Talk:Haida Gwaii

message: change the name of article?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.34.157.197 (talk) 04:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If the proponents of Haida Gwaii as a name also weren't intent on removing all mention of BC or Canada from related articles, and pretending as though QCI is some kind of racist abomination, that'd be fine, but that's not the way things are.  Wikipedia standard is the official name, and Haida Gwaii isn't as well-known as its prononents want it to be, especially not in the context they're wanting to use it in, which is to say as a replacement for QCI , a "wiping away of the colonialist legacy" etc etc.  Haida Gwaii is also presented as "an ancient name", but the ancient name is Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai.  Using Haida Gwaii presupposes the Charlottes are now fully independent, and once again proponents of that name have a habit of writing/suplpanting any mention of the QCI being part of Canada.  I suppose perhaps it would have been better, then, if the British hadn't created thet Colony of the QCI and let the Americans have it to run their way (with some nice name like "Jefferson Archipelago" to get rid of the monarchist taint surrounding evil ol' Queen Charlotte).  Yes, I have very strong opionions on the p.c.-overwrite of the BC map, I've seen too much bullshit attached to the campaigns to have any respect for their agenda, which is just as racist and bigoted as anything they complain about from the white men's side of things.  POV/political agendas/prejudices attached to Haida Gwaii aside, it all boils down, here, to the simple fact that Haida Gwaii is not a widespread name, and Wikipedia should not be used to "sell" it; the official name, which is all that can be legitimately used for a title, is what t he title has to be; how the hell can a title like Queen Charlotte Islands or Haida Gwaii be acceptable?  And of course the Haida Gwaii folks will want it to be Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands) or Haida Gwaii (called by colonialists the Queen Charlotte Islands.  Haida Gwaii is a political concept; Queen Charlotte Islands is a geographic name, i.e. the name of an archipelago - Haida Gwaii is the name of an incipient (but not established or internationally recognized( country......it's all fine and dandy to invoke the unceded territory argument but it doesn't really apply to Wikipedia naming standards; I happen to support native autnoomy, and actually large-scale devolution of local control in Canada, not just for native peoples, but I don't agree or sympathize with propagandistic behaviour and prejudicial rhetoric, or the desire to wipe away existing history and replace it with a politically-contrived one; that's what the suggestion that somehow the unceded claims issue predicates that we should respect efforts to revise history on political grounds, whether it's in this case or much less legitimate name-change issues like Salish Sea.  That this name-change was proposed by someone who asserted the falsehood that the name Haida Gwaii "has been in use for thousands of year" when it's known for a fact to have been coined in the 1960s or so is what I'm talking about; the presentation of false history as if it were fact is just NOT acceptable.Skookum1 (talk) 14:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've heard the "in and out of concelament" thing, too, adn it seems teh "more correct" and you're right, the others are "poetic extrapolations", quasi-mystical stuff; the "edge fo the world" thing has of course been borrowed by enthusiastic non-natives on the Islands e.g. the Edge of the Wordl Festival, but apparently that's not quite what "Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai" means; it's more like "in and out of concealment" as in  "sometimes you seem them, sometimes you ono't" because of  the fog and heavyy rain/clodu and the difficulty of the currents getting there (similarly the Isle of Man was veiled in elf-mist and hidden from mortals, according to Sybil Leek.  touchy-feely latter-day pseudo-mysticism needs to elevate native culture in  a "romanticizing" way, which suits modern Haida just fine, and is common throughout BC for other peoples also.  Ramurf would like this article to reflect that romanticism, it seems, based on the unceded claims arguemnt; which really has nothign to do with eographic toponymy; while I am a supporter of a fairly radical settlement of land claims - extensive decnetralized autonomy throughout BC, anot just for FNs... - I don't agree with false history, and suplanting one name for another on political grounds, especially if those politics are biult up on false history ("has been the name for thousands of years"); as if the Haida peoples werent' all mutually hostile and were one unified nation, which just wasn't the case; it's not like "Haida Gwaii" was a nation-name, even if it was ancient.  And as you note there aere different potential spellings, as also with Skungwai/S<U>G</u>ang Gwaii etc.  An article on Haida Gwaii as an incipient nation might be all well adn good; but pretending taht it's the "correct" name for an archipelago which has an already-official name is just fabrication, and posturing basd on a POV agenda.  Also for many non-Haida who live or did live on the islands, they never called them by this name adn taht's another reason yet....Skookum1 (talk) 00:22, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

text: There's a bunch of misunderstandings of my role here, and also what Wikipedia is and what its guidelines are; POV/political treatment of content is strictly outside-the-bounds, and nobody, not even the Haida themselves, can control article content about themselves or about the geographic space they occupy (for starters see WP:COI and WP:AUTO).  This is not an article about the Haida, but about the islands.  Politically-flavoured content is not appropriate in any article, least of all a geographic one, nor are politically-derived titles; and Wikipedia policies on titles are that official names are what are to be used, and for the moment at least the name of the archipelago is the Queen Charlotte Islands.  There may be a "spreading usage" but it's by no means all that widely current (except on websites which have been influenced by the Haida POV.  I'm not trying to "reinvent" them, but I'm also not fond of people who want to reinvent other people/languages either, which is partly what's going on here; and if you went through my contributions especially in thousands of edits to articles in  and beyond (e.g. in geography and non-native history articles) you'd find that I'm always trying to make sure the native account/terminology/perspective is represented, or noting when it should be (if I don't have it to provide e.g.).  Wikipedia is Not a soapbox and renaming this article Haida Gwaii would be a soapboxing title; Wikipedia shoudl not be used to promote a point of view or something like a geographic-renaming-agenda.  It can report and recount such desires/points of view, but it shoudl presume to take them.  As noted above, Haida Gwaii is a political concept, Queen Charlotte Islands is a geographic name; insisting that it be treated as a "colonialist name" is a POV treatment and "not allowed".  This isn't my doing, so don't shoot the messenger; I happen to be the one around here that's trying to do a lot to improve this article and prevent spurious content like the specious comparison to the Japanese and Mongol Empires' war-tactics on the Haida article, and largely I've stayed away from the (to me) POV content of the main body there - I'm the one who added the list of Haida villages, by the way.  As for the Haida warring with each other, whiel it may have been clan-based it's a historical fact that Cumehewa and Skidegate were long-time enemies; political alliances were cross-tribal i.e. Cumehewa and I think the Kunghit-Haida were allies with Kitkatla (I think, or Gitga'ata) and the Heiltsuk, Skidegate had other Tsimshian allies who were enemies of the allies of Cumshewa and Skidegate; and similar cross-tribal alliances existed with the Tlingit, who likewise warred amongst themselves; the Kaigani Haida moved to Prince of Wales Island to get away from being constantly attacked by other Haida ,in fact.  There were twenty or more "nations" in the Charlottes, not one, in other words, if you're wanting "nation' to have any kind of political meaning, as opposed to a simply-ethnographic one . The same is true of Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth historically, and elsewhere throughout the region (which is why the Nlaka'pamux still don't have a single political organization, i.e. ancient animosities that haven't gone away).  Other material that can go in this article, and in the Haida article, are specific of many actual historical events, not just modern-politics fables about hand-holding, matriarchal/benevolent society-with-rich-culture; the Charlottes have more than just a First Natiohs history, .e.g the Tasoo Gold mine/town and others like it - and it won't be within Wiki guideliens to "denoucned the removal of haida resources" etc. - as politically flavoured language/content, again, is not what Wikiepdia is for.  The article can say such extractive settlements are viewed by modern Haida as unjust or whatever, but it can't say directly that that's the case.  Supplanting English names with Haida names (and ignoring or denouncing/denigrating the English names in the process) is just not acceptable in terms of Wikipedia guidelines, nor is insisting that the aritcle be written from a Haida-only viewpoint because of "unceded claims".  I actually know quite a bit about unceded claims but have avoided writing up an article, or adding to that article, because of WP:OR and WP:synthesis, which perhaps you shouydl read, as well as WP:MOS.  Ther's more to this, but don't paint me as being "high-handed" for my actions iwth this or other articles; I'm not trhying to "reinvent the Haida", but I am trying to make sure the Haida don't reinvent reality by pushing everybody else's aside (User:Guujaaw for example has consistently made politically-oriented edits, those few he's made that is...).  Adn while your sentiments about focussing on the "noble" part of "noble savage" are all fine and earnest, it's not as if nobility among hte Haida wasn't accompanied by the institution of slavery and brutal warfare, no more than all the fine works of art of Rome and Greece should be talked about without being aware of those same institutions/problems in those cultures; too much BC First Nations "modern mythology" is all touchy-feely goody-goody but not addressing the full scope of their culture is just as much a disservice to them as a people as it is for anyone else, i.e. "handling them with kid gloves" is a form of racism in and of itself (as anyoen familiar with African-Aemrican sociocultural issues/perceptions could tell you).  You may venture that there is a "Haida nation" (small or large n/N) but you venturing it is WP:Synthesis; there is certainly now a Council of the Haida Nation but 200 years ago, when war between Cumshewa and Skidegate continued, such a concept would have been "only a dream", if anybody even thought about such an eventuality, which is unlikely.  Greek cities also warred with each other, but there was no "Greek Nation" at the time; though there were Greeks.  So please don't insist on this article reflecting on what you would like to be teh case, or would like to have BEEN the case, the article must reflect what is/was teh case, and that only.  I'm habitually lengthy in my repiles and not meaning to lecture or scold, just inform you as to why I'ved made the edits I have here; I want anything but "owning" this page; I just wish it didn't have to be patrolled for political interference, i.e. edits which are insensitive to non-Haida realities/perecptions/sources every bit as much as I'd take issue with content which was derisive towards teh Haida.  Teh Haida want the islands' name officially-changed; but this hans'st taken place as yet, and so long as the archipelago is still part of Canada, the Canadian/English name for teh archipelago still applies.  There's lots of proper content yet that could still be added here -demographics, history, geology/geography/botany/fauna etc - that is normal in geographic articles; having them be soapboxes for ethno-political agendas is not what they're for; and I do the same to corporate/promotional articles, environemntal articles, national political articles etc.  Not because I'm "high-handed" but because I want them to be good articles, and I respect Wikipedia's guidelines, which have been evoled over time and attempt to be as fair as possible; I do not make edits irrespective of those guideliens, or of wiki-culture...I encourage you to "learn the ropes" and ahve aloook around the links I've provided and also read WP:What Wikipedia is not.  If the Haida want their children to read the truth about their past, that truth is not served by enforcing a skewed version of that history which ignores other people, other sources, other viewpoints.  And raids like those described in Adam Grant Horne or [[Port Gamble, Washington] or Isaac N. Ebey are as much a part of teh Haida story as "haida were great warriors and artists"...and in non-historical areas I've been trying to find a way to cite populpation figures, historical and modern for the island, which properly break down natives and non-natives and, historically, Haida from their slave-populations (roughly half of any figure cited).Skookum1 (talk) 17:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

text: am i able to see what edits have been made, and by whom?   is there a history of edits?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inforlife (talk • contribs) 05:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Note the use of colons at the start of lines to make indents, for one thing; if you leave blank space it un-wraps the paragraph into one big horizontal string in a grey box...not sure why it does that (if you use a semi-colon it will bold the lin).  But to get at histories, look on the tabs at teh top of the page, or also for this discussion page the tab to teh right of new section; this is a perma-link to the history of the article, though you won'ty need it.  Please note there's a style to the opening of location articles, "locations statement" and certain basic infos; it helps to look around other geography articles for the same kind of geography, e.g. although not all are consistent or properly done..  All alternate names get included, wherever they turn up and citations /refs can b used ro all of them, or should be ultimately (as with everything..in any article, ideally..  If you hav furher questions or want to peck around for comparisons and guideance and ideas, use the WikiProejct links at the top of this page and go to the discussion boards there as well; in this case the main relevant one would be WP:Canada or its geography subproject; ethnographic material and political FN content style issues can be found throughthe indigenous peoples project...comaprisons to other world geography articles/items in WP:Geography.  The population estimates I've seen up to 60,000 including in older histories (19th Centu7ry, early 20th) btu the official line is 10k but that's to jibe with an official figure of 60k before the msllpox epidemic that began in '62 BC-wide. The most recent authoritative estimates - which are very high - are in a book by Cole Harris called The Resettlement of British Columbia, which is in most uni libraries in Candada and not a few bookstores... Skookum1 (talk) 06:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Also GoogelBooks has a lot of stuff, older and newer; just try searching either "haida" or "Queen Charltote islands" and you'll find tons.Skookum1 (talk) 07:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

text: This is an example of the kind of problems/changes we're going to have to deal with; it's NOT possible to simply supplant the one term with the other (for one thing, one takes "the", the other doesn't) and in many contexts using "Haida Gwaii" in existing sentences is going to seem awkard; the double "Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands)" is going to be necessary for quite a while; most archipelago names in English include "Islands", but this won't be the case here...."Gwaii" is apparently now an English word meaning "islands", if only for this one part of the world.  Note: the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District is likely to also be renamed, and I can think of other quasi-treaty deals around the province where historical names, even anglicized versions of traditional names (e.g. Kootenay), are going to get changed as part of the BC government's "give 'em what they want so long as we get access to the resources" intentions.  I'm not sure which WP to take this to, as it's a bit of a taskforce given the number of articles which reference "Queen Charlotte Islands"......Skookum1 (talk) 03:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I will grant you easily that this new "path of reconciliation" that the province has embarked on is not out of the kindness of their hearts.  but this was their option to maintaining any leverage on Haida Gwaii.  may want to read those pdf's you posted.  you'll see that the aac on island has been drastically cut (old news), and that the new land management model will be one of ebm.  Inforlife (talk) 09:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You're mistaken, read the cbc.ca cite - and look up the SRMP linked below; it's expressly part of a deal; and your myopia that the island's resources are only trees is wildly mistaken/myopic; the Naikun Wind Farm, which will provide air conditioning and pool pumps for California markets, and the government's intentions to open up offshore drilling, are all part of teh scheme; and there's still lots of gold and other ores on the islands.....the AAC is quite irrelevant to the larger resource agenda at play....Skookum1 (talk) 16:47, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

text: Since the name change is official, and the footnote provided for 'Queen Charlotte Islands' says "Queen Charlotte Islands	This is NOT an Official Name." the article needs to reflect that. Just because people may still call it that, doesn't make it an official name. The article should say the it was the former name but may be in colloquial use. I wasn't in favour of the name change, but the article needs to reflect reality, or why have it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.49.171.157 (talk) 21:01, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Harburg, accusing us (since there's more than one of me - see the Requested Move section below) of being "culture warriors" and "being held hostage" is a very ironic statement, given that this whole renaming is very explicitly a "culture war" against "colonalists" and "settlers" and the people who were held hostage were BCGNIS (which is actually only one person) and political pressure is where the name change was made official; the "culture warriors" here are those dumping on "Anglo-Canadians" and wanting the rest of the world to kowtow to their linguistic-political agenda, and wanting Wikipedia to be the vehicle for that.  But that's not Wikipedia's role, as explained below by PMAnderson, and if you'd take the time to read the REquested Move section you might understand more; and also read WP:What Wikipedia is not, and one thing it's very most definitely not is a soapbox which should obey POV (point-of-view=biased, prejudicial) agendas demanding, demanding, demanding that a linguistic-cultural agenda be observed.  When the rest of the world calls the islands Haida Gwaii, then the article can chance its title.  Not even QCI-hosted websites consistently use it, except as an adjunct to QCI (e.g. http://www.qcinfo.com).  Wikipedia is NOT a vehicle for rebranding campaigns....and official names when not common usage in English are not titles; as per WP:TITLE and WP:COMMONNAME.  This is why the officially-styled Helvetian Confederation article is called Switzerland, among countless other examples.Skookum1 (talk) 09:43, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

text: As a non-Canadian, I have a general preference for having these islands at  the name I have heard of before. This is part of being an English wikipedia: communicating with anglophones. This does not have to mean using the name derived from the British Isles; Hawaii is preferable to the Sandwich Islands. Those who wish to change the English language should do so elsewhere and among others. When they succeed, one of the signs will be that these changes are uncontroversial; they are not now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:12, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move/Rename this page Haida Gwaii (2008-2011) 

message: Well, the BC government did the deed and cut a deal with the Haida to abolish the historic name of the islands and supplant it with the "ethnopolitical one".  Waht the date of enactment of the change is wasn't clear from the CBC article, but at some point BCGNIS and CGNDB will have new entries which should be added to the page once they're available; note that the name change actually isn't official until approved in Ottawa (BCGNIS only documents names, CGNDB authorizes them).....many, many pages have to be amended now but as per Black Tusk's observation above it's not sufficient simply to supplant "Queen Charlotte Islands" with "Haida Gwaii" because the former is still the most common usage; "double name" mentions will be needed, i.e. "Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands)" is going to be necessary in many cases, not just "Haida Gwaii"......and for those who think this is about the BC govt recognizing native culture/history for noble reasons, I'm much more cynical - this is about getting the Naikun Wind Farm off the ground and opening the Charlottes to more resource exploitation, except now with teh participation of the Haida government.....what's in a name?  Mostly politics...and a whole lot of money.Skookum1 (talk) 02:33, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an example of the kind of problems/changes we're going to have to deal with; it's NOT possible to simply supplant the one term with the other (for one thing, one takes "the", the other doesn't) and in many contexts using "Haida Gwaii" in existing sentences is going to seem awkard; the double "Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands)" is going to be necessary for quite a while; most archipelago names in English include "Islands", but this won't be the case here...."Gwaii" is apparently now an English word meaning "islands", if only for this one part of the world.  Note: the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District is likely to also be renamed, and I can think of other quasi-treaty deals around the province where historical names, even anglicized versions of traditional names (e.g. Kootenay), are going to get changed as part of the BC government's "give 'em what they want so long as we get access to the resources" intentions.  I'm not sure which WP to take this to, as it's a bit of a taskforce given the number of articles which reference "Queen Charlotte Islands"......Skookum1 (talk) 03:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I will grant you easily that this new "path of reconciliation" that the province has embarked on is not out of the kindness of their hearts.  but this was their option to maintaining any leverage on Haida Gwaii.  may want to read those pdf's you posted.  you'll see that the aac on island has been drastically cut (old news), and that the new land management model will be one of ebm.  Inforlife (talk) 09:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You're mistaken, read the cbc.ca cite - and look up the SRMP linked below; it's expressly part of a deal; and your myopia that the island's resources are only trees is wildly mistaken/myopic; the Naikun Wind Farm, which will provide air conditioning and pool pumps for California markets, and the government's intentions to open up offshore drilling, are all part of teh scheme; and there's still lots of gold and other ores on the islands.....the AAC is quite irrelevant to the larger resource agenda at play....Skookum1 (talk) 16:47, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

text: Since the name change is official, and the footnote provided for 'Queen Charlotte Islands' says "Queen Charlotte Islands	This is NOT an Official Name." the article needs to reflect that. Just because people may still call it that, doesn't make it an official name. The article should say the it was the former name but may be in colloquial use. I wasn't in favour of the name change, but the article needs to reflect reality, or why have it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.49.171.157 (talk) 21:01, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: OK it's official

message: This naming issue is a classic case for the real problem with Wikipedia.  It's not the vandals nor the unreferenced wild ass statements.  It's the people with an internet connection and an ax to grind.
Apparently, this renaming issue has gotten up some proud Anglo Canadian wiki editor's noses.
I think most sane people who have no particular interest in the actual renaming issue would have just renamed the stupid article and have been done with it, as I've seen done on numerous occasions in articles on more distant parts of the world when the local government renames part of its territory for cultural reasons.  Bombay -> Mumbai, Burma -> Myanmar, etc...
The problem is that 99% people don't really care that much, and so they're not going to raise a stink, while 1% have a bias and care a lot, and they're going to make a lot of noise and get their way.
Do we have to be held hostage to these culture warriors?  When does common sense prevail?
Harburg (talk) 01:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Harburg, accusing us (since there's more than one of me - see the Requested Move section below) of being "culture warriors" and "being held hostage" is a very ironic statement, given that this whole renaming is very explicitly a "culture war" against "colonalists" and "settlers" and the people who were held hostage were BCGNIS (which is actually only one person) and political pressure is where the name change was made official; the "culture warriors" here are those dumping on "Anglo-Canadians" and wanting the rest of the world to kowtow to their linguistic-political agenda, and wanting Wikipedia to be the vehicle for that.  But that's not Wikipedia's role, as explained below by PMAnderson, and if you'd take the time to read the REquested Move section you might understand more; and also read WP:What Wikipedia is not, and one thing it's very most definitely not is a soapbox which should obey POV (point-of-view=biased, prejudicial) agendas demanding, demanding, demanding that a linguistic-cultural agenda be observed.  When the rest of the world calls the islands Haida Gwaii, then the article can chance its title.  Not even QCI-hosted websites consistently use it, except as an adjunct to QCI (e.g. http://www.qcinfo.com).  Wikipedia is NOT a vehicle for rebranding campaigns....and official names when not common usage in English are not titles; as per WP:TITLE and WP:COMMONNAME.  This is why the officially-styled Helvetian Confederation article is called Switzerland, among countless other examples.Skookum1 (talk) 09:43, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

text: As a non-Canadian, I have a general preference for having these islands at  the name I have heard of before. This is part of being an English wikipedia: communicating with anglophones. This does not have to mean using the name derived from the British Isles; Hawaii is preferable to the Sandwich Islands. Those who wish to change the English language should do so elsewhere and among others. When they succeed, one of the signs will be that these changes are uncontroversial; they are not now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:12, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: This underscores the real problem with Wikipedia

message: It would help a lot if someone could show where the islands lie on a larger map.Petethewhistle (talk) 19:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree; there are maps on pages on nearby topics - Alexander Archipelago and Boundary Ranges maybe, which would suffice, though are only regional in scale.  This is one of the few maps on a geo-article for BC which shows only the item in question and not its context within global or regional geography.  Which made it all teh worse when Haida activists tried to remove all mention of BC or Canada or Alaska from the article a while ago....Skookum1 (talk) 16:52, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  world map 

message: This is the Strategic Land Use Plan just approved/signed, of which the renaming is one of the clauses/conditions.  Probably there are other extensive name changes within it, I'm in no mood to look at all the PDFs, and the linked page hasn't been updated yet.Skookum1 (talk) 02:57, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: SRMP re name change

message: Queen Charlotte Islands is 100000 more common than Haida Gwaii. The policy is to use common names, not official names. I suggest a move to the normal  name 'Queen Charlotte Islands'.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.196.183.226 (talk) 20:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Your point is well-taken and relates to discussions re Las Malvinas/Falkland Islands and Tibet/Xizang.  There's also a distinction between a landform (an archipelago) and a national territory; this term confuses both.  There is some precedent in Wikipedia for using "indigenously authentic" names but that's often because no English alternatives exist, or are widely-known.  NB only the British columbia government has amended this, I'm uncedrtain about the Geographic Names Board of Canada, and other languages continue to use the translated form of "Queen Charlotte Islands" (without being browbeaten into changing it).Skookum1 (talk) 21:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I find it a bit odd that the official name has changed from the Queen Charlotte Islands to Haida Gwaii. The term Haida Gwaii is surely less common than the Queen Charlotte Islands. I actually never even herd of it until I read this article long time ago. Changing the title from Haida Gwaii back to Queen Charlotte Islands is more proper. Volcanoguy 04:28, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, the GEOnet Names Server, "the official repository of foreign place-name decisions approved by the US BGN", contains only two entries for the islands:  and . Both are listed as "approved". No other names, variant or otherwise, are listed. Pfly (talk) 04:48, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What is this about then? The BCGNIS defination for Haida Gwaii states it is an official name. Volcanoguy 20:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The GEOnet Names Server is for the United States only. I was just following up on the idea that even if Haida Gwaii is official in British Columbia it may not be for the Geographic Names Board of Canada. It apparently isn't for the United States. I don't know about other English-speaking countries. Also, I personally don't much care what the page's name is. It reminds me a little of Uluru. Apparently the name "Ayers Rock" is still equally official, yet to my ears it sounds depressingly "colonial". Pfly (talk) 22:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

text: Chuck Strahl is not Ottawa, and he is not the Geographic Names Board of Canada; as a minister he has no authority to go about changing federal documents without the involvement of the department in question, which is the office in charge of official names; but in Wikipedia WP:COMMONNAME applies, not the official name if it's not the most widely-used; there are given BC usages where the native name is used over the usual anglicization, e.g. Skwxwu7mesh vs Squamish.  The point is that other considerations than what the BC government has doen are at play here; Haida Gwaii is not a part of normal geographic English globally; and Wikipedia should not be used as a platform to enforce even officially-mandated branding; by that I mean Wikipedia should not be used as a device to propagate even official neologisms; it's how these islands are most commonly known, in other languages as well as in the US, UK, and South Africa, that determines the title; "third-party citations" from other countries, showing common usage in those usages, will convince them maybe....BTW in this and related articles, on successive edits or with some original articles, it was not even mentioned these islands were part of BC, or of Canada, and there are those who also removed all mention of the QCI name entirely, and also to prematurely do the name change in various ways; see WP:SOAP and consider your role in trying to use Wikipedia as a political/information campaign to spread a new usage; it's not supposed to be that; in article after article, say in histories involving the US and Russia, they're going to say "Queen Charlotte Islands" and update their national academic lexicon to make people on Haida Gwaii happy; otherwise people will go "WTF izzat?".....how me it in common usage in an Alaska paper - I don't mean in items about the name change - and in Washington papers ,and in papers in other Canadian provinces, or even in BC's, then it's common usage.  Trying to use Wikipedia to first force a name change, then spread it, is not what Wikipedia is here for, nor should it be exploited like that.Skookum1 (talk) 07:47, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not complicated in the slightest, in Wikipedian terms.  Wikipedia does not use official names, it uses most common names, and the fact of the matter is that only the BC government has made this an official name; not the Canadian government, and not any other country or any major 3rd party source.  The article on the officially-named Republic of Myanmar is Burma, NOT Myanmar, for example, and the Quebec article's title is in French, not English.  The Canadian government has not made this name official, nor have any major geographic sources or encyclopedias followed the very-political name-change of the BC government or that of the Council of the Haida Nation.  There's a big difference between legislating a name change and making it universally-acceptable across the English-speaking world.  It's also no secret - in BC at least - that the BC government did this to get the Haida to sign on to the Naikun wind project so that the Haida's line of credit and aboriginal rights could be used to validate an investment/infrastructure project for their political backers, though that's a somewhat separate issue.  The remaining prevalence of the name of the archipelago (rather than the political entity) in English is still the Queen Charlotte Islands, and Wikipedia reflects that, and no amount of badgering from Haida linguistic-political activists will change that.  The official name of China is chung kwok (in Cantonese anyway), but the title of that article is still "China"; similarly Deutschland is still Germany, Norge is still Norway, Italia is still Italy.  You cannot legislate change to language, especially not forcing it on the 400 million+ speakers of English who are not under the jurisdiction of the BC government, nor of the Haida Nation.Skookum1 (talk) 21:15, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Well you make many good points though the tone is bit ... snooty. I'm not going to argue about changing it myself but I do think that "badgering from Haida linguistic-political activists" is a provocative thing to say.  I for one am not Haida nor a linguist nor particularly political nor an activist (though I suppose by reading this discussion and then participating I'm being an activist).  I simply think Haida Gwaii is appropriate, a nicer name and it turns out, official. It does make one wonder, and I'm sure this is discussed ad nauseum by wikifolk elsewhere, when would the change be made? At some point, one imagines, the mood of the populace would somehow be gauged to have switched. It seems a bit arbitrary in that regard. It's exciting to imagine the possibilities.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.108.200.75 (talk) 02:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that the Canadian Encyclopedia on-line is now calling its article "Haida Gwaii" and saying that Queen Charlotte Islands was the official name "until 2010 when Haida Gwaii was accepted." But it seems "Queen Charlotte Islands" is going to have to be pried from a certain someone's cold dead hands before this commonsense change is made on Wikipedia. Scales (talk) 07:38, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Update regarding CGNDB: You can't search "Queen Charlotte Islands" anymore, only "Haida Gwaii" is recognized. I can't get details when this change happened. +mt 04:31, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

text: Skookum1: I'm willing to believe that you are defending a sincerely held position, and you make a plausible case for that position. But if general usage is the key, when is the tipping point reached? I see that the Spring 2011 issue of BCAA's Westworld has defected to the camp of what you disparagingly call "linguistic-political activists". It's likely that within the next few years, nearly all of Canada will have similarly defected. But since Canadians will always be a small minority of the world's population, is Wikipedia to defer to the usage of travel agents in Dallas and Mumbai? (Or should that be Bombay?) Scales (talk) 19:52, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good question and not easily answerable; Canadian English gets overruled all the time, e.g. :Category:Hydroelectric power stations in Canada uses a British-ism; the US was granted an exemption for "power plants" but Canada wasn't (the norm here formally is "generating station", the typical-english is "power plant" or "powerhouse"). I recently endured four weeks or so, several hours a day, trying to get hyphens re-established as the norm for regional district titles vs the unquestioned-but-wrong application of endashes for same made by and defended by typography fanatics in other countries who don't even know what a regional district is.  Recently an effort to rename Plains Indians to Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains was defeated because of the preponderance of Americans taking part in the discussion in great numbers; similarly it took some doing to get varous "Native American" category-names changed to "indigenous peoples" for much teh same reason (the presupposition that USian is standard English, an affectation which British editors also have tried from their end, as with power station/generating station.  At what point does it come current usage?  That's the "good question", and there's no clear guideline on it; does BCTV or the Sun use Haida Gwaii as the only usage now, for example?  Is it even fully current within BC?  "Salish Sea" is official now, but rarely used, for example (though in that case Georgia Strait, Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound have not been rescinded).  And "linguistic-political activists" is not unseemly or derisive at all, given the history of wanton POV edits about this on this article and on "Salish Sea".  Wikipedia is not supposed to be a platform - a soapbox to "push" neologisms, even official ones; why Mumbai is an article title and Myanmar is not I don't know, but some of the why and wherefore would have to do with the intent/agenda.  In Spanish, the Falkland Islands are Las Malvinas, in English, Wien is Vienna though its official name is Wien, ditto Moskva/Moscow etc.  And as for "activists" being disparaging themselves, you are welcome to review the previous attempts to rename this article - long before the name change was even officially proposed - and the various deletions of any mention of BC or of Canada from this and related articles - as a demonstration of why "linguistic-political activists" is a purely descriptive and not "disparaging" term; same with what was pulled, repeatedly, with Salish Sea and Whulge and also Cascadia - people trying to use Wikipedia to advance an agenda.  This is why I said what i said about getting other recognized major sources to amend their entries, e.g. the Britannica or Encarta - Googlemaps by the way seems to use CGDNB's juxtaposition of Georgia Strait's coordinates, vs the BCGNIS and USGS ones which are down by "the angle" near the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal; but Googlemaps has "Haida Gwaii" as the primary search term now, don't know when they did that (but they also label regional district electoral areas as if they were important to know geogaphrically, which they're anything but).  Anyway I've grown tired of all the ethno-cultural whining/paranoid behaviour on this page, and the attempts to slag me for it personally, just for trying to explain the Wikipedia position (instead of taking up the p.c. banner and waving it fervently as apparently I'm expected to).  I've posted this on WP:IPNA and WP:CANTALK and WP:TITLE to get other input/editors taking part, and there's a mediation process......bu7t be advised that demanding and demadning and insulting is no teh way to get thigns done around here, adn the history of one-sided edits and name-changes here weighs unfavourably against you.Skookum1 (talk) 22:21, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Queen Charlotte Islands 

message: How are you even supposed to pronounce "Haida Gwaii"? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The pronunciation of Haida Gwaii is relatively straight-forward:  (IPA) or  (respell). You can hear someone say the name here, here and here. If you're wondering about the original name Xhaaidla(gha) Gwaayaai from which it derives, then it would be pronounced something like  in the Haida language. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 05:58, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Well, I was mainly wondering about the pronunciation of Haida Gwaii, which is not English and therefore not at all predictable (disregarding the fact that the pronunciation of countless English words is not predictable, either). Your admittance that it is relatively straight-forward only is symptomatic. How do I know that it is not , for example? This information deserves to be added to the intro. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation 

message: I'm not sure I understand the outcome of the most recent move proposal, as Mwtoews provided considerable evidence that Haida Gwaii is indeed currently the most common name (BCGNIS, CGNDB/Atlas of Canada, Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District's webpage, GEOnet Names Server, BC Ferries map, Google Maps, The Canadian Encyclopedia, etc.), and no evidence to the contrary was presented.  If not official sources like these, nor popular usage measurements like Google Trends, what metrics should we be monitoring to determine when the move is justified under WP:COMMONNAME?--Trystan (talk) 20:02, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: CBC News and The Globe and Mail also use Haida Gwaii, as per some articles today about a missing person:  . They don't even mention the former name.  —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:13, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  I've added them to the table.--Trystan (talk) 23:23, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Metrics to establish most common name 

message: The lead section of this article reads to me as if it takes the point of view of the Haida Nation against the governments of Canada and the United States. There is a perceptible sense that the US and Canada are alien forces who somehow oppress Haida Gwaii without providing any benefits – as if the right thing to do would be for both Canada and the US to cede sovereignty over all the territory the Haida Nation claims to that nation and end all involvement in its affairs. In fact, the following passage is not particularly subtle in making that point:A more balanced article would tell about what benefits the people of these islands receive in return for submission to these two foreign powers. If they receive no benefits, and if the only result of being part of Canada and the US is oppression, then that point should be made more clearly and with reliable sources to support it.
I personally have no stake or even great interest in this specific issue, and my feelings about it are not strong enough to move me to mark the article with any sort of POV tag; but I do feel that I should express how the article reads to me for the possible benefit of editors who are involved in maintaining it.--Jim10701 (talk) 16:22, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for bringing that up. As it turns out, the changes were undiscussed, and were made by an IP on July 31, 2011. I have removed them per your concerns. --Ckatzchatspy 18:09, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead section POV 

message: Snowfall is generally moderate, averaging from 10 centimetres (3.9 in) to 70 centimetres (28 in), though at northerly Langara Island it averages around 100 centimetres (39 in).
Given the mild climate of the islands, I don't doubt the existence of such a place, however, I would like to see records validating this.
--UkrainianAmerican (talk) 23:42, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Climate- 10 centimeters of snow 

message: The statement that "The 2013 salmon runs defied all expectations..." strongly implies that this is because of the iron that was put into the ocean.  This has not been suggested by any reliable source.  Given the salmon lifecycle, it does not make sense for the 2013 salmon run to be affected by a deposit of iron in 2012.
One could also add a statement that "in 2013-2014, the levels of PSP (paralytic shellfish poisoning) Haida Gwaii defied all expectations."  (PSP is caused by a dinoflagellate that would probably benefit from increased iron).
Given the lack of any experimental design, it does not seem possible for anything to be linked to the iron depositing, either positive of negative.  My suggestion is to just remove the statement about salmon returns.
On a related note, I think that the title "Ocean fertilization experiment" is quite misleading.  It implies that the event in question was an experiment, and that it fertilized the ocean.  Both of these points are very contentious.  This title therefore gives undue weight to a single point of view.  It could just as easily be referred to as the "illegal iron dumping of 2012".  I tried to think of a more balanced title.  Perhaps "2012 controversy around depositing iron in the ocean"?  I realize that it sounds kind of goofy, but at least it doesn't strongly support one point of view.  Any suggestions would be welcome.
Millifolium (talk)
:Actually it does make sense with the salmon life cycle. Yes, the salmon who ran the rivers were not spawned the previous year; and likely were years old. Nor, were these salmon spawned from different waters. Salmon almost always return to the rivers of their spawn. (Almost always since they must have proliferated somehow.) But, they would have been able to survive better having been fed on the bounty of the rich waters. More importantly, predators of salmon would have a) had an abundance of alternative prey animals to feed on, and b) needed to eat less of the fatter salmon to achieve satiation. Both would have contributed to many more salmon surviving to their final run.
:Keep in mind whether or not iron can fertilize the ocean, leading to phytoplankton blooms, leading to benefits all the way up the food chain is not debate-able. It is well studied that nutrient rich waters, such as around natural cold water upwellings, are among the biologically richest in the world. Waters with a scarcity of nutrients are comparatively dead. What is debate-able is, as you wrote, the timing, and the other larger issues of whether such practices should be allowed, because of ethical reasons, and the potential danger of unforeseen side effects. 173.79.236.101 (talk) 21:19, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  2012 controversy around depositing iron in the ocean 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hi, I'm moving this fragment here until it can be reinserted in a way that is more complete and clear. Removed bit:
:where the Haida memorial potlatch survives among the Hopi.
The source appears to be subscription-based, so I'm not able to check what the intended meaning was here. The potlatch custom is common throughout many native cultures, and Hopi is a different language family from Haida, so the connection isn't clear from the fragment. Thanks! — Henry chianski (talk) 01:40, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Connection to Hopi 

message: I have changed a reference to the islands being called Queen Charlotte Islands to remove the word briefly and inserted the start and end date for the term. I think we can leave it to the readers to determine for themselves whether this constitutes a brief period of time. --Wilson (talk) 22:31, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe it would be most accurate to change “also called” to “formerly” because the name was formally changed in 2010, as stated later in the article. D1doherty (talk) 05:53, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  200+ years is not typically called brief