Wikipedia:WikiProject Commonwealth

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What is the Commonwealth of Nations?

The Commonwealth of Nations, usually known as the Commonwealth, is a voluntary association of 56 independent sovereign states, most of which are former British colonies, or dependencies of these colonies (the exceptions being the United Kingdom itself, Gabon, Mozambique, Rwanda and Togo).

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 King Charles III, known for this purpose as Head of the Commonwealth. This position, however, does not imbue him 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.

King Charles III is also the Head of state of the United Kingdom and separately fourteen other members of the Commonwealth, collectively called the Commonwealth realms. As each realm is an independent kingdom, King Charles III, 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: King Charles the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Australia and of His 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.

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!

User	Time and date	Relevant interests and specialist knowledge	Status
Cameron* (Founder)	19:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)	Lists of monarchs, Commonwealth realm monarchy pages, Elizabeth II, George VI.	User
TharkunColl*	19:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)	Articles that deal with historical chronology, and the development and evolution of institutions.	User
Lholden*	20:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)	L. Holden is the Chair of the Republican Movement of Aotearoa New Zealand.	User
Jza84*	23:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)	Interested in the United Kingdom, Scottish monarchy and Canada. Willing to do peer reviews.	Administrator
Ibagli*	23:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)	Interested in British Royalty and heraldry.	User
Miesianiacal*	16:32, 24 March 2008 (UTC)	Topics generally related to the Canadian monarchy, but also to the broader condition of the Crown in the other Commonwealth realms.	User
Miguel AG*	09:29, 18 July 2011 (UTC)	Articles related to Brunei.	User
Gazzster*	16:32, 24 March 2008 (UTC)	History, Philosophy of Monarchism and Republicanism, Australia, general stirring of the pot to see what comes to the surface - we should be explorers and learners!	User
DBD*	18:13, 11 April 2008 (BST)	Once WP:BROY founder; now a republican...	User
MichiganCharms*	19:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)	History of the Commonwealth and the British Empire specifically articles about Dominions, Hiberno-British relationships, Canada and India.	User
Rrius*	19:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)	The UK monarchy (mostly going back through the English side), The UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, The Channel Islands, the peerage, honours, and Parliament and parliamentary democracy.	User
Taifarious1	23:31, 7 October 2008 (UTC)	Specifically New Zealand, the topic of republicanism in both New Zealand and Australia, but the commonwealth in general and some work on Government Houses of New Zealand.	User
Bastin	16:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)	Everything to do with the Commonwealth itself (i.e. institutions, not members specifically); Commonwealth history and constitution, CHOGMs, and Commonwealth studies. See this 'to-do' page.	User
Presidentman	12:37, 29 November 2009 (UTC)	Countries, subdivisions, government in general	User
E1tiger	13:30, 23 August 2010 (UTC)	Commonwealth Games, England	User
Johnjofe	02:50, 12 February 2011 (UTC)	Africans And Muslims in the Commonwealth	User
Knight of Gloucestershire	29th June 2012	British Monarchs, Commonwealth Countries, British Colonization, British Hong Kong	User
Grant	10 September 2014	History (especially historiography/theory, social, economic and military); Politics (e.g. ideologies, political economy, constitutional law, international relations); Philosophy	Administrator
Graham11	07:29, 27 June 2016 (UTC)		User
UB22	01:59, 10 September 2018 (GMT)	British colonial history, United Kingdom-Commonwealth Realms relations and promotion of British values and culture globally; the British Monarchy; Heraldry; Vexillology and the study of British Ensigns (chiefly the flags of Australia and New Zealand as well as the historic Canadian Red Ensign and Hong Kong ensign; the British Empire in general; Philosophy & Ethics; patriotism.	User
PubliusJ	01:59, 10 September 2018 (GMT)	History: political, military, de-colonization and republicanism; Politics; Sovereigns: 18th century-present; current Anglophone realms	User
Happily888	03:20, 20 March 2021 (UTC)	History and culture; specifically Australia and UK	User
Nitesh Yadav	4:08, 17 April 2021 (IST)	India & Pakistan	User
Peter Ormond	18:46, 5 November 2021 (UTC)	Monarchy in the Commonwealth realms and Dominions, Head of the Commonwealth, History of the Commonwealth and Empire etc etc	User

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

Scope

For a list of the articles deemed most important to this project see Wikipedia: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.

Other

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: Wikipedia:WikiProject Royalty