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posted this just now on WP:Trains' talkpage = I"m just going through a historical resource on BC history and coming across names of railway companies and routes, built or not, in the heyday of railway speculation; some have since been absorbed by other railways. Not sure of ] or ] - maybe the latter is better - or too exclusive? Crowsnest Pass & Kootenay, Vancouver Victoria and Eastern, New Westminster & Southern, and more......over 150 if they were all listed. Only a few so far as in ] and/or ] Some are named in the Grand Trunk and CPR articles and there may be redirects to them, which should have one of those categories; ditto the ] which was to become the BCR.] (]) 04:18, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
posted this just now on WP:Trains' talkpage = I'm just going through a historical resource on BC history and coming across names of railway companies and routes, built or not, in the heyday of railway speculation; some have since been absorbed by other railways. Not sure of ] or ] - maybe the latter is better - or too exclusive? Crowsnest Pass & Kootenay, Vancouver Victoria and Eastern, New Westminster & Southern, and more......over 150 if they were all listed. Only a few so far as in ] and/or ] Some are named in the Grand Trunk and CPR articles and there may be redirects to them, which should have one of those categories; ditto the ] which was to become the BCR.] (]) 04:18, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
:Should also note that the category name ] is confusing because of the name British Columbia Railway; just took a few articles out of that category because they were BCR-related......] or "in British Columbia" or whatever would be better but maybe that's not OK in the ] hierarchy?] (]) 04:23, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
:Should also note that the category name ] is confusing because of the name British Columbia Railway; just took a few articles out of that category because they were BCR-related......] or "in British Columbia" or whatever would be better but maybe that's not OK in the ] hierarchy?] (]) 04:23, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
==] needs semi-protect at least==
of repeated attempts to insert highly POV accounts of the ] legal proceeding/scandal and Dix's re-dating of a memo to do with that; some insertions have been cited, this one wasn't, but they all come from the same agenda - the re-dated letter is one of the main BC Liberal talking points about Dix. Different IP addresses have been used, at least one such insertion was from a SPA......six or seven times. This page is only going to see more of this in coming weeks, with the BC election scheduled in May.....needs a semi-protect of full-protect. And ] needs an article, tricky as it will be to cite (given that the mainstream media, the so-called "reliable sources" were part of the witchhunt) and to keep NPOV. I'm kinda COI to write it because of my blogging activities against the BC Libs and their kind.....Casinogate is the one big major "scandal" (Clark was acquitted but had "done the right thing" and resigned when the investigation started, unlike other Premiers since who refuse to resign or admit any wrongdoing despite evidence coming out the ying-yang against them, as also with Ottawa lately). Another Clark-era article needing writing is ], though that's less of a POV bombshell than Casinogate will be.] (]) 02:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Saw that Rob Ford was in the news again, so decided to read his article here - and wow. Regardless of how embarrassing Rob Ford is to the city of Toronto and to Canada as a whole - I have to say his article is a bit much. I would agree with anyone who questions how this guy got and still has this job - but the article is way way way unbalanced, the sections Media relations, Conflict of interest and Other controversies make up 60 to 75 percent of the article.Moxy (talk) 03:19, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
not surprising, really, given the nature of that beast and the p.r. machine around him.....if the full facts were up about other politicians, plus the spinback b.s., almost any of them you'd have to question how they got the job and still have their job, or whatever newer one they've been bumped upstairs with (e.g. the current Canadian High Commissioner in London....). Sounds like a battlefield article, as non-T.O.'er I'll stay out of it ;-).Skookum1 (talk) 03:45, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Just had look at Tom Flanagan (political scientist) which has had a lot of activity lately, of course......my main thing there is "political scientist" and not "political strategist" or "political advisor" not more appropriate; not a political scientist by training, and more of a political engineer, really, having had a partisan appointment to a university professorship (now revoked I think) doesn't make you a political scientist; but many political articles have dubious career dabs/descriptions.....Gordon Campbell is listed as teacher though he did that only a short time, like Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney he's only ever been a political activist and career politician, little else. "Political scientist" for Flanagan to me is off-base and a spinjob. But maybe he's "just visiting" (he's the one who coined that slag for Michael Ignatieff).Skookum1 (talk) 03:59, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, to be honest, part of the problem here is that the guy has accomplished so little of any substance that by and large the controversies and foot-in-mouth moments and the like are really all there is to write about him most of the time. But I do agree with you that there's a very serious balance problem here; I really could have sworn that I raised a concern last year about his article getting weighed down with an overemphasis on minor stuff, but I can't seem to find it now. Substantive legal troubles should be covered here, yes; the myriad moments when stuck his foot in his mouth and got laughed at for a day or two, with no meaningful further consequences, should not be. (Like for starters, we shouldn't go anywhere near the question whether he groped Sarah Thomson's badonk or not, given the "he said this, she said that, and nobody can actually prove anything either way" nature of the whole thing.) I may not like the guy much, but we still have to use some critical filtering to decide what's worth writing about and what isn't — I suspect, frankly, that we should maybe get some uninvolved party (such as a non-Canadian who won't have too many preexisting views about the guy) to give it a once-over for WP:BLP compliance. Bearcat (talk) 23:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
I just spent a while fixing stuff but there's still tons to go; someone expanded this using bumpf from Tourism BC that's all garbage.....lots was in badly composed English........lots of external links in text, and written like ad copy. The older version of this article wasn't so bad....see the history for the bunk stuff I took out. Major BC city, needs to be GA....there's a WP:WikiProject Okanagan but it doesn't seem very active....Skookum1 (talk) 09:26, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
I didn't say that at all. It's just not very active other than creating templates and, in one case, a category name that had to be changed/split. It's a good idea to have regional wikiprojects or subprojects for BC, e.g. WP:WikiProject KootenaysWP:Vancouver Island etc. The Okanagan one is kinda special because of the cross-border alliance of the American Okanogan with the Canadian Okanagan. My point about the Penticton article's sloppy writing and (though I fixed a lot) complete rubbish from TourismBC being used as a cite.Skookum1 (talk) 04:03, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Wondering about a name change for this guy, he was one of the main movers and shakers in the last years of the Social Credit era in BC, as I recall Bill Bennett's right-hand man. The article's a bit thin to start with, almost a placeholder, but also sanitized - it doesn't say, for example, what the taped telephone conversations were about, or go into the leadership race with Bill Vander Zalm and Grace McCarthy or his role as constitutional advisor to Bill Bennett (and his other ties to same). Mostly for hte moment I'm concerned about the title; in all the press coverage of him it was always Bud Smith, I don't think I ever saw him named as Stuar Smith.......or as Stuart Douglas Boland Smith, either, which is his full name. What's BLP on this, if a MOSTCOMMON name is a nickname?Skookum1 (talk) 06:04, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Normally, in such circumstances we go with the nickname (see also Bud Germa and Bush Dumville for two other examples of Canadian politicians who are better known by nicknames than they are by any of the names that their parents actually birthed them with.) But for the record, the title wasn't changed at any point; right from its original creation, the article has always existed at the "Stuart Douglas" title with the "Bud" one as a redirect — and also note that the redirect is at Bud Smith (politician); the undabbed Bud Smith is and always has been about an American baseball player. So yes, a move probably should go through — consider it done — but the article was never actually at "Bud" in the first place, so it would be a case of "move to", not "move back to". Bearcat (talk) 06:46, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Does that mean you'll do the move? The formality of the names for such articles is a product no doubt of the sources; he wasn't Bud Smith on the ballot, though he might have been Stuart "Bud" Smith.......we've at least settled on W.A.C. Bennett instead of William Andrew Cecil Bennett, and though Boss Johnson is here as Byron, that's partly because that wasn't a personal nickname the way "Bud" was...Bill Bennett was how Miniwac was always known, but he's William Richards Bennett here ....Bud is a special case to me because he was a major figure in the later Social Credit era, and again his article is way too thin......it's hard finding sources for the '80s btw, because when Izzy Asper bought CanWest he ordered the destruction of all their hard copy files and also all their digital archives; most of that era's material is now in Special Collections or city/prov archives now....but other than the G&M, is not online.....Skookum1 (talk) 04:17, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Just noting one case where I seem to have gotten away with including the nickname along with the full name Margaret Lally "Ma" Murray.....04:45, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Hm, just thought it worth mentioning Joseph Martin, premier in 1900, known as Joe Martin....Fighting Joe Martin. Wondering what the papers used for him back then (he was in them a lot LOL).........again, formality vs MOSTCOMMON.Skookum1 (talk) 05:06, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
I see you've been going through candidate articles and adopting the MOSTCOMMON form e.g. Mel Couvelier (a nice man, I've met him).....another important one would be Boomer Walkem, not sure how that's listed here, I think to a full GHW "Boomer" Walkem, whatever his initials are......he was commonly just called Boomer so far as I know....Skookum1 (talk) 12:47, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
The licence states it applies only to data, but the map page seems to indicate it is also subject to that licence. (Maps and other works are usually protected by Crown copyright.) Licence grant point 1 is consistent with CC-BY-SA used by WP. It appears that you can use the map. Mindmatrix22:10, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
That license is also revokable, meaning that even if we did use the data, the government is claiming right to revoke our ability to do so in the future. I would suggest contacting them and asking for clarification, though that tends to be slow on the response time. Resolute13:16, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
You're right. I somehow missed section 5 and 6 of the licence agreement. Because the licence term is only for one year (renewable annually), and the licence can be revoked, then these maps cannot be used. Sigh. Mindmatrix14:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
If I understand the license correctly, the only case where the license can be revoked without consent of the licensee is if the licensee breaches the terms of the license. isaacl (talk) 14:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, it can only be revoked in case of breaches, or if the licensee (the user) actually decides to revoke it themselves for some reason. The terms for these materials look quite usable, if oddly written.--Pharos (talk) 15:33, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps, but that opens up a lot of questions. I do not believe that license is strictly compatible with either GFDL or CC, meaning it may not qualify under Wikimedia's own terms of service as "free use". A copyright expert here on Misplaced Pages might be a good first person to ask. Resolute22:15, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
I can't quite see the point of the one-year automatic renewal, but this might be due to a quirk of Canadian law - it certainly seems to be effectively perpetual, and the key point is that Canada can't revoke it unless you agree or you breach the license. CC-BY doesn't allow for mutual termination, but it does allow for termination through breach (s.7 here). I'll ask around! Andrew Gray (talk) 11:42, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Just to keep everybody updated, I've started a new workgroup, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject LGBT studies/LGBT in Canada work group, dedicated to improving our coverage of LGBT issues and personalities in Canada. This new page is principally a subgroup of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject LGBT studies, not a distinct WikiProject in its own right, but I've added WikiProject Canada as a second parent as well. The group exists so that interested editors can more actively coordinate and organize coverage relating to LGBT topics in Canada, where a lot of relevant stuff has typically fallen through the cracks due to the relatively limited number of editors actively working on them. Anyone who's interested in helping out is welcome. Bearcat (talk) 00:25, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Certainly an option, if anyone knows how to make that happen — but I don't, so I haven't pursued that as of yet. Bearcat (talk) 17:46, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
You'd need to add something like:
|tf 1={{{switchname|}}}
|TF_1_LINK = Misplaced Pages:WikiProject LGBT studies/LGBT in Canada work group
|TF_1_NAME = LGBT in Canada
|TF_1_IMAGE = filename.ext
|TF_1_TEXT = This page is supported by the joint [[Misplaced Pages:WikiProject LGBT
studies/LGBT in Canada work group|Canadian LGBT studies workgroup]]
The image used would be the rainbow flag for {{WPCANADA}} and the Canadian flag for {{WPLGBT}} ... just enter the file link at "filename.ext" without "File:" and without square brackets or anything else. Just xyz.svg or whatever extension.
"switchname" would need to be "lgbt" for {{WPCANADA}} and "canada" for {{WPLGBT}}
Obviously, the number "tf 1" would need to be changed to whatever number is needed.
Well, I've made a proposal below about how I could adjust the existing Canada project banner, and if requested I guess I could also add this group to it, if someone were to tell me where to place it in the dropdown list. Also, just in general, for the past few months I've been getting together lists like that at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Neopaganism/Encyclopedic articles so that interested editors have a bit easier time seeing what sort of articles can and should exist about their particular topic. It might not hurt if some of the Canadian groups did the same. I could do some myself, of course, but unfortunately I've right now still got a rather long list of such efforts in early development stages, and might not get to Canada in any way for a while. John Carter (talk) 20:44, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Toronto Women's Bookstore
Our article on Toronto Women's Bookstore, as originally written, stated that the firebombing took place in 1985; however, most sources give the date as 1983, and I've also found at least one that says 1984. However, virtually all of these sources, regardless of which date was given, were written somewhere between one or two decades later — which is probably the source of the confusion, because people do after all have unreliable memories sometimes the farther removed they get from the incidents they're recalling.
Is there anybody who has access to a news database, who could attempt to locate contemporary news coverage of the original incident so that its exact date can be more definitively confirmed? If you have trouble locating anything, search on Henry Morgentaler as well since his clinic was the actual target of the bomb. (The mention in his Misplaced Pages article cites the same problematic source that the Women's Bookstore article does, however, so that article doesn't settle the question as things currently stand.) Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 17:46, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Given the CFIA is a government agency, your safest bet is to assume Crown Copyright. I think it very unlikely that this image was ever exempt from copyright, and unless you can show the image was created before January 1, 1963, a fair use template should be used on that image. Resolute22:08, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't want to delve into fixing/expanding this article, and admit to having a COI as I was one of the principal commentors on some of the major political/alt-news blogs about all this; but there's so much missing - including the denouement of the trial and all its many questions. Some of this seems very "soaped" (washed) and there's important things missing; that Justice Dohm was the only person to see all the materials seized and "redacted" huge amounts with a black pen; that it was him who cherry-picked material used to go after Basi and Virk is already stated; what's also missing is the well-known comment by the police spokesman during the raids that "organized crime has reached to the highest levels of government" etc......and that the statement 'no elected officials are being investigated" was made after Berardino's appointment, which was also adjudged as "prosecutor shopping" as others had turned down the job, and Berardino was third choice, with close party and personal affiliations to the Dept of the A-G. Important names in the case like Brian Kieran and Patrick Kinsella are so far not present in the article. In a way both this and BC Legislature Raids are "limiting" as far as titles; a full BC Rail Scandal article has yet to be written...and would be a formidable task. NB so far the "reliable sources" from the mainstream media are all that are used on the Timeline, though they were anything but reliable during the proceedings; this is also a case where due to the MSM's close ties and editorial bias that independent news sources and political blogs have to be included as references/research material. The Erik Bornmann article is also thin on the ground and missing lots; but "he" is always around to try and delete material from that article though mostly it's watched; but there was a long battle on his article to keep it from being a totally self-serving piece of twaddle, and Mark Marissen's article likewise had similar problems. With the election imminent and with Dix's promise of a full inquiry into "what happened to BC Rail" there's more to be added to the Timeline and also more need than ever for a proper BC Rail Scandal article; I added a fair bit about it a long time ago to BC Rail as a basis.....Skookum1 (talk) 04:04, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Just to let you know that over this weekend, I started the bulk-upload of the British Library's digitised images from the Canadian Copyright collection (1895-1925). It's running quite slowly just now, but I'm hopeful that we'll be able to shift it onto a faster connection!
Should we have 'Canadien Francais' there as well? It has been there for a long time, and I have reverted its removal, but, I could use more eyes than just mine. Dbrodbeck (talk) 00:15, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
So far we have four meetups: Toronto, Brampton and 2 in Montreal. Anyone else would organize a meetup in his region? It's very simple, find a place with Wi-Fi and show up... that's all! We'll take care of the rest. I start a communication campaign on March 31 (banners on wp, Twitter, Facebook, French CBC interview, etc.) so people will certainly join a meetup if there's one in his region; we just need a core person somewhere and people will agglomerate.
The concept is very open, you can organise your meetup as you wish, and anywhere (library, café, private meet-up in your house!). In Montreal, we invite non-wikipedians in a library to come learn "how to"... that's very popular too!
qwickwire has launched an ANI against me for my responses to his attacks and tone and attitude on my owntalkpage; all to do with a cite he doesn't think is valid and proceeded to lecture and scold me for "not listening" and being "attack-y"......see the "Source" section on the bottom of my talkpage. The AfD is apparently part of the same witchhunt; and seems targeted deliberately to rile me...and well, y'all know how easily I can be riled. Lots of you supported me the last time I was blocked and then encouraged me to come back to Misplaced Pages after my long boycott....some of you may be glad to see me leave again, like this guy said he would be glad to see happen (for calling him on his b.s.)....I submit that this AfD/PROD and the ANI and the attacks coming after me over a stupid cite on a subject the opponent knows nothing about is a really stupid way for me to wind up leaving Misplaced Pages again........how much time have I spent dealing with this nonsense this morning? Too much.`Skookum1 (talk) 03:29, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
I just read some of the detail. It does seem to be a persecution to have both a valued Canadian editor deleted along with a valid Canadian article.--Canoe1967 (talk) 10:51, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Because the word/concept is an important part of BC history/identity/culture and is the source of a good hundred and more placenames in the province (and one or two in Quebec, as it happens). And because I have wiki-friends here, one of whom at least has responded. Is that polling? Essentially it's notice of an article that's important to BC....and thanks Canoe1967, for seeing the pointSkookum1 (talk) 10:53, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
Canadian government and Canadian Forces emblems being discussed at PUF
I think it is an issue with fair use policy. The image formats are 'public domain', IMHO. Since some were 'ripped from the net' then new ones need to be created to replace the ones from other creators. It is a strange clause in copyright law possibly involving: http://commons.wikimedia.org/Commons:COA --Canoe1967 (talk) 00:01, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
You could just submit a request at WP:AFC. Then someone else could determine if the article you wrote meets the threshold of notability and doesn't violate conflict of interest, or advertising. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:44, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
I lack good print sources though. WP:RX could probably help but they usually don't do searches through all their access points. I also added the online search template to this section.--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:58, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
WikiProject Canada banner
I have recently copied out a draft version of the United States WikiProject banner at User:John Carter/WikiProject Canada banner, which, when the appropriate input is added, could show material similar to that shown at Template:WikiProject United States/sandbox2, with the material being Canadian, not United States related, of course. I have also previously done similar with the banner for WikiProject Christianity, with it providing assessment information for all the directly related projects.
With the Christianity banner, I tried to organize it in such a way that the most broadly applicable related groups appeared earlier, and the more focused one later in the drop-down. I have a feeling doing something similar with a possible similar banner for Canada might be the best way to go with that, but am not myself quite so sure how the editors who work more frequently with the material think would be the optimum way to arrange the appearance of the related projects. My own idea, FWIW, is to maybe start with those which relate to broad "Canada" based issues first, like Canadian history, music, sports, etc., and then the various provincial/territorial groups, with the groups for individual communities listed directly underneath the province or territory in which they lay. Would such an arrangement make sense to the rest of you?
Also, because I regretably do have way to many pages watchlisted, if and when a consensus on how to proceed is arrived at, it might make sense to notify me at my user talk page so that I can proceed. I regret to say that, given the number of pages I have watchlisted, comments only a few hours hold often appear several hundred entires down, and I might overlook or not see it when and if consensus is arrived at here. However, I would be willing to try to set up the banner in that way if the rest of you gave me an idea which order to place the related WikiProjects in. John Carter (talk) 19:43, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
david suzuki's "Meet The Coywolf"
Could someone please use the newish David Suzuki documentary "Meet the Coywolf" to improve Misplaced Pages? We aren't allowed to watch it over on this side. Chrisrus (talk) 05:50, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Earlier today, an anonymous IP began rewriting Misplaced Pages's articles about First Nations writers Tomson Highway, Evan Adams and Daniel David Moses to assert that they are not actually First Nations people, but instead Eurasian government spies living among the First Nations as infiltrators and interlopers — and with edit summaries such as A Eurasian who has spent a lifetime working for the Canadian government pretending to be American. Misplaced Pages needs to check these alien apartheid entities, such as this colonial Canada government spy, out before they write these entries or A necessary and obvious correction to tell the truth on Misplaced Pages. Needless to say, no real sources were cited to support the new (and obviously WP:BLP-defying) descriptions.
Accordingly, I'd like to request that as many people as possible keep an eye out over the next while in case this kind of unsourced allegation comes back and/or expands to other articles. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 22:30, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
As I noted to you elsewhere, I think, all such IPs should be noted/tracked....there's a larger agenda at work behind them.Skookum1 (talk) 06:17, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh, believe me, I agree completely — frankly I think Misplaced Pages has long needed to stop allowing anonymous IP edits at all, because they're more trouble than they're worth, and our responsibility to be fair and accurate in our coverage of topics is now in conflict with our visibility as a target for vandalism and other agenda editing. But unfortunately that's not a decision that you or I have the ability to make unilaterally — until there's a sitewide consensus established to move to a logged-in-editors-only model, all we can do is watch out for this crap as it arises. Bearcat (talk) 06:54, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
In the header at the top of WP:BLPN I added a link to the revision deletion IRC. Just click the little green 'connect' button in the first red sentence. Those edits and edit summaries should be removed from the histories IMHO. All of the revdel folk on that IRC are admin so they may look into the IPs that made the edits and deal with them.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:50, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
Looking at that I doubt that it would be appropriate for us to use as an actual linked and footnoted citation for anything, given its user-edited nature, but it would certainly be useful for consultation purposes (e.g. seeing what their sources are, and then citing those as references where and when needed.) Bearcat (talk) 04:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Electoral firsts in Canada
I have some issues with Electoral firsts in Canada that I'd like to bring up for discussion. For starters, it's a really badly formatted and ugly list that's in desperate need of some cleanup and style improvement — but more importantly, it seems to be straying from its originally intended purpose in several ways.
For example, while for some roles it properly just lists the first person to attain the distinction, for some others it lists every person who's ever attained the distinction at all. "First Chinese Canadian MP", for instance, lists every Chinese Canadian who has ever served in the House of Commons, not just the first, and "First openly-gay MP" similarly lists every (or, well, actually it's missing one) openly gay MP who has ever served, as well as one who technically predates even Svend but didn't come out until long after his retirement. "First Jewish mayors", on the other hand, seems to list everybody who was ever the first Jewish mayor of their own individual city, but fails to actually explain that that's what it's doing — I wondered, for instance, why Mel Lastman wasn't on it before I realized what the real inclusion criterion was and how that precluded him — and even so there are still "first Jewish mayors" missing. (I'm not 100% sure if Stephen Mandel was Edmonton's first Jewish mayor or whether there were one or more Jews before him, for instance, but somebody needs to be on that list representing Edmonton if that's the criterion.)
There are also some ethnic groupings whose importance on a list of electoral firsts is questionable at best: for instance, is it really a particularly important aspect of Peter Kormos' biography that he was the first Slovak Canadian to run for the leadership of a major party, or of Michael Ignatieff's that he was the first Russian Canadian leader of the Opposition and leader of a major federal political party, or of Ralph Klein's that he was the First German Canadian Provincial Premier? And then there are others (e.g. Dutch) that elide the ethnicity and just single out the first Netherlands-born immigrants to attain a particular distinction instead, and still others (Hungarian, Croatian) that distinguish both the first Canadian-born person of that ethnicity and the first immigrant born in the mother country, even though most other ethnic subsections just list people of that background without regard to nuances of citzenship status.
So, in other words, there's a lot of mess to clean up here and I'd like to see some of it start to actually get cleaned up. Bearcat (talk) 22:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
I took a weed-whacker to the Chinese Canadian section and added a few items elsewhere; the LGBT section needs pruning yet.......an article on Johnder Basran, first Indo-Canadian mayor, needs to be written; his dates as mayor I'll check on with local contacts.....might have even been 1958 when he was elected, he was mayor a long time.Skookum1 (talk) 02:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
I just wrote the editor of the Bridge River-Lillooet News to see if they have a bio or obit for him that can be used as a cite; their own article I think is still a redlink but needs at least a stub, I'll try to get to it in the next while.Skookum1 (talk) 02:48, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
I noticed you whacked the difference between first and first-woman/man. Shouldn't that be included? Though cabinet ministers are not elected, becoming one is a political first, where would that be listed? -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
In re the (now reversed due to my request) of Canoe BC into the City of Salmon Arm as Canoe, Salmon Arm there's a discussion I've started at Talk:Canoe,_British_Columbia#comma_province and it's not unrelated to the previous issue of town/neighbourhood in the previous section. Agassiz is a town, Aldergrove is a town, Fort Langley is a town.....not in the municipal incorporation sense, and the word is also current for lots of unincorporated communities......Yale, Hedley, Boston Bar, Spences Bridge that are spoken of as "towns" though never having had incorporated status (not that I know of....maybe long ago in Spences Bridge's and Yale's cases). Demanding that something be called a "neighbourhood" because Misplaced Pages's "rules" say so isn't appropriate; Misplaced Pages is supposed to reflect reality, not change or re-brand it. in the case of the comma-province issue, nobody writes "Agassiz, Kent" or "Ladner, Delta" on a shipping parcel or letter or whatever.....Skookum1 (talk) 06:14, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Skookum1, applying the neighbourhood rule to rural towns violates WP:COMMONNAME. I would give it a pass for being mere disambiguation if it used brackets like normal disambiguation, but if we're using a comma I think we should use common usage. If Fort McMurray required disambiguation, I could accept "Fort McMurray, Alberta" or "Fort McMurray (Wood Buffalo)", but not "Fort McMurray, Wood Buffalo"; built up areas in rural municipalities are not the same thing as neighbourhoods. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 18:46, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
That's not the naming convention. But more importantly, I fail to see how it violates COMMONNAME. The common name here is Fort McMurray. Just because we use a comma in disambiguation does not mean we are addressing a letter. Disambiguation isn't intended to reflect common usage (the vast majority of disambiguation on Misplaced Pages does not) - it's a means for us in the encyclopedia to consistently name articles when there are conflicts for the same article name. And how does the ruralness of a place affect its common name? People in cities use commas, and people in rural areas use brackets? More importantly, where would we draw the line? At what point does something become rural? What if half the population drives into the nearest town for work, like is so often the case? With amalgamations, we have urban municipalities in Canada containing what many people would call rural settlements, albeit many of them contain suburban tract housing. What constitutes rural, if it is, say, located within the City of Ottawa? This is what we were trying to avoid in those lengthy discussions about the naming convention - inconsistent naming based on personal perceptions of what people think people call places and the subjective perceptions of the identity of some places versus others. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
The reason, by the way, commas were chosen for unincorporated settlements was because someone at the time suggested we should leave brackets for DABbing geographic features. I think that's even reflected in the naming convention. Is that the problem? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 19:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
I think that we should consider common usage because using commas isn't like normal disambiguation. When we use parentheses for disambiguation, we can put whatever is most convenient and useful in the parentheses. However, when we use commas, I think that we should look for something that is actually said. To my ears, names like "Agincourt, Toronto" and "Saint-Henri, Montreal" flow almost as naturally as "Saint John, New Brunswick", whereas names like "Ladner, Delta" or "Fort McMurray, Wood Buffalo" seem artificial. That said, we do need a standardized rule, and I'm not sure where to draw the threshold. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 22:24, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree that commas are not like normal disambiguation (is that in our policies or guideline?s). Disambiguation isn't intended to be like "something that is actually said" (which, unfortunately, is an incredibly subjective standard), and how terms "flow" to the ears is another personal and highly debatable standard (I don't think you would disagree). Disambiguation and how we would address a parcel are two separate and distinct issues. The threshold issue you've raised is the fundamental problem (as I hinted at above) -- the reason for the current naming convention, if you look at the old discussions, is that we tried to establish a clear, unambiguous standard that was not dependent on personal perceptions so that we could at some point achive naming consistency. I don't see commas as the problem, but as I asked above, would this be solved by brackets (which you seem to suggest is the case)? Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Not sure it would be solved by brackets. What would we then do with the following and countless other examples around the world?
I don't think we should actually use parentheses for city disambiguation, that was more for the sake of comparison. My point is that when using parentheses for disambiguation you can put anything you want in them, but when using other forms of disambiguation, like commas for cities (or, for example, middle initials for people), we should at least give some consideration to actual usage. But above all we need a standard so we don't have to fight over ever case, which is why I like the Canada Post standard. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 20:04, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Since this discussion is about "comma-province" versus "comma-city", I suggest that we abandon any further discussion about "comma disambiguation" versus "parentheses disambiguation" and save that for a later discussion whether here or elsewhere. Hwy43 (talk) 23:03, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't think it's helpful to say certain issues are off limits (I know your comment was well intended and you were just trying to keep us on topic - I'm not criticizing you, just saying I think the scope is different). We appear to have a situation here some people seem to have an issue with the punctuation rather than the form of disambiguation. It's a potential solution. Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Fair enough. You are correct it was well-intended and an effort to keep on topic for the assumed benefit to the editor that opened the discussion, and no intention other than that. Hwy43 (talk) 19:41, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Okay, let me get this straight, I don't think I've been following this convention properly in the past. If it's an original name, with no disam needed, its just "Neighbourhood". If it needs disambiguation, it should always be "Neighbourhood, City". But then WP:CANSTYLE leaves it up to Canada Post, saying: "Where a neighbourhood is recognized as a distinct and valid municipal address by Canada Post, the title may be at "Neighbourhood, Province" rather than "Neighbourhood, City". Is that about right? The Interior(Talk)23:26, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Interesting, it looks we already have Sookum1's shipping convention in CANSTYLE. By that measure, Salmon Arm, Aldergrove, Yale, Hedley, Boston Bar, Spences Bridge, Agassiz, Fort McMurray, and Saint-Henri can be at "City, Province", but Fort Langley, Ladner, and Agincourt have to be at "Neighbourhood, City". I'm okay with that standard. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes. That's right. That's basically how it works. As I said at Talk:Canoe, British Columbia (we have two simultaneous discussions ongoing on the same topic), "The naming convention/MOS is crystal clear, and as Skookum says, it was the subject of lots of discussion. If disambiguation is required, neighbourhoods/villages/settlements/etc. (i.e. unincorporated settlements) are disambiguated by the name of the municipality. In special cases, we use the province - for this latter group of articles, so as to avoid arbitrary, circular and subjective discussions about whether a place has an historic identity or not (every place has a historic identity) or even more irrelevant discussions about what people would write on an envelope, a clear and unambiguous (and necessarily arbitrary) threshold was established - if Canada Post currently itself uses the "Place, Province" as a distinct mailing address, then here on Misplaced Pages we disambiguate by province. If not, we disambiguate by municipality. The point of having a clear threshold was to avoid subjective and endless oxygen-sucking discussions about identity, usage, regional quirks, personal views, etc., all of which had resulted in inconsistent and confusing naming of these articles." Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
The issue, Skookum, is not about making one person happy, or arguing endlessly about personal perceptions of what places have their own history/identity (as far as I am concerned, every single settlement in the country has its own history and identity - and frankly, someone in China or Italy at this moment reading this would tell us that in her perspective every settlement in Canada was founded yesterday as they are all so relatively new). The issue is finding a convention that is clear, unambiguous and predicatable (which is what we have now), and is not dependent on having lengthy arguments at each article over whether a place is rural or not (or how rural it is), whether it is in a separate valley, how much of an "identity" it has, and other personal, subjective and debatable criteria. The naming convention is the naming convention. It can always be reviewed (as I said at the Canoe talk page), but if we want something different, we need to determine what other clear, unambiguous and predictable standard to use. Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree. The convention currently is clear, unambiguous and predicatable, as it should be. It should not be subjective at all. My comment is that I feel that "distinct and valid municipal address by Canada Post" should not be the only criteria. Other non-subjective, clear-cut criteria could and should be added. If not, there are so many existing communities articles with disambiguated names that are not compliant with CANSTYLE. Hwy43 (talk) 20:08, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes, we've never undertaken a concerted effort for all Canadian place articles to make them consistent with CANSTYLE, it's always been a piecemeal/fix-as-you-go approach. As for havng an additional criterion, often using more than one criteria can make a convention or guideline more complicated or less clear, but not always. It depends on what it is. Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:57, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Further, are you suggesting determining what other clear, unambiguous and predictable standard to use instead of the current clear, unambiguous and predictable standard, or suggesting other(s) to add in addition to the current? I'm comfortable with the current, but adding one or more others as just mentioned above. Hwy43 (talk) 20:22, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm fine with what exists, but also acknowledge that naming conventions are not cast in stone. As for adding, it depends on what it is. Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:57, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Again, I don't think this has anything to do with COMMONNAME, as disambiguation rarely reflects the common name of something. Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't understand what point you're trying to make. I think everyone is happy with using "City, Province" for incorporated cities; no one is arguing to call Armstrong a town. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Armstrong is a city, not a town. The "town" argument here is about refusing to admit that somewhere IS a town just because it's inside a muni (Aldergrove is very decidedly a town in the non-municipal sense of the word and is regularly described as such; it has rural areas but it is not a "rural community" either......Skookum1 (talk) 02:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Nobody is refusing to admit whether something is a town or not. This has nothing to do with towns. This is a naming convention that says if something is unincorporated, we have a certain naming convention for it. It's disambiguation, and has nothing to with whether it is a town or not. We are not making any statements as to what people may or may not call it, and frankly we are not saying that any of the people that call a place a town, hamlet, village, etc. are wrong.Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I guess you didn't get the memo....someone here posited that "if it's not incorporated as a town, we can't call it a town".....Skookum1 (talk) 04:29, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
A related example that hasn't come up yet is the host of communities within the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality (word is the province is going to do this to other regions of the province soon......maybe that's just a BC Lib plan, though, and will be poofed as of the May election).......Fort Nelson, Northern Rockies is a "neighbourhood" then according to the logic that is being advanced here, and "should not be referred to as a town"; it's currently Fort Nelson, British Columbia....can't remember the other placenames up there (the NRRM is huge. The usual style in BC media/publications for places like Agassiz or Aldergrove goes "is a small town in the District/Township of Kent/Langley. What's called Matsqui Village now used to be just Matsqui, which meant both the town and the village core that's still there (just south of the Mission bridge)....and also included Clearbrook and Bradner.......Clayburn was unincorporated until the creation of the City of Abbotsford....and is much older than Abbotsford......Clayburn, Abbotsford is a non-starter, ditto Silverdale, Mission.Skookum1 (talk) 02:49, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Say, if the government turns the Fraser Valley Regional District into the Fraser Valley Regional Municipality (as has been talked about, though sounds like the City of Chilliwack would be separate, the way Abby is now withdrawn from the FVRD because of the water supply fight (another reason why RDs aren't really good ways to subdivide the province for categorization purposes; they're mutable), then Yale, British Columbia would become, according to this "neighbourhood, city" paradigm, Yale, Fraser Valley, likewise Spuzzum, British Columbia to Spuzzum, Fraser Valley and Boston Bar, British Columbia to Boston Bar, Fraser Valley]....all of them being actually in the Fraser Canyon which is not part of the Fraser Valley only included in the regional district that has that name as its namesake (the Valley ends at Hope). The argument advancing Wiki "rules" here vs the facts on the ground does not hold water for me at all.Skookum1 (talk) 02:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree with much of Skookum1's arguments in the three immediate edits above (with the exception of one thing that he is aware about outside of this discussion) under certain conditions, particularly the Fort Nelson case. I just brought up a similar examplehere about Alberta's hamlets. Hwy43 (talk) 04:39, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
According to the Canada Post standard, Rosedale and Fort Nelson should be at "city, province". It looks like the Canada Post standard recognizes towns in regional municipalities when they are isolated or have a particular history and identity. It's not a perfect system, but it's verifiable, and I think it's better than us arguing about whether each community has enough independent identity to be treated as a town or neighbourhood. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 07:35, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Toad River, Prophet River, Tetsa Lake are also IRs.....not sure how they interact with the NRRM...probably not all that amicably. The NRRM was created to subvert land claims in the area, which (mostly) is part of Treaty 8. IRs are not part of RD governments, other than Tsawwassen FN in the GVRD and maybe the Sechelt Nation in the Sunshine Coast RD; including them in RD articles is always awkward because of them not being part of regional districts, only within their boundaries - which is not the same thing.Skookum1 (talk) 07:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I've explained many times now why I think Skookum's approach is so problematic. We can't have a naming convention dependent on the personal perceptions of whatever editors happen to swing by at any given time, based on their own crietria related to identity, distinctiveness, etc. I agree with Arctic Gnome's last comment. Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Skookum1: Muncho Lake, Toad River, and Prophet River would all stay at City, Province under the Canada Post standard, so I don't understand what your concern is. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 17:56, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
They were examples of the result of a rigid application of the "place, municipality" style of disambiguation apparently being demanded as fixed and mandatory by others here.Skookum1 (talk) 04:26, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
I'd say because of the peerage (for a title holder of which it was named) it does need a dab page. Yes Revelstoke Park, Mount Revelstoke and Revelstoke DAm and Airport and what not are all ancillary to the main Canadian use, but it's not the main use in the UK where the term originated (nor is the village in Devon).Skookum1 (talk) 05:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
This is the latest reversal of repeated attempts to insert highly POV accounts of the Casinogate legal proceeding/scandal and Dix's re-dating of a memo to do with that; some insertions have been cited, this one wasn't, but they all come from the same agenda - the re-dated letter is one of the main BC Liberal talking points about Dix. Different IP addresses have been used, at least one such insertion was from a SPA......six or seven times. This page is only going to see more of this in coming weeks, with the BC election scheduled in May.....needs a semi-protect of full-protect. And Casinogate needs an article, tricky as it will be to cite (given that the mainstream media, the so-called "reliable sources" were part of the witchhunt) and to keep NPOV. I'm kinda COI to write it because of my blogging activities against the BC Libs and their kind.....Casinogate is the one big major "scandal" (Clark was acquitted but had "done the right thing" and resigned when the investigation started, unlike other Premiers since who refuse to resign or admit any wrongdoing despite evidence coming out the ying-yang against them, as also with Ottawa lately). Another Clark-era article needing writing is Salmon War, though that's less of a POV bombshell than Casinogate will be.Skookum1 (talk) 02:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
