Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Education in Canada/Archive2

A brand new Wikiproject Education in Canada

Proposal

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

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

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

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

Categories and tasks

I like what Wikipedia:WikiProject Education in Canada/Revised#Categories says. The one part that I'm not clear on is the concept of "owning" a task. What's that mean? For instance "AB schools" is listed, but I can't see how one person can "own" that task. --Rob 08:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct, an entire province is large to have as a task. However, at the moment we only have coverage for 3 provinces and 0 territories according to the users I know about. So the tasks simply highlight some glaring holes. I could have broken them down to specific school boards for example, but I thought it was unecessary to do so since no-one is even available on a province-wide scale. If someone wants to step up and take a chunk of Alberta, then we'd modify the task to indicate which part(s) are still left. --Stephane Charette 08:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Colleges and universities

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

In regards to 'de-emphasize the univesities and colleges', I'm not sure what else to do. We don't have any suggestions as to how to format university articles, or templates to use, or how to break it down into manageable articles, etc... Note that there is a university and college project, which does deal with all of this stuff. This is why I wanted to distance ourselfs somewhat from C & U. --Stephane Charette 22:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Should have added the link to it: Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities, where the title states: WikiProject Universities is aims to standardize coverage of Universities and colleges. --Stephane Charette 22:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think Canadian Universities and Colleges fall under this project. It is Education. Ardenn 18:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it is education; however, what should we do about it? We could add a "college" and "university" (or "college & university"?) section to the new project, but what will we put in it? None of the templates apply to C&U except for {{Canada-university-stub}}, and this is already documented in the new proposal. None of the categories we have are for colleges or universities. The only list we have for C&U is called List of colleges in Ontario, and that is also already documented in the new proposal. This is why I was suggesting that Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities may be a better place to discuss C&U. --Stephane Charette 19:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

Use of subst on talk pages

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

Thats a good point. Subst just makes them harder to change and to find (with "What links here?"). --Rob 18:34, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have a choice. The Wiki rule is that talk page template must use subst, unless it is a template that breaks when substituted. This is available in several places on Wikipedia. Here is the most direct quote I could find in the shortest time[1]:

When using template tags on talk pages,
don't forget to substitute with text by
adding subst: to the template tag.

--Stephane Charette 22:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, here is more info on using 'subst' for talk pages: Template talk:Subst and WP:SUBST. --Stephane Charette 22:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know that. In that case, I suggest, if we continue use of {{CanEd}} that we consider making a category for it, to place the relevant talk pages in their. Otherwise, we'll never be able to find the articles where its located. I find this rule rather perplexing, and I'm not sure of the benefit of the template at this point. --Rob 23:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My interpretation of the substitution guideline (arguments against substitution) is that {{CanEd}} is best NOT subst'ed. -- Usgnus 23:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As part of wikipedia's vandal patrol, and when using VandalProof, we're constantly reminded to always subst templates on talk pages. Combined with the sentence "When using template tags on talk pages, don't forget to substitute with text by adding subst: to the template tag", I take this to mean we're supposed to subst. Having said this, if the general consensus is that we'd rather not subst for technical reasons such as having the capability to use what links here, then let's decide now and ensure the proposed project page reflects that decision. So now we have Usgnus' point of view, my point of view...who else wants to voice their opinion? (Usgnus, no hard feelings, right? I'm not trying to be confrontational, I just wanted all the cards out on the table.) --Stephane Charette 02:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But don't they mean user talk pages? How often do you need to substitute a template on article talk pages because of vandalism? -- Usgnus 03:22, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I never differentiated between user talk and article talk. I know when I added templates to school talk pages, I always made certain I subst: the templates, thinking that was the right way to do it. If I may say, I think Usgnus' position is clear on this topic. I think I'm on the fence, seeing that there definitely is a benefit to having the capability of clicking on what links here. Is there someone else who can voice their opinion so we can put this topic to rest? --Stephane Charette 04:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Navboxes

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

Hmmm. Didn't know we had such large school districts! Ok, how about we reword it to indicate a preference for the navboxes when applicable, and then can list exception cases where that doesn't work and possible solutions. --Stephane Charette 22:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds fine. BTW, TDSB has 558, so the CBE is not that big. --Rob 23:19, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Section headings

in the structure section there are suggestions

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

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

Only add what is relevant or notable enough to be put in the article. Take only the headings that apply to the specific school article, not all. And also remember WP:CITE: the information you are putting in the article must already have been published, preferably in several places (WP:NOR) and isn't first-hand information. The distinction may be harder to see for students like yourself still attending school. What I'd like to see is a school article that effectively makes use of several sections, so we can provide examples of decent non-stub school articles. Anyone know of such an article? --Stephane Charette 21:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

newspapers count? if so then the local paper has quite a few articles on the atheletics :D....i do not think that the music festivals have publications of winners...drama productions are almost always a first hand source? and math contests can be verified through their sites...

zeChinaman 22:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As editors working on high school and elementary school articles, we run the risk of frequently sailing too close to WP:NN. I think an article about how the grade 10 field hockey team lost yesterday's game against Main Street Secondary School is likely to result in the entire school article winding up on AfD, even if it there was an article about it in the local paper. --Stephane Charette 23:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Time to make the shift?

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

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

Copyright and images

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

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

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

Clubs and Extracurriculars

Has there been a discussion in the past about the inclusion of clubs and extracurricular activities on High School and Elementary School pages? For example, are just general lists of all the clubs and teams at a school permissible? It seems a bit unwieldy and unnecessary... - pm_shef 00:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't bother putting a list of clubs or sport teams into stub articles. It look forced. For articles that are well fleshed-out, adding list of clubs and teams can easily be made to look nice, and relatively easy to fit into the flow of any article. --Stephane Charette 01:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen some edits (presumably from students) including their clubs and teams in the school distriptions. Example: Gordon Greenwood Elementary School Since many of the entries are still very minimal - I wouldn't want to discourage the contributions. Wakemp 01:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm specifically worried about the list at Thornhill Secondary School. I've trimmed it down a couple times, but I'm not sure if even in its' present form its still too unwiedly. It seems to me as if its a bit unnecessary.... - pm_shef 01:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox lastupdate

Rob brought up a good point about the last update date. It's not clear what it should represent. Is it the date that any information (other than the enrollment, which has its own date) in the infobox was updated (e.g. the principal's name, the phone number) or is it when the infobox was edited? I think we need to update the template or at least the instructions on the template page. -- Usgnus 02:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that is one of the fields from the original infobox template I wish I hadn't carried over, or at least modified the meaning. If you forget about the field for a second, I think the best information we can provide to the readers of the articles is a date telling the reader "this infobox is current as of the 2004-2005 school year", or "the 2005-2006 school year". This would give a general idea of the accuracy of the infobox.

So, getting back to the field, we have something called "last updated", which may or may not reflect what the readers want to know. Personally, I think it might make sense to drop the field from the template because:

readers can easily mistake the meaning
editors are not using it consistently (not the editors' fault -- the field is vague in meaning)

...and instead promote the use of the enrollment_as_of field versus enrollment.

Note that the enrollment is the only infobox field which is more-or-less guaranteed to be volatile from one year to the next. About half of the fields very rarely change; for example: address, url, phone number, district, colours, team name, religious affiliation, school id, motto, logo, funding type, grades, language. Then we have some fields that change every few years, but not necessarily every year: principal, vice, staff, trustee. And the 1 field which changes every year is the student enrollment. However, from when I first did the infobox template through now with Usgnus' recent re-write, we've always recommended a date or school year after the enrollment figure. For example (L’école Brodeur (Richmond)):

Enrollment 380 (September 2004)

Last updated 2006-05-27

This tells the readers that even though some of the infobox information was updated in 2006, the enrollment information is obviously from 2004. Would the enforcment of a date work for everyone? E.g., should we make the date mandatory otherwise not display the enrollment?

Main Street High School
Address
123 Main Street, TO, Ontario
Contact
Tel	416-555-1212
Website
http://en.wikipedia.org/
Information
Principal	Mr. Nice
Language	English
School board	TDSB
Enrollment	12345
Last updated	2006-06-06

Main Street High School
Address
123 Main Street, TO, Ontario
Contact
Tel	416-555-1212
Website
http://en.wikipedia.org/
Information
Language	English
School board	TDSB
2004-2005 School Year
Principal	Mr. Nice
Enrollment	12345

Here is another suggestion, or possible solution to the problem. We could put a new banner line in the infobox to represent the school year, and move all of the year-specific fields into that section. Our current infobox looks like the one on the left.

But what if below Information, we had a banner to signal the school year? So Information would still have the school board, trustees, religious affiliation, language, grades, funding type, etc..., but after that would be the volatile and semi-volatile information that represents a school year. See mock-up on the right.

Schools that don't have the schoolyear field defined would continue to show the lastupdated field, and schools that are done with the new method would ignore lastupdated -- the idea would be that the fields in the "2004-2005 School Year" section would be specific to that year.

I agree that the date updated in the info box is problematic. If it can't be used consistently then we should drop it. As for the idea of adding a School Year banner, I don't think that adds much since it is really only the enrollment that changes year over year (as already stated above). If we wanted a school year section we would need more info to go in it. Wakemp 14:44, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is more than the enrollment that makes up the school year. From {{Infobox Education in Canada}}:

|principal=     Name
|assistant_principals= Name1, Name2 (deprecated, use "viceprincipal=")
|viceprincipal= Name1 Name2 Name3 ...
|administrator= Name
|custodian=     Name
|staff=         Total number of staff/faculty
|enrollment=    Number or Number (Year) or Number (Month Day Year)
|enrollment_as_of= Year or Month Day Year
|gradeK=        kindergarten enrollment
|grade1=        grade 1 enrollment
|grade2=        grade 2 enrollment
|...etc...
|grade13=       grade 13 enrollment

--Stephane Charette 16:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should just get rid of the date altogether like in {{Infobox University}}. I also think we should get rid of the whole contact section (WP:NOT). -- Usgnus

I agree with the last updated field -- mark it as deprecated and change the template to no longer show it.
I still think enrollment_as_of is a good thing to keep and we should continue to recommend that editors use this field.
As for the contact section, note that your previous example, {{Infobox University}}, also includes the address and phone number of the university. I vote to keep the contact section.

--Stephane Charette 18:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Template talk:Infobox University#Professional students and addresses. I don't mind the addresses, but I think the phone/fax/e-mail should go. -- Usgnus 18:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing ... the address is not in the Contact section. -- Usgnus 18:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I understand this is a comment from someone who also believes the phone number should not be there, but on the other hand there obviously are people who think it should be there since it does exist in the template. I also understand that the purpose of the wiki is not the be a phone directory, but that doesn't necessarily mean a phone number cannot be added to an infobox as a valid piece of information on the school in question. An article that would contain a 2-column table of schools and phone numbers for all BC schools, for example, could be speedy-deleted based on WP:NOT section 6. But listing a phone number within an article's infobox does not turn the entire article into a phone directory. --Stephane Charette 20:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing...you'll note the comment you link to above on how I don't support the address and telephone number fields has not gathered any support or replies in the past month. --Stephane Charette 20:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Replying to various points above: I feel we should get by with just "last updated" for dates, for now. "Last updated" should probably go for being ambiguous. We definately need some sort of date, as we have to handle old information. Sometimes I write/edit a new article, but only have old information. I think the ultimate solution for dates, is to have proper footnotes, which cite the source, which normally includes a url, date of the information, and date information was accessed; all out-of-the-way at the bottom of the article. But I realize that may be unrealitic at the moment (and I haven't been doing it myself). I personally dislike phone numbers, as they change *and* are useless once changed (e.g. its mildly interesting a school used to have a much larger/smaller enrollment, its of no interest to note it used to have a different phone number). Address information, IMO, is important, as the location is one of the most important characteristics of a school, and some communities are so vast, merely naming the community isn't very specific. --Rob 20:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I deprecated lastupdate= and added an optional footnotes= field. I also updated the docs to include enrollment_as_of in the basic usage. Finally, I moved affiliation higher in the box because it's a more general attribute than superintendent or trustee. -- Usgnus 15:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Contact Info, I had some comments directly to me on removing the address and contact info as a safety issue - especially in elementary schools. I don't agree with that but I mention it as a concern of others. I think the address needs to be included. In the previous discussions on how to group schools (city, district, neighbourhood) I believe the location information is important to other wiki editors. Wakemp 16:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A very nice and relatively simple way to cite the source of information

I've tried various different ways to cite sources over the past few months, and haven't especially liked any of the systems we have available to us. Most are cumbersome, and when you insert text partway through an article (or infobox) you'd end up having to renumber everything, or trying to figure out if it all matches up correctly. Last night, I wrote my first article using the new footnote system, and found it worked VERY well. There are 2 pages you need to be familiar with: WP:CTT and WP:FN. The magic is in WP:FN. Here is what you do:

Blah blah blah blah, with 15,000 students<ref>{{cite web |title=Some Big Event |work=Education Monthly in Canada |url=http://www.blah.ca/thismonth.html |accessdate=2006-06-08}}</ref> and almost 5,000 teachers from both school boards.<ref>{{cite web |author=Smith, Joe |year=2006 |title=Year in Review |format=PDF |work=Comments from Joe |url=http://www.joe.ca/readme.pdf |accessdate=2006-06-08}}</ref>
Blah blah blah...
==References==
<div class="references-small"><references/></div>

That's it. So each instance of <ref> will be converted into a footnote reference, ordered in sequence. If you cut-and-paste text around in the article, everything gets automatically renumbered correctly. As an added bonus, the links between the text and the reference seem to work correctly, which isn't always the case with the other reference templates I've tried. My test last night was with Toronto District School Board. The article isn't done yet -- I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with the 500+ schools that I'd like to somehow list -- but the top part of the article, which includes a new infobox, contains many references that were done this way. --Stephane Charette 18:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to emphasize the following: if you have two or more references with the same footnote, you can use <ref name="enrollment_stats">{{cite ... }}</ref> for the first instance, and then <ref name="enrollment_stats" /> for subsequent ones. I did not know about the "references-small" class, however. -- Usgnus 18:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also note that if the external link to the reference is anything other than an HTML page, you can add the "format" parameter to {{cite web}}, such as "format=PDF". Mind matrix 18:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Abbreviations in school names

Looking through the official TDSB web site, I see that many of the schools have abbreviations in the school names:

Jr (Junior?)
Sr (Senior?)
CI (Collegiate Institute?)
SS (Secondary School?)
BTI (Business & Technical Institute?)
HS (High School?)

When we create articles on Wikipedia, what should we do? There are several questions here, which I'll note below. Here are some examples to work with from the school board web site:

AY Jackson SS [2]
Albert Campbell CI [3]
Bendale BTI [4]
Central Etobicoke HS [5]

Looking at the school web site (versus looking at the school board), the names are sometimes spelled slightly differently:

"AY Jackson SS" doesn't even mention SS, it becomes "A. Y. Jackson" [6]
"Albert Campbell CI" becomes "Albert Campbell C.I." [7]
"Bendale BTI" in some places is "Bendale Business & Technical Institute" [8]
"Central Etobicoke HS" becomes "Central Etobicoke High School" [9]

Here are the questions for which I'd like us to have standardized answers:

Should the article title contain the abbreviation, or the full name?

Does Albert Campbell CI become Albert Campbell CI or Albert Campbell Collegiate Institute? Does Central Etobicoke HS become Central Etobicoke HS or Centrak Etobicoke High School?

My opinion is split in two:

common abbreviations (HS, Jr, Sr, CI, SS, etc.) are converted to the full words: prefer Central Etobicoke High School over Central Etobicoke HS
proper names should reflect the common usage; for example, A. Y. Jackson is more commonly known and recognized as the famous painter than Alexander Young Jackson

--Stephane Charette 21:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Expand out the common abbreviations (HS, Jr, Sr, CI, SS, etc.) but for the rest of the name, use the official name if it well-used; otherwise use the most well-used name. -- Usgnus 23:33, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Should we standardize on school board names or school names?

Using the example above, does AY Jackson SS become AY Jackson SS or A. Y. Jackson? Note that for this example, wikipedia actually has A. Y. Jackson as an article on the painter, A.Y. Jackson as a redirect to the former, and then two articles about the same school: A. Y. Jackson Secondary School (Toronto), and AY Jackson Secondary School. (I merged the two articles together at the end of April 2006.)

My opinion is the school web site would probably better reflect the name people normally use. I'd go with the school web site name, but mention in the article that the official name of the school is perhaps slightly different. It may also make sense to create a redirection page from the "official name" to the commonly-used name. --Stephane Charette 21:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the official name of the school is well-used, use that; otherwise go with the most well-used name. -- Usgnus 23:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Should abbreviations contains periods?

If we decide the article titles can/should contain abbreviations, does Albert Campbell CI become Albert Campbell CI or Albert Campbell C.I.? Does Central Etobicoke HS become Central Etobicoke HS or Central Etobicoke H.S.? And should it be AY Jackson Secondary School or A.Y. Jackson Secondary School? --Stephane Charette 21:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is the first two don't matter since the abbreviations would be replaced with the full words. In the case of names like A Y Jackson SS, I believe it would become A. Y. Jackson Secondary School. --Stephane Charette 21:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support -- Usgnus 23:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are there spaces between the letters in abbreviations?

Again if we decide the titles can/should contain abbreviations, does the English language say we should have spaces between the letters? Should it be Albert Campbell C.I. or Albert Campbell C. I.? Is it A. Y. Jackson or A.Y. Jackson?

I'd like to see A. Y. Jackson Secondary School, and not A.Y. Jackson Secondary School (and not AY Jackson Secondary School). --Stephane Charette 21:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral - I learned it as A.Y. Jackson, but either way works for me. -- Usgnus 23:12, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed: Naming convention

Here is what I propose adding to the project as a new section inserted between 5) Participants and 6) Structure:

Naming conventions

Names of school boards or school districts

School boards typically have a single single official name, and the articles are typically named as the school board. One province -- British Columbia -- has a uniform naming convention, which is discussed on the list of school districts in British Columbia. For other provinces, look through the lists, look through the list of categories, or directly into Category:School districts in Canada.

Names of schools

There are several guidelines to help name school articles. They are:

Abbreviation	Expanded
CI	Collegiate Institute
HS	High School
Jr	Junior
Mt	Mount
Sr	Senior
SS	Secondary School
St	Saint

If the school board's web site and the school's web site differ in the name of a school, prefer the one that people commonly use. Schools at times will be known under a slightly different name than the official or legal school name. Consider whether or not a redirection page is necessary.
Expand all common abbreviations in the school's name. For example, a school known as Main Street HS would be turned into an article called Main Street High School. See the table on the right for examples of common abbreviations often found in school names.
Proper names may or may not be abbreviated depending on how the name is commonly used. Two opposite examples:
- Use A. Y. Jackson Secondary School instead of Alexander Young Jackson Secondary School.
- Use Pierre Elliott Trudeau High School instead of P. E. Trudeau High School.
Abbreviations in the school name -- such as A. Y. Jackson -- contain periods after the letter and a blank space after each period. For example:
- Use A. Y. Jackson Secondary School instead of A Y Jackson Secondary School.
- Use A. Y. Jackson Secondary School instead of A.Y. Jackson Secondary School.
In case an article already exists for a different school with the same name, the location of both schools should follow the names in parentheses. For example:
- Use A. Y. Jackson Secondary School (Toronto) and A. Y. Jackson Secondary School (Ottawa). The original article at A. Y. Jackson Secondary School can be used as a redirect to A. Y. Jackson Secondary School (disambiguation).

Names for categories

There are several small inconsistencies in the naming of categories used by the Education in Canada project, but if you'd like to propose a new category, look through the existing comprehensive list of categories to see how other provinces or territories are using categories.

Names for navboxes

Each school board navbox is a new template that needs a unique name. When you need to create a new navbox, look through the list of existing Canadian education navboxes to see how they're named. Typically, we've been using the school board name or the school board abbreviation, immediately followed by the word Schools.

Names for templates

Some of our templates (such as {{Infobox Education in Canada}}, and {{Navbox Education in Canada}}) are named after the project's name, Education in Canada. However, we have just as many templates where the name does not contain Education in Canada: {{Canadian School District}}, {{CanEd}} and {{Canada-school-stub}}. See the section below which discusses the templates regularly used in this project.

--Stephane Charette 08:10, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've now added this to the project, including a new bullet point on French names. --Stephane Charette 16:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A 3rd column in Template:Infobox Education in Canada

A problem has recently crept into the infobox template. I'm just on my way to work this morning, so I have no time to track it down, but it looks like we now have 3 columns instead of 2 columns. The 3rd column is a blank empty column, just a few pixels wide. The religous affiliation line seems to have lines extending out into the 3rd column -- maybe it is the cause? Note this school: Earl Haig Secondary School, which doesn't use the religous affiliation field. And then compare to Yeshivat Or Chaim & Ulpanat Orot. --Stephane Charette 15:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Without having tried it, I think this line:

{{!}} bgcolor={{{bgcolor_value|#f8f8ff}}} {{!}}}}

...need to be changed to:

}}

--Stephane Charette 15:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about that. Fixed. Your fix works, but I just added the }} to the previous line instead. -- Usgnus 15:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CEGEP/college organization

I'd like to work on organizing the CEGEPs and colleges of Quebec. At the moment there are both a List of CEGEPs and a List of colleges in Quebec, which overlap a lot, and I've suggested that they be merged. We also have two jumbled-up categories, Category:Colleges in Quebec and Category:Quebec CEGEP. It's suggested on Wikipedia:WikiProject Education in Canada/Categories that the CEGEP category should be under Category:Schools in Quebec. I think that it might belong better under the colleges category, the reasoning being that the CEGEPs are a certain type of publicly funded college. Other private colleges offer comparable programs and are sometimes (inaccurately) called CEGEPs. So the confusion is between CEGEPs and other colleges, as opposed to between CEGEPs and other schools. Another idea that might help the categories match how readers think of the schools would be to have a category and list entitled something like "Colleges and CEGEPs in Quebec." If my understanding of the common usage is incorrect, however, please say so.

Note that Wikipedia:WikiProject Education in Canada/Categories wasn't something I was suggesting, but more "this is what we currently have". I'll make that more obvious on the project page. If you're familiar with the topic, and you think certain categories need to be merged or moved around, just let everyone know and make the necessary fixes. --Stephane Charette 15:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the French wikipedia the lists of "enseignement collégial" are separated between CEGEPs, private subsidized colleges and private unsubsidized colleges. Is it useful to distinguish between the latter two, or is only public and private sufficient, as on the List of colleges in Quebec?

My first thought would be that if you're using the French wikipedia as a source to guide you, then it may make sense to use the same divisions they've decided works best. You're the one who will be working on it -- you decide what is best. :) Document in the talk page here what you're proposing, and we'll make sure it gets documented in the project page. --Stephane Charette 15:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks. I rearranged and created new categories, so now we have Category:Colleges in Quebec with subcategories Category:Quebec CEGEP, Category:Government colleges in Quebec, Category:Private subsidized colleges in Quebec, and Category:Private colleges under licence in Quebec. Now I'll work on populating the categories. Cpastern 17:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Finally, since we decided on the CEGEP spelling, does it immediately follow that the name of every article should use that form regardless of how the institution uses it themself? Should the rest of the name follow the French form exactly including all the "de" and "du" etc? For example, CEGEP du Vieux Montréal for the institution that calls itself Cégep du Vieux Montréal? Cpastern 23:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking on this large task. I'll try to help with some of the easier, but maybe tedious, tasks. As for your questions, for the categorization, I see no harm in matching the French wikipedia's scheme. And I don't see a need to rename any of the existing articles. -- Usgnus 23:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the name of the article should reflect the name of the school. The usage of the generic term Cégep should be written as CEGEP. This is also how I'm writing up French elementary schools and French high schools in Ontario and BC. I don't think we should be renaming instituations on Wikipedia. If we renamed schools, it would make it harder for people to find articles. True, the change from Cégep to CEGEP isn't much of a renaming, but nonetheless, I wouldn't want to take a school like École des Pionniers and instead create an article called School of the Pionneers. Likewise, Cégep du Vieux Montréal would be the article name, but in the article, you might have a phrase such as: "...is a French-language CEGEP located in...". --Stephane Charette 15:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another strange problem that comes up when dealing with English versus French is capitilization in the article title. Articles and adjectives in French are never capitalized, while in English, it is perfectly valid to capitalize every word in a title. The thinking I used to deal with it is again related to how someone who knows an instituations name would likely look it up. For example, we have École élémentaire catholique des Pionniers and École secondaire Confédération, not École Élémentaire Catholique Des Pionniers nor École Secondaire Confédération. I'm certain this will come up with some of the CEGEP's as well. --Stephane Charette 15:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AfD tags on School pages

Working on the school pages for BC, following the discussion here - I have a user Special:Contributions/Danielrocks123 who is tagging all these pages for deletion. Note left at the users page. If you come across a page so tagged please add your comments to the deletion log. Wakemp 17:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have been placing the tags on the elementary schools because it seems that elementary schools are generally considered non-notable. I will stop placing the AfD tags on the schools for now until I see what the consensus is on them. --Danielrocks123 17:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you check the history at Wikipedia:Watch/schoolwatch/Schools for deletion archive, you'll see elementary schools are all kept per precedent, if they're verifiable, and don't have copyvio. --Rob 17:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless, I've updated the project page to link to the two big deletion blocks (35 schools proposed for deletion): Wikipedia:WikiProject Education in Canada#School articles at risk of being deleted. Please visit and state your opinion. --Stephane Charette 18:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The major argument for deletion appears to be the non-notability of schools under WP:NN, rather than the quality of the articles. I was hoping to create as basic framework for all the BC schools and then slowly fill in with additional data. I believe that once an entry is there we can attract editors. If the proposition is only notable schools should be in Wikipedia then we have a bigger problem - precedent not withstanding. Wakemp 22:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't let recent nominations have any impact on what your doing. No such nomination (I recall) has results in a consensus to delete since about August last year, and even then, they were the exception. Generally, schools are deemed to be individually notable. Having said that, I prefer the idea of making a smaller number of complete articles, rather than many small stubs. --Rob 23:41, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I personally believe elementary and middle schools aren't notable. Ardenn 22:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification requested:Is the suggestion that notability tied to the grade level or the size of the school? Wakemp 22:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it's tied to the size of the school, and High Schools and above are inheritently larger, and thus have ties to notability, such as a famous person who may have gone to the school. Ardenn 22:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with saying I personally believe elementary and middle schools aren't notable is that anyone else can come along and just as easy say the opposite. So who do we believe? In this case, with the work that is going on especially with the recent contributors for BC schools, is also a matter of completeness. A large amount of work has gone into setting up the school boards, and the schools, and it obviously is a work-in-progress. To have 35 articles nominated for deletion all of a sudden is a drawback, since people (like myself!) are drawn into AfD, and spending the afternoon voting for keep/delete instead of working on the articles. --Stephane Charette 23:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having the same problem with this process and I am now concerned we are going to have to go throught this fight every time. I also feel somewhat responsible as these are articles that I created. When collecting this information, I have found it easier to wikify it all at once and add it to articles. This leads to adding information in chunks over multiple schools - starting with the basic demographic data. It also forces us to handle disambiguation and other problems at the same time. I also believe the fact that we created an info box rather than writing the information as prose makes the article look lighter than it is. This concept that a school needs public notoriety to qualify seems bizare to me. Another project I am working on is Air Force Squadrons (example:No._442_Squadron_RCAF) and I believe these are an equivalent example of a Canadian organization which may not have any inherent notoriety . Feeling a little frustrated now! Wakemp 15:09, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't feel responsible, Wakemp, he just happened to have stumbled onto a school zone you did prior to finding the other school zones. At the moment, I'm happy he didn't stumble upon the page that lists all of the BC school zones first, or there would be many more schools up for deletion. What this highlights for me is that I wont be able to continue working on schools outside of the Kelowna area as I've been doing, since I'm unlikely to find in the library (for example) any newspaper articles on French schools back in Ontario. And like you, my first pass through the school zone is usually to create the standard infobox article. --Stephane Charette 16:27, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just wanted to point out that the two users who tagged Canadian and Australian schools for deletion each have been registered less than one month. -- Usgnus 23:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to stay away from commenting on the people that are recommending articles for deletion but it is an issue we may need to address. There are a large number of users on article patrol that seem to do nothing but recommend items for deletion. It is my belief that any article tagged as part of this project should be enough to buy a couple months to see if we can draw editors but apparently not. So I might have to change how I am collecting my data and contributing it. To add to my concern, some of these folks are trying to gain Adminship. In addition to participating here we need to encourage people to vote in AfD and RfA votes. Props to Stephane for getting the banner on the project page. Wakemp 00:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go. AfD closed today, with keep for both set of schools. --Stephane Charette 18:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that was a big waste of time. -- Usgnus 18:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal

How about we focus on secondary school articles first, and then work on middle schools and elementary/primary. -- Usgnus 00:23, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That is what I plan on doing in the meantime until there is an indication that the other articles can stay. Wakemp 00:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I feel people should prioritize on articles with a good amount of independent verifiable information available (e.g. newspaper stories, etc...). That will usually mean a high school, but it may include more unique elementary schools (such as cases where there's controversy about them). For instance, a special purpose (or charter) school, may get enough special attention/coverage, warranting getting an article before a more typical high school. --Rob 09:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox Canadian School listed for deletion

See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 June 13#Template:Infobox Canadian School. Usgnus 20:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

College/university organization

Spreading my desire for organization beyond the bounds of Quebec, I propose that the categories, lists and nav boxes for Canadian colleges and universities be cleaned up. I don't yet have an opinion on how to do it, but here's the situation: we have a Category:Lists of universities and colleges in Canada and some provinces have separate college and university lists and some have combined. There's a list for universities in Canada but not for colleges. On List of universities in Canada there are a lot of links to "main articles" with redundant or slightly different lists, which are organized in different ways.

Some provinces and territories also have their own navigation boxes. And then, of course, are the various categories. The extent of the redundancy can be seen in, for example, Yukon College, which has a "See also" link to a list which has exactly the same contents as the nav box, and is in a category of the same name (which has only one additional entry, for a total of four). So there are three nearly identical and redundant navigation and organization systems going on in one small article. Besides which, having a nav box for "Colleges in Canada's Territories" (Template:Can-terr-colleges) doesn't make a lot of sense and seems a bit organizationally desperate. Why would someone reading about Yukon College need instant access to a link to a college in Nunavut, whose only similarity is how the region it's in is governed?

I've found Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes interesting reading for suggestions of which to use; maybe it can guide us? It's also worth considering other countries: List of colleges and universities by country. I'm interested in ideas and opinions about what's good and bad and what could happen. Would it be helpful to have a detailed description of the whole situation or can we work with a more general picture? Cpastern 23:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Afd: List of schools in Canada: A

Need some support (or opposition if you disagree) here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of schools in Canada: A -- Usgnus 17:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A thought: if we're having problems getting some of these unmaintainable lists deleted, it may make sense to simply turn the entire list article into a redirect to the appropriate category page. This way we don't have to fight our way through the deletion process. (I find it humourous that we cannot get the pages we want deleted, while at the same time we have school articles on AfD.) --Stephane Charette 19:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just waiting for someone to write an article about A Best Class Driving School, the first school on the list. -- Usgnus 20:42, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]