Although activity is slower than it once was, anyone is welcome to participate in the project.
Remove the |Semi-active parameter from this template if activity resumes or if this tag was changed in error. If almost no activity occurs in this WikiProject, consider replacing this tag with {{WikiProject status|Inactive}}.
This WikiProject aims primarily to provide information in consistent format for articles on places in Toronto, Ontario. It is also a first test of the format established for Wikipedia:WikiProject London, to allow for some feedback before the template is copied for use for other cities.
Places are most neutrally defined by their ecological characteristics. This is particularly easy for cities as most of the ecology is man-made. A bioregional structure is suggested, with each river (Don, Humber, etc.) and its watershed providing the basis for articles on settlement and history. The modern place-names and political boundaries will be discussed in terms of how much they respect or disrespect boundaries which nature always, by definition, respects. Toronto is an interesting city on which to test this structure, as it has many rivers, a rich set of open ravine parks, and an extensive sewer system, all of which takes water from Lake Ontario (via pumps or rain) and sends it back to there. It is thus an extremely simple watershed.
Note: Any other structure is likely to yield to definition conflicts. See bioregional democracy for a discussion of why watersheds tend to be the most neutral boundaries for definition of place.
Motivation
Toronto is one of the world's most diverse large cities, as over 50% of its population of over 2.7 million were born in some other country (than Canada). Like London, it is structured as a set of urban villages that have not quite lost their character or total control of street life, and each of these neighbourhoods needs an article in the Wikipedia, in the language that is spoken by its inhabitants, and which appears on its signs. Chinese, Italian, Polish, Greek, Indian and other communities are each associated with specific districts, which require articles in at least English and in those languages.
Toronto has sufficient cultural treasures to be worth visiting on any visit to North America. Some of these, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario Science Centre and Royal Ontario Museum, are innovative and notable for their collections, and their public activity in education. Toronto is also a prominent centre for the study of library science and classification systems—the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto has some 1100 of these schemes in its collection. Articles on Toronto itself are most likely to motivate the participation of categorization scholars who work in these institutions.
Places: as [[Queen Street West, Toronto]] with a redirect from [[Queen West, Toronto]], or a disambiguation page if there is more than one place or thing with this name.
Rationale for doing things this way round: many places have been named after places in London, including many places in Toronto, where this habit is simply out of control. There are many Queen and King Streets in Canada and Australia, and figuring out how to disambiguate them all effectively is going to be very necessary. So let's do it quickly and early.
Toronto subway stations: [[Spadina station]], or [[Lawrence station (Toronto)]] if further disambiguation is required, as per WP:CANSTATION.
[[Union station (TTC)]] is an exception, as there's the nearby [[Union station (Toronto)]]
Cities: as their former official full names but recognized as part of Toronto (their current status), i.e. [[Borough of East York, Toronto]], [[City of North York, Toronto]], etc.
Framework
To do:
Auto-generate articles to create a trellis of linked pre-stub articles about places in Toronto, probably based on the phone book or a tour guide available in electronic form.
Hand-edit to merge with existing content, and to fill in the correct Toronto city name for each of these place articles.
The few places that actually are not in Toronto, but one of the surrounding regional municipalities, should be renamed, and the links to them fixed.
There should be an article on each of the Toronto Forward Sortation Areas, cross-linked to the articles describing the places in that postal district, mean income, etc. Statistics Canada will have this.
Articles on notable Toronto tourist attractions such as Rogers Centre should be put in the same format as other Toronto place articles.
Templates
{{WikiProject Toronto}}...First of two templates that may to be placed on talk pages of Toronto, Canada related articles (only one template needed)
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Toronto, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Toronto on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
{{WikiProject Canada|toronto=yes}}...Second of two templates that may to be placed on talk pages of Toronto, Canada related articles (only one template needed)
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Canada articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
