Talk:Toronto

"Local" pronunciation is archaic
The "locally [təˈɹɒɾ̃ə] or [ˈtɹɒɾ̃ə]" pronunciation of "Toronto" (with the final schwa)is hugely archaic. Locals have used that pronunciation only facetiously for generations now. Both my parents were born in Toronto, ages 80 and 78, and I've never heard either one of them use this pronunciation in normal conversation, nor any Torontonian in the multiple times I've lived in the city. The article gives the counterfactual impression that this now-rare pronunciation is the "normal" everyday pronunciation that Torontonians actually use. The actual local pronunciation is [təˈɹɒɾ̃oʊ] or [ˈtɹɒɾ̃oʊ], which itself is unremarkable, as it is the standard pronunciation in General Canadian English. 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:BDBB:5E9F:61C9:9347 (talk) 05:23, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you have a reliable source for that? Canterbury Tail talk 11:37, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Why would there be a source for a pronunciation that follows all the normal pronunciation rules? It is inherently unnotable.
 * But, okay, first there's this: (scam site removed per WP:EL)
 * This is actually the third source given (although the given link is broken), so the article is actually contradicting its own sources.
 * Then there's this, from Global News: https://globalnews.ca/news/8826931/top-ten-most-mispronounced-places-names-toronto/
 * And one more for good measure: https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/are-you-pronouncing-toronto-properly
 * But how obnoxious it is that Wikipedia can have misinformation like this in people's faces for, what, years? Decades? And when someone points it out, the onus is on them to provide a source for something so unremarkable a source is unlikely even to exist.  A few years ago and these sources . 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:BDBB:5E9F:61C9:9347 (talk) 13:21, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The David Crystal source is also misrepresented. It gives  "tronno" and "toronna" pronunciations, while noting that the deletion of the second "t" is a normal "feature Canadian shares with US English" "as in, , etc."  So that's a source (one already provided) backing up everything I was saying. 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:BDBB:5E9F:61C9:9347 (talk) 13:36, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * "The10and3" is taking me to "sign up to win a free iPhone!" spam rather than an article that supports any pronunciation of Toronto, and the other two sources aren't proving your point because they're concerned with the second t rather than the o after it. So you really haven't provided any sources that actually prove your claim of archaicity at all, because you haven't shown any sources that say anything at all about how the terminal vowel is or isn't supposed to be pronounced. Bearcat (talk) 15:14, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
 * : I said the 10and3 link was broken, didn't I? Here is a corrected link, which explicitly gives "tronnoh or to-ronnoh" as the only acceptable local pronunciations.  The Global News link leads with a video which gives the "oh" pronunciation of the terminal vowel as the correct one.
 * But you're demonstrating exactly what I was saying. The standard, most common pronunciation of the city by locals follows all the normal pronunciation rules, making it inherently unremarkable.  Thus, the sources you're most likely to find are of  pronunciations, such as the rare and archaic [ˈtɹɒɾ̃ə].  Wikipedia requires  sources, but Wikipedians are willing to settle for, regardless of their actual .  This leads to Wikipedia articles such as this one spreading misinformation.  You appear to be Canadian.  Have you  to Toronto?  How many Torontonians have you actually  saying [ˈtɹɒɾ̃ə], rather than [ˈtɹɒɾ̃oʊ]?
 * If it's this hard to get something fixed for Canada's largest city, then I can only conclude this kind of thing happens throughout Wikipedia, with similar roadblocks to fixing it. 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:9250:63D4:492A:9AEF (talk) 09:24, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Ooh, here's something published by Carleton University, and it's very explicit: "The ... two variants ([təɹɑnːə] and [tʃɹɑnːə]) ... were dispreferred by Torontonians generally". Pretty hard to keep that in the lead with findings like that.  Are there any more hoops to jump through?
 * And are you willing to weigh in, ? 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:9250:63D4:492A:9AEF (talk) 09:48, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I know nothing about IPA pronunciation and the like, so this isn't my area. Canterbury Tail talk 13:39, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Simply removing it would be an improvement over the misinformation that's there now. 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:3409:BCEE:6CAB:A50B (talk) 02:37, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I never suggested "archaic" be included in the text, but I'm going to retract having called the [ˈtɹɒɾ̃ə] pronunciation archaic. Some comments on Reddit and elsewhere suggest it's a pronunciation found in certain rural areas of Ontario outside the GTA—in other words, a very local pronunciation, making the lead doubly incorrect. 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:22A2:38D8:45DC:A518 (talk) 10:20, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why this is being ignored. I've provided far more than enough sources to fix the problem, and one of the sources in the lead is broken.  The broken link was removed from the talk page, but not the article itself!  If nobody can be bothered, why not unlock the page and let me do it? 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:50D0:74DF:19D3:657 (talk) 11:44, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Nobody on Wikipedia has any responsibility to obey your schedule, for starters. This is a volunteer project, not a job where people are assigned tasks by supervisors — so nobody here has any responsibility to jump through any hoops you put up.
 * Further, you started this discussion providing no sources for your assertion at all, then when challenged to provide sources you started out with sources that didn't support what you were claiming. Then you found sources saying that a lot of people don't like the ǝ pronunciation, which is still not at all the same thing as the ǝ pronunciation somehow failing to exist — the reason people know they don't like it, and the reason anybody would even think to ask people whether they liked it or not, is because it exists.
 * Wikipedia's job is not to prescribe what pronunciations are seen as "correct", it's to describe the pronunciations that exist. (By the same token, I grew up in Sudbury, and while the proper pronunciation of that is "Sudburry" rhyming with "hurry", there are and always have been people who pronounce it "Sudberry" rhyming with "blueberry" instead. Most Sudburians hate that, but it is still a pronunciation that exists.) Our job, again, is not to dictate rules about what pronunciations people should be using; it's to simply list the pronunciations that actually are seen in the real world regardless of whether they're seen as "correct" ones or not. So the key to getting the ə keys out of the article isn't "show evidence that people don't like it", and would require "show evidence that the ə pronunciation doesn't even exist at all", which you've still failed to do. Bearcat (talk) 14:34, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The Sudbury article makes no claims of "Sudberry" being a "local pronunciation", and the Toronto article makes no claims that the schwa pronunciation merely "exists", but is the "local pronunciation", which is false. It is supported with three inline citations, one of which never gives the schwa pronunciation at all (and is broken), and another (Crystal) gives it as an alternative "Canadian" pronunciation, with no claims of it being a local Toronto pronunciation.
 * Did you read the PDF? You're misreading "disprefer" as "dislike", when the question is "Would you personally say Toronto this way?"  The schwa pronunciation was given as the most unlikely pronunciation amongst Torontonians themselves, less likely even than the pronunciation where the final "t" was pronounced, which signified an "out-group" pronunciation to Torontonians.
 * I've never suggested giving a prescriptive pronunciation—I suggested removing it entirely, as the most common pronunciation amongst Torontonians is inherently unnotable (explicitly per Crystal, one of the citations already in the lead). You also claim my sources don't back up what I'm saying, but I've already pointed out that the Global source (and, it turns out, the Sun source) provide videos to demonstrate the local pronunciation of Toronto.  No source has been provided yet to demonstrate the schwa pronunciation as the actual "local pronunciation".  The Moreno source gives no source for the claim that it makes in passing that the schwa pronunciation is used by "most of the city's inhabitants", which is flatly contradicted by the Carleton study and all the other sources provided.
 * "it's to simply list the pronunciations that actually are seen in the real world"—it's not given as a pronunciation "seen in the real world", but as the "local pronunciation", which is misinformation pushed in the readers' faces in the opening sentence of the article. A properly contextualized list of pronunciations might be appropriate elsewhere in the article, but the article cannot make counterfactual claims as to how the locals typically pronounce the name of the city. 115.36.174.114 (talk) 21:20, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * You're misreading "disprefer" as "dislike" Please provide dictionary citations to support your patently absurd and laughable contention that "disprefer" and "dislike" mean anything different from each other. Bearcat (talk) 21:56, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * "disprefer" is a domain-specific term used primarily in linguistics to mean: "To favour or prefer (something) less than the alternatives." Wiktionary has an entry for it, and you can read more about it here and here. Regardless, It would be absurd for "disprefer" to mean "dislike", given that "prefer" doesn't mean "like": "I'd prefer being shot to being hanged" doesn't mean you'd like to be shot.
 * The article in question is a linguistics article that is clearly using the term in the sense as defined, giving a list of seven pronunciations of "Toronto" and respondents' reactions to them. The article is very clear that the schwa pronunciation is the least likely to be used by a Torontonians—even less likely than pronouncing the second "t", which respondents consider being an "outside-group" pronunciation.
 * Again, have you read the article (or any of the sources)? You claimed the other sources didn't support the [oʊ] pronunciation either, when they both use videos of evidence of this very pronunciation.  You seem more intent on attacking me than on ensuring the accuracy of the article and veracity of its sources.  Aren't we supposed to collaborate on ensuring the article reflects the consensus of the most reliable sources? 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:E0C2:4E63:70B1:349F (talk) 00:02, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * And the difference in meaning between "to favour or prefer something less than the alternatives" and "not liking it as much as the alternative" would be...what, exactly? Semantically, that would be a distinction without a difference, because those phrases don't mean anything markedly different from each other.
 * Yes, I read every source. There was a point in this discussion in which you tried to stack your argument on sources that were entirely about flapping the t and said nothing whatsoever about the "correct" or "incorrect" wan to pronounce the o. And the videos in both of those links do feature people who are schwa-ing the o rather than ohhhh-ing it, without being told they're wrong about that, and thus don't illustrate the point you think you're trying to make. Bearcat (talk) 11:43, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The difference, which I've cited already, is given explicitly in the paper: the [ə] is the least likely pronunciation respondents' were likely to use, less likely than pronunciations attributed to "outside groups". You say you've read the sources, but demonstrating you haven't.
 * "There was a point in this discussion in which you tried to stack your argument on sources that were entirely about flapping the t"—I've demonstrated this assertion as false more than once now. Every source I provided demonstrates the [oʊ] pronunciation.  Repeatedly claiming otherwise won't change that fact.
 * "schwa-ing the o rather than ohhhh-ing it"—they objectively are not. I'll notify WP:Linguistics and get someone knowledgeable and objective to clarify this.  Please don't bite them when they join the discussion.
 * Could you knock off the aggressive gatekeeping and help improve the article? 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:AE4C:7DF0:1BA5:297E (talk) 12:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I fail to see how is any different from the diaphonemic. It's just a narrow transcription, and flapping ( is not really how you transcribe it, by the way) is completely unremarkable in North American English. It's the opposite of "local". I've removed it. Sol505000 (talk) 07:56, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure, but isn't /ˈtrɒntoʊ/ just as unremarkable? Compare to "torrential", "tarantula", etc.  Like I've stated above and below, the pronunciation of "Toronto" follows all the normal North American pronunciation rules, and thus doesn't really need a "local" pronunciation cluttering up the lead. 218.219.61.6 (talk) 02:21, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Having said that, the sources we have do bend over backwards to point out that non-locals often pronounce the second "t", which doesn't sit well with the locals, so it probably warrants mention somewhere in the article. 218.219.61.6 (talk) 02:24, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the omission of the second "t" when pronouncing Toronto's name, this is not unique to the Toronto area. Atlanta for example is pronounced "Alanna" by locals with both "t"s omitted in speech. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 15:01, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * If you read the discussion, you'll see we've already discussed this, and have a source for it (Crystal 1995). Nevertheless, we have multiple sources telling us that non-locals often pronounce the "t", even when they speak a dialect that normally doesn't. 218.219.61.6 (talk) 01:56, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Re: this edit: we have sources for both [ˈtɹɒno] and [ˈtʃɹɒno], including the cited Bergin. I use both.
 * I'm fairly certain the final vowel should be [oʊ], not [oʊ], and the final consonant should be [ɾ̃], not [n].
 * Perhaps the editors should sort it out here before performing more edits to the article? 218.219.61.6 (talk) 02:01, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The discussion can be quite hard to follow. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 14:48, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
 * That's why I made the "Quick summary" below—the discussion was being drowned in noise. 218.219.61.6 (talk) 01:38, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The quick summary looks good. Thanks once more. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 12:23, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Quick summary
Points that need to be addressed:


 * The lead gives the pronunciation of Toronto as "locally [təˈɹɒɾ̃ə] or [ˈtɹɒɾ̃ə]", but:
 * The three citations supporting this are problematic:
 * "The 10 and 3" citation is broken, and the corrected link gives an [oʊ] pronunciation, not [ə].
 * The David Crystal source gives both [oʊ] and [ə] as possible "Canadian" pronunciations, but does not specify a pronunciation local to Toronto.
 * The preponderance of evidence is that the [oʊ] is by far most common, and [ə] least common and least acceptable to locals, per [this paper published by Carleton University. [ə] is also most likely a non-local, rural pronunciation (not "archaic", as I at first mistakenly assumed).
 * Other sources give written and video evidence of [oʊ] as the local pronunciation.
 * The only source we have of the [ə] amongst Torontonians is in Words for working: Professional and Academic English for International Business and Economics by Rosa Giménez Moreno, a book published in Spain that mentions the [ə] pronunciation "by most of the city's inhabitants" in passing while talking about intervocalic flapping. This is a weak claim that is contradicted by all the other sources we have.
 * Per the Crystal cite already in the lead, the deletion of the second "t" is a normal "feature Canadian shares with US English" "as in twenty, antidote, etc." This makes it inherently unnotable, thus IPA for it in the lead is unnecessary.
 * Since the use of each of the sources in the lead is problematic, and the evidence is that the [ə] pronunciation is at best uncommon, the "local pronunciation" and its citations should be deleted entirely, so as not to mislead readers. Pronunciation variants, if included at all, belong in the body of the article, with proper contextualization and citation.
 * 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:AE4C:7DF0:1BA5:297E (talk) 12:51, 17 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Regardless of whether or not locals say /ˈtrɒntoʊ/ or /ˈtɹɒno]/ or anything else (although I certainly take the anonymous user's point here), I don't believe any "local pronunciation" is worth including in the lead. This so-called local pronunciation is just the regular features of the accent, alongside the regular dropping/combining or syllables that happens whenever a name is said enough times. As said elsewhere, we don't have "locally New YAWK" — everyone agrees that would be silly. Meanwhile, neither Vancouver nor Calgary have "local pronunciations" included, so it's not clear to me why Toronto should. That said, there is something notable here: that locals drop the second T is sometimes used as a shibboleth, such as in Argo (2012 film). But that ought to be done in the body, not the lead. — Kawnhr (talk) 15:53, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've (re-)added it to the body. It seems that its shibboleth pronunciation is something Torontonians themselves are aware of (and perhaps proud of) at a metalinguistic level. And it certainly doesn't hurt as long as reliable sources also speak to this, which they do. Wolfdog (talk) 20:55, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, though there's still the issue with [o] vs [oʊ].  We have only one source that supports [o], while all the others give [oʊ].   I can assure you that [o] would stand out to a local. 115.36.157.62 (talk) 01:33, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * $⟨o⟩$ doesn't automatically mean it's a monophthong. In North America, the FACE and GOAT vowels are traditionally phonemicized as /e, o/ on the grounds that they are no more diphthongal than /i, u/ (which may be more narrowly [ɪi, ʊu]). And since narrowness is a continuum (see Handbook of the IPA, pp. 28–30), $⟨e, o⟩$ are found in allophonic transcriptions as well, where they may be more narrowly [eɪ, oʊ]. Nardog (talk) 05:51, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Four things:
 * Then shouldn't that be how to write it throughout Wikipedia?
 * Until just yesterday, we had both [oʊ] and [o] in the lead of this article.
 * If we're transcribing ⟨tr⟩ as narrowly as [tʃɹ], does it make sense to transcribe  in the same word more broadly?
 * Many Americans have a habit of parodying Canadian accents with the FACE and GOAT videos as monophthongs (so it sounds like the Minnesota accent you hear in Fargo). This would only reinforce the misconception.
 * 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:6C53:8307:900:64C0 (talk) 07:16, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * We didn't have [oʊ] and [o]. We had and [o] (and still do, though not in the lead). Our diaphonemic notation, which is explained in detail in Help:IPA/English, to which all such transcriptions link, is based mainly on the British tradition, where both quality and quantity are captured, which is more familiar to non-linguists (the only dictionaries of English published in North America that use the IPA are bilingual/learner's dictionaries, and even they follow the British tradition). Nardog (talk) 15:20, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * There is no consistent way to represent phones on Wikipedia, except for the diaphonemic system we've semi-arbitrarily landed on. As for GOAT, the annoying American habit is probably motivated by the fact that many Canadians use a monophthong [o] outside of Ontario. Still, a diphthong like  is indeed more common in Ontario itself and is currently used as our WP diaphoneme as well as the phoneme on dialect pages like Canadian English and Standard Canadian English; I'd support it, in order to promote more consistency at a broad phonetic level. Wolfdog (talk) 17:41, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * A diaphonic system is supposed to be an abstract system to accommodate as wide a variety of dialects as possible. Is that not the opposite of what we're trying to do by giving a "local" pronunciation?
 * Also, we give [təˈɹɒno] and [ˈtʃɹɒno], while the same sources also give some variation of [ˈtɹɒno]. I can attest that I use all three pronunciaitons, and that doing so is not unusual amongst locals.  Shouldn't we either (a) give the whole range of actual, common pronunciations, or (b) leave them out, since our sources tell us there's nothing remarkable about any of them?  In other words, is there any reason to mention anything besides the fact that locals consider pronouncing the "t" an out-group sign?  (I'd avoid using the term "Shibboleth" to communicate with as broad a readership as possible).
 * "fact that many Canadians use a monophthong [o] outside of Ontario"—"many" is a stretch. It's restricted to certain rural speakers in the Prairies, and isn't typical of the dialect in those provinces. 218.219.61.6 (talk) 02:49, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think many is a stretch. See Charles Boberg's "Variation and change in the phonetics of Canadian English" and various other sources. The monophthong is typical on the Prairies, in all of Ontario except Southern Ontario (to clarify my earlier reference to Ontario), in Atlantic Canada (though probably certain areas in particular like St. John's), in Quebec due to probable French-language reasons, and everywhere in Canada among older speakers.
 * Also, I thought we've already confirmed our sources do tell us there's something remarkable about the T-elision among Torontonians: the very shibboleth you just mentioned! So, I'd go with your option A. Wolfdog (talk) 00:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * You sound like you're agreeing with B rather than A. Are you sure you meant that?
 * I can't access "Variation and change in the phonetics of Canadian English", but I strongly suspect you've misread it, as Boberg himself contradicts that in "Regional Phonetic Differentiation in Standard Canadian English":
 * "a significant individual effect was found for one measure in the front up-gliding set, the F2 of /ey/ (F = 2.641; p = .018), whereby /ey/ was most peripheral on the Prairies (mean F2 = 2263 Hz), with a phonetic quality approaching monophthongal [e:j]: Prairie values were significantly higher than those to the west and east in British Columbia, southern Ontario, Toronto, or the Maritimes, where /ey/ has a more diphthongal quality closer to [εj]."
 * I don't know what he's counting as "Alberta", but I lived there a couple years, and can attest that those in Calgary, Edmonton, and the mountains pronounce the FACE and GOAT vowels as I do with my GTA accent. It's not hard to find YouTube videos backing this up.
 * Boberg also writes in "Ethnic Patterns in the patterns of Montreal English" that, despite the influence of French, Montreal English still has diphthongs for the FACE and GOAT vowels. 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:F4D4:C3A0:6D4C:4C78 (talk) 02:32, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
 * So is everything just being left up in the air? The text doesn't accurately reflect our sources, and there are still other outstanding issues. 218.219.61.6 (talk) 00:45, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
 * There is such a variety of anons criticizing my sources/logic, in some cases with misrepresentations and confused tangents, I didn't really know how or where to continue the discussion. I'm happy to represent that GOAT vowel as a diphthong. Is there something else you would like answered? Wolfdog (talk) 15:20, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, all the anons are me. I'm editing from my phone, so the IP address keeps changing.
 * It's really straightforward:
 * The sources give three common "local" pronunciations, all of which I can confirm are in use, even by the same speakers. The text either needs to reflect that, or leave them all out, as all three pronunciations are expected NAmEng pronunciations of "Toronto".  If they are left out, then something should be said about the pronunciation of the final "t" indicating outsider status.
 * If the three pronunciations are to be given, then the text needs to ensure that readers aren't left with the impression that the GOAT vowel is pronounced as a monophthong, as many Americans believe most Canadians do. 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:790F:EA27:CC8F:D1DA (talk) 16:17, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I concur with your basic premises and don't care which of the two ways you go. Just make sure if you use transcriptions, they are sourced, at least at a broad level. Wolfdog (talk) 23:29, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I can't do anything. The page is locked so IPs can't edit it.  I'd personally just drop the transcriptions. 2402:6B00:8E60:E300:4DD2:1219:909A:6E73 (talk) 10:22, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Enter here the exact wording to replace the second paragraph in the Toponymy section and I'll do it on your behalf. Nardog (talk) 10:29, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 November 2023
For population, add the following below City and above Density: Estimate (2022) 3,025,647

Source is from: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/data-research-maps/toronto-at-a-glance/ 2607:9880:3577:FF71:5006:58E7:35A7:1DD5 (talk) 23:17, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * ❌ We only use official census data from Statistics Canada, not population estimates, not even from official municipal websites or non-census population estimates from Statistics Canada, per WP:CANPOP. Thanks. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 01:40, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Writing 1 TR Both Classes
— Assignment last updated by Jazkeilani (talk) 18:07, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I have messaged Simranmaan238 regarding the semi-protected statuses of both this article and University of Toronto. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 00:58, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 February 2024
Remove Big Smoke Burger from this sentence. It is not a prominent company.

Other prominent Canadian corporations in the Greater Toronto Area include Magna International,[168] Pizza Pizza,[169] Big Smoke Burger,[170] Mr. Sub,[171] Celestica, Manulife, Sun Life Financial,[172] Toyota Canada Inc.,[173] the Hudson's Bay Company, and major hotel companies and operators, such as Four Seasons Hotels and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts.[174][175]

Change this to: Other prominent Canadian corporations in the Greater Toronto Area include Magna International,[168] Pizza Pizza,[169] Mr. Sub,[171] Celestica, Manulife, Sun Life Financial,[172] Toyota Canada Inc.,[173] the Hudson's Bay Company, and major hotel companies and operators, such as Four Seasons Hotels and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts.[174][175] 142.126.237.219 (talk) 21:18, 7 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. The only reason I ask is that they do have some level of prevalence, enough to be enough to warrant an article, and they are headquartered in Toronto. Sincerely, Guessitsavis (she/they) (Talk) 00:51, 8 February 2024 (UTC)


 * To clarify on the above comment, the OP requested the addition of various companies headquartered in the 905 region rather than in Toronto proper. Companies based in the 905 region are outside the scope of this article. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 02:47, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Big Smoke sold 60 percent of their company in 2015 for 3 million dollars, valuing it at only $5 million. https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/mty-enters-into-an-agreement-to-acquire-60-of-big-smoke-burger-522257921.html
 * To mention it in the same sentence as Manulife (worth $60 billion today) is laughable.
 * It comes across as someone trying to promote their small business on Wikipedia, especially when much larger companies are not mentioned:
 * Restaurant Brands International (48.9 billion)
 * Barrick Gold (34 billion)
 * Wealth Simple (8.3 billion)
 * These companies are all thousands of times larger than some small burger chain. 142.126.237.219 (talk) 03:39, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 February 2024
change "populaton" to "population" Vd315 (talk) 17:04, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅	 QuietCicada chirp 17:10, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for catching that! Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 00:19, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Winter weather
A way to highlight the city has relatively moderate/average winter weather for a Canadian city ? דולב חולב (talk) 08:44, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * See Geography of Toronto. It is much more detailed. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 16:21, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Lead image spam
11 images for three paragraphs is excessive.... and an accessibility nightmare. I suggest removing 50% of the images. Moxy 🍁 00:33, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That is a problem in many articles. Just go ahead, WP:BEBOLD, especially remove images that are marginally relevant, see MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE. Thanks. --  P 1 9 9  ✉ 14:39, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

The image I took of skiing at Earl Bales
thumb|alt=the photo I took of skiing|My photo

I like my photo and think it suits the article. The background is blurred because of the depth of field when I took the picture. It improves the experience for readers of the article since it shows what winter life is like in Toronto. User:Moxy, why do you dislike the photo? Félix An (talk) 03:06, 3 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Completely disagree..... can barely see the hill in question. I suggest you get a third opinion. I would suggest that it be removed from Earl Bales Park as well. Not the place for self promotion. If you have an actual image of the park that would be great. We're not here for you show your friends you got a picture here. Moxy 🍁 03:12, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It is not for self-promotion. Unfortunately, I'm not in Toronto right now, and I won't return until 2026 at the earliest. I'll dig through my archives for a better photo that shows more of the hill, but I'll keep this one until then, as I think it's better than nothing. Félix An (talk) 03:23, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and remove this from all over the place. Do not re add it without other editors input. I'm sure you're aware there's other better images available as you removed one from the main page and added a beautiful image of yourself. Moxy 🍁 03:25, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Mine is in the winter... Félix An (talk) 03:40, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Regardless, it is very bad practice to put a photo of yourself in a Wikipedia article not about yourself. Good photos of natural places such as Earl Bales Park should avoid having people in them, especially if it is yourself. Wikipedia is not Instagram after all. Even UrbanToronto strongly discourages photos like this. I strongly recommend that you find a photo of the park not with a specific person in focus, especially yourself, someone you know, or even a photobombed person. The photo that you uploaded only belongs on your user page and nowhere else on Wikipedia. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 14:18, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Completely fails MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE. Does nothing to highlight anything to do with Toronto and has no encyclopaedic value. It's a portrait of a person, not anything to do with the city. Canterbury Tail talk 14:27, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed. This picture has no place in this article. Meters (talk) 21:18, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * No doubt about it. People who read everything pertaining to Earl Bales Park aren't interested in such blatant self-promotion. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 00:03, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * OK, I'm sorry that you didn't like my photo. I will not add it again. Félix An (talk) 00:44, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

As I said I would after closing the ANEW report ill-advisedly opened on this, I am adding my thoughts on this over here.

TL;DR: The image isn't a good fit for this article, at least. And it has an issue that, while easily corrected, could require its deletion. But there are flawed arguments on both sides here.

While Felix is right that it's better to show this in winter than summer, this is not the winter picture we need. Yes, the slope is visible (and the blur is not so serious that we can't see what it is), but Felix himself is the subject. You would be hard-pressed to see this as anything but a picture of Felix. A picture of the ski slope should be a picture of a ski slope, not someone standing in front of it.

Nevertheless, though, there is nothing wrong with having people in this picture. I would expect a picture of a ski slope in the wintertime to show people skiing on the slope. What, otherwise, would be the purpose of having cleared the area and built a lift? To say that it shouldn't have people in it because it's in a "natural area" is again to miss the point. Alpine skiing is intensive-use outdoor recreation that very often requires substantial alterations to the land (like, clear-cutting it); it would be very hard to call the resulting ski slope "natural".

So I really don't have any objections (and neither should we) to a picture of a ski slope including people. Ski slopes are built for people to use. They should be in pictures of ski slopes. I don't even have a problem with Felix being in this image. But if he were to be, he (and probably others) should be shown skiiing, not standing at the top of the slope looking cool.

This leads me to a larger issue that Moxy (did I meet you last fall at WCNA 2023? I vaguely remember your username on a lanyard) brought up. I think it's rather extreme to tell people they can't put pictures of themselves anywhere on Wikipedia save their userpages. Yes, we don't want to be the Instagram of encyclopedias, but to say that any picture of oneself cannot possibly have any encyclopedic value is to take a rather blinkered view IMO.

Firstly and generally, I think we should assume good faith here that Felix was seriously trying to improve the article and not accuse him of promoting himself.

What if an editor has, say, a visible medical condition that would effectively illustrate the article about that condition? Should they not take a picture of it? (I have a rather large scar from a bowel resection 15 years ago on my abdomen. I haven't added a pic of it to the article only because it's rather difficult to take that kind of picture of oneself with a digital SLR). The editor who wrote side grip used two photos of his hands holding guns to show the difference). Should he not have?

And that latter image brings me to the most significant issue here IMO. As is, this image should be deleted from Commons. Felix uploaded it as "own work" but it should be obvious from the first glance that it cannot be his own work, since he's some distance from the camera and both of his hands are visible. Therefore he was not holding the camera used, much less pulling the shutter. Copyright on that image thus (I should think in Canada as much as the U.S.) belongs to whoever actually took the picture ... they are the author of the image, they have the rights to freely license it, not Felix.

If the photographer was someone you know, Felix, you can cure this by getting an email from them saying that they agree to license that image under CC-BY-SA-4.0 and forwarding it to VRT on Commons. Otherwise we would have to delete it. (And in the future, you can solve this problem by paying whoever shoots the picture a token sum like a dollar—that will make it a work for hire and you will own the copyright).

I am glad that this discussion remained civil and has come to a peaceful resolution. But these issues remain. Daniel Case (talk) 02:58, 4 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I believe we did...Wcna-2023-11-11-group-photo-360.jpg. I think Felix will do well ....they are free to ask me for any help they need. Moxy 🍁 03:34, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi User:Daniel Case, it was my dad (Harry An) who took the photo. But my dad let me use it however I wanted to, since I requested him to take the photo and send it to me with his phone that day when I was skiing. I can assure you that there are no copyright issues. Félix An (talk) 14:13, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hang on, I'm paying my dad CNY￥5 now so that there are no "ridiculous copyright issues" (it really is just a family photo where nobody cares about copyright LOL). I will show the screenshot of the payment and consent after I am finished. Félix An (talk) 14:21, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Done! See the screenshot. (Copyright is pretty ridiculous. It sucks that I have to prove this even between family members...) Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience. Felix skiing photo ownership proof.jpg Félix An (talk) 14:33, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * OK! Just go to Commons VRT per the link I provided and forward that to them (you have to do that yourself as the uploader). Daniel Case (talk) 18:07, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * On a related note, the photos at the Cycling kit look very handsome, and the uploader was also the model in the photo. Therefore, I reasoned it was okay to include photos that contain yourself in an encyclopedia article if they enhance the reading experience for the reader. Félix An (talk) 14:41, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * And as has been pointed out, your picture does not "enhance the reading experience for the reader". A picture of someone wearing full biking clothes is an appropriate image for Cycling kit. The pictures of parks (File:Finch_Meandor_with_Rouge_River.jpg and File:Spring_has_arrived_at_James_Gardens!_Toronto,_May_13th,_2018_(42086291601).jpg) and the picture of a well-known skating rink covered in skaters are appropriate images for Toronto. Your picture is a picture of you with a blurry background of a hill, and is not an appropriate image for use in  Toronto. Please drop this. Meters (talk) 17:47, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I understand, I wasn't trying to argue bringing it back. I was just saying. Félix An (talk) 00:10, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Good. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 00:11, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * thumb|This photo does not belong in [[Toronto Blue Jays, despite it being of me wearing a Toronto Blue Jays cap and a Toronto Blue Jays t-shirt.]]
 * Agreed. Park photos should focus on parks. Let me provide you with another example of what not to do. The photo of myself wearing Toronto Blue Jays clothes would not be appropriate for Toronto Blue Jays. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 00:13, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Missing detail?
The lede is woefully inadequate without a mention of Toronto's ascendancy at the expense of Montreal. If not for the Québec nationalism, Toronto would still be the Second City. Glaring omission, and if I trawled the history, I bet it used to be there... 142.126.140.83 (talk) 00:42, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It's mentioned in History of Toronto. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 13:23, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Official name in French
The city in French is Cité de Toronto. Add that to the infobox. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.59.245.106 (talk • contribs) 21:49, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Why? It's not an official language of Ontario or Toronto. Canterbury Tail <i style="color: Blue;">talk</i> 23:08, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Just because French is an official language of Canada does not mean that French is the official language of all of Canada. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 00:07, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It has a geographical area type abbreviation of C, which means City / Cité. 24.59.245.106 (talk) 00:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * What does that have to do with the French language? ... disco spinster   talk  01:02, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Exactly! Though Statistics Canada officially publishes data in both languages, most provinces of Canada are officially monolingual in either English or French. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 00:02, 15 June 2024 (UTC)