# Talk:Order of Nova Scotia

For the 2006 ONS recipients, I don't think Mayanne Francis actually recived the ONS, she is just the Lt. Gov for Nova Scotia, I don't think she should be listed under Recipients. I took her off unless someone has something that says she actually did get it. An7drew 17:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Order of Nova Scotia/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Nominator: MediaKyle (talk · contribs) 13:01, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 23:55, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
This is clearly written, and appears to consistently use Canadian spelling (to the extent that Canadian spelling is itself consistent...; WP:GACR 1(a)) The lead appropriately summarizes the body, section ordering is ok, and the incorporated list of notable recipients is fit for the topic and consistently formatted (WP:GACR 1(b)). However, re the incorporated list, I wonder about its inclusion criterion. The edit history makes clear that this is not intended as a list of all bluelinked recipients (currently 70 of them), but a more brief summary of some of those recipients. It would be helpful to have a clear explanation both of this fact and of what criteria were used to choose whom to include and whom to exclude. Is inclusion based on having individual news coverage of their receipt of the award? Something to say about the award beyond their receipt of it, such as "youngest recipient"? Something else?
Some minor copyediting notes:

"a person who serves as the chair": WP:PLEONASM. It would be surprising if a non-person could serve as chair. Just "the chair" would be better.
"those who are elected or appointed members": again, removing "those who are" would be an improvement.
"This committee then meets ... following the nominee's death." and "The lieutenant governor ... use the post-nominal letters ONS." These two sentences are both too long and end on a completely different idea than their starts.
"A total of 13 appointments were made to the order in 2002" ... "inductions are limited to five per year" ... "Sidney Crosby among 6 awarded Order of Nova Scotia": don't these contradict each other?
Although Earwig gave this a relatively high score of 32.4% similarity with https://novascotia.ca/iga/order.asp, it did not think the copying was problematic, and I agree. It mostly consists of proper noun phrases and properly marked quotes. All sources appear reliable, and consistently formatted. Many of the sources are primary rather than secondary, but I think enough are both secondary and about the award itself to convey notability. Spot-checking was made difficult by paywalled sources, and most of the sources are of minor significance to the article (merely noting some individual membership), but the ones I was able to read checked out (WP:GACR 2).
Re completeness of the article (WP:GACR 3(a):

What was the history that led Nova Scotia to create this award? Were they doing so as part of a broader initiative among multiple Canadian provinces, were they following earlier efforts of other provinces, or was this sort of award something they pioneered?
"The reverse of the badge features a three digit number." The same number for everyone? A member number? If it is a member number, do they re-use numbers of deceased members? What do they do when they reach more than 999 members?
Some of the detail is a little low-level, but there's little enough of it that I don't see it as being problematic (WP:GACR 3(b)).
I don't see any problem with neutrality, and although the article is relatively new it appears to have stabilized with only relatively minor changes continuing (WP:GACR 4,5).
The images have been on commons for a long time, are labeled there with an open license, are appropriate to the article, and are properly captioned. However, I wonder about something regarding the image licensing. The CC-BY-SA license on the three images appears to concern the rights of the person who created the images themselves (the photographer, for the two photos). However, they are pictures of works of art (decorative art rather than fine art but still art). It appears that in Canada, works produced by the government such as coins and postage stamps are held in Crown copyright for 50 years. Are the insignia of this order copyrighted? If so, under what right can we reproduce an image of those insignia? (WP:GACR 6).
My overall impression is that this could well pass GA but it still needs a little cleanup first, and especially clarification of the image copyrights. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:44, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the thorough review. I had not considered either of the points you made on completeness, and there is in fact quite a bit to say about the background of the provincial orders, so I suppose that should be included here as well. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a single source that says what the number on the insignia is, for any province - even McCreery's The Canadian Honours System simply says "There is a three-digit number on the reverse". Not sure how I'll deal with that one yet.
As for the list, I had been thinking about that myself, and I tried to include only those who received news coverage as a result of being inducted to the Order, but said coverage is lacking for the earliest inductees, and people like Carrie Best and Daniel N. Paul really ought to be on there in my opinion. I'll dig harder and see if I can find a news article to attach to the remaining names, and I suppose whatever I can't cite can be removed for consistency.
In regards to images, it's worth noting that I'm pretty inexperienced with copyright, but I don't think the images are an issue. They were uploaded by the Lieutenant Governor's office themselves, and when I just reviewed the copy of The Canadian Honours System I have on loan right now there's a "Photo Credits" section in which it appears Mr. McCreery took many of the photos of the insignias himself and published them as a part of his book, and I don't see any note regarding having been given permission, so I suppose that would be a strong indicator that the insignia isn't under copyright. I know the coat of arms is public domain though, and the insignia does include part of it, so maybe the tags should be adjusted?
I'll work on implementing your feedback over the course of the day and ping you when I'm complete. Cheers, MediaKyle (talk) 11:22, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
Re the copyright on the insignia: see a very similar case, Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:NS Platinum Jubilee Medal (back).jpg, on a different medal uploaded by the same uploader, where the consensus of the discussion was that we did not have sufficient evidence that the holder of the copyright on the object had released their copyright. There is also a related discussion Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:125th Anniversary of Confederation Medal.jpg where a photo by someone else of their own medal was agreed to be under Crown copyright. What makes this one different? Do we have evidence beside the similarity of names that a release from commons user "LGNSComms" constitutes an official release of Crown copyright? Even if we believe that this is really the communication office of the lieutenant governor, isn't it just a case of someone uploading a photo of their own medal? I suspect however that it would be permissible to use one (but not two) of these images, downsampled and locally uploaded to Wikipedia not Wikimedia Commons, under an appropriate fair use rationale, because there could be no free equivalent and no issue of conflict with commercial opportunities. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:11, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
I appreciate the links to previous discussions. I really don't know how to handle this, to tell you the truth. I'm quite certain that the LGNSComms account is in fact an account created by the communications department of the lieutenant governor's office, see the user named 1451Barrington for more information on that. If Christopher McCreery could publish pictures he took of the medals in a book published by Dundurn Press, I really don't think there's an actual copyright issue, or surely the editors at Dundurn would've figured that out - licensing information in The Canadian Honours System is provided for images on the cover which are taken with permission from various government departments, but most images of medals are his own photographs, with no additional licensing information. I'm not even sure if it's true that the insignia is produced by the RCM, I've seen no reference to that in the literature, only that it was designed by a Christopher Cairns. Of course I do recognize the concern here and this should be rectified. I could reach out to the lieutenant governor's office directly and ask them to send a proper release through VRT, I suppose. I've also had the thought that at some point I may replace the images in the infobox for every provincial order with an illustration of its insignia, something like you see at Order of Manitoba, but not drawn in paint and without the ribbon. I'm not particularly a fan of the idea of reducing the article to only one image, as then the image of the insignia would surely have to go in the infobox, when it belongs more under the "Insignia" section. If you have any more thoughts on what option might be best please let me know, otherwise leave it with me and I'll try to come up with a solution.
Other than the images, I believe I've cleaned up the article to a point where it's satisfactory. I made a number of changes beyond your suggestions as well, with rationales recorded in the edit history. MediaKyle (talk) 21:13, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
Licensing for a one-time use in a single publication is not the same as the licensing that Wikipedia demands, which releases all claims to copyright, for both commercial and non-commercial use, to anyone in the world (not just Wikipedia), constrained only by a requirement for proper credit. So the fact that one publisher has published a book with these images is very unconvincing as proof that the image copyright has been properly licensed. I think the two past deletion discussions are much more on-target than that book publication. But since this appears to be contentious, I'm going to request a second opinion on this GA nomination, so we can get wider input on it. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:19, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
Sorry if I was unclear - these exact images are not in the book, I mean Christopher McCreery took a photo of the insignia of the Order of Nova Scotia himself, which he then published in the book. I just took a look at the FA Order of Canada which uses File:Replica Order of Canada member medal.jpg, but it's a replica. I'm not sure if that has any bearing on the copyright status though, as for all we know the insignia pictured in this article could also be a replica. What a dilemma this is. MediaKyle (talk) 21:22, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
I looked into this further, and I believe I've figured it out. These images would in fact be subject to crown copyright if we're operating on the assumption that they were released by someone within the communications department of the lieutenant governor; not due to the fact they were medals, but because the image was prepared by a government department. Based on other articles regarding medals, and my interpretation of copyright guidelines, I actually don't think there's a free-use rationale for either of these images because someone could technically take photos of these as an individual and release them and they would not be subject to crown copyright. It may unfortunately be the only option to simply remove the images altogether until hopefully someday a replacement can be found. I'm sorry if my messages gave off an argumentative vibe at all by the way, that wasn't my intent. Just realized what you said about this being contentious, I'm not trying to be stubborn, just trying to figure this out. MediaKyle (talk) 21:48, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
To clarify, it's not about the images. The regalia themselves are under Crown copyright. If you take a photograph of a copyrighted object, you can release your own intellectual property rights to the image you have made, but the copyright in the object itself is not subject to your control and adheres to the photograph that you have taken. I am satisfied that LGNScomms released the copyright to the images. It is the copyright to the underlying object, adhering to the images, that I am concerned about. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:22, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
I see what you mean. What confuses me though is that I haven't really seen anything to suggest that medals are copyrighted in the same way works of art like murals are. Another image from the FA Order of Canada is File:3 Order of Canada grades.JPG, which appears to be genuine medals. This is sort of a case of WP:OTHERSTUFF but I still think it's relevant to the conversation. I do think the images are likely problematic, but I think it's because of who created them, not that they're medals. I asked on the copyright discussion page on the commons, so hopefully we might be able to get some clarification. MediaKyle (talk) 22:27, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
Another complication is Freedom of panorama: if artworks are displayed in public in Canada (at least outdoors) then you are free to take and use photographs of them (and license them for Wikipedia use); this varies by country and some other countries like the US are more restrictive. The other images you link to as examples appear to be from public museums but the images from this article do not appear to be on public display. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:30, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking about in regards to the murals. I ran into that on my other GA Freak Lunchbox, where I was unable to include a picture of the mural because murals actually aren't included in FoP in Canada. I'm going to leave the discussion on the commons open for a while and if we're unable to come up with a satisfactory answer I suppose I'll have to send an email to VRT. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention, I'd much rather deal with this now than after I've already done a few articles for provincial orders. Cheers, MediaKyle (talk) 22:52, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
@David Eppstein, are you satisfied with the answer provided on the commons discussion? The rationale makes sense to me. I will send an email to the lieutenant governor's office tomorrow requesting that they submit the proper VRT permissions, but for the sake of this review, the images seem to be okay. Have you noticed any issues with my edits to the article since the start of the review? Thanks, MediaKyle (talk) 00:21, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
I was waiting until the copyright issues were resolved to take another look at the rest because I did not expect to find any more significant issues elsewhere. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:34, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
Sorry, what I meant was another editor who seems to know about Canadian copyright has since commented on that discussion and they said the images are fine but VRT permissions should still be pursued. If you'd feel more comfortable waiting for that to happen that's okay, but I worry about how long that would take (or if they would even bother to go through the process) and I'm particularly gung-ho about seeing this article receive GA status before this year's appointments are announced and the pageviews briefly spike. MediaKyle (talk) 00:54, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
I'd rather wait for the dust to settle than to jump on the first commenter to say what we want to hear. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:18, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
@David Eppstein, it's been nearly a week now since the start of this review, and I've seen no indication that the images are problematic. The commons discussion has seen no additional input despite being in a very visible noticeboard which leads me to believe that others do not take issue with these images. If you take a look in commons:Category:Medals of Canada you'll see that there are a great deal of images of Canadian regalia which have been on the commons for years, some of which are used in Featured Articles. Furthermore, the Good Article criteria only specifies in regards to image licensing: media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. The media on this article are tagged with their copyright statuses, and I don't feel that we have any reason to doubt them. I have emailed the Lieutenant Governor's office requesting they send a VRT ticket just to be thorough but I wouldn't count on this actually happening. I would politely request that we move on from the issue of the images and focus on the meat and potatoes of the review. Thanks, MediaKyle (talk) 13:41, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
Roughly a week later, there are two responses on the commons thread, one saying "a lot of this is based on speculation" and the other that because it was uploaded by a government office it should be assumed to be a valid release of all relevant Crown copyrights. Nobody has responded to my request for a second opinion on the GA review here. I think we should just go ahead with the GA and not let image copyright be an obstacle, but this may need to be revisited if someone pushes to delete the images at some later time.
There is now a paragraph briefly summarizing the history of provincial orders, setting the appropriate context. The confusion over how many are allowed per year has been resolved. The list of notable members now makes clear that it should be only bluelinked members with individual newspaper coverage of their induction; that seems an appropriately selective and clear-cut inclusion criterion to me, and I'm not particularly concerned whether we have found all people who might qualify (this is an evolving list and cannot be expected to be complete). We don't have an answer to the question of what the three-digit number means, but that's because our sources don't have an answer, so that's ok.
I think that takes care of all of my concerns, so I'm passing this as GA. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:45, 14 April 2025 (UTC)