Wikipedia:WikiProject Commonwealth

What is the Commonwealth of Nations?
The Commonwealth of Nations, usually known as the Commonwealth, is a voluntary association of 53 independent sovereign states, most of which are former British colonies, or dependencies of these colonies (the exceptions being the United Kingdom itself, Mozambique and Rwanda).

No single government in the Commonwealth, British or otherwise, exercises power over the others, as in a political union. Rather, the relationship is one of an international organisation through which countries with diverse social, political, and economic backgrounds are regarded as equal in status, and co-operate within a framework of common values and goals, as outlined in the Singapore Declaration. These include the promotion of democracy, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, individual liberty, egalitarianism, free trade, multilateralism, and world peace, and are carried out through multilateral projects and meetings, as well as the quadrennial Commonwealth Games. The symbol of this free association is Queen Elizabeth II, known for this purpose as Head of the Commonwealth. This position, however, does not imbue her with any political or executive power over any Commonwealth member states; the position is purely symbolic, and it is the Commonwealth Secretary-General who is the chief executive of the organisation. Elizabeth II is also the Head of State, separately, of sixteen members of the Commonwealth, collectively called the Commonwealth realms. As each realm is an independent kingdom, Elizabeth II, as monarch, holds a distinct title for each, though, by a Prime Ministers' Conference in 1952, all include the style Head of the Commonwealth at the end; for example: Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of Australia and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth. Beyond the realms, the majority of the members of the Commonwealth have their own, separate heads of state: thirty-two members are republics, and five members have distinct monarchs: the Sultan of Brunei; the King of Lesotho; the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia; the King of Swaziland; and the King of Tonga.

More about the Commonwealth of Nations...

Aims

 * To provide guidelines and recommendations for articles that describe all aspects of the Commonwealth.
 * To improve Wikipedia's coverage of the Commonwealth by creating, expanding, and maintaining such articles.
 * To serve as the central point of discussion for issues related to the Commonwealth in Wikipedia.
 * To create a consistent look and style for each page within our scope.
 * To fight vandalism on articles within our scope by patrolling recent changes.

Participants
You don't need to hail from one of the Commonwealth to help with this WikiProject. All we ask is that users be registered, and are familiar with Wikipedia's various policies and guidelines.

Follow the steps below to add you self to our list of participants!


 * Add yourself to our list of participants here.

Add your name---> the date and time---> and your special interests....and you are an official member!

* = indicates participation in WikiProject:Commonwealth realms prior to the renaming.

Scope
For a list of the articles deemed most important to this project see WikiProject Commonwealth/Important.

The project generally considers any article related to the Commonwealth of Nations to be a valid topic. A simple (but accurate) way of checking which pages are within our scope is to follow click "What links here" in the "toolbox" section of this page. The scope template is added to pages within our WikiProject. Anyone may add an article to the scope, provided they are sure that it is relevant to the project. An article may be in the scope of multiple WikiProjects. Where this is true one should be sure to contact the other WikiProjects too so as to avoid conflicts. If you are not sure whether to add the template, propose it a the talk page first.

Templates
For templates relevant to the Commonwealth see this page.


 * The scope template: This template is used to add articles to our project's scope. The scope template can be found here.


 * The Userbox: The userbox may be used by anyone who is a member of our project. Using the userbox helps people to identify Wikipedians as members of this project. The userbox template can be found here.

To-do list

 * A list of pages that need creating or special attention can be found here. Feel free to add an article to the list or discuss on the project talk page.

Sandbox

 * You can experiment with edits and put up links on the discussion prior to them going "live" here.

Important

 * A list of the articles most important to the project can be found here.

Resources

 * A list of hepful websites and other resources can be found here.

Related projects
The Portal about Commonwealth realms can be found at Portal:Commonwealth realms.
 * Sister project: WikiProject British Empire
 * Canada: Governments of Canada
 * United Kingdom: British royalty; WikiProject British Government
 * General: WikiProject Royalty