Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 1

message: *I came across this, but it seems nobody is here! I'm going to look up all the Canadian Wikipedians and ask them to join up. Neutrality (hopefully!) 03:49, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
**About time. I'm on hand to help if I can, but as I'm not Canadian, I don't have the knowledge at hand to draw up to-do lists. Ambi 07:04, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Someone needs to get this started!

message: Nobody ever wrote up Steven Truscott before today? Wow. Bearcat 01:48, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Steven Truscott

message: Clarification question: for List of communities in Ontario, how exactly are we defining communities? Are we listing every named neighbourhood in Ontario right down to the level of local housing developments, or is there a minimum standard? Should we go right down to local subdivisions like The P Patch in Sault Ste. Marie, or should we only include communities that have, for example, their own postal code designation or their own telephone exchange code? Bearcat 00:38, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The eventual plan is to only list census subdivisions (municipalities, indian reserves) you can see the grand list on the talk page. Lists of neighbourhoods and ever little community or whatever should be listed on the page for the municipality it is in. However, all the communities on the current list must have a link to the municipality its in within its article before we can make the change. Earl Andrew 01:03, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: List of Ontario communities

message: There are some utility links in Wikipedia space that may be helpful to us if we want to try to coordinate our efforts. 
* Wikipedia:List of lists and Wikipedia:List of lists/uncategorized may be helpful in catching and categorizing Canada-related lists.
* Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics is a list of suggested articles that haven't been created yet. I haven't systematically gone through them all (there's 78 pages worth!), but just on casual scanning I have caught some Canadian articles in the list. Maybe if we each volunteer to go through one page at a time...?
* Special:Allpages is an even nastier piece of work, but it might help to catch Canadian-related articles that haven't been categorized. Again, maybe if we each volunteer to go through one page at a time, it might be easier for everyone.
* It might also be worth starting a list of Canada-related topics that haven't been written up, if anybody wants to do that. Maybe just a barebones list on which people can add any redlinks they come across (or create) but don't feel knowledgeable enough (or interested enough) to write up themselves...?
Any other ideas? Bearcat 03:34, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: A few suggestions

message: A very persistent anonymous person has been asserting that our 400-Series Highway articles are plagiarized from onthighways.com. Could someone look into this more closely? Adam Bishop 19:36, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The anon has signed up for an account: User:Cameron_Bevers. Darkcore 22:48, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: While I feel the need to clarify that I'm not the "plagiarist" in question, I am familiar with Cameron's site and have previously noted this comment posted there. I have not previously attempted to investigate the validity of his claims. However, I have to note that facts and figures (his primary claim of plagiarism) are most certainly not copyrightable as intellectual property. Photos can be copyvio; actual text can be as well. But if the original authors of the Wikipedia pages in question simply cite some of the same facts and figures in an article that isn't a textual replica of Cameron's page, that's not copyvio. Compare Ontario provincial highway 409, one of the pages on which Cameron inserted his plagiarism claim, to Cameron's 409 page, or Macdonald-Cartier Freeway to his 401 page. You can't copyright the length of a highway; you can only copyright the specific wording of the sentence in which the highway's length is noted. If another resource presents the same information in different words, it's not plagiarism even if they used your site for reference, because you don't own the information. You only own your presentation of the information. And on that basis, I see nothing to support a plagiarism claim. I think we need more evidence here. Bearcat 06:28, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I would like to admit that I am one of the persons who used information from his site for wikipedia articles. Information that has since been deleted. However, I did make sure to cite the information with a link plus as Bearcat mentioned you cannot copyright facts. That is what I did. I did not copy and paste his words on to the page. I just mentioned the facts. However I am feeling a little guilty about this, as I have emailed Cemeron before about photos for my website which he allowed me to use. (photos on my site by the way I have released under fair use). Earl Andrew 19:09, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that part of the problem with the 'plagerizing' problem was that none of the pages were actually cited.  Very few if any actually said "Highway 401 was named in 1952" this information Courtesy Cameron Bevers (for example).  Anyone attending any sort of post secondary institution would not citing that type of reference would be a no-no.  A healthy compromise on this issue would be to place an outside link for history information that Cameron has worked so hard to provide.  Btw the Highway 404 page here resembles the 404 page on OntHighway.com.  Now this information obviously can't be copyritten, but some of the control city information should be cited, as it is nearly word for word what appears on the Onthighways website, (which certainly would constitute plagerizing).  --24.103.215.190 22:47, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that may be a fair solution. Bearcat 22:59, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Thank you for clarifying, Cameron. I have a better understanding of your concerns, and can more easily see where the issue lies. Thus, I'd like to propose that all Ontario highway articles on Wikipedia should provide a link to the appropriate page on Cameron's site. But I'd also like to extend the invitation to Cameron to get involved here as well. One of the challenges of this site is that since we don't always know exactly what other people are contributing, we don't necessarily know about copyright issues such as this until they're brought to our attention. But even if some of us do make mistakes sometimes, it's an excellent project with a great bunch of people involved, and I do think Cameron would be a very valuable contributor. Whadday'all say? Bearcat 23:53, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I know I'm a little bit late coming into the discussion, but I am very happy to say that I have had the pleasure of reading Cameron's excellent web site. In fact, I have spent many hours reading about the history of the highways of our great province, even before I was interested in editing Ontario highways on Wikipedia.  I also have enjoyed reading OntHwys and I am a member of the ontroads Yahoo! group.  That being said, I have tried my best to avoid any sort of copyright infringement.  I appreciate all that Cameron has done, and I wouldn't want to diminish it in any way.  As a fellow Waterlooian, I say thank you to Cameron Bevers—can I buy you a beer or something? --timc | Talk 03:13, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Ontario highways

message: *Re: :Category:Canadian federal elections, I note that about half of them are named with the format YYYY Canadian election, and the other half are named Canadian federal election, YYYY. For consistency's sake, we need to determine which naming convention to follow, and then move the pages that don't fit it. Bearcat 04:14, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: What about the option for XXth Canadian general election? --timc | Talk 03:02, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: AndyL, I've set up new tables for 1887, 1891 and 1896. Kevintoronto 20:36, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Elections

message: I noticed in this article, Results of the Canadian federal election, 2004, that there are quite a lot of article/stubs about failed candidates of the last election. Do you think this is worthy of a new category, say :Category:Candidates of Canadian federal elections? This category would be part of Canadian people? Another side of me wonders if you are notable just because you have run in the election. This will mean a lot of articles about people who may or may not be worthy of articles. Comments please. --YUL89YYZ 18:25, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
* Here is an example, not to pick on anyone, Michael Oddy --YUL89YYZ 18:27, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)
* "Candidates for the Canadian House of Commons" would probably best be in keeping with the existing category for those elected, "Members of the Canadian House of Commons", I think. And, uh... no comment about the worthy-of-an-article bit at this time, except that VfD precedent seems to show a major party candidate for the federal legislature of a major en country is putatively worthy of an article, at least if a few people push for it. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Rebecca Blaikie and to some extent Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/David Varty; there are probably other examples of which I'm not aware. Samaritan 20:13, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Candidates of the Canadian federal election 

message: I note James Endicott (1865-1954) in the box at the top of this page. Wikipedia policy is normally not to disambiguate by years of life, but by (a) occupation (eg. Moe Berg (musician)), (b) location if the occupation isn't enough (eg. William Whitehead (Canadian writer), since there was another writer named William Whitehead in the UK), (c) sublocation on the rare occasion that even the country isn't enough (eg. the two Fathers of Confederation named John Hamilton Gray, who at least were kind enough to be from different provinces.) 
I've moved the title to James Endicott, Sr. temporarily; I don't know if this is really the best choice, but James Endicott (1865-1954) is definitely not in keeping with Wikipedia convention in these matters. I mention this because the page is less than a month old. Bearcat 17:21, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a bit leery of that approach, too -- since neither André Bachand was notably associated with Quebec City in their professional careers, that title tells me absolutely nothing about which one I'm going to find when I click on the link. Whereas if they were disambiguated as André Bachand (Tory MP) and André Bachand (Liberal MP), or something along those lines, it'd be more straightforward. (If they'd both been in the same party, then I'd go André Bachand (Richmond-Arthabaska) and André Bachand (Missisquoi), but luckily they weren't.) I guess what I'm saying, in a nutshell, is we can't just use any old obscure detail to disambiguate; the title needs to be as unequivocally clear as possible about what the subject is going to be. Years of life aren't a clear disambiguator, and I don't think city of birth is, either, if what the person is known for isn't directly associated with that city. But YMMV. Bearcat 20:30, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Disambiguate by occupation or point of fame first, nation second, regions last. More people are going to know the occupation or point of fame than are going to know the region or city of birth. I mean, I could tell you Avril Lavigne is a singer, but I couldn't tell you her place of birth off the top of my head if you paid me. It goes the same for most politicians - I know who Paul Martin is, but I've no clue where he comes from. It just makes things easier. PMC 20:43, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, most people that I know (my self included) know Avril is from Napanee and Paul is from Windsor. The problemw with putting their parties in is that what if they change parties? Earl Andrew 03:51, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The thing is, most people will name a person by occupation (or point of fame) before they name them by birthplace, especially a famous person. Think about a conversation between colleagues discussing someone: "Do you remember that guy James?" "Oh yeah, I know him, he works in Accounting." "No, not that James, the supervisor." "Oh yeah, him!" is a scenario that's a lot more likely than "Oh yeah, I know James, he's from Anytown." "No, the other James, from Othertown." "Oh right, him!" PMC 05:19, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I am aware of this, but they both were politicians. Earl Andrew 06:55, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm arguing for a general case. Obviously there's going to be your rare exception, as in both of the Mister André Bachands. But let's say there's two John Smiths. What's the likelihood they're both Canadian rock stars? PMC 03:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Neither of them is currently in the House of Commons. If one of them changes parties in the future, the titles can be changed at that time to reflect a new point of disambiguation; right now, avoiding the party names on the grounds that one of them might someday return to politics under a different party affiliation is pretty much akin to saying that MuchMusic should be titled The Canadian music video channel established in 1984 by CHUM just because Much might change its name in the future. Bearcat 15:49, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: I guess the elder can be James Endicott (church leader) since he was Moderator of the United Church of Canada while his son was not. A James Endicott disambig page should be kept (thereby excluding simply having him as "James Endicott") since the son isn't widely known by his middle name but is generally known simply as James Endicott (or Jim Endicott). AndyL 17:25, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguations

message: One of the nominees at Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week is Underground Railroad which may be considered quasi-Canadian given that for many the last stop in the Underground Railroad was Canada. Anyone interested in voting for the nomination can go to Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week and add their name. AndyL 21:46, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Collaboration of the Week

message: A while ago, I created a web page for Gulzar Singh Cheema, a Liberal politician who has served in the provincial legislatures of both Manitoba (1988-93) and British Columbia (2001-2004; he served as a minor cabinet minister in the Gordon Campbell government), before unsuccessfully running for the House of Commons earlier this year.
In the article, I mentioned that Cheema may be the only Canadian politician to have served in more than one provincial legislature since Confederation (the caveat added because, obviously, there were politicians from the Province of Canada who served in the Ontario and Quebec legislatures).  Someone has recently challenged me on this point, although without providing any other examples.
So, I'll pose the question here -- can *anyone* think of a Canadian politican other than Gulzar Cheema who has served in the legislature of more than one province since 1867?  
(And, just to clear up any confusion: I can think of people like Sharon Carstairs who have *campaigned* at the provincial level in more than one province, and there are obviously figures like John Turner and Tommy Douglas who represented *federal* ridings in more than one province ... but these examples don't count for the present challenge.)  CJCurrie 06:46, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Serving in more than one provincial legislature, post-1867

message: Could somebody revert our "Belinda Stronach is a socialist" friend. I've exhausted my three reverts of the day. - SimonP 21:31, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)
:The page seems to be protected. Spinboy 22:42, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Belinda Stronach]]

message: I created a stub today for geography articles in Canada.  is the template thingy. Spinboy 00:11, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I also created one for biography articles in Canada.  is the template. Spinboy 00:51, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: One now created for gov articles in Canada.  is the template. Spinboy 23:05, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, we don't consider it really necessary for you to tell us that you're doing this.  We don't have a problem with this, so you can carry on without notifying us.  Just put your entries into Wikipedia:Template_messages/Stubs. Denelson83 23:26, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I just let you all know so you have it for use. Spinboy 23:31, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad you've let us know and I've made much use of your creations already. Samaritan 06:36, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: New Stubs

message: :Category:The Greatest Canadian is up for deletion on WP:CFD because there is already a list at The Greatest Canadian.  -- Beland 02:23, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: CFD

message: User:68.146.219.50 effected a patently anti-Semitic pov series of edits to CanWest Global Communications. It included a mix of head-slapping racism ("But Izzy, with even more brass than is customary for his tribe, made his directive public,") falsity ("That's more than 80 per cent of all of Canada's mass media..."), falsity with racism ("...in the hands of one Jew,") misrepresentation of genuine fact ("the editorial content of all of his newspapers would be homogenized"), and - on the other hand - some genuine and relevant fact I didn't want to just revert without addressing in some way. Hence the new, heavily sourced section on Editorial controversies, and two critical sites added to External links. Improvements much welcome - and we may all have to watch this one. :l Samaritan 06:33, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: CanWest Global Communications