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Talk:Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District

Latest comment: 13 years ago by Skookum1 in topic Requested move 2
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Official name vs DBA/web name

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Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Just to note the RD uses the current title on its website and letterhead; in legal language, i.e. in the legislation and in BCGNIS, it's "Regional District of Alberni-Clayoquot". For now "most common usage" applies, unless it turns out that the website is anomalous - ? - and the formal usage does prevail.Skookum1 (talk) 01:39, 17 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 1

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Latest comment: 13 years ago32 comments9 people in discussion
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 10:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC)Reply


Alberni–Clayoquot Regional District → Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District — ALL official sources, including the regional districts themselves, their enabling legislation, BCGNIS, CGNDB, StatsCan (where RD names are used as those of Census Areas - though without the ""Regional District" name appended) as well as most common usage use a hyphen, no spaces, for double-barrelled RD names; none use a dash nor spaces between dashes and the names. These should never have been changed - the rationale I am told was to "harmonize with Wikipedia's appearance standards" but that's not reason to override official sources/names. They're also cumbersome to use/link with the dash. These need to be changed as a precursor to a CfD moving the categories back to the hyphen format; they also should not have been changed Relisted. Jafeluv (talk) 09:10, 28 December 2010 (UTC) Skookum1 (talk) 05:05, 19 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

Oppose. The use of an en-dash versus a hyphen is, generally speaking, a matter of typography and style, not a matter of spelling. WP:ENDASH indicates that the en-dashes are to substitute for hyphens when the mark is being used "to stand for and between independent elements." Conjunctive RD names clearly meet this condition. The Tom (talk) 21:53, 27 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
    • 'Rebuttal You're quite wrong, they are NOT independent elements in their context as RD names. They are LEGAL NAMES. Wikipedia has no right to impose its typographical "improvements" on existing LEGAL names, which are NOT conjunctive but used as solitary terms, as with SatsCan's appropriation of them for use as Census areas (e.g. Alberni-Clayoquot is the CA, while the regional district is the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District. Now if the dyad were "Alberni Valley and Clayoquot Sound regions" and you wantd to dash-ify that, then "Alberni Valley &emdash Clayquot Sound" might be called for (unless it's not in the source cited, e.g. a qute from somewhere). An existing convention walraedy exists between fedeeral electoral districts which use the emash because the soruce (Elections Canada) does, and provincial electoral districts, which use the hyphen - again because the source (Elections BC) does, as well as because of long-standing convention. The only place weher dash-usages of RD names can be found is in Wikipedia, so your claim that this is "only" a typographical issue can be reduced to "only a typographical issue in Wikipedia", not in any citable source or common usage. By NEW USAGES, which it should not be doing. Wikipedia "typographical standards" should be governed by real-world sources/ not by the tastes/agendas of Wikipedia designers....and should never upend legal names or longstanding conventions by overriding them with arbitrarily-arrived at Wikipedia "policies". Add on to that "utility/ease of use" and the rationale for emdashes or endashes, arrived at by editors wanting to impose standards not aware of what they are affecting (legal names) is, well, poppycock.Skookum1 (talk) 22:30, 27 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
  • Support. I agree with Skookum1's assessment; each article's title refers to a single entity whose designation was formally established by others, not two independent elements whose names we're combining. Please see Talk:Hanna-Barbera#Hyphen vs En Dash for my comments regarding a similar situation. —David Levy 20:10, 28 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose – Dashes are not used in most websites because people can't or can't be bothered typing them in. The difference between a hyphen and a dash is a stylistic one and has nothing to do with WP:COMMONNAME. We can change hyphens to dashes in direct quotes so they can equally be changed in article titles. We don't recognise the exact capitalisation of trademarks; we use whatever is normally correct in English, and this is a similar situation. This is not a double-barrel surname, it is a combination of two surnames created for the place. That's my assumption; if I'm wrong, please let me know. McLerristarr | Mclay1 02:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
  • WP:COMMONNAME is a policy and the manual of style is a guideline. If the common name uses a hyphen then we should use a hyphen instead of making up a spelling that we like better. The articles already link to sources that use only hyphens. I'll add The Alaska Highway, a book that spells "Fraser-Fort" with a hyphen in page 106, and uses dashes in a sentence in the next page, so it's not like they don't bother with dashes. Please provide sources that spell those names with a dash or with spaces around the hyphen or with two hyphens. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:31, 29 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
  • Wait, let me reword that: see google books search, 40 books use only a hyphen, 10 only use a space to separate, 3 use a dash, and 2 use a hyphen with spaces. To refine, we would look only at the highest quality sources (but I don't have time now). --Enric Naval (talk) 09:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

Highest quality sources (picked from the first few results, all use one hyphen except for some old census):

--Enric Naval (talk) 12:52, 29 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

    • I still think it's irrelevant whether sources use a hyphen or a dash. It certainly shouldn't have spaces around the hyphen or dash, but the difference between a hyphen and dash is just a stylistic one and doesn't change the spelling, meaning or correctness of the name. Just because most websites have different style rules to Wikipedia doesn't mean that we have to follow their style rules because their style rules are used in sources. McLerristarr | Mclay1 00:59, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
      • Comment Those aren't just websites, they're official records, and mirror what's in the legal language of the legislation. Wanting to supplant in-use hyphens for Wikipedia dashes and claiming that it's not a difference in spelling is what's not relevant, and is only opinion. i.e. vs official sources and regular, normal usages. Expecting bots and redirects to pick up the slack because wikipedia designers think "their way is better" is just not encyclopedic. The Canadian Encyclopedia doesn't do it, why should Wikipedia?Skookum1 (talk) 01:03, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
        • Wikipedia isn't the Canadian Encyclopedia. We don't do things just because others do. If you can find a source that says writing the name of this place would be incorrect with a dash, then I'll agree with you. Until then, I still think that most typed writing will never use dashes because hyphens are a lot easier. Even on Wikipedia, a lot of editors will use a spaced hyphen instead of a dash because it's easier, but technically it's still a dash, it just hasn't been written properly. McLerristarr | Mclay1 01:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
          • See David Levy's post above about how dashes are not used in a hyphenated proper name, be it Featherstone-Haugh or Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District. You're talking about a Wikipedia style issue vs cited sources and also established Wikipedia guidelines about not treating double-barreled proper names as if they were "dashable".Skookum1 (talk) 01:33, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
            • As I said previously, Alberni–Clayoquot is not a surname, it is a combination of two surnames created for the place. If you can give me one source that says otherwise, I will support your argument. McLerristarr | Mclay1 09:46, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
              • You are very, very wong. The Alberni Valley and also the Alberni Canal (now Alberni Inlet for pilotage reasons though the older usage prevails in speech still) is the root of the first part of the name, Clayoquot Sound the root of the second part of the name. But Alberni-Clayoquot, whether as a CA or as an RD, is not the same as either, nor simply a combination of the two names; it is a single applelation which includes, for example, Barclay Sound/Ucluelet,/Bamfield/Sarita, none of which are either in the Alberni Valley nor in Clayoquot Sound (which can mean either the sound or the region, here tending to mean the region). Squamish-Lillooet includes Whistler, Brittania Beach, Pemberton, the Bridge River Valley, the Gates Valley and not just Squamish and Lillooet. Kitimat-Stikine's name refers only to that RD's extremities (Kitimat at the south, the Stikine Country to the north; and NB Stikine Region which is different. These dual names in the forms used are used ONLY as names for the regional districts, and by consequence for census areas; one exception may be Okanagan-Similkameen, which as that link will show, is a former provincial electoral district. You sometimes see Thompson-Nicola used in a general sense, but the more common uaage is Thompson-Okanagan, which is the official name is one of BC's Tourism regions, though that name (singular) existed long before and includes areas not in the Thompson or Okanagan (specifically the Shuswap and the Nicola). These are single names for places, and are not simple linkages "creatred for the place", whatever you mean by that. In their creation, also, it must be underscored that the Queens Printer, Hansard, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs - all with style guides, and in the case of Hansard and Queens Printer, very strict ones - are legally-chartered names, and the hyphen is included as part of the legally chartered name. They are not simply two placenames combined (or "surnames" as you call them, though that term is for persons, not places), they are single names for defined regions whcih include other named places. It's not like saying "Vancouver-Burnaby" or Surrey-Delta-White Rock (er, that's a riding name, or was) or Abbotsford-Aldergrove or Chilliwack-Rosedale, which are combinations of two so-called "surnames"; they are NAMES, period.Skookum1 (talk) 10:18, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

I just re-read your last post, McLay....you want a SOURCE? If you're so hot on sources, why do you discount the BCGNIS, CGNDB, StatsCan and other official sources as having lazy typographers?? You want a source to disprove your artificial and unfounded thesis?? Sources have been already given that these are stand-alone names and their meanings should not be confused with "Alberni and Clayoquot", "Squamish and Lillooet", "Thompson and Nicola", etc. BTW the family surnames in that set are Alberni, Thompson and Nicola (well, Nicola's a personal name, not a family one, but the reference isn't to Chief Nicola but rather the Nicola Country/Nicola River, which are named after him. The meaning of "Thompson-Nicola" is "the basin of the Thompson River, plus the basin of the Nicola River, plus parts of the Fraser Canyon to the north and south of the norteastern extremity of the Squamish-Lilloet Regional District, plus parts of the Cariboo and all of the Shuswap".Skookum1 (talk) 10:23, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

  • I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding your point, but to me it seems you are supporting my opinion that Alberni–Clayoquot is not a surname but rather a combination of two names (whether surnames or not is irrelevant). However, please note that I am not Canadian and have no idea where any of these places are nor what your abbreviations stand for. But in reply, yes, I do want a source to disprove my artificial and not wholly unfounded thesis. A hyphen is used to separate two elements of a compound word. A dash is used in other instances. That's Wikipedia practice. In fact, other publications would consider some of our uses of dashes as just stylised hyphens. Even in phrases such as "Canadian–American border" where we would use an endash, others would consider that just a hyphen. In response to all this about "legal use" of hyphens, I'll compare it to a similar discussion involving The Beatles. One editor was saying that "The Beatles" is a registered trademark so should always be spelt with a capital "T" in "The". Another editor noted that it was unlikely that the copyright holders of "The Beatles" would object to the use of "the Beatles", which is used quite a bit, probably more often mid-sentence. Likewise, there is almost no difference between an endash used in this way to a hyphen. PS it's not "McLay" – "M" is my first initial and "Clay" are the first four letters of my surname :P. McLerristarr | Mclay1 10:50, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

I see no reason at all to spend my valuable and much-abused time looking for a cite to disprove an unwarranted and artifical thesis by somebody not even familiar with these places, or their names, or with what regional districts are. There are simply no sources using anything but hyphens for these names, and "proving" that they are stand-alone names is a non sequitur, since they are taht by legal definition and by common usage. And as explained above, re the Thompson-Nicola RD, the name was created to apply to more areas than the two whose names comprise its NAME. Singular - N-A-M-E. I see no reason at all why distant Wikipedians should decide that the BC Government Hansard, BCGNIS, CGNDB, the RDs themselves, etc are in error or are "lazy" for using hyphens in ALL their publications.Skookum1 (talk) 22:32, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

this is so much the case that I'm sure it's in styleguides for paper/thesis writing for SFU, UBC, UNBC, UFV and the colleges; using a dash in one of those papers would very likely result in a mark-down.Skookum1 (talk) 22:37, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
  • Support move. Mclay1 and The Tom's arguments are not persuasive. This is not mere stylistic convention, these are legal names, and our articles reflect the contents of the named districts. Survey of the sources seems to show exclusive use of the hyphen character (and no hand-waving about how other websites are too lazy to format a dash, or how nobly Wikipedia goes about setting it's own standards) - so we should use the spelling/formatting the sources give us. That seems clearly to be a simple hyphen. Franamax (talk) 23:41, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose We don't do legal names or even official names. This is purely a matter of style. Our style on Wikipedia is, where the name is a conjunction of two names as in Alberni–Clayoquot to use –. When it is something like Henley-on-Thames to use -. It's not about the Government of British Columbia (or anyone else) being in error. They have their style, and we have ours. Incidentally, it seems a sad reflection on education in British Columbia that anyone should be marked up or down for using a dash, hyphen or blank space. Talk about anally retentive! Skinsmoke (talk) 08:48, 12 January 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment The main discussion of this topic is now on the RM on the talkpage where Poland-Lithuania redirects to, where teh same ad nauseam arguments about "style over sources" are made, always invoking WP:DASH. But here's what WP:ENDASH actually says:
"An en dash is not used for a hyphenated name (Lennard-Jones potential, named after John Lennard-Jones) or an element that lacks lexical independence (the prefix Sino- in Sino-Japanese trade)."
These are hyphenated names, not "disconnected linkdages of independent elements". I have also posted on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style about the growing abuse of WP:DASH and the ways its actual contents are being either misrepresented or ignored in order to continue the apparent intent of eradicating the hyphen from Wikipedia on the grounds of "typography".Skookum1 (talk) 21:14, 17 January 2011 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

I don't get it - you relisted Poland-Lithuania, even though it was reaching consensus, in favour of the hyphen, and this one you've closed even though it was pending resolution of that one. Do you know anything about regional districts and their histories? I object to this peremptory interference in what was a multi-page discussion, where the results of other RMs will affect this one, and this was the one that launched the other debate. Since the other one was reaching consensus after lengthy debate why did you relist it?? Because the effect on there is to delay a decision, perhaps with the hope others will come along to kibosh that consensus, which would have directly impact the result of this one in favour of the normal spelling of regional district names, rather than allowing the continued use of something that was wrongtly changed by speedy based on a FALSE and MISREPRESENTATIVE invocation of MOSDASH. I'm supposed to WP:AGF but I smell an agenda here, and not neutrality.Skookum1 (talk) 17:19, 22 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 2

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Latest comment: 13 years ago42 comments7 people in discussion
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: All 7 moved. Unanimous opinion apart from myself; refs clearly override my prefs — kwami (talk) 11:42, 5 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Alberni–Clayoquot Regional District → Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District — This requested move is a follow-up to the discussion above, which was closed on 22 January with an outcome of "no consensus". On 24 January, following discussion at multiple talk pages, the Manual of Style was edited (diff) in order to clarify that en dashes should not replace hyphens in hyphenated place names (e.g., Guinea-Bissau). In the context of the names of these regional districts, a name such as "Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District", Alberni and Clayoquot are not "independent elements" which should be separated by an en dash; rather, Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District is a unique hyphenated place name. (I realize that this discussion comes less than a week after the previous one ended, but I believe that the clarification of WP:MOS, coupled with the fact that the previous one ended as "no consensus", justifies a follow-up discussion). -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:23, 28 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

The hyphenated form is dominant in external sources (official government websites, as well as news articles and books), and a minority of sources prefer a spaced name (e.g. "Squamish Lillooet"), but very few use an en dash.

Regional district Official website BCGNIS Statcan.ca
Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District hyphen hyphen hyphen
Columbia-Shuswap Regional District space hyphen hyphen
Dewdney-Alouette Regional District N/A hyphen N/A
Regional District of Fraser-Fort George hyphen hyphen hyphen
Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen hyphen hyphen hyphen
Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District hyphen hyphen hyphen
Squamish-Lillooet Regional District hyphen hyphen hyphen
Top 3 results for RD names (searched without a hyphen or dash) found using Google Books
Search for "Alberni Clayoquot Regional District"
Search for "Columbia Shuswap Regional District"
Search for "Dewdney Alouette Regional District"
Search for "Regional District of Fraser Fort George"
Search for "Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen"
Search for "Skeena Queen Charlotte Regional District"
Search for "Squamish Lillooet Regional District"
Top 3 results for RD names (searched without a hyphen or dash) found using Google News
Search for "Alberni Clayoquot Regional District"
Search for "Columbia Shuswap Regional District"
Search for "Dewdney Alouette Regional District"
Search for "Regional District of Fraser Fort George"
Search for "Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen"
Search for "Skeena Queen Charlotte Regional District"
Search for "Squamish Lillooet Regional District"
  • Strong Support as per Black Falcon's explanation, and my own points in the previous RM, and also all the official sources including the legislation creating these geographic names. Other unique combinations also found in BC are also hyphenated in all sources, as alluded to above (e.g. Ministry of Tourism regions). A name is a name is a name is a name and "hyphenated name" was already in MOS before it was recently emended to include "hyphenated geographic names". CANMOS should always be followed for Canadian items, also, and while it may not have anything specific about this category of names, there already exists, as noted, a Wiki-convention of respecting the sources and using dashes for federal electoral districts and hyphens for provincial ones (based in the sources as well as in common use, though in common use federal ones are typically only hyphenated).Skookum1 (talk) 07:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • Support again. It's nice to see MOS edited to acknowledge, you know, reality, but reality alone should have been enough in the first place. This is what these RD's are called, pure and simple. Franamax (talk) 18:31, 29 January 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • Supporting again, like in previous request. WP:ENDASH needs a bit more work so people will stop saying that it overrides WP:TITLE. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:38, 29 January 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • It's true that Elections Canada uses dashes for riding-names, and that is reflected in Wiki titles for those articles; as Franamax has told you, BC's regional districts have nothing to do with Elections Canada and are part of provincial-level jurisdictions, namely the BC Municipal Act. Go try a search at BCGNIS using "% regional district" and you'll get the full list ("%" is a wild-card in that search engine) - all using hyphens, as does the enabling legislation for these para-municipal regional bodies and any other reference, official or otherwise, you'll find anywhere (except on Wikipedia, where dashes are fashionable but not in connection with reality, more often than not). Skookum1 (talk) 19:19, 30 January 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose, at least partially. Support, with exceptions [assuming these were moved simply to conform to the MOS, without textual support] Web sites are absolutely worthless as references here. That's like debating whether we should use 'smart' or straight apostrophes based on web pages. En dashes are a convention used in typesetting. Manuscripts sent to the printer generally just use hyphens, and it's up to the printer to convert them. For example, my MW dict says hyphens are used 'in indicating linkage or opposition', as in the Lincold–Douglas Debates, but then adds the parenthetical '(In typeset material the longer en dash is used.)'
And Regional District of Fraser-Fort George looks ridiculous! "Fraser-Fort" is not a name, or an element of a name. If you can't say "Regional District of Fraser-Fort", then it shouldn't be punctuated with a hyphen. I'm not so clear on how the whole place-name convention works (the MOS example of "Guinea-Bissau" is not attributive, and the en dash is used specifically to join attributives), but this one should be an exception even if we move the rest. — kwami (talk) 10:59, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
Get a grip, Kwami - an official name is an official name, and official typography is official typography (and established, in fact, by law). Wikipedians don't have a right to go deciding that what they know is best in defiance of reality. WP:MOSFOLLOW trumps any silly argument that "Fraser-Fort" is not even a name....sheesh. You're a linguist, you should know better than to make such cockamamey arguments. A hyphenated name is a hyphenated name is a hyphenated name, a hyphenated geographic name is a hyphenated geographic name is a hyphenated geographic name PERIOD. Next you're going to say the Prince George-Omineca, which is the local provincial electoral district in this area and is hyphenated by Elections BC and also by CANMOS (which trumps MOS as interpreted by people from another branch of the anglosphere, as Canadian usage is to be used in Canadian articles), should be dashed because "George-Omineca" isn't a name. Horseshit.Skookum1 (talk) 11:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • comment Aaargh, User:Kwamikagami has just moved Comox-Strathcona Regional District, a defunct RD, to its dashed form on the usual bad reading of DASH and a misunderstanding of the nature of these names and their root in official publications (including the original legislation, Hansard, their own documentation, in PDF as well as in DOC and HTML formats) and also unaware of this RM. I've looked through the move log to move it back, but can't find it; he said he'd move it back but if/when this RM is finally closed (by someone who can do better than "no consensus") it should also be reverted to its original form, if it isn't already.....I can't believe how long this is taking to get something as simple as an official name restored to its proper form.Skookum1 (talk) 11:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
Clarification: I moved that by analogy with the other articles. I wasn't aware of this discussion. — kwami (talk) 13:09, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
    • Comment WP:MOSFOLLOW and WP:CANMOS override any specious deconstructionist arguments made to dashify names that are established and typeset (before HTML came along, and Wikipedia too).Skookum1 (talk) 11:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
      • Comment I fully agree that if we have professionally typeset publications in paper or PDF form, and not just those silly Google Book searches (OCRs generally can't distinguish en dashes from hyphens), that we should not impose en dashes based on a superficial reading of the style guides. There's no danger of ambiguity, after all. But my concern about "Fraser-Fort" stands: IMO, a reader shouldn't misparse a name because of punctuation. (Same concern with Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District, where I'd argue for an en dash but not the spaces.) — kwami (talk) 11:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
Except that it isn't spelling, it's punctuation. We don't follow sources in other aspects of punctuation. Though granted, being in the middle of a proper name makes this rather different. — kwami (talk) 14:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
  • I have never heard such self-interested, self-serving garbage as from at least one user on this page who is single-mindedly pursuing his agenda to change WP's typographical rules the way he sees fit. It is unfortunate that people here are not prepared to stand up to him. Tony (talk) 11:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
I don't think I've ever heard anything as stupid and arrogant as you people who are insisting that MOS is a RULE when it says straight-out in it that official sources are to be followed and that MOS itself is only optional, and all the silly deconstructionist rationalizations why YOU are right and those of us pointing at local usage and official usage are wrong, because "Wikipedia has rules". That's nonsense, as is the argument made over and over that the official publications are printed by people "too lazy to use the dash". What a load of incredible crap the lot of you are touting about this. ENDASH was clear about this even before it was amended to specify geographic names, and this is a geographic name, and a proper name, and not subject to tweaking by Wikipedia's so-called "rules". Pretentious and pompous twits pretending that MOS has the right to overturn real-world names is just GARBAGE.Skookum1 (talk) 19:25, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

I just spent a couple of hours on the phone with Victoria ("with Victoria" in BC-ese means with provincial government offices) and found the horse's mouth, which is the Office of Legislative Counsel. I also spoke with the Hansard Office and with the Queen's Printer and am awaiting a reply from the Public Affairs Bureau, which is the government's news/information/p.r. agency. The last-named said they'd get back to me, but were interested in the issue, the Queen's Printer said they have no style guide but they "do have style", and the Hansard Office said the same thing much more emphatically. But it's the Office of Legislative Counsel that is the horse's mouth, and I am awaiting an email summarizing what we discussed and with specific relation to certain items I asked her to look up; she explained that they use "QP Legalese" as their standard, which is apparently derived from the Queen's Printer in Ontario (BC's Queens Printer is a standalone and unlike other QPs in Canada) and is very strict and consistent, and they strive for consistency in all their documents including in picayune matters to do with punctuation and style/typography. She said that while their websites use HTML, every effort is made to match the style/typographical standards of QP Legalese. Members of their staff are part of the Plain English association, and the head of the Office is the Chair of the Commonwealth Federation of Legislative Counsels. "We are the authority," she said to me. When I told her the arguments that have been made here, including the one about government-site webmasters being "lazy" and not as typographically sophisticated as Wikipedians, she prickled and said the Director would "take serious umbrage at that". Upshot is that even despite the website presentations (below) she also looked up in the hardcopy, typeset volume and in all cases the hyphen is used, in any placename, whether a regional district or a provincial park or in any one of the provincial-level regionalization systems, e.g. Cariboo-Chilcotin-Lillooet which is a region of the Northern Development Initiative Trust. Legal names are legal names, she said, and they're official and there IS an official style needed for legal purposes. A mis-spelled/mis-punctuated name could void, for example, a piece of legislation or a lawsuit. She took quite a bit of offense, as would others in their office, at the MOSite claim that MOS need not pay attention to legal/official uses and that MOS is somehow superior to their own style guidelines which can be ignored by people in distant lands more interested in typography than in proper terminology/legal punctuation systems. Go ahead, sneer some more, folks, but MOS is not Holy Writ and it's clearly not supported by consensus (or else *I* and Enric Naval and others here would agree with how it's being applied, which we most certainly do not). Here are the Regulations from BCLaws.ca which are the specific pieces of the legislation creating and governing the regional districts, all of which are part of the Local Government Act (each piece of legislation has two sections, one is the Statute, the other is the Regulation):

The Dewdney-Alouette Regional District and the Comox-Strathcona Regional District I can't find on there, just yet, but she looked both of them up (digitally and in hard copy) and affirmed that they are both hyphenated, not dashed. She was also very very explicit about the only times they use endashes:

  1. in headings e.g. "IV [endash] XXX Foo"
  2. when a company's legal name is registered in a dash.

ALL placenames that are hyphenated use only a hyphen. Never anything else. Now no doubt there will be MOSites here who say "we don't use official names, Wikipedia can do what it likes" (using "Wikipedia" like a "royal we", it seems, but I'm Wikipedia too) and some who will say CANMOS and its stricture that Canadian usages be used in Canadian articles can be overridden by a "consensus" made by non-Canadians. But you can go shove it, and if I have to take this to the Wikimedia Council I will. YOu peopel need to step back from your arrogance and pretensions of "typography over sources" and realize how far off-base you are and that this whole affair would have never happened if you'd actually read and understood DASH in the first place - i.e. what the term "hyphenated name" means, without claiming it doesn't mean what it does unless it's ad nauseam specified in order to keep your pointy little pencils sharpened and your MOS-maven egos intact.Skookum1 (talk) 22:58, 3 February 2011 (UTC) She also laughed, rather hysterically and not a bit mockingly, when I told her that Wikipedia had previously called Burnaby the "seat" of the GVRD, which is another gaffe-from-outside imposed on us (until I came along....) by people using non-Canadian English on Canadian articles.Skookum1 (talk) 22:58, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Skookum, I don't know who the "you people" are that you're ranting against, since they don't appear to be part of this discussion. We've had one oppose vote with the rationalization "We don't do legal names or even official names. This is purely a matter of style." One, and he didn't follow up when contradicted. I expressed reservation about the ambiguous use of hyphens, but it was a reservation, not adamant opposition. Also, no-one said the BC govt was too lazy to do this, so you've been misrepresenting the situation. It's generally the case that web sites don't bother with such detail, just as they (and we) don't bother with curly apostrophes. That's easy enough to verify; even dictionaries will tell you that hyphens are normally substituted for en-dashes except when typesetting. It was therefore reasonable to be dubious about using web sites as references. Now, you've dug up excellent sources, which is great, and should be decisive. I'd be happy to move the articles now, since we don't seem to have any other objections. (Unless you'd prefer we hold off for the full 7 days so we don't have complaints later.)
As for the "seat" gaffe, do you suppose it was malicious? Do you never edit articles on countries other than Canada (or better yet, only BC), where you might make an error due to ignorance of local conventions? — kwami (talk) 23:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
RM1 (above) continued on the Poland-Lithuania item after I discovered that it had been (wrongly) dashed and then was launched by Enric Naval as an RM there, and the debate continued there; it was there that those comments were made, and repeated, and it's to those I'm referring i.e. the "lazy" one, and the arguments that people who use typewriter spellings are "backwards", or that style trumps official spelling conventions etc. I didn't misrepresent anything; it's clear as day in the Poland-Lithuania RM and I'm not sure if you've looked through RM1 above re that. And the seat thing, no it was not malicious, but a few were subjected to mini-edit wars with people defending the usage on the (false) premise that RDs are just like counties....it would be the equivalent of calling Whatcom County a "shire" or a US state a "province". As far as local conventions, I make a point of asking about local usage, e.g. a lot I've done on Washington and Alaska articles and re Saskatchewan or on various WPNorway articles (which have serious English-idiom problems often enough) I'll ask on the talkpage....though it seems an RM is forthcoming on Alaska Panhandle, which is seen up there as an "outside" usage and the proper term is Southeast Alaska or Southeastern Alaska (not sure which just now).Skookum1 (talk) 02:06, 4 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
PS. While we're at it, we might as well decide whether we want to go with the more common "X-X Regional District", or the more formal "Regional District of X-X". We currently have mixed usage. — kwami (talk) 00:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
Well, looking over the BC Laws page I noticed that right off the bat, too; but BCGNIS and its new version BC Names, which are mirrored in content by CGNDB and the Concise Gazetteer of Canada use the forms currently in place, which were gone over, using BCGNIS and the RDs' own websites as a guide, when the comma-province dab was dropped in a previous RM...or was it a CfD? Maybe both. There are various provincial parks which have been affected by the dashifying campaign, too; their official names are also on the BC Laws site, in the Protected Areas Act, along with Protected Areas and Ecological Reserves.Skookum1 (talk) 02:06, 4 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

This is the reply from the Office of the Legislative Counsel, which I just received (Feb 4/02). I have fixed the bulleting from the mail-text format in the original and bolded/italicized one key line, partly because it was an emphatic point made during the phone call; NB the use of forward slashes in some names is not mentioend here, I'll consult further on that point, and will also post this to WPBC:

Style comments from the Office of the Legislative Counsel of British Columbia, February 4/02

In British Columbia’s legislation – both Statutes and Regulations – what is on the web is considered “unofficial” and the text may be formatted differently due to limitations of XML or HTML, and in some cases, based on other guidelines. As an example of the latter, Hansard may choose to use an en-dash over a hyphen in transcriptions. This does not mean that this is the “official” form. The official consolidation of our legislation is in loose-leaf format (paper).

We are very structured in our styles and have a Style Committee to set standards for spelling, grammar and format when and if ambiguity arises or if something occurs that has not ever been addressed before. The office has adopted the Canadian Oxford Dictionary as its dictionary for spelling.

In terms of use of hyphens and en-dashes, the following guideline applies—

  • En-dashes are used in headings, for example:
    • Part 4 – Evaluations
    • Division 2 – Joint Committee
  • En-dashes are also used to indicate ranges of time, money or other amounts
  • Hyphens are used to link two words, for example:
    • tax-exempt
    • information-sharing agreements
  • Hyphens are also used in regional districts, for example;
    • Skeena-Queen Charlotte
    • Fraser-Fort George

(you will find the above examples as part of Regional Districts established under the Local Government Act)


There is mixed use in the B.C. statute Protected Areas of British Columbia Act—

  • En-dashes do appear in park names, but in what one might consider a standard use (spacing before and after the en-dash), for example:
    • SMITH RIVER FALLS – FORT HALKETT PARK
    • BISHOP BAY – MONKEY BEACH CONSERVANCY
  • There are hyphenated names in the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act as well:
    • HARBOUR-DUDGEON LAKES PARK
    • CASCADE-SUTSLEM CONSERVANCY
  • What distinguishes where one is used over the other is based somewhat on historical/regional use and possible political reasons (e.g. retaining the naming used by First Nations, etc.).


Our office would never use an en-dash in place of a hyphen.


Other facts that you may find interesting and useful are—

  • B.C. is considered one of the leaders in the Commonwealth for use of plain language
  • Our office has both a ‘company’ membership and many individual memberships to Clarity International – a group of lawyers and others who advocate using plain language in legalese
  • Our office’s Chief Legislative Counsel is the Vice-President of the Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel
  • Our office provides seminars to visiting delegations (e.g. our most recent presentations were to China and Russia) on our drafting approach (including style, language, grammar)

I have attached a PDF of a page that would appear in our consolidated loose-leaf regulations ( ‘official’ version of B.C.’s subordinate legislation). As Queen’s Printer holds copyright and Crown Publications the sales/distribution, I have added an ‘unofficial’ watermark.

If anyone would like a copy of the PDF mentioned in the last bit, email me and I will forward it to you; obviously can't post it here.Skookum1 (talk) 18:38, 4 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Two points:
  1. Since they specifically address the logical en-dash question, I have no further reservation (though of course I had no evidence to support that reservation to begin with)
  2. If we're going to blindly follow their lead, however, would that mean that the articles on the parks would need to be in ALL CAPS? Is there any difference legally between that and en-dash vs hyphen? — kwami (talk) 23:28, 4 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Re: Park Names All caps were a cut/paste from the loose-leaf. Upper/lower case used and perfectly acceptable.123bookworm (talk) 23:58, 4 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Since that was the last source we were waiting for, and I was not initially for the move, are there any objections to me closing this discussion and moving the pages, even though I voted? I was, after all, unanimous apart from me. Or should we wait for some disinterested party? — kwami (talk) 00:34, 5 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

The change to MOS seems relatively stable, 12 days is a long time if were controversial. The typographic style used by the ultimate sources seems established as well-founded and well-applied. I support the change anyway, but stepping back too, I see no reason not to proceed. I'd say go for it. Franamax (talk) 10:47, 5 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Can a bot be geared up to run over the text of all these articles (and any linking/referencing them) to fix all the dash-instances that have since been inserted in the text? Usually this is only in the lede, if it's an RD article, that is.Skookum1 (talk) 19:09, 5 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
You'll want to check the categories on the 7 articles, since I changed them too, and they may now be red links. Now going through connecting articles. If there's a template, why don't you do that: I'm only checking mainspace. — kwami (talk) 01:47, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
I'll also do Fraser–Cheam Regional District, Regional District of Bulkley–Nechako, Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine, and Thompson–Nicola Regional District. (That is, the fixes I made at Regional districts of British Columbia.) You'll need to fix those categories, and their subcategories, such as Category:Populated places in the Columbia–Shuswap Regional District, too: almost all of the corrections are changes to the categories, and probably none of the hyphenated forms exist any longer. — kwami (talk) 02:13, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
Good Olfactory was supposed to fix the categories by speedy once the RM2 was done, I let him know already, also the subcats. And PS please stop typing those using the endash, it's really annoying to see - equivalent of using quotation mark where and apostrophe is supposed to go - e.g. it"s or wasn"t.Skookum1 (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
We've also got Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, Okanagan—Similkameen. I didn't fix those. (See Category:British Columbia federal electoral districts for a bunch more.) — kwami (talk) 02:19, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
Federal electoral districts use the endash, as the source does (Elections Canada), also the Parliament of Canada website (http://www.parl.gc.ca I think). Only the provincial electoral districts are hyphenated, again because of the source Elections BC and all other government sources (e.g. once again bclaws.ca or any other BC government website, and the legislation creating them). Okanagan—Similkameen and Okanagan-Similkameen are two different things (unless the former is the latter which some "helpful" soul decided to change in a "foreigner knows best than these bumpkin Canadians who don't know proper typography" kind of way).Skookum1 (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
The provincial electoral district I was thinking of re O-S is actually Boundary-Similkameen....the term "Okanagan-Similkameen" is often used in a general regional sense but it's an RD name (and that's where the RD name came from, i.e. the hyphenated form existed as a regional concept before RDs were invented); many RD names existed before RDs came along, in fact....eg Columbia-Shuswap. Some are complete fictions (Kitimat and the Stikine Country are so far from each other it's ridiculous; most of what that RD is constitutes what's known as the Skeena Country; the Skeena-Queen Charlotte one was split off from it because Prince Rupert and Terrace didn't want to be in the same RD.....RDs are not permanent and can change....in fact, as I found out last night, Abbotsford is no longer in the FVRD and isn't in a regional district right now; it used to be the CFVRD, with Matsqui, Sumas and Langley before the expansion of the GVRD forced teh dismantlement of the Dewdney-Alouette Regional District and the CFVRD and Fraser-Cheam.....government from on high, not from below.Skookum1 (talk) 20:06, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
I see there are still a lot of articles in the en-dashed categories. Give me a list of categories that need to be gone through, and I'll correct all of the linking articles. You can then recreate the hyphenated categories that the articles will link to. — kwami (talk) 02:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
I'll go through them once I wake up a bit more.Skookum1 (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
A bot's going through and reverting my changes. Let me know on my talk page if you want to move the categories, give me a list, and I'll go through them again. — kwami (talk) 10:03, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
XqBot right? Saw that. The categories must be moved - ot was because I didn't like them that I was told the RM had to be done first on the articles..., and like all categories using non-ASCII characters they're a bugger to type (I'll bring up the FN ones later....grrr....see the category at the bottom of e.g. St'at'imc, which is St'at'imcets orthography and not the English adaptation of the orthography; likewise special characters on the Nuxalk and Skwxwu7mesh and Sto:lo categories; in the latter case only one of the two tribal councils uses the special characters, the larger one does not - and when Sto:lo is seen in our newspapers, it's never with special characters...before XqBot started, last night SporkBot was still changing things to the dash; if it's still running it could "loop" and change what your bot is doing....don't know what the f**k plastikspork was trying to do by launching it on that task, if he was aware at all of the RM...Skookum1 (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Kwami, if you've got the power to change those cats, no point in waiting for GO to get to it, just do it; they never should have been speedied to dashes in teh first place IMO, just as these articles should never have been speedied without an RM.....Skookum1 (talk) 21:33, 6 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

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