Misplaced Pages

Talk:Stawamus (village): Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 03:47, 5 April 2014 editDicklyon (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Rollbackers476,479 edits Requested move 2← Previous edit Revision as of 05:16, 5 April 2014 edit undoSkookum1 (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled89,945 edits Requested move 2: bulleting another item so there will be no complaints of "walls of text"Next edit →
(One intermediate revision by the same user not shown)
Line 92: Line 92:
*****''"A community with a population less than 2,500 may incorporate as a village if the outcome of a vote involving affected residents was that greater than 50% voted in favour of the proposed incorporation. British Columbia has 42 villages. A community with a population less than 2,500 may incorporate as a village if the outcome of a vote involving affected residents was that greater than 50% voted in favour of the proposed incorporation. British Columbia has 42 villages"] (]) 02:19, 5 April 2014 (UTC) *****''"A community with a population less than 2,500 may incorporate as a village if the outcome of a vote involving affected residents was that greater than 50% voted in favour of the proposed incorporation. British Columbia has 42 villages. A community with a population less than 2,500 may incorporate as a village if the outcome of a vote involving affected residents was that greater than 50% voted in favour of the proposed incorporation. British Columbia has 42 villages"] (]) 02:19, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
******Can you be more explicit instead of expecting us to do the research as to why you object to calling it a village? Or tell us what else it could/should be called? ] (]) 03:47, 5 April 2014 (UTC) ******Can you be more explicit instead of expecting us to do the research as to why you object to calling it a village? Or tell us what else it could/should be called? ] (]) 03:47, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
{{od}}Gee, I thought ''had'' been; dismabiguation is definitely needed "(village)" as explained indicates a Village municipality.
*1)There is a legal status for certain aboriginal communities in Canada that are not Indian Reserves, "Indian Villages", but this is not one of those.
*2)] is for "village of the ]" and so there's items like ]. In this case "Squamish village" will ''not'' do, as explained two or three times already ("Squamish"'s primarytopic is the town, despite the failure of the RMs where the closers either targeted me rather than the facts/search results, or were made "no consensus" because of kibbitzing votes from people who didn't know or care about Canadian usages or even knew much about either teh place or the people.
*3)When this was closed to ] "by consensus", a disambiguation was necessary as per ] and ] guidelines, rather than refer to natives in the generic terms "Indian" or "First Nations", it is preferable to use the particular group's specific name, in this case Skwxwu7mesh, per ] which is also in MOS somewhere. So I disambiguated it to ] and that was to the now very ambiguous and misleading dab.
*4)The ''real'' simple solution here, without ''any disambiguation needed whatsoever'', is to move it back to the original title created by ], as per various passages including PRECISION and CONCISENESS and also dictums in various guidelines that when there is a dispute over name, reversion to the original title is the preferred outcome. This also is in line with the "Self-identification" passage in NCET and in TITLE.
*5) the current dab is unacceptable as being vague and misleading
*6) ], the original title, is not misleading and needs no disambiguation and was the choice of the original author, who himself is Skwxwu7mesh. Even though not as common as "Stawamus" it nonetheless is still present in English (the quibble over the /7/ is entirely specious and to me is just wikilawyering and not in the spirit of the guidelines noted above) and per NCET#Self-identification is clear and does not refer to or imply anything else.
*7) The other alternative, using the "Skwxwu7mesh village" dismabiguation, which BTW is on the ] dab page now, ''also'' has the /7/ but "Squamish village" is not an option because of the ambiguities of that term and the demonstrable PRIMARYTOPIC of the town for that term (the Squamish RMs will be revisited, now that ] and other similar town-names are now cleared and moved as RMs to their standalone titles, as per ]).] (]) 05:15, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Revision as of 05:16, 5 April 2014

WikiProject iconIndigenous peoples of North America Stub‑class
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Native Americans, Indigenous peoples in Canada, and related indigenous peoples of North America on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Indigenous peoples of North AmericaWikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North AmericaTemplate:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North AmericaIndigenous peoples of North America
StubThis article has been rated as Stub-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
???This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.
WikiProject iconCanada: British Columbia / Geography / Communities Stub‑class Low‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Canada on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CanadaWikipedia:WikiProject CanadaTemplate:WikiProject CanadaCanada-related
StubThis article has been rated as Stub-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
LowThis article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
Taskforce icon
This article is supported by WikiProject British Columbia.
Taskforce icon
This article is supported by WikiProject Geography of Canada.
Taskforce icon
This article is supported by WikiProject Canadian communities.
Map needed
Map needed
It is requested that a map or maps be included in this article to improve its quality.
Wikipedians in British Columbia may be able to help!

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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 proposal was not moved. I'll be moving to Stawamus (village), however, per WP:BOLD, WP:CONCISE, and WP:D. There doesn't seem to be another village by this name. --BDD (talk) 17:35, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

StawamusSta7mes– This page was moved on December 1, 2011, by User:Kauffner, without discussion Skookum1 (talk) 10:18, 26 February 2014 (UTC), saying "moved St'a7mes to Stawamus over redirect: Move to English-language name. See discussion at Talk:Squamish people". The problem is that creates a namespace collision with the MOSTCOMMON meaning of "Stawamus" in English being a reference to the Stawamus Chief mountain/cliff that overhangs this village site (note also Stawamus Squaw) or of the Stawamus Elementary School as evident on

  • Oppose predominant name in English is Stawamus. I don't see any indication that Sta7mes has any wide usage. Ex: 457 hits for "Stawamus, BC" and 0 for "Sta7mes" .--Labattblueboy (talk) 23:05, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
    • Reply Prove to me that "Stawamus" is how this community is referred to by its inhabitants or its neighbours, you claim it is the predominant usage, but predominant where? Its inhabitants are Skwxwu7mesh and would say Sta7mes, and around Squamish others who are not Skwxwu7mesh would be familiar with the term. "The rez" cannot be the title, though doubtless it's the most common name. And the most common use of "Stawamus" is not this place, but the Stawamus Chief and/or the elementary school. Your "Stawamus, BC" result point to something other than this place, to whit the Stawamus Chief, and items that say "Stawamus BC" such as the CBC cite are referring to it, also, not to the rez community as such; I've provided one example re "the Sta7mes Reserve", I see nothing anywhere about Stawamus-the-Reserve in any of your results. Skookum1 (talk) 05:52, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
    • Data analysis I just excluded "Stawamus Chief" from your book results, what's left are items about the Stawamus River (or creek); winnowing those and related terms (the forest service road/FSR, the lake) there's a few references to the Stawamus Reserve in older publications; other mentions of plain-jane "Stawamus" refer to the rock/climbing spot; which once again is the most common name; Stawamus should, if anything, redirect to Stawamus Chief....Skookum1 (talk) 06:09, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
      • How the community refers to it is irrelevant, it's how reliable source material uses it in the English language. To this respect, there is no reliable source usage of Sta7mes, so it's a non started. I myself would be more inclined to put this article for deletion given it's more of a place name within Squamish, British Columbia rather than a stand alone place itself. I have not been able to find any reference to it in the Canadian Geographical Names Data Base and no reference to it as being a stand alone village with any form of provincial recognition. The GeoBC database gives no hits for "Sta7mes" . The only populated place that the search for Stawamus does turn up is Stawamus Indian Reserve No. 24, which is certainly an option I could support.--Labattblueboy (talk) 00:19, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
        • CommentNatives make a distinction between their long-standing communities in and of themselves and the parcel of land mandated by the Indian Act to where they were to be contained (and until the 1950s, they couldn't leave the rez boundaries without a permit) - how the community refers to itself is relevant, and that they do use this term in the English language is a known quantity cf below about the article's founder
          • (1) by way of example as to the distinction, Capilano Indian Reserve No. 5 is not the same thing as Homulchesan, Cheakamus Indian Reserve No. 11 (#?) is not the same thing as Chiyakmesh.
          • (2) I'm not in Squamish so can't go look through the local newspapers and sundry around town to see if it's in print there; it most certainly is in publications of the Squamish Nation and any aboriginal organization affiliated with same. I wouldn't be surprised if also materials are on the shelves from the District of Squamish, the regional district, any number of provincial and federal agencies or local NGOs and local newspapers. The quote I had from that crafts workshop also shows that it is used in English; only a small handful of Skwxwu7mesh speak t heir language btw, but in English parlance they will use the traditional names of their communities, not the IR-and-number; someone going home to Xwemelchtsen doesn't say "I'm going home to Cap IR 5", ditto someone from Chiyakmesh saying "My community is Cheakamus No. 11", cf the same applies with "Stawamus 24" vs "Sta7mes".
          • (3) As for other reliable sources, there's also a bit at the start of MOS about respecting the wishes/intent of the creator of an article, who in this case happens to be Skwxwu7mesh himself, User:OldManRivers, and he took pointed care in presenting his people's identity and nomenclature correctly in Misplaced Pages; he is the main language instructor and revivalist for the Skwxwu7mesh and, if he hadn't given up on Misplaced Pages because of people messing with things without knowing what they're talking about, and making colonialist and parochial comments/changes etc, might be here to reference a book on the shelves of the Squamish Nation library; I can't cite his blog as an RS although it's not opinion, it's scholarship when it covers names and so on (it used to be liberatedyet.com I'm not sure what it is now; he goes by "Khelsilem Rivers" in public and is in fact becoming notable enough to warrant an article. He could provide the published source you say is needed, but he is himself an expert in this field and a member of the Skwxwu7mesh people, though he's from Xwemelchtsen (Homulchesan/Cap IR No. 5) himself, not Stawamus.
          • (4) Proving that "Stawamus" is more common than "Sta7mes" when referring to the community/place is not any more easily verifiable than proving that "Sta7mes" is, and NB "Stawamus" is a "corrupted" way of writing Sta7mes, which is closer to the correct pronunciation (that 7 is a glottal stop).
          • (5) Not sure who it was who recently moved this, but if they did so invoking googles for "Stawamus" to justify COMMONNAME without winnowing out the mountain, the river, the lake, company names, the school etc. then that data was invalid; even the IR listing, as explained, is not adequate as it refers to a parcel of land, and not the community per se. The move from Sta7mes to Stawamus was undiscussed, and not supported by citations, and should be reverted. That "Stawamus" is a common term on the BC landscape and there's ample googles for it does not mean the traditional name of this community should be "levelled" to match the names of the lake, river and mountain as misspelled by colonial occupiers, and also is not a valid search in terms of proving MOSTCOMMON. As those results were not a search for the community.
          • (6) An undiscussed move without any real citation justifying it? - that's a case to revert it; and then if you want hold an RM to change it to the white man's name, and invite other white men to come and tell the Indians what they're allowed to call themselves, and that you think they should go by the distortion of the name conferred on the land that were penned up as "reserve". Not that Misplaced Pages shows any sign of indigenous sensitivity when it comes to be high-handed in the blind and ill-informed application of guidelines; but there COMMONNAME did not apply as a valid justification, because there were not the citations to prove that was the case. There were wrong citations yes, but presuming they had to do with this community was a gross error, as an examination of those results readily shows.
          • (7) And, from the end of the third paragraph of WP:MOS - "If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor." should suffice.Skookum1 (talk) 03:58, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment You will find that the highway sign shows the name Stá7mes. You would be correct in assuming /Stá7mes/ is the orthographic spelling from the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh language used by the Squamish Nation. Stawamus, as it relates to the mountain, has common usage. However, the abrupt moving without discussion needs to be addressed. Stá7mes is the name of a village/community that has extensive archaeological and cultural history. /Stawamus/ was an English attempt to write Stá7mes phonemically. Pronounced closer to Staw-a-mus as opposed to Sta-wa-mus. Some have started referring to the Chief mountain as Sta-wa-mus Chief, but that comes from them misunderstanding the phonemic spelling that was given. This is why I think Google Search hits as evidence for common English usage is foolish. Stawamus will show higher because it is the name of the mountain (which was named after Stá7mes). This article is in relation to the community / village, not the mountain. However, Stá7mes is the common and standard English language name for the community. What type of evidence would people like to show this? Academic papers, news articles, interviews with locals (oh wait, that would be original research). I am away from my home until the end of this month so all the sources I could give are there. I’ll add them to this discussion when I can. 03:51, 2 March 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.188.14.160 (talk) [contributor is User:OldManRivers, who forgot to sign in.
    • Any family of reliable sources that show the Sta7mes is not only in used but more common that Stawamus, with regards to the locale, in English language sources. I have thus far come up empty.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:22, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
      • Well, since this article was moved without discussion despite being obviously controversial, it should be reverted right back on the basis of that alone. Are you an admin? If so, why don't you do the reversion and then make some kind of case for moving it to the white-man approximation, where you can prove, using those reliable sources you demand from us, that "Stawamus" is the most common usage (locally or otherwise) for this community; and please take note the name of the Indian Reserve, which is a plot of land, not the community as such, is not proof of that;
        • IR names very often don't match local usages, they were created a hundred years ago and more; Nkiat, a small rancherie in Seton Portage, is on a reserve named Necait Indian Reserve No. 6. The orthodox modern spelling of Nkiat is Nqayt (used by its inhabitants and other reserve communities in the Seton Lake First Nation; two of their communities, Ohin and Shalalth (neither of which is English, despite looking vaguely so - Ohin is pronounced "OOkhwin" and means 'frostbite'; Shalalth is the "English" version of what is now in modern St'at'imcets orthography Tsalalh; this by way of example as to why IR names mean p-all as to what the name of a community is; both Shalalth and Ohin are on Slosh IR 1, as maybe already mentioned. Xwisten, which is the name of the Bridge River in St'at'imcets, is used for the name of the main community area of the very large Bridge River Indian Reserve No. 1; and also the name of the Xwisten First Nation. Similar examples abound in Skwxwu7mesh social landscape as already explained by myself; "Cheakamus" is a rough anglicization of Chiyakmesh, which is on Cheakamus Indian Reserve No. 11, but the community and the plot of land are not the same thing, as you would find if you looked up a local map; and the primary toponym for Cheakamus is the river, followed by the lake and the canyon, and if you look up a community name you will find a Cheakamus, not on Cheakamus IR No. 11, in the Paradise Valley "suburb" of Squamish on the lower part of the Cheakamus River, to the northeast of Chiyakmesh; another usage for a community of that name was at the Cheakamus Powerhouse construction site in the 1950s; I know this because my family lived there; and it's not even on or near the Cheakamus River, it's on the Squamish....and nowhere near Chiyakmesh. So while you can make a case that names like Stawamus and Cheakamus are common, you can not prove that they are what locals use for the reserve communities, nor can you prove that they are equivalent to the plots of land that are the Indian Reserves carrying those names.
      • Another very pertinent element in this matter is that MOS mandates that when styles cannot be resolved, to revert to the intent/wishes of the article's primary creator and principal author....and he has just spoken. He's also a local source (which you are not) and is in fact a published expert in Skwxwu7mesh studies and an instructor of language and culture within his people. And you are, again....?? You can claim his input is "original research", you might even go so far as to claim that it's COI.... but that would just be proof of Misplaced Pages contrarianism and the penchant for using any old guideline to block useful change. The only guideline invoked here, to move this to its current title, was "Use English" .... but Stawamus isn't English EITHER - and the other was COMMONNAME, allegedly, even though the mass of "citations" for that name turn out to be for anything BUT the community. Which, as the author OMR points out, has a proper name pronounced more like "Staw aw mus" than "Sta Wa Mus" which is how the landscape and company names are pronounced. So both guidelines invoked to move this article were in error......but even without that, an RM should have been held, and it was NOT. So this should be reverted, and if you're so insistent on finding reliable sources, please start looking for ones proving that this native community calls itself "Stawamus" and make your case in the next RM to try to revert it back.Skookum1 (talk) 12:08, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
        • Once again, what the community itself calls itself is not the driving factor. The name is determined by the prevalence in reliable English-language sources (WP:COMMONNAME). Same guiding principles exist in WP:PLACE. If your argument is that there is no single term that is the most frequently used for the topic, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best (once again WP:COMMONNAME). The article has been at it's present location for over two years, without issue of controversy, so I don't see the argument that Sta7mes is the baseline as holding merit. You're not going to get a move without demonstrating English source usage. If there are some good English reliable sources than I am in support of a move. Otherwise it's present location, Stawamus Indian Reserve No. 24 or deletion are the options I'd support.--Labattblueboy (talk) 21:37, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
          • Yes, it took me two years to notice it had been moved, but that move was STILL without citations and sources to justify it. The notion that you advance that Stawamus Indian Reserve No. 24]] is the same thing flies in the face of all that I have just explained to you about Indian reserves vs native communities. Stay7mes is a few hundred years older than the IR system, for one thing. But in re Capilano Indian Reserve No. 5, there are more non-natives living on it - in Park Royal and in the large trailer park under the Lions Gate Bridge than there are Skwxwu7mesh living in Xwemelchtsen. And for the record you can't just delete a community because you don't like the way its name is spelled. It's not spelled "Stawamus" and YOU have yet to provide any citations that it IS; what you did do is provide a whole bunch of WRONG citations.....what I see here (a) an undiscussed move to a wrong name (not just a wrong version of the name but a WRONG NAME) with no citations and (b) obstructionist arguments to resist restoration to the PROPER NAME, those arguments being without citation anc which were advanced ALSO with wrong citations. Deleting your problem of "no sources to support this being called Stawamus" is not going to make that problem go away. We just heard from someone who is I guess a "primary source"....that road sign he mentions is seen by thousands of people daily, it's on Highway 99 to Whistler; that probably doesn't constitute a "reliable source" for you...but NOTHING you have provided has been a reliable source EITHER.Skookum1 (talk) 03:54, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
            • I don't see us coming to a consensus, so I leave with these final comments as I've spent far too much on this RM than I would have expected. I've since delved into a bit more and here is what I have come up with for citations supporting the status quo:
              • 118 Google hits for "Stawamus Village"
              • Aboriginal Day celebrations set, Squamish Chief
              • The Seal and The Princess, Squamish Chief
              • British Columbia: A walking guide - Page 133
              • A Traveller's Guide to Aboriginal B.C.
              • The Canadian Mining and Metallurgical Bulletin (1925) - Page 394
              • Squamish: The Shining Valley - Page 13
              • Passing reference (village of Stawamus) in GeoBC
              • Culliton Creek Hydro Electric Project Archeological Assessment - page 13
              • Skookum Creek Hydroelectric Project Archaeological Impact Assessment - page 15
              • Squamish Revealed by Heather Sadler (MA Thesis), University of British Columbia - page 6--Labattblueboy (talk) 04:55, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Comment - requoting MOS I've going through those "results" of yours, they leave a lot to be desired. For example, in the first set of googles they're nearly all either automatically-generated phone directory listings (which I could do for places with no population and still get results) or in the bumpf from one particular business, the Totem Nursery School. I see the Squamish Chief usages, yes, which answers the question about what at least one local paper (there are two, not including Whistler's two which also have Squamish circulation); in that case, knowing that paper's biases, and their own prejudice against using the local language, they probably never use Skwxwu7mesh either....(language is politics in BC, suffice to say; and insisting that Misplaced Pages take the old-guard position and not advance the other is really advancing and entrenching the old-guard and not slightly anti-native one (like the guy in the Skwxwu7mesh RM who complained about "gibberish"). Some of the other links you've come up with appear to be blogs....my connection's shitty the PDfs aren't loading so I can't see teh "passing references" yet..... The current title is unacceptable especially as far as the PRIMARYTOPIC of Stawamus goes, this if anything might be citable as Stawamus Village but we'd need more than the nursery school and the local right-wing paper to confirm that usage; a publication of the Squamish Nation would be more telling.... but to sum up, since we're not about t o agree, and since this was moved without genuine citations, only a misconception that any google for "Stawamus" refers to this plac, which is anything but the case, let me quote MOS for you again: If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor..Skookum1 (talk) 09:26, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
  • That relates to an articles optimal style and formatting not the article title> I think it would be fair to say that you are twisting the words and intent in MOS to suit your own purposes. The entire context is such "Style and formatting should be consistent in an article, though not necessarily throughout Misplaced Pages. Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason. Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor." If you simply showed reliable sources to support the move this would all be over, but you have thus far failed to do so. That being said, I would Support moving this article to Stawamus (village) and thus leave the space open for a dab page.--Labattblueboy (talk) 06:04, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
      • The obstinacy and intransigence and refusal to listen to reason or to cultural realities in all these discussions...is truly breathtaking. You say that I twist guidelines to get them to say what I want; who doesn't do this? The isolation of single guidelines being used to sweep aside prior consensus without any regard to context is such a feature of these anti-native-name discussions - not always pointing at sources as you have done, but making suppositions; as indeed you did about the previous "Stawamus" google referring to how common a name it is in the area completely misses the point about native language acceptance in Canadian English. Your "reliable sources" above include googles chock full of bot-generated webpages for phone directories, and repeated cites for one school's usage ... in one of the PDFs I was able to get to load (I have a very bad connection problem in my new digs) I saw "the village of stawamus" - note the lower case, and no pronunciation given - and you mention other 'passing references'. Yet I did find at least one "Sta7mes" usage, also on a local publication, and OMR promised to come back with sources, he hasn't returned so far. Your Stawamus (village) title still lends itself to mispronunciation, and given the highway sign OMR mentions (which I think is in Commons) it's clear that "Sta7mes" isn't an invented term nor is it one unknown locally; that the Squamish Chief newspaper (interesting that its name is a pun on Stawamus Chief) is part of a chain with known political leanings that aren't exactly pro-native means that its embrace of the "more English" term has its own POV origins; OMR's cites may include material from the Squamish Nation library. Yet you behave as though all this is fiction or original research. The determined resistance I am encountering against native toponymical and endonym names is very troubling culturally and has political overtones that cannot go unmentioned. Choice of spelling conventions is very much a "style" issue; the native choice to use their own language's terms within English is really only a spelling issue, as is the case here, and "Sta7mes", once you know what the '7' is, is the more accurate and "authentic" than the bastardized pronunciation indicating by "Stawamus" whether you append the "(village)" dab to it or not. Are you going to what will amount to applying/demanding archaic spellings to the other Skwxwu7mesh community articles also? Because consistency within the category is very much an issue here; Esla7an and Senakw also have "reliable source" names aplenty, depends on how old the cites are gonna by. And what's gonna happen to Xway xway? Should we make it Qwhy qwhy or just anglicized it completely and call it Masks (village)? Are you intent on making Chiyakmesh into Cheakamus (village), never mind how the residents pronounce it, or should we make it People of the Fishing Weir (village) to sate the "must be English" biases of the Misplaced Pages guideline cops, and the hostility to native language terms intruding on suppositions about what is and isn't acceptable in other countries than Canada? Jury's out on this, until OMR returns, but you're gonna have to do better than "passing references" in power project reports to justify ignoring the other viable option, or to wave away the consistency-within-category issue that, as at Squamish/Skwxwu7mesh, nobody even wants to acknowledge...even though coming to terms with its issues long ago is what a group of dedicated, informed wikipedians did in setting these conventions out; we never codified it into a guideline proposal, our bad....but seemingly being the last voice of that group left, speaking up for why we did what we did and why such names are useful and acceptable is being routinely railroaded by narrow applications of guidelines, be it RS or COMMONNAME, without regard to the wider context and the why and wherefore such names are now common on the Canadian map.....that this was changed by speedy from (a) over bias against native spelling conventions and (b) a completely mistaken reference to the prevalence of "Stawamus" as a geographic term and corporate name that, other than the IR name, has no reference to the village. Why the Squamish Nation has not referred to it in the online sources you're sourcing is also partly political; suffice to say if OldManRivers is ever chief or on council this may well change....for now my overriding concern is the emerging precedent for ignoring what Wikipedians of the past determined was the best way forward, partly to encourage and not alienate natives from feeling welcome in Misplaced Pages. That what you want to preserve here predicates a precedent that will affect many other articles seems completely lost on you; and there are exceptions to all guidelines that can be invoked, and also adjustments to existing guidelines that are long overdue. But for standing up for this, I get accused of WP:OWN as if guidelines themselves weren't things people were in the habit of WP:OWNing it's like Misplaced Pages really is becoming more about its rules, and not about the relevance or thoughtful consideration of its contents....somewhere in the guidelines about naming there is reference to the consistency I am talking about, and the recognition that exemptions exist which allow anamolous names....I see RS being used here as a justification, but as in all these parallel name-cases I'm on I also see an ongoing subtext of cultural chauvinism, rigid adherence to guidelines without consideration for content or consequences or precedent, and an overall hostility towards names that look unfamiliar to the at-large "English" eye (even though we're quite used to seeing them in BC)...and the insistence on using confusing terms no matter the confusions caused because that hostility towards the new usages is so bitter and determined. But for every guideline that's trotted out, exceptions exist, including issues of consistency across types of similar articles, though that little caveat, like the WP:Fifth Pillar, is consistently ignored by those who want a rigid and narrow applications of guidelines without regard to the consequences; and without any respect at all to consistency or any evolving conventions...one thing's for sure, with things at a free for all state right now, the conventions and existing parallel examples are being steadily eroded to the point where there will be no consistency and nothing to refer to by way of example; had Kwami had his way with various main-ethno-article titles last year, we would have seen speedy category changes galore, with all kinds of confusion and even more arguments resulting. Our old convention foresaw all that, and also took into account native sensitivities about names and terms, and allowed for article titles such as this one. Some harshly native article names even I changed; what is now Keeshan, which is a decidedly archaic spelling of Kii?in, its official name to the Nuu-chah-nulth, were concessions to the "English only" bias....but even in that case, though the "English" name gives an idea of the pronunciation, it's still outmoded. And about Xa:ytem..... even in its diacritical-less state, it's "not English"....do you want to change it to "Hatzic Rock" and never mind the vulgarity in Halkomelem implied by "Hatzic"? Respect for native names, and consistency in a given topic area, and "strong national sentiment" can all override COMMONNAME and UE......but of course when those fail, a naysayer will trot out RS and start coming up with all kinds of iffy/mistaken "cites" which on close inspection really aren't.....Skookum1 (talk) 15:25, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment Interesting what a closer reading of WP:UCN turns up than only COMMONNAME:
    • "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." (emphasis mine) Stawamus, because its common usage means something else, is ambiguous; and it is inaccurate as it predisposes an incorrect pronunciation of the name.
    • These three points in the section where the five characteristics of titles are described:
      • Precision – The title is sufficiently precise to unambiguously identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
        • Given the confusion of your own original search which included all usages of "Stawamus" I'd say we have clear evidence of why Stawamus is not precise and does not readily distinguish from other subjects (which also plays into the wrong-pronunciation aspect) vs Sta7mes which is unique and totally unambiguous and is in no danger of being confused with the local toponymy (as has already shown to be easily the case)
      • Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
        • "Stawamus" is not in fact shorter than Sta7mes, and your proposal to retain it and add a disambiguation is unnecessary length and also needless disambiguation if a name which does not disambiguation exists and is known to be in use (see below about using certain names even if not to be the most common use.
      • Consistency The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles.
        • cf repeated comments of mine about the existing name convention re the other village articles (whose names are even "less English" than Sta7mes is) which populate the rest of this category, and also which similarly go beyond the bounds of normal English ASCII use so as to denote pronunciation needs (7 as a glottal stop, the : in Sto:lo make it not Stoe-lo but Staw-lo). All three of these points are also pertinent to the Squamish/Skwxwu7mesh category-title and main-article-title debates, big-time. And they were in fact points considered during that earlier consensus I keep talking about, which nobody ever stops to acknowledge that it existed, even though evidence of it is right in front of them (the village names in the ethno category, the people names in the BC FNs category, and more). About this earlier consensus, WP:UCN also says it has
    • Then there's this: "When titling articles in specific fields, or with respect to particular problems, there is often previous consensus that can be used as a precedent...When no previous consensus exists, a new consensus is established through discussion, with the above questions in mind." (emphasis mine and meaning the Five Characteristics including the three listed and commented on above.
    • And while the wording here says "term", in our case it's a toponym, and "When there is no single obvious term that is obviously the most frequently used for the topic, as used by a significant majority of reliable English language sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best by considering the criteria listed above." "The criteria listed above" being the Five Characteristics.
    • "When there are multiple names for a subject, all of them fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others." "Stawamus" has problems, in that it's misleading pronunciation wise, and that as a name it is most commonly known in reference to a mountain, first, or a river, second; especially if pronounced the way it most commonly is.
    • So while my reference to MOS was said to twist what is meant there (though I maintain this is really a spelling issue - and therefore a matter of style), in this case I am directly quoting important principles which put the lie to the notion that COMMONNAME is ironclad and immutable and solvable only by numbers, and also the notion that RS are inviolable and unchallengeable and must always be followed. Precision, consistency, and conciseness clearly are not just on Sta7mes side, its why it and similar titles were used in the first place. And prior conventions that existed must be respected, even when being changed, not waved away as if they had never existed or did not count; and if I'm the only surviving witness of that consensus' evolution of those conventions, that's not a personal agenda but remaining the spokesman, and the witness, for a group that had evolved a workable consensus of editors knowledgeable of the material and sensitive to cultural issues/representation and guidelines including those quoted above for solutions to very complicated problems posed re titles and topics/categories and nomenclature, including namespace collisions and cultural issues and sensitivities and the desire for inclusiveness, so that indigenous contributors would not feel estranged by seeing names that were archaic or dictated by "reliable sources" which treated them as lab subjects or only as scientific objects, or worse, as wards of the state whose documents published on them established terms and contexts in the process of dehumanizing them, and as being political in origin and in purpose (cultural domination).
    • Insensitivity to such matters - especially re important topics such as nomenclature and modern spellings which were established to replace the language in "reliable sources" which were not reliable, often wildly so even from some of the greatest "reliable sources"; to say that this of POV or SOAP nature is quite wrong; it is a matter of realizing that the "reliable sources" have their issues, and inaccuracy on native topics, and the glossing of native names (Stawamus vs Sta7mes) and the cooptation of such names for geographic naming (in the native view, as expressed by OMR and also found among other IPNA and PacNW talkpage discussions from the days of "the old consensus", the white man giving things names was part of the colonization/occupation process and the means by which white law pre-empted their land, in much of BC's case without treaty....just with maps and names). That such governments and the corporations licensed/supported by them - and as OMR would indicate about the Squamish Nation being a creature of the federal government imposed upon his people i.e. that it is just another corporation of the colonization and not synonymous with his people- do not readily adopt native-authentic spellings as have evolved to differentiate between "the colonizers' names" and ones which speak to the native identity and culture; which is why there is a Sta7mes street sign on Highway 99, and why I'm used to seeing placenames on highway signs and in local and national media like T'it'q'et and Tskweylecw and Cacli'p and Lax Kwa'alaams (I never spell that right, granted, but that's its name; it used to be Fort Simpson; Gingolx used to be the "more English" Kincolith...Kitamaat now exists as a name to distinguish the Haisla community from its neighbour Kitimat, by way of another example) and names such as are the other villages listed in Category:Squamish people. Consistency includes something I noted in a listing of points on the RM on Chinese characters - "harmony" which was a term heard during the "old consensus" also; something that is clearly not served by applying one guideline to one item and not others in the same category or topic area, or not even acknowledging patterns in that topic area; the result as is emerging is not "harmony" but "chaos".
    • Re the language used in the reliable sources provided by LabbattBlueBoy, the Squamish Nation and the independent power producers and the local CoC-oriented rag, part of a megacorporate media chain, don't use Sta7mes in their publications even though it is a current and recognizable spelling (oh, "recognizable" is in those points above too, isn't it? - and Sta7mes, to anyone who lives in the area, is recognizable; and don't tell me it's not in Calgary or London - where people would if they even know "Stawamus" wouldn't even know about the village or the different pronunciation needed for it. The cultural politics of all this were taken into account by those of us who came up with the conventions behind such titles and the related category names and such, as legitimate wikipedian topics, and all of them to do with the five characteristics and the rest of WP:UCN, not just the bit that gets cherrypicked and tossed about as a "naysayer bomb" as COMMONNAME; as I've said before, there are lots of exceptions and rationales in the guidelines and in MOS and in POLICY...but like Holy Writ only certain lines are used to wage culture-war and treated as immutable, despite the in-plain-sight passages which demonstrably say otherwise. And don't tell me I'm twisting those bits, all I did was quote them and point out how they apply. But no doubt like my posts, for a lot of people WP:UCN is TLDR and they only want to read/quote one or two lines and don't like to think too deeply about deep things; better to be hasty and shallow, like these latter times....Skookum1 (talk) 17:25, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment The above comments are all very interesting, but can the sourcing in the article itself be improved at all? I'll support whatever the sources in the article say, and currently the only EL doesn't appear to mention the village at all, under either name... SnowFire (talk) 21:18, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
An entirely fair observation. If it's of any value, I couldn't find a source that could advise as to the population. That being said, I've included what I could (which is not muhc).--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:02, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
StatCan (Census Canada) should have an entry for the IR population, which is counted separately from that of the surrounding town/regional district. Not sure if Squamish Nation IRs are among those who don't allow census-takers on the land though, I'll see if the band government has any particulars on villages. And yes I'd rather spend time improving such articles rather than having to reassert their proper names in face of the ongoing COMMONNAME/RS/UE based moves. In looking at foreign-language wikipedias, there's often much more coverage of indigenous topics on their articles....and little if any RMs or undiscussed moves.Skookum1 (talk) 05:01, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Stawamus is the name most commonly used in English.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:11, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
    • Really? You live in Squamish do you? Use this name all the time? Then you must also know that the MOSTCOMMON use of "Stawamus" will be for the mountain, or the river, not this village, which happens to have a nice highway sign saying "Sta7mes", not "Stawamus". And though this guideline is about people-article names, WP:ETHNICGROUP says "How the group self-identifies should be considered. If their autonym is commonly used in English, it would be the best article title.". NB it doesn't say "most commonly used", only that it's in English, and it (Sta7mes) is.Skookum1 (talk) 02:44, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment surely a move should rather be to Stasevenmes? To write it with a number in the middle is certainly just something used in a modern logo invented by some expensive advertising consultant and will just make people confused when thinking about how to pronounce the mark. Bandy boy (talk) 11:51, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
    • '7' in this name is no different that in Deadmau5 or U3RK5; and this usage of a 7 for a glottal stop is common as a replacement for the original character, which drops below-line; in other native languages a ? without a period on the bottom is used. Point is this term exists in modern English, whether familiar to you or not, and so does the 7.Skookum1 (talk) 12:04, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose The site of the Vancouver Sun, BC's top newspaper, has no examples of the proposed form: Sta7mes site:www.vancouversun.com. The official BC tourism site doesn't use it either: Sta7mes site:www.hellobc.com. BC Parks, the agency that administers Stawamus Chief, calls the village "St-a-wamus." It's the nominator's responsibility to show that someone is using the proposed form. Once you have opened an RM, the moved has been discussed. You can no longer move the article back on the basis of a move having been undiscussed. Maria de la Fuego (talk) 04:55, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
    • Unlike others who move articles without discussion, and revert them without discussion and then complain that filing RMs is "disruptive", I do use RMs, partly because unlike those who can revert them I do not have that option. The BC goverment and the Sun have no reason to report on this small community; what applies here is the self-identification passage at WP:ETHNICGROUP. The current title ambiguous in the extreme; in fact if anything it should be a dab page. "Village" as a dab is not correct as that usage in BC is for village municipalities, though in some case e.g. List of Haida villages the dab "Haida village" has been used. But NB given the name disputes re the "Squamish" title (see the Jan 19 CfD, the respective RMs have already been closed) "Squamish village" will not suffice. Absolutely not as the primarytopic of Squamish is the town/district municipality. It's not a "neighbourhood of Squamish" either because it's outside the municipality's governance though within its boundaries.Skookum1 (talk) 05:01, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

this title should be a disambiguation page

noting, re that observation, that Stawamus Chief, Stawamus River, and Stawamus Lake are far and away the most common references when the name "Stawamus" is seen or heard; that the rez community is pronounced differently and spelled differently is where the common "white" name came from, but as far as a stand-alone title goes "Stawamus" is MOSTCOMMON for the Chief. Anyone who actually lives or know the area knows that. How to cite that? Well, gee, why not with all the wrong citations that were coughed up to "prove" Sta7mes' spelling should be Stawamus, but which were really about the Stawamus Chief. Lord knows there's enough "reliable sources" for that.Skookum1 (talk) 05:04, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 2

It has been proposed in this section that Stawamus (village) be renamed and moved somewhere else, with the name being decided below.

A bot will list this discussion on the requested moves current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil.


Please use {{subst:requested move}}. Do not use {{requested move/dated}} directly. Links: current log

Stawamus (village)Stawamus (Skwxwu7mesh village) or Sta7mes – the closer on the previous RM above moved the Stawamus (Skwxwu7mesh village) dab to Stawamus (village); the problem with that is "(village)" in Canada is a dab for a Village Municipality, which this is not; the result is a confusing/ambiguous dab which does not clarify that this is a village of the Skwxwu7mesh people. Because of the ambiguity of the Squamish people title, and the PRIMARYTOPIC of "Squamish" being the District/town of Squamish, Stawamus (Squamish village) would not be acceptable. Objections to the use of '7' in titles I feel are spurious and wiki-lawyering given the presence of other special characters in many related title, e.g. Sto:lo with its colon. Either some better disambiguation should be found, or this article should be moved back to Sta7mes, which was the choice, for good reason because of confusion with the PRIMARYTOPIC of "Stawamus" being the Stawamus Chief and the mispronunciation/corruption of "Stawamus" for that mountain, the river and the lake, as previously explained in the above RM. Skookum1 (talk) 03:49, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

  • Comment – either Stawamus (village) or Stawamus (Squamish village) seems OK. The argument against the latter makes no sense, since the usefulness of the disambiguator has no relation to the primarytopic claim on Squamish. Anything would seem preferable to the cryptic use of a digit in a word; is this some non-English language? Dicklyon (talk) 05:29, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    • the PRIMARYTOPIC claim on Squamish is much up to debate, to any Canadian and especially any British Columbian (unless you're an amateur linguist in Edmonton), the primarytopic of "Squamish" is the town. The PRIMARYTOPIC debate will be addressed yet again in near future as, barring a few holdouts still open at RM, all RMs of the same kind positing a community name vs a native-people name have been resolved in favour of the town. Also, as I have tried to explain "(village)" like ("(city)" and "(district municipality)" is as noted a municipal status in BC. "Squamish village:" infers a village within the District of Squamish, i.e. a neighbourhood of Squamish, which this is not as, though within municipal boundaries, it is not governed by the municipality. Neither "village" nor "Squamish village" are therefore acceptable. Somewhere in the guidelines I've been reading concerning such title disputes it says very clearly that when there is no clearly unambiguous title or other name disputes, the original title of the article should be reverted to; I'll find that passage again, but it won't be the first guideline that gets ignored by "oppose" votes.Skookum1 (talk) 05:44, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Stawamus is the only village, further disambiguation is not necessary. Further, it's been established that the primary name for the Squamish people (Skwxwu7mesh) is Squamish.--Labattblueboy (talk) 22:08, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Stawamus is not a village municipality, don't you get that??Skookum1 (talk) 01:23, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
      • As far as I can see, you have not provided any linked support for your interpretation of exactly what "village" and "Village Municipality" mean, so it should be no wonder to you that we do not get your point. Please clue us in and maybe we'll get it. Dicklyon (talk) 01:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
        • Please see Village_municipality which is a redirect to Municipality. BC has a number of different types of municipalities, City, District municipality, Town, and Village, with a few others like Resort Municipality and Mountain Municipality; see List of settlements in British Columbia and List of villages in British Columbia. From the settlements list the specific technicalities about Village status are
          • "A community with a population less than 2,500 may incorporate as a village if the outcome of a vote involving affected residents was that greater than 50% voted in favour of the proposed incorporation. British Columbia has 42 villages. A community with a population less than 2,500 may incorporate as a village if the outcome of a vote involving affected residents was that greater than 50% voted in favour of the proposed incorporation. British Columbia has 42 villages"Skookum1 (talk) 02:19, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
            • Can you be more explicit instead of expecting us to do the research as to why you object to calling it a village? Or tell us what else it could/should be called? Dicklyon (talk) 03:47, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Gee, I thought had been; dismabiguation is definitely needed "(village)" as explained indicates a Village municipality.

  • 1)There is a legal status for certain aboriginal communities in Canada that are not Indian Reserves, "Indian Villages", but this is not one of those.
  • 2)Category:Haida villages is for "village of the Haida" and so there's items like Haina (Haida village). In this case "Squamish village" will not do, as explained two or three times already ("Squamish"'s primarytopic is the town, despite the failure of the RMs where the closers either targeted me rather than the facts/search results, or were made "no consensus" because of kibbitzing votes from people who didn't know or care about Canadian usages or even knew much about either teh place or the people.
  • 3)When this was closed to Stawamus "by consensus", a disambiguation was necessary as per WP:IPNA and WPCANADA guidelines, rather than refer to natives in the generic terms "Indian" or "First Nations", it is preferable to use the particular group's specific name, in this case Skwxwu7mesh, per Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes)#Self-identification which is also in MOS somewhere. So I disambiguated it to Stawamus (Skwxwu7mesh village) and that was made "simpler" by BDD to the now very ambiguous and misleading dab.
  • 4)The real simple solution here, without any disambiguation needed whatsoever, is to move it back to the original title created by User:OldManRivers, as per various passages including PRECISION and CONCISENESS and also dictums in various guidelines that when there is a dispute over name, reversion to the original title is the preferred outcome. This also is in line with the "Self-identification" passage in NCET and in TITLE.
  • 5) the current dab is unacceptable as being vague and misleading
  • 6) Sta7mes, the original title, is not misleading and needs no disambiguation and was the choice of the original author, who himself is Skwxwu7mesh. Even though not as common as "Stawamus" it nonetheless is still present in English (the quibble over the /7/ is entirely specious and to me is just wikilawyering and not in the spirit of the guidelines noted above) and per NCET#Self-identification is clear and does not refer to or imply anything else.
  • 7) The other alternative, using the "Skwxwu7mesh village" dismabiguation, which BTW is on the Stawamus dab page now, also has the /7/ but "Squamish village" is not an option because of the ambiguities of that term and the demonstrable PRIMARYTOPIC of the town for that term (the Squamish RMs will be revisited, now that Lillooet and other similar town-names are now cleared and moved as RMs to their standalone titles, as per WP:CSG#Places).Skookum1 (talk) 05:15, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Categories: