Wikipedia talk:Canada collaboration

message: Tommy Douglas next collaboration? He has five votes now and the deadline is only a few days away. So we'll work on this article for April? Bremen 21:45, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

message: CTOW and several variations are used throughout the main article and discussion page without any explanation of what the initials mean. Give us a break! If you want others to contribute you should be willing to explain what you are talking about. GreatWhiteNortherner 19:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Meaning

message: I've updated Liberalism in Canada and the CCOTW box for February. Do we have a Former CCOTW template?--Circeus 19:55, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)
:There's no "former CCOTW" template - I don't personally think we need one. Do other COTWs use them? -Lommer | talk 20:38, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and I like the template. I put it on my own user page. --Spinboy 07:12, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? There's the CCOTW template which you have on your user page, but this thread is about a "former CCOTW" template that would (if created) be used to mark articles as having been a previous CCOTW. -Lommer | talk 22:06, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update 

message: The CCOTW seems to be languishing a bit; there are very few of us following the CCOTW, and it isn't actively promoted, as far as I can tell. In order to get people interested in this, we should focus ourselves more.
I propose that for each CCOTW, we spend the first few days finding resources on the internet, and posting them to the appropriate CCOTW's Talk Page; we should categorize those resources by validity (eg - government and academic sources have more value than Joe's Fansite on any particular subject, in genenral), and perhaps subject matter.
This would give someone who wants to contribute, but doesn't want to do research, ready access to relavent information. I hope this will spur greater involvement in the CCOTW. Any thoughts? Mindmatrix 17:35, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A structured approach to CCOTW

message: Hi,  I would like to nominate the Gemini Awards as the colaboration of the moment.  
I've just made some changes to it but it is kinda choppy and not very logical.
User:Dowew March 25th 2005.
:In order to nominate an article as a CCOTW candidate, simply add it to the list of nominations on the project page. Mindmatrix 15:04, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gemini Awards 

message: I just thought I would let the Canadian's know that there is an effort at the moment to bring Order of Canada up to featured article status, in case anyone has any idea's for the article Dowew 00:49, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The FAC was closed, the result was that the Order of Canada article was promoted to Featured status. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 00:52, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order of Canada Featured Article 

message: Circeus, why did you remove the Canadian topics on other COTW projects? i.e.,  Coquitlam, British Columbia on WP:COTWS and Cinema of Canada on Cinema Collaboration of the Week. DoubleBlue (Talk) 17:10, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canadian topics on other COTW projects 

message: I notice there has not been a lot of activity over at October Crisis, the current CCOTW. I assume this is because the article is already fairly complete. Would it be wise to start a Peer Review during its term as a CCOTW to work towards a Featured article? Zhatt 21:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  October Crisis 

message: A few days ago I attended a lecture by former Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps.  I recorded the lecture on a digital record which I had with me.  The quality is fairly good and is a very moving and informative speech in which she surprisingly said very little to critise the current Liberal government ...with the exception of saying that she and the party are in different places.  I am wondering if this sort of thing can (or should) be uploaded to wikipedia...or is there some other wikithing (like maybe wikisource or something) that it should be uploaded to Dowew 22:06, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure, but I suspect that there may be copyright issues. I think it's probably the same situation as recording a band at a concert. You've basically got a Sheila Copps bootleg. Pburka 01:32, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

text: If this was a private function, in which you had to pay a fee to get in, or be a member of some organization (including student/staff at university, for example), then Pburka is right - you've got a recording that should only be used for personal use, or to use for quotes. If this was delivered in a public forum which had no restrictions on attendance (other than fire code regulations, of course), then its OK. Use your judgement. Mindmatrix 02:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There was no entrance fee and although it was at The University of Western Ontario it was open to the public Dowew 02:59, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: OK - please don't take this as legal advice, I am not an expert in the field. Keep in mind that all works, including speeches, are automatically granted copyright status in the US and Canada, and many other Western countries. Since my comments last night, I've thought about it some more, and I think this is the same as a writer publishing a book - the book is available to the public (even for free at libraries), but is still covered by copyright. I think it's OK to provide excerpts, even extended ones, so long as you don't post the whole thing, and stay within the 10% rule; that is, release no more than 10% of the speech, and not all of it a continuous stream. I'd be interested in hearing opinions from those more familiar with these issues, though. Mindmatrix 15:35, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about uploading a file 

message: Hi. I've created a new template for CCOTW discussions, and will move and re-structure this page soon (within a few days). For a rough preview, please see User:Mindmatrix/alpha. If there are any objections, please let me know. Mindmatrix 18:12, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Updating the CCOTW

message: I know that one of the objectives of the Canada collaboration is to help articles achieve Feature Article status. Of the ones I have seen done recently, I think Oka Crisis is ready for a peer review. I admittedly did not have a lot to do with this one, so is there someone else ready to champion it if it is submitted? Captmondo 20:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Is [[Oka Crisis]] Ready for Peer Review?

message: The current collaboration, CSIS, has seen next to no significant edits. Some of the votes that were used in declaring CSIS as th March winner were fairly old, and I'd say stale.
Perhaps before we make the same mistake in April, we might consider dropping votes off the rolls once they're four months old. This might help to ensure that only people currently involved in Wiki-editing are being accounted for. Not a perfect solution, but it would certainly see topics with recent high vote counts get the editing treatment they deserve from the community as a whole. For instance, Leader of the Opposition (Canada) looks like it's going to win April, yet many of it's votes date back to August and September 2005. Stale votes. In second place is Athabasca Oil Sands, all of whose votes were cast in March, recent voting, which supposes people currently in a Wiki- editing mood.
If old votes are dropped, then the people who voted four or more months ago for a particular topic (for instance Leader of the Opposition (Canada)) will simply cast their vote again to show their interest, which also shows that the voters are people who are still active in the Wiki- community.
Just thoughts. Seems obvious something about the voting should be changed to ensure that current collaborations see the most active input from the community. --Dogbreathcanada 12:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * I compared the articles and Leader of the Opposition (Canada) looks like a stub compared to Athabasca Tar Sands, I'd like to nominate the other, but it has to go sometimes and rules need to be followed. Even if it is ignored in April we have an exciting article collabaration coming in May (that looks to be on the way to a FA, perhaps?). feydey 20:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * Maybe the rules should be changed/updated for upcoming months. There's little point blindly following a set of rules that aren't working properly. --Dogbreathcanada 20:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *I agree, what ideas for change You have? feydey 21:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collaboration Voting Changes 

message: :I wrote this in the talk of the history list of prior nominees; I realise reading the above comments that I'm repeating a lot of what's already been said, but I thought since I'd already written it I'd cross-post it here, since mine was the only post on that talk page, lol.
=== So how's it going? ===
I don't know if I'm posting this in the right place; maybe it's being discussed elsewhere. But after a year and a bit, how's the project going? I noticed that none of the articles worked on have achieved one of the stated goals (to become FAs), and in fact only one was nominated. I know it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to get ALL object votes (even the crappy pop songs nominated get a few yeses, lol), but I think it's weird that nothing was done about it.
I don't want to seem like an armchair quarterback here, and my apologies if I'm saying something that's already been said or that offends, but I have a few observations/pieces of advice:
#The goals of this project should be clarified. Is the goal to achieve FA status? And if so, who will be responsible for ensuring the article: a) meets basic FA criteria, b) is nominated, c) receives attention to correct deficiencies per comments during nomination, d) is re-visited in the event of failure, etc... Or is the goal just to improve the article? I looked on the discussion pages of ALL the previous nomination winners, and I don't think ANY of them had even a to-do list.
#IMO firstly - whether or not the goal is FA status - when an article is voted CCOTM or whatever, a message should be posted with a 'to-do' list. This is particularly important if - in fact - one of the goals of the project remains to elevate articles to FA status. Do the editors even know what is typically required for a FA? I noticed (not a criticism) that the article on Simon Fraser, AFTER collaboration, still doesn't have a reference section. There could actually be TWO to-do lists; one standard one for featured article candidates (for people to use as a guide) and a specific one written by someone who has evaluated the article (perhaps the nominator). Or maybe just a link to the FA criteria.
#The question is, who should do this? Well I think that the article nominator should be responsible for coordinating the improvement effort; s/he should be willing to at the very least: a) do a to-do list for improvement, keep track of it, strike off items that are completed, etc; b) contact all the nomination voters and ask them to at least give it a read-through and provide comments; c) decide at the end of the improvement period whether the goals were met, what the next step should be, etc.
#And what about FA status? The same month the nomination for Geography of Canada failed, Get Back by The Beatles succeeded, along with 30 odd other articles (several of them on Canada). I'm not trying to be harsh here, sorry if I am brusque. But if you look at other FA nominations, the nominators and other supporters frequently: respond to criticisms, ask for clarification, offer to fix things, and check back to find out if the changes satisfied the commenter. None of that happened with the GoC page. Furthermore, to repeat, the article got NO support votes. It also didn't get A SINGLE VOTE from anyone who had NOMINATED THE ARTICLE AS A COLLABORATION. I'm in now way an expert on FAs, but I've been reading a *lot* of failed and succeeded nomination pages and article talk pages, and it's amazing how much commitment it takes to elevate an article to FA. Even drippy pop topics like Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, Cool (song), La La (song), and We Belong Together have committed project managers, to-do lists that are frequently referred to, added to and crossed off, and a lot of them get FA status.
#Personally, I don't think anyone should nominate an article unless they are willing to mentor it through the improvement process (even notwithstanding FA elevation). I also think that anyone who *votes* for the articles that make CCOTM should be at least willing to give the article they voted for a critical and thorough read-through to establish weaknesses, and make a list thereof in the talk page. I also think that, re: FA status, the CCOTM project manager should be responsible for helping the article mentor nominate the article for FA status, and that *all* the people who voted for the article to be made a CCOTM should at least *vote* in the FA nomination (whether for or against). But there's no point in nominating an article for FA status if there isn't at least one person who's willing to make the changes necessary to improve the article/satisfy objectors; maybe that was the problem with GoC. Would it be Wiki-Kosher to have a list somewhere in the Canada Portal or the Canada Collaboration listing Canadian (or just CCOTM) articles nominated for FA status?
#Another direction to go might be to flag the CCOTM articles for Peer Review after the collaboration period is done. PR is now an encouraged/accepted step in advance of FA candidacy, intended to intercept inferior articles and improve them before they get to the FA nomination stage.
I REALLY hope no-one takes this to be criticism, I really don't mean it as such; I just think this is a great idea but it doesn't seem to have borne much fruit after almost 18 months, and I hope some of my suggestions might help.--Anchoress 04:39, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How is it going? Copied from CC history 

message: I don't know if I'm posting this in the right place; maybe it's being discussed elsewhere. But after a year and a bit, how's the project going? I noticed that none of the articles worked on have achieved one of the stated goals (to become FAs), and in fact only one was nominated. I know it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to get ALL object votes (even the crappy pop songs nominated get a few yeses, lol), but I think it's weird that nothing was done about it.
I don't want to seem like an armchair quarterback here, and my apologies if I'm saying something that's already been said or that offends, but I have a few observations/pieces of advice:
#The goals of this project should be clarified. Is the goal to achieve FA status? And if so, who will be responsible for ensuring the article: a) meets basic FA criteria, b) is nominated, c) receives attention to correct deficiencies per comments during nomination, d) is re-visited in the event of failure, etc... Or is the goal just to improve the article? I looked on the discussion pages of ALL the previous nomination winners, and I don't think ANY of them had even a to-do list.
#IMO firstly - whether or not the goal is FA status - when an article is voted CCOTM or whatever, a message should be posted with a 'to-do' list. This is particularly important if - in fact - one of the goals of the project remains to elevate articles to FA status. Do the editors even know what is typically required for a FA? I noticed (not a criticism) that the article on Simon Fraser, AFTER collaboration, still doesn't have a reference section. There could actually be TWO to-do lists; one standard one for featured article candidates (for people to use as a guide) and a specific one written by someone who has evaluated the article (perhaps the nominator). Or maybe just a link to the FA criteria.
#The question is, who should do this? Well I think that the article nominator should be responsible for coordinating the improvement effort; s/he should be willing to at the very least: a) do a to-do list for improvement, keep track of it, strike off items that are completed, etc; b) contact all the nomination voters and ask them to at least give it a read-through and provide comments; c) decide at the end of the improvement period whether the goals were met, what the next step should be, etc.
#And what about FA status? The same month the nomination for Geography of Canada failed, Get Back by The Beatles succeeded, along with 30 odd other articles (several of them on Canada). I'm not trying to be harsh here, sorry if I am brusque. But if you look at other FA nominations, the nominators and other supporters frequently: respond to criticisms, ask for clarification, offer to fix things, and check back to find out if the changes satisfied the commenter. None of that happened with the GoC page. Furthermore, to repeat, the article got NO support votes. It also didn't get A SINGLE VOTE from anyone who had NOMINATED THE ARTICLE AS A COLLABORATION. I'm in now way an expert on FAs, but I've been reading a *lot* of failed and succeeded nomination pages and article talk pages, and it's amazing how much commitment it takes to elevate an article to FA. Even drippy pop topics like Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, Cool (song), La La (song), and We Belong Together have committed project managers, to-do lists that are frequently referred to, added to and crossed off, and a lot of them get FA status.
#Personally, I don't think anyone should nominate an article unless they are willing to mentor it through the improvement process (even notwithstanding FA elevation). I also think that anyone who *votes* for the articles that make CCOTM should be at least willing to give the article they voted for a critical and thorough read-through to establish weaknesses, and make a list thereof in the talk page. I also think that, re: FA status, the CCOTM project manager should be responsible for helping the article mentor nominate the article for FA status, and that *all* the people who voted for the article to be made a CCOTM should at least *vote* in the FA nomination (whether for or against). But there's no point in nominating an article for FA status if there isn't at least one person who's willing to make the changes necessary to improve the article/satisfy objectors; maybe that was the problem with GoC. Would it be Wiki-Kosher to have a list somewhere in the Canada Portal or the Canada Collaboration listing Canadian (or just CCOTM) articles nominated for FA status?
#Another direction to go might be to flag the CCOTM articles for Peer Review after the collaboration period is done. PR is now an encouraged/accepted step in advance of FA candidacy, intended to intercept inferior articles and improve them before they get to the FA nomination stage.
I REALLY hope no-one takes this to be criticism, I really don't mean it as such; I just think this is a great idea but it doesn't seem to have borne much fruit after almost 18 months, and I hope some of my suggestions might help.--Anchoress 04:39, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  So how's it going? 

message: Oleg Alexandrov has raised the issue on Wikipedia talk:Collaborations of whether the template for the current winner of a collaboration should go on the article or the talk page. You might be interested in taking part. Pruneau 00:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template on Article or Talk page? 

message: Let us know if you happen to pick an article on a person and we'll alert our members! plange 05:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Biography 

message: As sad it is, I suggest closing CC as the amount of nominations and votes to new nominations are very low. So at the end of this year (2006) this collaboration will be shut down (  ) unless some unexpected interest will rise. CC maintainer, feydey 11:59, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shutting down CC 

message: I've been going over the bests lists about Candian topics and nominating them on Wikipedia:Featured list candidates.  The requirements for a list to be featured are easier than for articles, so most lists wouldn't take much work to get to featured status.  Being reviewed now are:
*List of Canadian Leaders of the Opposition,
*List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada,
*List of Alberta general elections,
*List of British Columbia general elections, and
*List of Manitoba general elections.
--Arctic Gnome 19:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lists