Wikipedia:Plan to edit famous Canadians article

Volunteers

• Ed Poor signing up as facilitator, cheerleader and coach. (You can also assign me work.)
• Jeronimo, who also suggests to repeat the result found here to other, similar, lists for other countries.

Open Issues

What does "famous" mean?

Merriam-Webster online says:

FAMOUS, RENOWNED, CELEBRATED, NOTED, NOTORIOUS, DISTINGUISHED, EMINENT, ILLUSTRIOUS mean known far and wide. FAMOUS implies little more than the fact of being, sometimes briefly, widely and popularly known <a famous actress>. RENOWNED implies more glory and acclamation <one of the most renowned figures in sports history>. CELEBRATED implies notice and attention especially in print <the most celebrated beauty of her day>. NOTED suggests well- deserved public attention <the noted mystery writer>. NOTORIOUS frequently adds to FAMOUS an implication of questionableness or evil <a notorious gangster>. DISTINGUISHED implies acknowledged excellence or superiority <a distinguished scientist who won the Nobel Prize>. EMINENT implies even greater prominence for outstanding quality or character <the country's most eminent writers>. ILLUSTRIOUS stresses enduring honor and glory attached to a deed or person <illustrious heroes>.

I've kind of ruined this excellent discussion by renaming it to list of Canadians. Oops Martin

Vote for your favorite criteria here:

• noted, distinguished, eminent, illustrious:
• widely and popularly known:
• has at least one Wikipedia article
  • I vote for this, for essentially all lists of this type Martin
• has X number of Google hits

The plan

Add bullet points here:

• change the sub-list sports page title to something a little below "Famous".
• add Bronco Horvath[?], who really is not famous (Gretzky is) but who in fact tied Bobby Hull[?] for the NHL scoring championship and was an all-star player.

• a sub-page can be where those who love Dave Keon[?] or Dave Shultz[?] from the big bad Flyers, or Mark Messier[?] etc. can put him here and hopefully do an article.

• bio on Bobby Orr
• bio on Gordie Howe who is ranked in the SI top three EVER of hockey. (How long will it take before someone from prior generations so deserved of an article is done?)

• edit all of the headings (there are far too many Famous Actors etc. with no article done who should be on a sub-list.)

• there should be a separate list of hockey players; here on this list should be a few like Bobby Hull and Mario Lemiuex[?]. Others like Dave Keon[?] and Jean Belliveau[?] that no non-Canadian (and most Canadian non-hockey fans) has ever heard of should only go on that sublist.

After someone writes a solid biography, then move it to the famous page.

And, make the extra effort to go to the talk page and tell why, if you think someone else is wrong, remove it (with your own explanation but adhering to these guidelines).

• An idea to stimulate discussion: what about saying that, for each category (actors/writers/sports/etc) we choose, through consensus, say twelve (or whatever number) people to put on the main list. In exceptional cases, if there are thirteen very important actors, for example, than we could make the exceptions by consensus as well. This might require some consolidation (maybe The Band should be listed as a group and not as individuals, since they all seem to be Canadian). It's not a perfect idea, but may be worth discussing.

Tokerboy, this idea seemed good to me (even though I haven't read your proposal until now) and I've tried to do something like that at List of famous Canadians/Temp.

Objective

To see the FAMOUS CANADIANS page (and all other countries too) be something that makes new, curious, visitors from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Korea, etc. etc. stop, look and listen AND come back. In simple words, an advertisement. Limiting the categories to the top three of four hockey players, baseball, etc. is a marketing concept that is designed to create interest. Endless names and lists turn people off. List 20 hockey players and which one does the visitor from Nigeria choose? List the top 3 and it does not matter.

Examples

The famous France page is pretty good and attracts a huge following. But, fill the page with fringe authors and a lot of newcomers will turn away and never come back out of pure disgust at the waste of time. Canucks don?t have France?s long history but they still have interesting knowledge to impart. American liberals like Ralph Nader and Michael Moore think Canada is the greatest place on earth but then far righties like Supreme Court nominee (failed) Robert Bork thinks Canada is the cat?s meow politically and judicially. Hopefully, after some new visitor reads about a Canadian scientist or a baseball player, or even Big Ben, who is a horse not a clock, will leave the Wikipedia site with several things:

1) New or expanded knowledge about Canada, Canadians, their values, and their beliefs; 2) A tiny seed planted towards the developing of a positive attitude towards others; 3) Simple enjoyment and a slight smile about the behaviour of Queen Juliana?s ?Canadianized? kids after they returned from Ottawa to the Netherlands; 4) A desire to return to Wikipedia; 5) A beginning of a desire to maybe do an article or even so bold as to create a List of Famous Syrians (I used Syria because the President has said he is addicted to the web.); 6) A germination that all Americans (I am dual citizenship folks) are not Yahoos, not self-centered, not anti anybody, and some are willing to admit it is time to look outward and understand others. Go Bill Maher! (The education system worldwide teaches kids almost nothing about the rest of the world. Canadians biggest complaint is not that Americans know zip about Canada, it is that Americans don?t want to know zip about Canada. But Canadians don?t want to know zip about Mexico except for the name of a resort beach in January. Note the Famous Canadians talk page snide comment of some basketball statistic on Steve Nash by an American who obviously follows the NBA. I attempted to explain Nash's reason for being a famous Canadian by using the Matt Stairs example.) 7) A growing curiosity and involvement that will, through well written ?famous? people articles, make a visitor want to look at the lengthy sub list and learn more about Canada and with trust in the NPOV of articles will want to read other pages about other nations and the links that can take then to thousands of works of knowledge.

Compliments

Thank you, LDC. Common sense rises to the surface once in a while.

Zoë, you do a good job running around Wikifying my articles because my brain and dyslexic mind (that?s an excuse) can?t handle them properly. Your effort is a very valued one, that is why I didn?t go after you too hard. ?.DW