Wikipedia:Featured and good topic candidates/Universities in Canada/archive1

Lists of universities in Canada
Note: Peer reviews of the s ongoing - rst20xx (talk) 00:09, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

This was quite the project; I brought all of these articles to featured status. These are lists of universities in Canada. Canada has ten provinces (and three territories), but only four of those provinces and territories have enough universities, with ten, to actually qualify for featured list status (all three territories have no universities), and so those are here. The other provinces have their universities in the main article in this topic. Gary King ( talk ) 19:04, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Support Everything seems to be in order. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  19:08, 22 October 2008 (UTC)  withdrew support per argument raised by Miss Madeline and Rst22xx. –Juliancolton Tropical  Cyclone  01:58, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Question what about Group of Thirteen (Canadian universities) Nergaal (talk) 19:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It doesn't belong in the topic otherwise I would have included it. It's a group of research-intensive universities in Canada. This topic is for lists of universities. Perhaps that article and others like it could be added in a supplementary nomination if and when this topic expands in scope. Gary King  ( talk ) 20:01, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

*Comment: I think this is cherry-picking because List of universities and colleges in Alberta is not included. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 23:17, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Based on the information provided by Rst20xx in response to my comment, I must oppose. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 02:04, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Miss Madeline. In fact let's go through all the lists. We also have List of universities in Manitoba (redirected over by Gary on the 8th October, I can't see a prior discussion), List of universities and colleges in Newfoundland and Labrador (moved to "List of colleges" and Uni bits of list deleted by Gary on the 8th, again no prior discussion), List of universities and colleges in New Brunswick, List of universities and colleges in Prince Edward Island (same as Newfoundland and Labrador), List of universities and colleges in Saskatchewan (same as Newfoundland and Labrador). List of universities and colleges in Alberta currently exists because someone reverted the merge. Conclusion: A large number of articles were deleted in preparation for this topic, without any consensus for this. I don't think deleting articles to make topics easier to write is on at all. I can see Gary trying to argue that these articles he deleted were non-notable, and while that might be true for Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador and possibly Saskatchewan, I am sure that is not the case for Alberta and possibly Manitoba and New Brunswick. Clear attempt to work the system, IMO. Disappointing - rst20xx (talk) 01:27, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Frankly, rst20xx, I am surprised at your response. Please assume good faith. See my reply to Arctic Gnome for more. Gary King  ( talk ) 05:12, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I apologise, you're absolutely right, I came on much too strong. But I still feel there is a coverage mismatch between the provinces with lists, and the provinces without, and hence I uphold my oppose. I acknowledge that most of the other lists probably wouldn't be large enough to get featured, but part of the reason may be because of the format you've decided to take for the lists in this topic. Each province list could have a short summary of the various universities in the province, similarly to how the main article summarises the provinces. This would probably go some way to help, as well as making the topic more comprehensive. Some of the lists may still be deemed too short to pass, but in that case, I think that they should be included as audited lists, as per Miss Madeline, below. And as always, I personally would want a literal demonstration that the articles can't pass FLC, by having them fail an FLC solely for being inherently short - rst20xx (talk) 15:20, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to abuse the FLC process by submitting lists that I should know will fail because they are too short. Gary King  ( talk ) 21:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * We've seen topics with this kind of structure before, where lists that aren't notable enough to have their own page are included in the lead. To be able to use this model, you have to make an argument that the missing articles would not be long enough to deserve their own page.  On this point I'm afraid that I have to agree with Rst20xx; there should be enough information to make a featured list about universities in Alberta.  You mention that no list can be featured if it has fewer than ten items in it, but that rule is not mentioned in the Featured list criteria.  Where did you hear about that rule?  If a list truly does need ten items to get featured, than I might be able to support your case.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 02:09, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I've worked on enough FLs (more than 40 from my last count) to know that there is an unofficial rule of a minimum of ten items on a list before it can be featured. In some cases, yes, it's possible to have less than ten with enough content, but I don't believe I've ever seen that happen yet. Feel free to peruse the WT:FLC archives for prior discussions on this issue as it has been discussed ad nauseum. As you might imagine, questions like "Does this list have enough items to become featured?" pop up quite often. For some of these university lists, I had longer leads, and I received several comments that asked to reduce the size of the lead because it was longer than the table. I'm sure the same thing might come up for smaller lists.
 * The bottom line is that I am willing to work on the other university lists. I'm not trying to game the system. My line of thought was: why would I submit the other lists to FLC if I know, and the FLC guys know I know, that they need a minimum of ten items to be featured? Anyways, if you guys really want the other lists to be featured, too, or at least Alberta, then I can do that by talking with the FLC directors. Gary King  ( talk ) 05:12, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Why is Alberta etc. being unfeaturable a barrier? If it cannot be featured, surely it could be given "individual quality audit that include[s] a completed peer review" and be entered into the topic through criterion 3c. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 06:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * There always seems to be a lot controversy whenever an audited article is included into a topic. I usually only include audited articles when it is temporary, such as for something that is unreleased, like an upcoming video game, film, or television season. Surely in this case, arguments can be made for both cases that Alberta should have its own list? Alberta only has six universities, which isn't really close to ten. Also, just to be clear, I didn't "delete" the information that was in the other lists; I merged them into List of universities in Canada, and then summarized the information, added leads for each one, references, etc. Gary King  ( talk ) 06:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * There is controversy here about whether Alberta should be included. And if other articles are still too short, why not rename everything "List of post-secondary institutions in _______"? Doing that would allow longer lists and resolve the splittism. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:22, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Universities and colleges are sufficiently different in Canada that I'd be wary of immediately merging them. In any case, most of the provinces would still have less than ten colleges and universities, so it wouldn't really resolve much. Gary King  ( talk ) 23:07, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Oppose The lists should have been audited if they were too short to become featured. Rreagan007 (talk) 13:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Which ones? Only Alberta, or the other provinces which have less universities than Alberta as well? Gary King  ( talk ) 21:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose Per the Miss Madeline, Arctic.gnome, and Rst20xx. I think the problem here is over splitism. The United States which has more universities does not have separate articles for colleges and universities.  I think the solution is to combine the colleges with the universities.  If there is some fundamental difference between colleges and universities in Canada that does not exist in the US then this needs to be explained. When I read the main list I thought there were only 83 institutions of higher learning in Canada which sounds like a small number. Zginder 2008-10-23T16:50Z (UTC)
 * Universities and colleges are distinctly different in Canada; I've tried to explain this in more detail in the lead for List of universities in Canada. Gary King  ( talk ) 21:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, since this is already breaking up into several discussions, let's try to keep this centralized. As I mentioned above, universities and colleges in Canada are distinctly different from each other as opposed to the United States. I've tried to clarify this in the lead for List of universities in Canada. Even if universities and colleges were merged together, some of the provinces would still have less than the unofficial minimum of ten items to become featured. I will not submit lists to FLC just for the purpose of having them deliberately failed. One possible option is that I create and have audited a "List of universities in Alberta". Who would be on board with that? Who wouldn't, and if not, then what should be done? Gary King ( talk ) 23:55, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I would be willing to go along with there being an audited (or better) "List of universities in Alberta". I will go along with the consensus for possible lists for (some of) the other provinces. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 00:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Which of the other provinces should also have their own, audited lists? Gary King  ( talk ) 00:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * But the Alberta page includes colleges. Zginder 2008-10-24T00:19Z (UTC)
 * Each page is inconsistent with the others. The larger provinces had universities and colleges separate. Ultimately, universities and colleges are defined differently in Canada. I was thinking of including articles like List of universities in Ontario and then just letting something like List of universities and colleges in Alberta stay like that, but I figured it would be too inconsistent. The former universities/colleges lists had no prose at all, so now that I've created leads for them, it makes less sense to have them all on the same page as the lead would have to compare them to each other when it isn't entirely logical since both universities and colleges are pretty different from each other. In any case, I've created List of universities in Alberta. Also, I've been using this list from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada at here to create these lists, so that they are all consistent with each other. Gary King  ( talk ) 00:31, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Each province's list was essentially maintained by separate people. Some are in poor condition, including the templates. The template for Template:Universities in Alberta was missing colleges before, even though it was supposed to contain both universities and colleges of Alberta. Gary King  ( talk ) 00:39, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a tough call because on one extreme you could say that every province should have their own list, and on the other extreme you could say that no province should have their own separate list because all the universities are already listed in the main list. Right now there is a fairly arbitrary cut off of 10 items being needed for a separate list. I certainly think it would be perfectly acceptable if every province had their own list and we just audit the ones that are too short to be featured, and I would certainly be willing to accept the idea that a list with fewer than 10 items is not likely to make it through FLC. It would probably be a little silly for Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island to have lists since they only have 1 university each, but I think the rest could all have a separate list. This would probably be the safest way to go because eventually someone will come along and want to know why their province doesn't have their own separate list like the others and will try to create it, and then someone will say that if the list exists it should be in the topic. I'm not saying I would require all those provinces to have a list for me to support the topic, but I think it would be kind of nice if they did. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:33, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If someone comes along and wants to find a list for their own province, it will exist as a redirect. So, it's not as bad as you might think; try this one out: List of universities in Newfoundland and Labrador. I will go ahead and create separate lists for each province that has more than one university, and then get them audited. Gary King  ( talk ) 04:33, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion - One option is to merge neighbouring provinces as needs be. For example, Featured topics/Hurricane Isabel has done this somewhat. Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba would form one such grouping (14 Unis between them) as List of Universities in the Canadian Prairies, and New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nefoundland and Labrador could form another with Nova Scotia (4 + 1 + 1 + 11 = 17), as List of universities in Atlantic Canada - rst20xx (talk) 14:38, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * That's true it would work fine that way. I kind of like it broken up into each province though just because that's how the main list has it broken up. But either way Gary King wants to go with it I would support. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:36, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Each provincial government regulates their universities differently, so I'm more inclined to keep them separated. Hurricanes do not discriminate and would strike the same way in one state or another. The provinces are peer reviewed now. I will update the box. I would like to see where we all stand now. Gary King  ( talk ) 17:00, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You could always just have a more expanded prose section... rst20xx (talk) 00:07, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I like this idea, it could give us a set of all-featured lists of roughly equal lengths. The differences between university rules between the provinces could be explained in the prose.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:55, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Support now that all the lists have been added. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, before any more comments are added, I'd like to point out that the following provinces do not have separate lists because they each have one university: Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island. Gary King  ( talk ) 17:14, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Leaning towards oppose, even though all the lists are included. I know that FTC accepts audited articles, but I cannot support a topic that has as many audited articles as it does featured pages. Personally, I don't see what's wrong with sending them all to FLC. I've never liked that unwritten 10-item rule. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  17:24, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * FAC also has an unwritten minimum length. Gary King  ( talk ) 17:30, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * How about FLC then? :-) –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  17:39, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok this thing about people not liking audited articles has been coming up a lot lately and I think we need to address it. The featured topic criteria are very clear that if an article is of limited subject matter and thus can't go through the featured process then it can be audited. There is still a minimum of at least 2 featured items and at least 3 articles (audited articles excluded), and this topic meets both of those. There is no maximum number of audited articles rule (either written or unwritten). If someone wants to propose a change to the topic criteria to limit the number of audited articles go right ahead, but until that change is made this nomination should go through. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:53, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Since audited articles for missing provinces have been included, I feel that my concern has been resolved satisfactorily and hence I will support now, conditional on the audits being completed. Personally, I would rather that Alberta be featured, but since the topic has minimum featured and total entries included, I won't oppose for that reason as Alberta's specific status is irrelevant. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 23:51, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - may I point out that none of the peer reviews are actually finished yet, so it's a bit premature for various people to be supporting - rst20xx (talk) 00:07, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we can wait, although they've all already had several comments and I've responded to all of them. And the "List of storms" at Wikipedia:Featured topic candidates/2002 Atlantic hurricane season does not have a completed PR, too – sorry Julian! :P Gary King  ( talk ) 01:28, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Additional comment - while the rules do not stipulate that lists need to go to FLC before they can be considered for being audited due to being limited, I do not think that this is an unreasonable request. This may not be written into WP:FT?, but equally, the much mentioned 10-items rule isn't mentioned in WP:FL? I think therefore that I will continue to oppose until Alberta makes a run at FLC - if this fails, I believe it will be a safe assumption that all the shorter lists will fail, as well. But if it passes, then, well, we will see where things go from there - rst20xx (talk) 00:07, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I am one of the FL directors, and I believe this is highly unnecessary and would just plug up the FLC process. The list is too short to pass a FLC, there have been numerous discussions about minimum length and the general (albeit unofficial) consensus is around 10. I've seen bigger lists fail because of that. -- Scorpion0422 01:14, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Support now. Per Scorpion's argument. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  01:17, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Neutral, I'm still not quite sure what the point of the individual provincial lists is. The exact same tables are used in List of universities in Canada, and the leads in the province pages could easily be merged into the main one too. They are all great lists and Gary has done a fantastic job, but why have a bunch of branch articles when they basically copy what is in the main article? -- Scorpion0422 01:34, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking maybe remove the prose from each section in the main list, and leave the tables. The analysis can be saved for the individual articles, which should be kept and beefed up more over time. Gary King  ( talk ) 01:51, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I actually think it makes pretty good sense to have the separate lists for each province. You don't want the main list loaded down with too much detail and having the individual lists allows for greater coverage than a single list could manage successfully. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:34, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Neutral — The audited list could let this technically pass the requirements, but I think that Rst20xx's suggestion to make amalgamated lists for the prairie provinces and for the Atlantic provinces would produce a much neater final product, as well as get the topic fully-featured status. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:59, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Question I could be wrong about this, but aren't audited articles excluded for determining fully-featured status? The star clusters show up on the featured topic boxes even when a topic contains audited articles. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
 * That is correct, but I think Arctic Gnome meant that every article is actually featured - rst20xx (talk) 14:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Support – per Scorpion. We don't send lists to FLC that have no purpose beyond wasting reviewers' time because they obviously will not pass. As I've said in the past, any proposal here requiring a list to go to FLC to ascertain that the list cannot achieve FL status will not be accepted by the FLC regulars because it is a waste of time. — sephiroth bcr  ( converse ) 05:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment Peer reviews have now been closed by the bot. Gary King  ( talk ) 17:08, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I agree with some of the concerns and issues raised in the above comments by and . Cirt (talk) 14:32, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose agree with Rst20xx on the subject of amalgamated lists, and Julian about the peer reviewed items. Some merging would contribute to a neater and in my opinion more complete and useful set of lists and a better topic. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 18:37, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Close as no consensus --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)