GeoBase mapping data was released for use on OpenStreetMap in 2009), but we still can't use most government sources verbatim (for example, StatsCan data, or MNR reports for natural areas). It seems we're simply talking about two aspects of copyright here - one is about the licence of government works, the other about automatic copyright of private works. Mindmatrix 18:02, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Actually its 50 years for government works, period. Life +50 for "individuals". Currently you can use anything produced up until December 11, 1960. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 00:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

BC Liberal colours totally not right

Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Political_parties_and_politicians_in_Canada#BC_Liberal_colours_not_right and note that a similar situation exists re the old Coalition, 1941-1952.Skookum1 (talk) 03:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

 Done with the red used in the logo, you could have been bold and done it yourself. 117Avenue (talk) 00:22, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

CfD on Category:Power stations in Canada and subcats

I started this tonight, starting at Category:Hydroelectric power stations in Canada but realized after I started that the parent category Category:Power stations in Canada was also at issue - along with its host of subcats. I have net-speed problems....and patience/sore back problems, so at this point have only tagged the hydroelectric categories and the main paretn; the others - dozens of them - still need doing, if someone would pls help and pitch in to get those done. There was a CfD on this subject quite a while ago, with Category:Power stations being determined to be the global standard - or rather the wiki standard; only the US was exempted from that, the result being Category:Power plants in the United States. During the CfD I was the only Canadian to speak up that "power station" is not a Canadian usage - not widely anyway (it seems to be in Saskatchewan, but haven't seen the sources on those yet); my input was dismissed because there was only one of me so the British usage was imposed on Canadian categories. For the CfD/CfR I nominated "powerhouses" but would be happy with "power plants" or, more formally, "generating stations", which seems in wider use in other provinces than in BC. And I wonder whether the existence of the AB, SK and MB categories is even necessary, as there's respectively one, three and two items in each.Skookum1 (talk) 04:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hm, there's not just categories, there's article titles using the British term, too, even though the sources for them don't use the term (?! - maybe in some cases). Also templates. So it's chicken-and-egg - do the reqmoves for the articles have to happen before the CfD? There's a lot of them, and this blanket-nomination-to-correct-blanket-mistaken-usage is really time consuming. If the sources don't call something a "power station", is a ReqMove needed to make the title change to what the sources use? There may be variant regional usages; though if there's a national standard it would seem to be "generating station" - or "generating facility" is also common in citations (and formal names in fact(; I was riffing off BC articles and plants I know of, like the Cheakamus Powerhouse, Wahleach Powerhouse, Seton Powerhouse, Whatshan Powerhouse etc...many of the contents of these categories also are only dam articles for now; ideally, when relevant, the dam and the powerhouse shoudl be separate articles (when they're separate; sometimes they're not).Skookum1 (talk) 04:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Looking for help when you happen to edit a Canadian bio. i have recently updated the new Canadians article and came to realizes that in most if not all our Canadian bios that the word "Canadian" is pipe linked to Canada and/or the word Canadian in bios redirects to Canada (as it should be - the Canadians page is new and not linked up yet all over ). I have gone a fixed the pipe links in all the bios listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Popular pages (as this are the most viewed bios), but this is only a fraction of what is out there - as per Category:Canadian people. What i am asking is when people are editing bios to fix this link well there, no need to go out of your way, just fix them when noticed. So the fix would be from [[Canadian]] and [[Canada|Canadian]] to--> [[Canadians|Canadian]].. This change would just be for when Canadian is used as a noun: for bios like "Billy" Bishop was a Canadian" and not as a an adjective: like in "the Canadian parliament etc"... . Thank you all for helping.Moxy (talk) 07:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I think there's a minor problem with that - It seems strange to me that the article on "Canadians" defines Canadians exclusively by their citizenship - I think being a Canadian is both more and less than having a citizenship card, or birth certificate. For example, Nelson Mandela is now a citizen of Canada, but it would be a bit awkward to call him a Canadian, or include him on any sort of list of famous Canadians. Conversely, there are people born outside of Canada who consider themselves Canadians for family reasons, but who don't (yet?) have citizenship. If it were true that citizenship and identity were one and the same, then your idea would be great. But they're not. For example, when we talk about a politician (X is a Kenyan politician...), we probably DO want the link to go to the country - we're more talking about the country than the "nationality". On the other hand, when we talk about someone operating outside of their home country (X is a Kenyan politician in the British government or, say, Michael J. Fox is a Canadian actor in Hollywood) then we want to follow your suggestion. I guess I'm mostly saying that it's not as simple as you've set it up to be...AshleyMorton (talk) 11:25, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Not sure what your saying....If you think the article needs work pls add what you think is missing. Its a new article and will need much more care to bring it above a C level. I not sure i see the problem its used in the context of citizenship and the link now points to the people of Canada and not the country. From what i can see linking to the people and not the country is the norm in articles from around the world like Celine Dion, Robert Plant, Akira Toriyama, Charles Manson, Francis Ormond, Mikhail Gorbachev. I agree its not cut and dry but lets assume our editors can figure this out on there own. If you think something should be linked to the country it should word in such a way as at John A. Macdonald. This are people not places so i do think its better to link lets say Michael J. Fox to the people not a country. As for who is a Canadian may people may think there Canadian, but if there not a citizen in the eyes of the Government then there not realy Canadians are they. (They many simply have need to gain citizenship as they are in-tiled to it by law, but until then they are citizens they are not considered Canadians. Regardless i will stop this edits till i hear more from people on the topic.Moxy (talk) 15:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
I always pipe to "people" pages when the context of the sentence is talking about their ethnicity or nationality (ie the person themself). I only link to the country when its talking about the country itself. It would be wrong to say someone is a Canadian and not link to the article talking about what a Canadian is, because as a reader if you click on the term Canadian you expect to be taken to an article about Canadians. Whereas if I click on a link saying Canada I expect to be taken to a article about Canada. So I basically agree, something talking about the "Canadian parliament" should link to Canada since its talking about the country whereas "Wayne Gretzky is a Canadian hockey player" should link to Canadians because its talking about him and not the country. -DJSasso (talk) 15:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
DJSasso, I think you've hit the issue on the head, and I think that I disagree with you. You say that there are people who think that they're Canadadians, yet are not citizens in the eyes of the government, and that these people are not really Canadians. I disagree. Norwegians needn't be Norwegian citizens to be "Norwegians", nor Germans recognized by the German government. That's before we get to, for example Basques - clearly a people, an identity, yet they don't even have a country who could recognize them. Scots can't get "Scottish citizenship", Catalans can't get "Catalonian" passports, and Hawaiians can't get "Hawaiian citizenship". The question is whether Canadians are actually a people or whether we are exclusively defined by the bureaucratic documentation of the country. I tend to believe that we are a people (not in a racial sense - I believe that part of what defines us is our diversity), and that, for example, a person who has to give up their citizenship because they, say, marry a Norwegian and relocate to Norway, can still be a Canadian. Similarly, there are citizens (passport holders) out there in the world who are not really Canadian in my understanding of the world. I am certainly willing to be overruled, but if I'm right, then the article should be changed. I posted a similar comment on the talk page of the article in question, but got no responses. To be clear, Moxy, I agree, in general, with pointing to "people" articles, as long as we don't overdo it - I think that the adjective "Canadian" can mean that someone "is from Canada" just as easily as it can mean that they "are (a) Canadian (person)".AshleyMorton (talk) 19:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Right, so thats an issue to fix on that article, and has nothing to do with what you choose to link to. I am not making a distinction on if they are legally a citizen or not. To me if its talking about a person period, however you define what a canadian is, I link to the people article. If it is worded in such a way as it is describing a topic that is about the country then it should be linked to the county. -DJSasso (talk) 20:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree ..its about what the links goes to, if someone has a problem with the article definition change it (with refs). The article has references to what is says, so if others refs say otherwise or say it in a different manner lets talk about that on the talk page (Sorry i was a bit off topic my self there). I still not sure using Canadian is a good way to link to Canada. Even a Canadian politician, is a representative of the people with in the country and works for the people within the scope of Canada (or a province, city etc). They do not represent Canada but the citizens within Canada. Lets look at the wording and meaning of what we are saying to our readers that may be unfamiliar with the terms. Just image how upset WP:Quebec would be if we redirected bios like Celine Dion to Canada. We now have and article about our people so we should use it (regardless if some believe that the article is inaccurate or incomplete etc..its a work in progress as is all of Wikipedia). To me the sentences below are saying two different things and are linked appropriately in each of there contexts. Moxy (talk) 22:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

John Gilbert "Jack" Layton, PC, MP (born July 18, 1950) is a Canadian social democratic politician, who has been the leader of the New Democratic Party since 2003.

John Gilbert "Jack" Layton, PC, MP (born July 18, 1950) is a social democratic politician, who has been the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada since 2003.

Probably the best thing to do in most cases is not to link these words at all when these links are not likely to increase readers' understanding of the topic at hand, as said in LINK. Links to the Canadians page should be added only to articles or parts of articles dealing with the feelings of Canadians towards their ethnicity. Examples:
In other contexts, other specific links like Canada men's national ice hockey team may be used for hockey players representing Canada in international competition. Turning the words Canada and Canadian blue in every article does no good. Place Clichy (talk) 11:00, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Agree with your examples and agree no need to link it in every article but the pipe links to the wrong page should be fixed or removed. But we should not link to Canada if we are taking about nationality. This are simply people and are not in any official capacity representing the country of Canada. However for Olympic athletes we need to be even more careful as many are just representing Canada. So could be worded things like ..."Moxy the great" is a welsh athlete who represented Canada in the 1976..etc.15:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

White ensign vs red ensign on CPR inland vessels

Please see Talk:Moyie_(sternwheeler)#Nope_to_use_of_red_ensign_in_Infobox though it's not just on the Moyie where this problem exists.Skookum1 (talk) 21:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Hm [Turns out what was used was a red-and-white checkerboard - read this. I'll ask the Penticton Museum why the White Ensign i used; it maybe because there's no extant version of the red-and-white checkerboard which apparently was the fleet flag.Skookum1 (talk) 05:30, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Partisan editing at Hassan Diab

(request moved here from WP:EAR to draw greater interest, per advice given there)

Hassan Diab (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Would appreciate more eyes on this article about a Canadian sociology professor that France wants extradited for trial for an alleged role in a 1980 synagogue bombing.

Now that the extradition hearing has begun, there is partisan editing on both sides of the case, but in particular by User:Justice Freeze, a SPA who seems to have used Whois to point out in at least two places the exact location of an IP editing on the other side. After Justice Freeze's latest edits I reverted and warned about NPOV, UNDUEWEIGHT and NOTNEWS but he has reverted and dug in, as can be seen at the article talk page. I am trying to preserve at least the appearance of neutrality in the article, but can't keep up. --CliffC (talk) 16:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It might be best to enlist the help of relevant WikiProjects. A glance at the article talk page shows entrenched POVs and it is all rather confusing as some posts are not signed. Jezhotwells (talk) 11:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, will try Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board which seems reasonably active. I posted a link here in one of the other Canada groups last week but it was probably the wrong one. --CliffC (talk) 22:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
You may also want to put a message on the talk page of the project France, which seems quite relevant to the issue. A good idea in the direction of impartiality might be to also include French references in the sources, rather than only Canadian newspapers. These sources can be easily found, especially since the 30th anniversary of the bombing last October. For instance I found this article and this interview of the judge from the JDD, this article from the AFP, this radio program which is itself based on a book on the case written by two Le Figaro journalists. A quick reading of this material made apparent that charges in discussion against Mr Diab also include being a part of the terrorist organisation, and that Judge Trevidic's investigation is also aimed at other members of this group, two important facts that did not make their way into the current version of the article. I personally don't have much energy to involve myself in this, but I wish luck to those who will. :-) Place Clichy (talk) 11:02, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR

I have written a script which is aimed at aligning spellings according to English variants, namely "British English" and "Oxford English". I have started running the script on many British, Irish, Australian articles. From the Canadian English article, I see that the Canadian spelling variants are almost identical to Oxford spelling. I surmised, due to the apparent commonality, that the 'British (Oxford)' part of the script could be used on Canadian articles. I have already run the script on Kiefer Sutherland and Robbie Robertson so far. Any general feedback, or comments on how the script works for Canadian words, would be much appreciated. Also, if there are any differences in spellings not already noted here, the table can be expanded too? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:47, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello Ohconfucius and thank you for taking the time to think of Canada in this script bot. There a many differences between Canadian and British and American spelling, but many many over lap as in Canada we seem to use a combination of both spellings. Oxford is the norm used in Canada, however its a different copy then the British version (Canadian Oxford Dictionary). I use this PDF when I am not sure on the spelling. Canadians also have words that others dont have at all like "poutine" LOL :-). I think the bot is good but we should make a Canada script. Moxy (talk) 03:42, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Hm. Well, having just tidied up History of British Columbia and other articles of British spellings, not bot-produced (mostly -ise/-ize), it appears there's a widespread misperception both south of the line and on the other side of the Pond that because we were British Empire, we would have British spelling. I don't mean to be snide, it's only an observation from seeing lots of this. In BC, even in colonial times, the -ize was current, I suppose because so many of the original Britons came by way of ten years in California (including de Cosmos, the newspaperman-cum-politician)....and I'm very wary of machine-regulated language, it's just not a good idea; and speaking from personal experience - I was head of the wordprocessing pool at a major global conference, and had to know about 50 different special spelling systems; Singaporean English is slightly different from Malaysian and Hong Kong and Taiwan and India and South Africa and so on; each delegation's publications had to be in their national orthography. The style guide may well be out there somewhere, this was fifteen years ago. Orthographic habits and special regional terms and contexts vary quite a bit over 7500 miles or whatever it is from St John's to Victoria. It is a curiosity that despite the legacy of British pressmen and journalists in BC, which was intense and a mainstay of the press from colonial times to well after WWII, that British spelling was not more used; it's a good question why not. Makes me wonder about Newfoundland, though by now the Telegram, I think the paper there is, probably uses Canadian standard; interesting to see pre-Confederation copies, perhaps. We ous "-our" instead of "-or", often in places the British don't use it; and we have that -ize thing and other more American tendencies (including a more common vecabulary for commonplace things, markedly). I'll have to look at the two Oxfords named above, but I submit that if the principle of using the local version of English for articles about that location, should in the long term be observed; this would mean tracking down an international conference style guide, maybe the UN even has one; I worked for a temp agency contracted to a World Bank conference; in charge of editing - each of 25 wordprocessing staff was given the conference orthographic manual and depending on whose document they were working on, referenced that section. Austrlian articles should use Australian conventions, Jamaican articles use Jamaican ones, Nigerian Nigerian, the distinctions between Irish and UK English even...and so on; not doing so is influencing the course of language by homogenizing it....by mechanical means rather than by human discretion. I think it's better a distinct style guide be evolved for each national wikiproject.Skookum1 (talk) 06:50, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
  • For me, separate Engvar scripts were awlays on the cards, but I'd just say I will not be producing a script for all English variants. Thanks to Moxy's document, I am much, much closer to having a button for Canadian spellings on my script – it's undergoing trials at present. I would be pleased to learn if there are any refinements beyond that document, so I can modify the script accordingly. Kindly also consult the script documentation, to see what the intended scope is. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 14:54, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Should we be tagging articles with Template:Canadian English, or will it run on articles with Template:WikiProject Canada as the only county project? If it is the latter, could you please run it on the subprojects as well? 117Avenue (talk) 19:51, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

  • I haven't quite worked out how the work will be done yet, but I may leave it up to you how to implement the spelling changes/tagging. However, it seems to me that as most articles in need of running the script on are already tagged by the project and/or its sub-projects, so tagging them now for Canadian English may be viewed as too inconsequential. FYI, I hope to make the script available before the end of January. If there are some among you who are AWB users, I would be prepared to transform the script into an AWB module. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:39, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Infoboxes & official languages

I've provided sources that show BC & PEI don't have provincial official languages. IMHO, the respective infoboxes should have the provincial name in English only & the offical langauges section as 'most spoken language' (de facto). GoodDay (talk) 20:07, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Been talked about many times in the past, no reason to change how its already done currently. -DJSasso (talk) 20:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
But it's done inconsistantly & incorrect. GoodDay (talk) 20:10, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Define inconsistantly and show incorrect. -DJSasso (talk) 20:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
(For example) BC has no official provincial language. But if you go by most used, then it's 1st-English 2nd- Chinese (Cantonese/Mandrin). French is way down the list. As for PEI's there's no provincial official langauge & English is spoken by over 90%, why is French there in the infobox heading. Onario, Quebec & the prairie provinces go with only English. GoodDay (talk) 20:16, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

If French is gonna be put into any of these provincial & territorial infobox headings & official languages sections, because it's Canada's official languages? Then under that criteria, we'd have to add English to Quebec's infobox official languages section. GoodDay (talk) 20:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Quebec has a law specifically making english not an official language. There is a difference. -DJSasso (talk) 20:25, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Well there's no such type of law for BC or PEI, so French shouldn't be in the infobox heading. 2 reasons= Percentage of usage in province & this is English language Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 20:33, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
The language spoken in the province doesn't change the fact that the province has two official names, one in english and one in french. -DJSasso (talk) 20:37, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
But they don't have 2 official languages. GoodDay (talk) 20:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
That doesn't matter, they still have two official names. The official languages spoken are a different matter. -DJSasso (talk) 20:40, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
They don't have official languages & you (plural) haven't provided a source to proove the do. GoodDay (talk) 20:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Note: English only, is used in the infobox headings of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario & Yukon. -- GoodDay (talk) 21:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Oy vey. Not this stuff again. A province's "official language" is less "official" than it sounds - at law, it's merely the language(s) in which the provincial government operates and offers services, established either by statute or convention. The Canadian Constitution, on the other hand, establishes the provinces and gives them each names in both English and French. Therefore, each and every province has two official names, one in English - the other in French (unless the name is the same in both English and French, as in all of the examples GoodDay mentioned immediately above. No version is any more correct than the other - they are both the legal name of the province. A province's "official language" is irrelevant, because a statute or practice doesn't change the Constitution. Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:47, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Though it's irreleveant here, I noticed (without much surprise) that the English version of Quebec isn't in the Quebec article's infobox heading at French Wikipedia. As usual, there's a double standard between English Wikipedia & Non-English Wikipedias. GoodDay (talk) 18:12, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
We don't base our content on childish tit-for-tat nonsense. You're right, it's irrelevant. Agreed. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
"Childish tit-for-tat"? very encouraging descriptive. GoodDay (talk) 19:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
There's no encyclopedic value in adding a French name to the infobox in cases where it's the same as the English name (e.g. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Yukon) — does the infobox on Alberta's article, in either en: or fr:, really need to say "Alberta/Alberta"? No, it doesn't; that would just be silly.
However, there is encyclopedic value in adding a French name to the infobox in cases where it's different from the French name (e.g. Colombie-Brittanique, Nouveau-Brunswick, Nouvelle-Écosse, Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador). And whether French has official language status at the provincial level or not is irrelevant to the question of what names the federal Constitution does or doesn't confer upon the province.
And at any rate, each language Wikipedia makes its own rules, based on its own needs and its own circumstances, without regard to whether some other language Wikipedia is using a different rule. Bearcat (talk) 07:08, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikimedians.ca

Would having access to an offwiki site be at all useful to this project? - Amgine (talk) 08:34, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Me personally, since we are almost exclusively discussing content here, I think it can and should all be kept open here on this wiki. Separate sites tend to encourage group-think among their participants, I think we benefit from the many dissenting voices here. Others may differ in their opinion. On the assumption that you are making an offer of hosting though, thanks for the offer! Franamax (talk) 08:16, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
The organizers of the Canadian Wikimedia chapter may be interested and have a good use for this site. -- Ϫ 09:18, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm still confused about what exactly is allowable for upload to Wikipedia. Are the only images of Canadian politicians/civil servants, that are allowable on Wikipedia, of either dead people or pictures taken by myself? NorthernThunder (talk) 20:14, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Rule of thumb for "Canadian" produced images is...All photographs taken before 1 January, 1949 are in the public domain.

For works from after that time, or non-photographs, the Copyright Act states a copyright subsists for the life of the author plus 50 years following the end of the calendar year of death (section 6). If the work is anonymous or pseudonymous then the copyright lasts either 50 years following publication or 75 years after the making of the work, whichever is earlier (section 6.1), provided the authorship does not become known in that timeframe.

See the Canadian Public Domain Flowchart to determine if a work is in the public domain.
A great place to find pics is at Library and Archives Canada "Archives Search"

See also Wikipedia:Public domain.........hope this helps.Moxy (talk) 20:28, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

From what I understand, if the subject is alive—a copyrighted image can't be used (you can still get a free one), if the subject is dead—an image can be uploaded to a single Wikipedia but only used on the subject's article, if the subject has been dead for more than 50 years—it can be uploaded to the commons and be used on any page. 117Avenue (talk) 00:08, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Are you sure about that last bit? I thought it depended on the date of the photographer's death, not the subject's. Franamax (talk) 01:04, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I think it might actually be 50 years since the image was taken. But if the date is unknown, you have to work with what you do know, and you know that the subject and the photographer were both still alive when it was taken. 117Avenue (talk) 06:55, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
The provision cited is that for a photographic work depicting a person who is now dead, that photo may be uploaded to Wikipedia (not the Commons), and used within the fair dealing framework. Thus, if that photo needs to be used on French and English WP, it must be uploaded to both. Note that such works are not considered public domain - they will become public domain once all the criteria for such are met. Mindmatrix 16:19, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm not an expert on this, but at least for Commons images I think the work must be considered public domain in the US also, so these rules also apply. I think en:wiki is the same. WP:MCQ might give a more definitive answer on this. Franamax (talk) 01:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
If a Canadian image was published in the US, Us copyright laws (100 years to public domain, not 50) apply; but if it was in Canada only, or first published in Canada, and no copyright reserved under US law, asserting that US copyright law holds sway over them is a surrender of sovereignty; the VPL, UBC Special Collections, and the National Archive state public domain on various of their images, all within the 100 year limitation of US copyright (but over 50 years old per Canadian copyright). If it says "public domain" on those sources then no US regulation seems relevant; though not stated on their page, use of BC Archives photos over 50 years old has been adjudged to be in the pd ballbark. If the same image is in U.W. library, for example, Us copyright restrictions in its use would, in court, be all that any US court could have jurisdiction over; which complicates matter because Wikipeida's servers are, i think, in California (?). But to me that would only apply if that image was in the US only, or published in the US first.Skookum1 (talk) 20:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
The en:wiki servers are indeed US-based (Florida, the office is in SanFran), which is where the US copyright bit comes in. This is covered in the link I gave, under "Works First Published Outside the U.S. by Foreign Nationals or U.S. Citizens Living Abroad". I haven't gone through it all in detail, but there may be a cross-over in published before 1978, not in public domain as of 1996. It does get a little complicated... Franamax (talk) 23:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
@117 Avenue: the status of the person depicted in a photo is not relevant to copyright law, unless they may have had ownership of the image and /or its publication rights. What matters is a photographic release,but those usually confer all rights on the photographer while potentially reserving certain rights, e.g. commercial use, on behalf of the model, or a commission on picture sales; this does not apply (release requirements( if the subject ws photographed as part of a public event or as a news item. Release rights/obligations can also be transferred as part of an estate, though this is rare (it would apply, for instance, to Elvis and Marilyn or MJ). Portraits done by a photographer but held in possession by a family are, if in a public archive, copyright-free/public domain after 50 years (in Canada). i.e. releases would not be used for such a portrait, a formal sitting, butgenerally even so the ct by the family of the person in question; ownership of the negatives is what it's about, really.....but anyone's work,, after 50 years, unless explicity copyright re-reserved (as sometimes happens, as with Ansel Adams of the Bancroft Collection in the University of California - though that maybe pD due to U.Cal's liberal policies towards public sharing/education - in the United States).Skookum1 (talk) 20:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Just to reiterate the point I made above, and expand:
    Any photograph taken while on duty as an employee of the municipal, provincial, or federal governments (or any of their agencies) is copyright by the crown corporation that they were employed by. Crown copyright lasts 50 years. Photographs produced by a person not subject to the previous rule are life of author + 50. All images taken on Canadian soil before January 1, 1949 are public domain, regardless of authorship. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 20:33, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify points a bit, when it comes to photographs the core test you need to apply isn't "is this person alive or dead?" — it's "who owns this particular photograph?"

If you took it yourself, then as long as you license it properly you're free to upload it to Wikipedia anytime you want. However, if you want to upload an image that you don't own (i.e. you're taking it from any source other than your own camera), then the onus is on you to ensure that the image is under a public domain, Creative Commons or GFDL license. For example, some bloggers and Flickr users release their photographs under CC or GFDL licenses; as long as we verify the license and provide the proper attribution, we can upload such photos here. However, newspaper, magazine or government photographs are unlikely to be released as CC or GFDL; for those, you need to either apply the public domain test or directly contact the copyright holder in the hopes of convincing them to release the photo under a more compatible license (which is unlikely at best, so it's not a recommended strategy.)

If a subject has died recently, you can usually get away with "fair use" if the photo was released for promotional purposes in the first place (e.g. it came from an author's or musician's press kit). But this does not mean you can just grab any photo at all from any third party source of your own choosing, because the third party source still has its own copyright. So no, it's not as simple as "subject is dead, therefore I can now upload any photo I want". For example, if Leonard Cohen were to die tomorrow, an "official" photo from his press kit, whose license already included redistribution rights anyway, would probably become acceptable under fair use, but a CBC-owned photo of him signing books in a Chapters store or a non-CC Flickr shot of him performing a live concert would still be off limits until those copyright holders explicitly granted us permission.

At any rate, you should always directly verify the exact copyright status of every photo you want to upload. Don't think in terms of "this person is dead, so I can just upload any photo I can find"; always make sure you know the precise copyright status of the particular photo you're looking at. Bearcat (talk) 21:57, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought that the question was, why can a copyrighted image of a dead person be uploaded. A picture of Harry Strom can be used on his article, but not on a list of premiers in Alberta, (which is what I tried to do when I learned this). 117Avenue (talk) 07:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Well, that doesn't appear to be NT's original question — but at any rate, the issue in this case is that if the photo is under a fair use claim, then we're far more limited in how we can use it than we would be if the photo were under a free license. Not because Wikipedians are trying to make your life difficult for fun, but because the law itself is quite restrictive on what qualifies for "fair use" of copyrighted material — the problem, when it comes to List of premiers of Alberta, is that Harry Strom is not the subject of the article. I can't very effectively explain why that ceases to be legitimate fair use, unfortunately, but it does. Bearcat (talk) 06:57, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Actually Wikipedia is much more restrictive than court-proven definitions of "fair-use". We are governed by a WMF Board Resolution, in particular #3 "Such EDPs must be minimal." and the following sentences. But #1 sets the overriding goal, to be a free encyclopedia, and #2 is a grudging acknowledgement that sometimes we have to give ground. But only very rarely, when we absolutely have to. Franamax (talk) 08:27, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

USian "consensus" by non-admin decision vs. inclusion/recognition of Canadian usage

A recent reqmove on Talk:Plains Indians was resolved by a non-admin user, with the result that the USian "most common usage" prevails on an article affecting Canadian First Nations. I responded to the decision with Talk:Plains_Indians#Rebuttal_to_consensus_.22no_decision.2C_no_move.22 and could use some more Canuck input. A similar problem exists at Talk:Slavery among Native Americans in the United States, which includes Canadian peoples/topics but it's being asserted (repeatedly) that "Native Americans" is the accepted usage for all indigenous peoples of the Americas (it's the accepted USian usage, e.g. for South American native peoples, but it's certainly not the British or Canadian or Guyanese English usage). I'm battling US cultural myopia here of course. The same issue about "Native American" is on various categories which need "globalizing" because they include CAnadian, Caribbaan and Mexican topics (and Alaskan, where the term "Native American" is very decidedly not used at all - "Alskan Native" is the proper usage).Skookum1 (talk) 20:18, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

North American Chinatowns

An issue has come up that relates to North American Chinatowns and the use of Pinyin in relation to them, see Talk:Chinatown, Houston. As most North American Chinatowns were established by Toisanese, or later Cantonese diaspora groups, and Pinyin is a Mandarin transcription, there are issues of language to deal with. 184.144.170.217 (talk) 06:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (use of Chinese language) for a discussion on the use of pinyin in articles where local Chinese usage does not involve Mandarin (pinyin is a Mandarin romanization scheme, for expressing Mandarin sounds in latin letters) 184.144.166.27 (talk) 04:44, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Quebec referendums

I note that the two articles are entitled Quebec independence referendum, 1980 and Quebec independence referendum, 1995. Both appear to have been moved, without discussion, in May 2009 from Quebec referendum, 1980 and Quebec referendum, 1995 respectively. Apologies if there was a substantive discussion - I just can't seem to find it (the editor who made the moves, User:SeNeKa, moved a number of referendum articles, pertaining to places such as Ukraine and Greece, around the same time). Given that neither referendum question mentioned the actual word "independence", and that there was (and is) considerable debate over what was meant by the "sovereignty-association" (1980) and "sovereignty, with optional partnership" (1995) proposed in two referendums, it strikes me that the older article names were more appropriate. Mind you, nobody seems to have said boo about the two moves in the year and a half since. As I said, maybe I missed the move discussion, or maybe there is something I am missing. Thoughts? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree these are bad moves. They should be reverted. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:01, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, per Skeezix1000's analysis. PKT(alk) 13:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
I also agree, we should revert the moves. If there is opposition, a more extensive discussion can be had. "Independence" was quite carefully danced around. Franamax (talk) 01:30, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I will place notes on the talk pages of both articles, directing them to this centralized discussion, to see if there are any other opinions on the matter. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I do not really mind the title, so long as the articles themselves state the facts. The 1980 referendum asked Quebecers if, yes or no, they would give the Quebec government the mandate to negotiate a "New Partnership Between Equals: Sovereignty-Association". The result of that negotiation would have been the object of a second referendum. The 1995 referendum was not about a mandate to negotiate, it was about achieving sovereignty, whether the proposed partnership with Canada succeeds or not. -- Mathieugp (talk) 14:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay, but that's the whole point. Neither explicitly addressed the issue of independence. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:04, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
The articles were moved without benefit of a consensus from an RM discussion, so they should be reverted. Also, they're more commonly known as referendums. Besides, it's difficult to understand what the referendums were about, due to their cumbersome garbled 'questions' to voters. GoodDay (talk) 19:30, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Given the feedback, both articles have been moved back to their original titles. Thanks for the input. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
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