User talk:GrantNeufeld/2008

First VfD

Hello. Do understand that I mean nothing personal by listing Grant Neufeld for deletion. Previously it was tagged for "speedy deletion" but it clearly doesn't fall under those criteria. Feel free to make a case for keeping the page at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Grant Neufeld/vote1. If you make comments there, or on talk ages, you should sign by typing four tildes ("~~~~"). This signs and date-stamps your comments like mine below.

Most wikipedia editors believe "notability" is required for a page to merit inclusion. Therefore, if you improve the article to show that Grant Neufeld (presumably you) is notable—especially notable outside the Alberta elections—it'll be more likely to survive deletion.

Oh, and welcome to wikipedia! Sorry that this message seems so adversarial. Again, nothing personal. Cool Hand Luke 07:26, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh, you're already way ahead of me! Like User:Dr Zen said, you show a great attitude. We're very glad to have you here! Cool Hand Luke 07:28, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Alberta general election, 2004

I suppose I should be nice and let you know I reverted your edits on the Alberta election page, because I noticed you thought that it was misleading. However, many of the candidates do deserve articles, and especially the incumbents! It's best to go on case by case basis when it comes to whether candidates deserve to be there or not. On the lighter side of things, you make the second person I've met on wikipedia who is running/has run in a provincial election. Good luck! Earl Andrew 23:09, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Grant...just wanted to drop you a note to say hi and wish you good luck in the election. Looking at your campaign page, you seem like exactly the kind of committed, community-oriented politician I think we need more of in this country. And judging by your comments on the VfD vote, you sound like a class act, too. And gawd only knows that Ralph Klein needs more opposition than he's had. Best of luck! Bearcat 22:51, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Congrats

Congrats. You had a very respectable showing in last night's election. Coming in third and beating the NDP and Alliance is very good. I hope you stick around Wikipedia. -- JamesTeterenko 20:09, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! It was a hard campaign (my first) and I learned a heck of a lot that should make the next run go even better. It was pleasing to at least see some non-Tories get elected in Calgary - especially David Swann who I've worked with personally on peace and Iraq issues. It's very exciting to see the growth of the Green Party in Alberta. We are on track to see some solid success in the next round of elections. But, my big challenge for the next month is learning how to have a full-night's sleep again... -- GrantNeufeld 18:24, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Canadian environmentalists category

Hello, I wanted to let you know that your personal user page is currently being listed in the Canadian environmentalists category, along with articles for David Suzuki, etc. I believe this is occurring because you link to the category in the notable Wikipedia contributions section of your user page. I accidentally once made the same mistake and found my user page being listed in the category for Political advocacy groups in Canada! Congratulations on running in the latest Alberta Provincial Election as well. I also noticed your entry for Harry B. Chase and wanted to mention that Mr. Chase taught me French at F.E. Osborne Junior High School in Calgary for three years in the mid-1990s, I remember him very well and respect him a great deal. Take care! Kurieeto 20:21, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

Hi again, Grant...as a followup to Kurieeto's comment, I'd like to point out that if you want your user page to link to the category page without itself being categorized, you can link to it by putting a colon before the name of the link, like this: [[:Category:Canadian environmentalists]]. The extra colon turns it into a conventional link to the category page. Bearcat 05:04, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Grant Neufeld

No problem. Glad to be of assistance. I don't really understand active deletionists. there is so much crap here - true vanity from nobodies, vandalism, semi-literate rants, etc. - I don't understand why some people are so eager to delete a well-written article about someone who is doing things in the public sphere, if not always with immediate success. I'll keep my fingers crossed about the VfD. Kevintoronto 15:31, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Grant, you just don't know how much I would love to vote keep. I almost did, in fact. You are obviously active and effective in politics (the RKC doesn't yet establish encyclopedia-level notability in my view) and I have a soft spot for the underdog fighting the good fight. I would love to be able to keep the article about you. What finally tipped the scales for me, though, was that I did base my assessment on your political achievements and I couldn't answer one question. Forgive me for my bluntness, but I hope you'll appreciate the candor -- the question was "What makes this person stand out from the tens of thousands of other also-rans in the world?" Most everyone has some record of involvement in activist/political organizations, so that wouldn't do it. I finally decided that until you are elected to public office I can't really justify keeping the article according to my criteria of notability. Obviously, my criteria is not the one always used throughout WP, but it is what I must use. Keep doing what you've been doing. You're clearly doing a great job. When you are elected to office, please do let me know. I'll be happy to vote keep. SWAdair | Talk 22:50, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • It looks like I won't have to wait. While checking my list of contributions just now, I realized that the VfD hadn't been closed. I looked into it and saw that no consensus was reached. In the world of Wikipedia and VfD, no consensus means the article stays. I've taken care of the red-tape side of things, closing the debate, removing the VfD tag from the article and linking to the debate on the article's talk page. I think that is the first time a "vanity" article has survived VfD. Congratulations, Grant. SWAdair | Talk 10:10, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Lubicon Cree

Hi Grant, I think it's redundant to include the Lubicon Cree in Category:Alberta. The Lubicon Cree are in Category:Aboriginal peoples in the Prairie Provinces, which in turn is in Category:Alberta. Setting criteria for when it is acceptable for aboriginal peoples to be listed in two location-based categories will be hard to define. For example, with their recent notable land claim settlement, do the Tli Cho belong in Category:Aboriginal peoples in the Canadian Arctic and Category:Northwest Territories? Or does the historical signifigance of the Beothuk merit inclusion in Category:Aboriginal peoples in Atlantic Canada and Category:Newfoundland and Labrador? A more proper way to bring attention on Wikipedia to the Lubicon Cree in my opinion would be to work them into the Alberta and Aboriginal peoples in the Prairie Provinces articles. If you agree then please undo your last change, and if not I welcome your counter-arguments. Kurieeto 13:26, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

email

Further to my e-mail, see Green Party of Canada candidates, 2004 federal election. Ground Zero 15:15, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ethics and diligence

(blush) Thank you. As for the ethics... well, I am an Objectivist.  :-) And the diligence... I just sent an e-mail to the mailing list about this situation. That is sure to bring attention from both sides, but I'm hoping that enough people get involved and vote to keep on principle. After all, if this article can be kept on eternal VfD until deleted, then any article can. It is the principle of the matter that concerns me. Thank you for your kind words, and best of luck in everything you do. SWAdair | Talk 06:05, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Russell Norman

I was sooo tempted to say he passed the "Grant Neufeld test" for the notability of Green politicians... :) Samaritan 23:13, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Patricia Rozema

http://www.glbtq.com/arts/rozema_p.html Bearcat 16:03, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Multiple floating infoboxes

I use mozilla firefox, so I know how frustrating it is. --Spinboy 02:00, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Calgary Wikipedian Meet

You beat me to it, Grant. I was thinking about having a Wikipedia barbecue or something similar myself. I'm a bit tied up with summer visitors over the next two weeks but any weekend after that would suit me fine. Cheers -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:23, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

I'm available most weekday evenings for a dinner and a chat. My weekends are filling up so book now! Drhaggis 18:10, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'll join in. I have various times of availability, but can generally make something with notice. Thursdays are about the only day that really do not work for me. -- JamesTeterenko 03:22, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Stubs

Thanks for adding the Raging Grannies article. As part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting, I have replaced the generalized {{stub}} tag with {{org-stub}}. When you create new articles, it would be great if you could use these more specific tags whenever possible. Thanks, and continue contributing to Wikipedia! Russ Blau (talk) 22:13, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

First Nations

Hi Grant,

Your knowledge of the Lubicon Cree far surpasses mine, so I recognize that their current categorization in Template:Treaty 8 First Nations in Alberta may be in error. I've also encountered some First Nations in the Aboriginal peoples in Saskatchewan article whose status under the various numbered Treaties is unclear. In that instance I've temporarily placed them under a header of "Uncategorized First Nations in Saskatchewan", to differentiate them from the rest. Do you have any suggestions for the naming of this header to deal with First Nations in various provinces and territories that don't easily fit into the Treaty categorization structure?

I've tried to limit the footer Templates that I'm creating to roughly 40 First Nations or fewer, so as to not overwhelm the reader. Instead of grouping by Treaty we could group by Tribal Council, geographic area, or possibly alphabetize them? Dividing by geographic area would involve defining for example just what encompasses "Northern British Columbia", etc. What do you think? Kurieeto 02:42, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

My reply

Hi Grant,

I've considered your comments and I agree that categorization by Treaty for Templates is not as good an option as grouping by geographic region. Your other suggestions such as grouping all Cree nations, or grouping by membership in Aboriginal organizations may hold promise as well.

My concern with grouping by geographic region is that some First Nations have multiple reserves, sometimes located great distances from each other. For example, the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation has standard Indian reserves near the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border, close to Flin Flon, Manitoba, but also have an Urban Indian reserve in Prince Albert, a city in the central region of the province. Another potential difficulty would be the categorization of a First Nation or band that has no reserve specifically assigned to them, and instead has their members distributed on many reserves. These issues are not insurmountable, but I wanted to bring them up.

One other point I wanted to raise was that while roughly 45 to 75 First Nations exist in each prairie province, our current data on Wikipedia lists 186 First Nations existing in British Columbia, and 132 in Ontario. In those instances dividing a province into north/south sub-groupings would be insufficent, and division into quarters or more may be required. For British Columbia, do you think this wording of a template would be acceptable: "First Nations in Northwest Mainland British Columbia", with a notice at the bottom of the template saying that "Northwest Mainland British Columbia is considered for this template to be all areas of British Columbia northwest of Prince George"? I've just picked that city as an example, it is centrally located but we may need a different location depending on how the First Nations are actually distributed in that province. By the way, there's a map on this website that's a great resource for info on First Nations in BC. Kurieeto 21:42, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

User Categorisation

You were listed on the Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Canada page as living in or being associated with Alberta. As part of the Wikipedia:User categorisation project, these lists are being replaced with user categories. If you would like to add yourself to the category that is replacing the page, please visit Category:Wikipedians in Alberta for instructions.--Rmky87 22:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Electoral Districts

I would like to invite you to participate in Wikipedia:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada. It is just getting started so please read through it, familiarize yourself with the topic and the options/examples and then participate in the debate about how the pages should best be laid out. --maclean25 20:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Seth

The user who added that had been adding lots links to their site, so I deleted it in that sweep; if you consider it a useful link, I have no problem with you re-adding it. tregoweth 18:11, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Jim Harris

I removed the box because it was duplicated. CJCurrie 23:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

2006 election

Are you throwing your hat in the ring this time around? Ground Zero | t 06:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

No. I do not want to run federally because I'm not willing to go to Ottawa. Even though the odds would be extremely against my actually winning in this election (given the usual Conservative landslide here), I don't think it would be fair to stand for a position I'm not prepared to take. I was willing to run provincially because Edmonton is sufficiently close to Calgary that I wouldn't be too uprooted from my community here. --GrantNeufeld 14:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Grant -- you're quite right about the issues article. I've taken one run-through of the article, but it needs more work. I think I've removed the most offensive bits. Would you be able to take a look at it? Another issue is that I had added some stuff on Green Party policy to the minor parties article. It should be moved into the main article, and subsatntailly expanded. Ground Zero | t 21:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not the best person to post on federal policy issues for the Greens - I'm a lot more focused on Alberta politics (there are only so many hours in the day...). However, I'll try to keep my eye out for points I can contribute to for that. Thanks again for you countless contributions on these topics - it's great having conscientious folks like yourself working on this project! --GrantNeufeld 21:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Staying On

Oh, I'm not staying. I'm still extremely pissed off. I just saw something that cried out for an afd nomination, and I couldn't do that without logging on. I seriously dislike the hypocracy around here, one of many reasons I left. --File:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 06:00, 21 December 2005 (UTC)