User:Sarsafrass/sandbox
Wikipedia Articles
- Articles
- Sources
- "Flag of Nunavut." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Jul. 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
- "Steveston, British Columbia." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 19 Sep. 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
- "Haida Gwaii." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 23 Sep. 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
- "Gastropoda." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 22 Sep. 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
Alternate Sources
- Sources
- "Nunavut, flag of." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
- "Richmond." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Foundation, 2012. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
- "gastropod." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
- "Haida Gwaii." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Foundation, 2012. Web. 29 Sep. 2013.
My Search Process
I initially had some difficulty in deciding which articles to choose for my assignment. I would think of a topic, find the Wikipedia page for it, and then find myself unable to locate it on any other online encyclopedia. I was eventually able to narrow my list of potential topics down by choosing the first four that could be found elsewhere. I chose topics that have always interested me, or that mean something to me. To find my topics on other pages, I had to use broader search terms, such as searching for Richmond, which is a large incorporated city, instead of Steveston, which is a former village now absorbed into Richmond. My initial thoughts on the differences between Wikipedia and other online encyclopedias is that Wikipedia is a good deal more far-reaching. I was able to find articles on a number of things that I could not find elsewhere. I don't know if that is actually a good thing or not, however. Some topics may not be found elsewhere because established encyclopedias are likely to have a better idea of what is actually necessary to know, or what people are actually looking for. As Wikipedia articles can be created and edited by anyone, there are more opportunities for vanity publishing. On the other side of the spectrum, I have found that the Wikipedia articles are far more detailed, which allows the reader to decide for themselves which kernels of information are important or relevant to their research.
Summary of Wikipedia article
The Wikipedia page for the Flag of Nunavut is fairly short, only five paragraphs. It opens with a brief description of it's appearance and when it was first raised. The main body of the article is divided into two categories, those of symbolism and history. Under the heading of symbolism, the article discusses the colours used in the flag, and what the colours and images represent. The second category, of history, discusses the work that went into designing Canada's first new flag since that of Newfoundland in 1949. The article discusses how important the opinion of Inuit elders was, and lists some of the communities that the group developing the flag visited. The article then discusses the process of selecting the flag. More than 800 designs were submitted to a committee of elders and artists, who then narrowed the list down to 10 finalists. The Wikipedia article mentions the Inuit artist Andrew Qappik who helped draft the final design out of the colours and symbols from the finalists. At the end of the history, a brief mention is made of some criticisms the flag has faced. Following the article, the Wikipedia page lists two other Wikipedia pages that may interest the reader, that of the Coat of arms of Nunavut and Symbols of Nunavut.
Summary of Encyclopaedia Britannica article
The Flag of Nunavut page at the online Encyclopaedia Britannica is also quite short, only two paragraphs. It opens with a description of the flag, and then what the various colours and images are meant to symbolize. In the second paragraph, the article touches on the importance of Inuit self-expression in the realm of heraldry and flag design, an area not previously common in Inuit art or culture.
Compare/Contrast
The two articles described above cover the same material, however the Wikipedia article goes into more detail. The Britannica article does reference two specific people involved in the design of the flag, Robert Watt, who was then Chief Herald of Canada, and Meeka Kilabuk of the Nunavut Implementation Commission, while the only person mentioned in the Wiki article is Andrew Qappik, an Inuit artist who assisted in drafting the final design. All of these people are important to the creation of the flag, so I found it interesting that the Britannica focus was on the official representatives, while Wikipedia focuses on a local artist who is not representative of anyone but his culture.
The Wikipedia article divides the information into two headlined sections, whereas the Britannica article uses no such demarcation. In a longer article, this might have been problematic, but with such short articles, it is not any more difficult to read. The Britannica article hyperlinks the reader to articles on the Inuit, Nunavut, and Canada, as well as to articles on heraldry, coat of arms, and flags. Wikipedia articles tend to contain hyperlinks whenever a word could have a page of it's own, and this article is no exception. It links not only to relevant topics such as Nunavut and heraldry, it also links to Newfoundland, and Queen Elizabeth II. This can be a bit distracting to the reader, as the hyperlinks are a different colour and so break up the flow of reading.
The Britannica article has an interesting feature in that if the article is reached via searching for the term "flag of Nunavut", each of those words will appear bolded every time they appear in the article. I'm not sure what the necessity is of this feature, but it's intriguing. Another feature that does not appear in the Wikipedia article is the use of italics. In the Britannica article, words of non-English origin such as Inuksuk are italicized, to indicate that they are from a different language. The Wikipedia article makes no such distinctions. Another difference of language is in the words used to describe the different sections of the flag. In the Britannica article, which was written by one flag expert, the two sides of the flag are called "hoist" and "fly", and the colours are called "metals". In the Wikipedia article, the "upper fly", or upper right hand corner, is mentioned using flag terminology, but the two sides of the flag are not named anything.
Contributors, References, and Sources
The Wikipedoa article suggests further reading on similar topics, specifically the Coat of arms of Nunavut and Symbols of Nunavut. The references for the article come from a now defunct page on the governor-general's website, a book about Nunavut, and the opinion of one vexillologist. His review of the flag connects to the website for a lapel flag maker in the USA. With the exception of the governor-general's site, which is no longer available, the references do not seem extremely reliable. The book was printed by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs which is an international human rights organization. This may result in a slightly left leaning bias to the article, which in this situation would translate to emphasis on Inuit involvement. While the opinion of a vexillologist is relevant to an article on flags, his article is hosted by a retail website, which indicates that he is not linked with any school or organization. The Britannica article is written by Whitney Smith, who lists no references. However, his name links to his biographical info where it states that he is the director of the Flag Research Centre in Massachusetts. There is also a list of the Encyclopaedia Britannica articles he has written, all of which are about flags. He has an article of his own on Wikipedia, which mentions that he not only studies flags but has designed at least one in use, that of the country of Guyana. He has also written 27 books on the topic of flags, indicating some expertise in the field
Assessment
The article on Encyclopaedia Britannica is fairly comprehensive considering that not much can be said about a flag with such a recent history. The article was written by an expert in the field, which lends a weight of credibility to it. I appreciate that he describes the colours as "unofficially" representations. What they are supposed to represent makes sense, but as the design came about from a number of finalists, each artist may originally have been thinking a different thing. One sentence from the Encyclopaedia Britannica article that caught my eye was "For decades the Inuit had sought to achieve self-government within Canada, and Inuit artists and community leaders jointly developed the new territory’s flag and coat of arms with the assistance of the Canadian Heraldic Authority." [1] Whitney Smith connects the creation of the flag directly to the need for Inuit self-governance. As a flag expert, he is approaching this from the angle of the importance of the flag. It's not just a piece of fabric that lets people know what territory they're in, it enfolds an entire story in it's cloth, and that story is one of independence and self-reliance.
The Wikipedia article does also put emphasis on the Inuit, in that it goes into detail about the process that led up to the final design being chosen. "Led by the Chief Herald of Canada, a group developing the flag visited a number of communities to seek input and learn about local culture, including Rankin Inlet, Baker Lake, Cape Dorset, Iqaluit, and Pangnirtung." [2] Both articles emphasise the importance of Inuit culture and the influence it had on the flag. This is especially relevant as Inuit culture is not one known for heraldry, and it was undoubtedly not easy trying to translate a long-lasting oral culture into recognizable images for a two-dimensional flag.
In the Wikipedia article, reference is made to criticisms, but all of the critiques come from one man, Peter J. Orenski. I was unable to find anything about his credentials other than that he has written a book on Native American flags. [3] While this may give him credence in the field of flags, it is a weak correlation. Saying "Following its adoption, the flag has been criticized for vexillological reasons" [4]makes it sound as if the critiques have been bountiful, when in fact they've come from one person. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire paragraph regarding the criticisms, and the correlating reference, actually came from the keyboard of one Peter J. Orenski.
On the History page for this article, numerous edits have been made to remove vandalism, usually in the form of someone having a bit of fun with the internet equivalent of "Kilroy was here". Other edits have been made for the purpose of grammar and spelling, but not many edits appear to be as a result of any political or otherwise biased purposes.
On the Talk page however, the one point raised is extremely interesting. Posted by a user named Remou, who does not have a user page, the problem raised has to do a bit with spelling and a bit with the main image on the flag. Remou quotes from The Canadian Encyclopedia article on Inuksuk to show that the preferred Inuit spelling is Inuksuk, whereas in English it is spelled Inukshuk. The Wikipedia article uses both spellings, though only Inuksuk is hyperlinked to the Wikipedia page on that subject. This raises editing concerns in general for a website such as Wikipedia, as many languages are transliterated into English and there are always questions about what the correct transliteration might be. Go ahead and count the number of ways "Chanukah" can be spelled in English. It will take quite some time!
The other part of Remou's concern is that he states the stone figure on the flag is not even an Inuksuk at all, but an Inunnguaq. The difference is that an Inuksuk is a stone figure or cairn not generally meant to represent a specific figure, whereas an Inunnguaq represents a human figure.
One item of interest that was featured in neither article, nor in the Wiki's talk or history pages, is what some consider to be the real symbolism behind the colours and images on the flag of Nunavut. A nearly entirely Christian territory [5], the majority of Inuit are devoutly religious. While I unfortunately have no legitimate references for this information, the only article I was able to find being from an Evangelical organization [6], I have also received this information directly from multiple people who lived in Nunavut when it was still a part of NWT, and therefore remember the time when the community was choosing a flag, and even though that doesn't count as a viable source, it makes the following all the more interesting. To many Inuit, including those who worked on the design of the flag, the colours symbolize not snow and sunrise, as the Encyclopaedia Britannica article mentions[7], but Christ's purity and the miracles that God works everyday. The red Inuksuk represents the blood and cross, while the Northern Star is actually Jesus Christ.
Ultimately, I feel that Whitney Smith's credentials cannot be ignored, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica article is the superior of the two for academic purposes, but the Wikipedia article provides a number of useful jumping off points for anyone seeking to read more about Nunavut or Inuit culture.
Additional Reading
- Falconer, Shelley, and Shawna White. Stones, Bones and Stitches: Storytelling through Inuit Art. Toronto: Tundra, 2007.
- Légaré, André. "Canada's Experiment With Aboriginal Self-Determination In Nunavut: From Vision To Illusion." International Journal On Minority & Group Rights 15.2/3 (2008): 335-367. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
- Purcell, John M. "Emotion And Flags: A Personal Perspective." Raven: A Journal Of Vexillology 19.(2012): 1. Supplemental Index. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
- Ritzenhein, Mark. "Iqaluit, Nunavut." Raven: A Journal Of Vexillology 18.(2011): 80. Supplemental Index. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
- Ritzenhein, Mark. "Igloolik, Nunavut." Raven: A Journal Of Vexillology 18.(2011): 76. Supplemental Index. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
- Ritzenhein, Mark. "Rankin Inlet, Nunavut." Raven: A Journal Of Vexillology 18.(2011): 149. Supplemental Index. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
- Soublière, Marion. Nunavut '99: Changing the Map of Canada. Iqaluit, Canada: Nortext Multimedia, 1999.
- Symbols of Canada. [Gatineau, Québec]: Canadian Heritage, 2008.
- Whyte, Brendan. "On Cartographic Vexillology." Cartographica 42.3 (2007): 251-262. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
- Znamierowski, Alfred. Flags through the Ages: A Guide to the World of Flags, Banners, Standards and Ensigns. London: Southwater, 2000.