Talk:Cape Spear

Greenland part of North America?
If Greenland is part of North America then Cape Spear is not the easterly point on the continent, as some have suggested in recent debate. CBC News

Is Greenland even counted in the total surface area of North America? --Madchester June 29, 2005 15:48 (UTC)

When records are set for North America to Europe transatlantic sailings, rowing, flights, etc. they never originate from Greenland. I believe that it is premature to write in this article any reference to Greenland as the most easterly point in North America.

Maybe we should also have a look at the most westerly point of Europe as it would fall to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. HJKeats 6 July 2005 15:28 (UTC)

When the countries of North America are listed is Denmark ever listed as one? If Greenland contains the most easterly point in North America, then the most westerly point in Europe is what? Aruba? French Guiana? The British Virgin Islands?

I changed the line about greenland and the most easterly point, as the line that was placed in there was blatant POV-the line I put in identifies that there is a debate, and I hope, is not POV :).

One thing to keep in mind here; the question is is Greenland North America? That has nothing to do with the question whether Denmark is in NA or St. Pierre or Aruba being in Europe. St. Pierre and M. are a part of the country France but certainly not the Continent of Europe. If you argue that Greenland is part of NA, which I would say it is, it doesn't mean in any way that its repercussion is then to name St. Pierre or Aruba part of Europe. Distinguish country from continent here is the key. Also, please sign your comments on talk pages.--Kalsermar 20:50, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Greenland is a North American island. It may be noteworthy that Cape Spear is the most easterly point in Canada, but it is not noteworthy that it's the most easterly point in "North America except for the parts of North America that are east of Cape Spear." The claim is pure tourism-brochure hogwash, not encyclopedic.

File:Cape Spear warning sign.jpg Nominated for Deletion
i think the last line about a guy being first to see the sunrise (Linklater) is irrelevent.STEV56 (talk) 14:19, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's just vandalism. The same guy keeps putting it back.  If you see it again, please just delete it.
 * Linklater is a aboriginal Canadian artist who does recorded performance art across Canada Loralai 101 (talk) 20:17, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Persistent article vandalism
There is a repeat vandalism of the article Cape Spear. It seems to have started when a bored Duane Linkleter, fictional or not, who on March 10, 2011 saw the sun rise over Cape Spare and he seems he would like for the entire readership of Wikipedia to know this. I have documented the edits contributed to his narcissistic lame attempt of fame in the hope that we can finally uncover the identity of Duane and get him off the rocky crags of Cape Spare.

Below is a chronologically history of the edits with IP addresses and registered Wikipedia User who have contributed to this vandalism of the Cape Spare article. Some of the IP’s look like copy-cat vandalism but it would seem that the perpetrator has changed his IP over time. IP 142.162.16.162 is responsible for 10 edits, IP 66.206.234.192 is responsible for 9 edits, IP 66.206.234.210 is responsible for 12 edits, IP 198.161.31.253 is responsible for 8 edits, user Duanelinklater is responsible for 13 edits, IP 24.138.176.45 is responsible for 14 edits, and IP 67.204.241.122 is responsible for 5 edits.

I can say one thing, the vandalism who ever this person is, they are persistent.

Is there anything that can be done to this article to halt this particular Modus operandi of persistent vandalism? HJKeats (talk) 16:50, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

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 * Duane Linklater is an Aboriginal Canadian artist who has had major exhibitions nationally and internationally. The repeated insertions of his text are an artwork that explores what Wikipedia deems worthy of inclusion as an "open-source" encyclopedia. The continued deletions that editors recommend inadvertently reflect the removal and absence of Aboriginal people from the larger historical record, in particular the Beothuk people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Wikipedia's conversations with Duane Linklater will be placed in The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery in St. John's, NL, from January 16 to April 16, 2015, where thousands of people will be able to read and consider Wikipedia's modus operandi. 209.128.28.2 (talk) 18:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)lassoprecise


 * The use of reliable sources is fundamental to Wikipedia's modus operandi. Please ensure that any future contributions are supported by sufficient reliable secondary sources. Richard Keatinge (talk) 19:10, 7 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I see a request for published secondary sources. I am not affiliated with the Canadian arts community, Duane Linklater, or any interest group. I am not interested in participating in this debate other than to provide links to the following published sources, and to confirm that Duane Linklater is in fact a real individual. This will be my only contribution to this talk page, and I have zero intention of editing the article. Please do not contact me to express disagreement or agreement with these sources.


 * http://www.ngcmagazine.ca/correspondents/folklore-and-other-panics-at-the-rooms-art-gallery
 * http://canadianart.ca/reviews/duane-linklater-beothuck-building/
 * https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/visualarts/2016/05/27/geoffrey-farmer-and-duane-linklater-strike-out-for-terra-incognita.html
 * http://cmagazine.com/issues/125/editorial-attention
 * Sturgeontransformer (talk) 20:23, 28 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you for these secondary sources Sturgeontransformer. I have attempted to resolve this problem once (using some of these same secondary sources) by creating a "In Popular Culture" section to reference this significant 5 year project undertaken by Duane Linklater, which has been exhibited at The Rooms, other art galleries, and has been included in several Canadian art publications. Unfortunately the article was deleted with the justification that Duane Linklater was a "so-called performance" artist and thus didn't warrant being noted on the page. At the time of writing I didn't know Duane Linklater, but as I am an Indigenous curator in Canadian art and contemporary Indigenous art is my area of specialization, I have since gotten to know him, and that personal relationship and my subsequent engagement with this project has complicated my ability to further edit this page. At the time of deletion I was surprised that Duane's credentials as an artist could be successfully be reputed through an uninformed and un-cited edit by an individual, when I had included references to Canadian Art (magazine) among other reputable publications. I am now wary to edit this content again as I have gotten to close to it, but I am deeply troubled by the disregard for reputable sources and for Wikipedia's Modus Operandi when it comes to issues of Indigenous culture, artists, and issues, where unfortunately a vocal subset of established editors choose to edit articles based off of unfounded assumption.Jghampton (talk) 02:05, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

A piece of art about a Wikipedia page about a place (or about the place itself) may be significant enough to include in Wikipedia in some fashion, but almost never in the article about the place. The "so-called" comment mentioned above was indeed inappropriate (and I'm sure there have been others). A big question is what relevance is it to the subject of Cape Spear (the place, with its long history and overall significance, as opposed to the subject of "the Wikipedia article about Cape Spear") that someone conducted an art project with its Wikipedia entry? It could certainly make sense to include in the article about the artist, or, given enough coverage, even a stand-alone article (which we could link to in the see also section here). "In popular culture" sections can be interesting, but they need to be encyclopedically relevant and of proportionate significance to the amount of space it takes up (that Napoleon was mentioned in an episode of The Big Bang Theory tv show is not significant enough to include in the article about Napoleon, regardless of how well covered that particular episode was). Decades from now, will this art project about the Wikipedia article about Cape Spear still be a significant part of the subject of Cape Spear?

All of these specifics, aside, Wikipedians are indeed touchy when people (a) benefit from lowering the quality of Wikipedia, (b) benefit from creating work for other volunteers, (c) indirectly encourage other people to do both of the above. One of the hardest things about "an encyclopedia that anyone can edit" is the amount of time it takes people who want to improve the encyclopedia to fix the work of people who want to mess with it (for a quick giggle, to make a point in a classroom, to make art, or anything else that doesn't prioritize the quality of the project). Vandalism/damage happens every minute of every day, and when the press covers it or when an art project about it gets some attention, that makes Wikipedians' jobs harder and makes Wikipedia worse overall (which is not to comment on the quality of the art within the context of art, of course). So while "does it make the job of Wikipedians harder" shouldn't really be part of the decision regarding what content to add, there is, practically speaking, a higher bar for inclusion of Wikipedia-related bits of content like this because it effectively says "if you go and mess with an article, and then manage to get some press attention, your initial act can be included in the article you messed with". TL;DR For Wikipedia's purposes, vandalism for art is not different from vandalism to add the word "poopy" to a random article, and Wikipedians don't love to see that activity celebrated/encouraged, because that would mean breaking the project.

I assume the comment about "Wikipedia's Modus Operandi when it comes to issues of Indigenous culture, artists, and issues" has some backstory that extends beyond this one example, and I won't disagree that Wikipedia has some very serious systemic bias that may well negatively impact the inclusion and coverage of Indigenous subjects, but it is most certain that anybody who gets attention for problematic Wikipedia behavior will encounter resistance when it comes time to add coverage of that behavior. FWIW. Sorry for the long explanation. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 22:04, 11 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Quick example of the above. Stephen Colbert, especially during the Colbert Report, included several segments which involved vandalizing or encouraging viewers to vandalize Wikipedia: tripling the population of elephants and adding that Warren G. Harding was a "secret negro president". The segments got a huge amount of mainstream press attention (including for the fact that people were still tripling elephants all over Wikipedia years later), and are mentioned in multiple articles now... but not in the article about elephants or Harding. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 22:18, 11 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Good articulation of this issue, and how to address it appropriately. Thank you Rhodododendrites Sturgeontransformer (talk) 04:08, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
 * December 2023: Expect more vandalism soon. Linklater currently has an exhibit up at the Berkeley Art Museum with video of Cape Spear and label that reads:
 * "Sunrise at Cape Spear documents the sunrise from Newfoundland's Cape Spear, the place of earliest dawn in North America, as well as where Indigenous North Americans are thought to have first encountered Europeans. Through the simple act of recording the sunrise, Linklater marked his bodily presence there: a quiet form of resistance to the ongoing erasure of Indigenous histories, practices, and peoples. Since his 2011 visit to Newfoundland, Linklater has attempted to update the Cape Spear Wikipedia entry, which states that 'there is no known archaeological evidence to indicate that Cape Spear was viewed by local Indigenous communities as a place of symbolic geographic importance.' His contribution has consistently been removed and deemed 'article vandalism by site administrators."
 * Stevensaylor (talk) 22:36, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

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