Category talk:Regional districts of British Columbia

Why "Regional districts" instead of "Regional Districts"??
Wiki guidelines I know like secondary title words to be non-capitalized, BUT "Regional District" is an official title, always capitalized and never (outside of Wikipedia) non-capitalized. It's because of this confusion that I "accidentally" created Category:Regional Districts of British Columbia and its Coast/Interior subcats; those I'll add this cat to and avoid adding more to the capitalized version (I've put a deleted tag on Category:British Columbia regional districts, which was empty anyway). But I protest the imposition of abstract and arbitrary Wiki guidelines on established capitalization forms; if we tolerate that then "Coast" and "Interior" can be challenged to small-case as well, even "Vancouver island". IMO people from outside BC "don't get it" and I don't think the Wiki guideline does apply here as this is legal term/title.Skookum1 04:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * When "Regional District" is preceded by a name, it forms part of that name, and is therefore a proper noun, as in "Greater Vancouver Regional District". It must be capitalized. When referring to the generic regional district, it's a common noun and it isn't capitalized. Just like 'Island/island, City/city, etc'. If Wikipedia's guidelines say otherwise, they should be reviewed. Jakaloke (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Except that in Canadian English, formal at any rate, when discussing the institution rather than the place, "the City" or "the City of Vancouver" is used. So it will depend on the context; for a category name I see the point, though I dislike "lower caseism" and see it abused a lot e.g. "Fraser river"......in flow of writing, when "in the city of Vancouver there are many cars" is a different usage than "the City of Vancouver prohibits five wheeled cars".  also "it was Indian Reserve land" vs. "did he go back to the reserve"....i.e. the capital-R refers to the legal status of the land; vs the place.  also NB "Island" is capitalized in BC when referring to "the Island" (i.e. Vancouver Island).Skookum1 (talk) 02:46, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Coast vs. Interior (?)
What is the primary reason for having these two (I will assume that there are only two possibilities, although someone could later decide that there could be more) categories? Dividing the province into only two categories does not seem to make much sense; you might almost just as well leave it at one category. I see that some of the RD categories drop straight into Category:Regional Districts of British Columbia while most (as of now) drop into either Coast or Interior. What's the hierarchy here? Backspace (talk) 22:00, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You're not from BC are you? If you are, you must not have been around much or read hte papers or watched TV; not meaning to be nasty, just amazed you would even challenge this (if you're from BC).  The Coast and the Interior are the two main divisions of British Columbia, historically, ethnographically, climatically and in terrain they're utterly distinct; The South Coast is becoming a distinct third region (the Vancouver-Victoria-Nanaimo triangle, extended out to Hope and Courtenay and Sooke and Whistler; "the Island and the Mainland" are another division, but the Island is obviously part of the Coast and the Interior is bascially everything on the Mainland but the Lower Mainland and the lower Skeena.  The reason that RDs drop neatly to one side or the other is very simple - the spine of the near-impenetrable Coast Mountains.  As I alluded to on an edit comment re Homathko Icefield, putting such landorms in RD cats is a non sequitur - the RD has no power over icefields, unless maybe somebody wants to put in a septic tank or build a porch.  Ask someone in the Strathcona Regional District office about the Homathko Icefield and the'll go "huh?".  Ask a First Nations person among the tribes whose territory is near, they probably know about it but if you asked if it was in the so-and-so Regional District, you'd get a funny look and a "who cares?" shrug.  RD boundaries only designate those areas where a Regional District power has application on those lands and concerning those matters specified under its mandate; i.e. zoning, regional parks, new land alienations/development outside of municipalities; it has no other powers or relevance except as a census area.  It's not a region in the true sense of the word; and each other part of hte BC govenrmental system (RDs like munis are creatures of the provincial government, bascially regions of hte Ministry of Municipal Affairs or whatever it's called at the moment in the same way that the Ministry of Forests has its own regions different form those of the Ministry of Environment or the Ministry of Tourism or the Ministry of Mines, Energy and Petroleum Resources.  A health office operated by the Ministry of Health in, say, Vanderhoof, is in the maybe the "Prince George-Omineca Health Region" definitely; it's dubious whether it's relevant to an RD cat simply because Vanderhoof is a member community of the RD.  Ditto with parks as explained elsewhere; provincial parks have their own regionalization system, identical I believe to its parent mininstry the Ministry of Environment; and FNs as I explained elsewhere are outside the governmental system of the province and see themselves as external to and equal to any form of its governance, whether municipal or regional district.  And for mountains and mountain ranges range-region cats already exist; which is what Category:Pacific Ranges is; that's not a complete hierarchy yet (no plateau cats and other ranges need cats) but for mountains it's the relevant region-designation.  cluttering up RD cats with geograhpic articles is reinventing the wheel as there are already geographic cats for that purposes Category:Geographic regions of British Columbia.  And in all cases, whether Rds or MoE or MoF or the traditional regions, the spines of hte mountain ranges play a necessary part in defining boundaries; that's where they had to be eseentially; just a sec and I'll be back with a sat-image to give you a better idea of the overall situation; geography trumps the human desire for nice, tidy order.  The Kitimat-Stikine RD straddles both because it has to, just like the Skeena Country or the SEa to Sky Country do; it's about the terrain, and in the case of the KSRD underpopulation; there's a lot of weirdness in the RD boundaries - Tatlatui Lake being in the PRRD makes sensee only because it's the Peace basin; but it's way closer to Dease Lake, likewise Fort Ware/Kwadacha etc.....Skookum1 (talk) 22:29, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This isn't quite the sat-map I was wanting; just use googlemap or geonames.org and cruise around BC. And have a look over the real geographic categories, and also compare the MoE and MoF maps I posted.  RDs are not that relevant and should only be used for RD-related articles IMO.....Skookum1 (talk) 22:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I want to say that I somewhat understand your view of geographical concepts, but that whatever it is, it is entirely different from mine. I will use a couple of examples to clarify mine: Canada's national park system is governed by Parks Canada, a federal agency. Even though the Province of British Columbia has no jurisdiction over Yoho National Park say, I can accept the fact that Yoho National Park is located in British Columbia. The British Columbia Provincial Parks system is governed by the B.C. Ministry of Environment, a provincial agency. Even though the Fraser Valley Regional District has no jurisdiction over Golden Ears Provincial Park say, I can accept the fact that Golden Ears Provincial Park is located in Fraser Valley Regional District (in addition to Greater Vancouver Regional District, by the way). Obviously, you do not see things this way at all. You seem to favor real, physical, divisions over admittedly artificially created (by humans) concepts such as Central Kootenay Regional District, British Columbia or Manitoba or Canada. I am not saying that my concept is better than yours, or your concept is better than mine, but then, why even have categories such as "Alberta" or "British Columbia" or "Canada"? Aren't they just artificially created concepts? Backspace (talk) 23:41, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * They - AB, BC etc - are constitutional entities; RDs are not, and are not used by British Columbians as region-designators unless (as below) discussing governance or which town an RD is part of (RD governments are composed of town government reps, usually the mayor, and elected members from the Electoral Areas). Regional districts have become surrogates for counties in BC, but they are not counties and only one form of governance (municipal-level) is coordinated through them (unlike counties).  They are entirely inapt for referring to landforms (which again, ahve their own regionalization system) and I particularly don't like teh "people from XXX Regional District" cats, as people come from towns and communities and regions - "from the Thompson Country", "from the Kootenays"; today you've been adding items to Central Kootenay Regional District; but there is no such region as "Central Kootenay" and the towns in that area are considered to be in the West Kootenay region; Category:People from the West Kootenay and Category:People from the Slocan Valley are much more common usages in teh way people actually speak/think.  RD boundaries get changed for political reasons, and exist for political reasons - Prince Rupert and Terrace are in the same region, but are in two different RDs because the one town doesn't want to be messed with by the other, on the one hand, and also because part of hte point of RDs is to extend teh power of municiapalities over (non-native) populations/land-holdings in rural areas - in the case of Kitimat-Stikine, the Stikine Country is an entirely different region from the Skeean Country and properly/culturally/historically belongs with the Cassiar Country and Atlin District; but was left out of "Stikine Region" I gather because of increased economic activity oriented southwards; Dease Lake and Telegraph Creek are in teh same general region but why Telegraph Creek is "governed" with Terrace and Dease Lake is governed with Atlin and Lower Post; mind you, Dease Lake though close to the Stikine and tied to its history is part of what's known as the Cassiar Country and is the largest town in tat area since Cassiar, a company town for an asbestos mine, closed down; the boundaries between the norhtern (and many southern) RDs don't make sense in real-region terms, likewise the extension fo the Peace Riveer Regional District over to Tatlatui and including Fort Ware etc.....someone from Fort Ware may be in "People from the Peace River Regional District" but they wouldn't see themselves that way; the Peace Country is east of the Rockies, not west of it.  Similarly, as stated before, someobody from Alert Bay or Blunden Harbour would say they're from the Queen Charlotte Strait region.  And, again, landforms in remote mountain areas are so far outside the purview of RD governance it's not even funny - whereas governance relating to mines, parks, forestry is "all the way up there".  Region categories for mountains, rivers and lakes already exist.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I certainly have no objection to anyone saying and believing that they are from the Peace River Country, but somewhere along the line someone decided to draw a line down the middle of it and call one side Alberta and the other side British Columbia. The Peace River Country remains, physically unchanged, as it was before, but why can't we have these two other categories? I realize that Peace River Country was made by God, whereas the concepts of Alberta and British Columbia were made by man, but does a category really have to depend on whether it has natural or manmade origins? Backspace (talk) 22:38, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Bad example because I was riffing off Fort Ware; no other BC regions (well, almost no other - Atlin is in a region with the southern Yukon called "the Southern Lakes" and technically the Okanagan and Kootenay countries spill over the line......Peace River Block would work better then, by way of that example. Thte point remains; people do not identify with their regional district, they identify with their region.  And they have more exact boundaries than you might think; it's just no one has gone out there and plotted them (partly because they were politically inexpedient, and resisting their tendency towards separateness was one reason why RDs were come up with; to centralize power, not regionalize it; long story, and very POV overall; the information on the electoral areas talkpage (see below) may clue you into more about the conundrum of IRs within Regional Districts; if they're really in those RDs, then IR residents could vote in RD elections; they can't and don't.  Because, in very real legal terms, they're not in the RDs..Skookum1 (talk) 22:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You are correct on that point there, because I agree with you that Indian Reserves are not legally part of a Regional District. However, as you may note, all or almost all of the items that I have classified fall outside of the realm of Indian Reserves. (I say almost all because a few may have gotten through because I have literally done hundreds of these, and it's pretty tedious work.) What I have generally put into those categories is communities, lakes, rivers, mountains, parks, airports, what have you. You can't legislate those things out of a Regional District. (You could, actually, but then there would be very little left in the RD.) Backspace (talk) 23:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Regarding my question of Coast vs. Interior: I fully realize the difference between the Coast and the Interior. My question only concerned geographic location. If I were a visitor from Newfoundland or someplace and I asked you "Where is Kelowna?", it does not help me much more to say it's "in the Interior" than to say it's "in British Columbia". However, if you said "It's in the "Central Okanagan Regional District", it narrows it down quite a bit, assuming that I know where Central Okanagan is. Backspace (talk) 01:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No offense, but it would be a dorky/awkward-sounding reference; the directions would be "it's in the Interior", "it's in the BC Interior" or "it's in the Southern Interior, "it's in the Okanagan" or "it's in the Okanagan Valley" or "it's in the Central Okanagan" (meaning a region of the Okanagan, not the RD, which gets its name from the region....). Nobody would say "it's in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District" unless it was a questioning of specifying governance for some reason.  BC's Tourism, Sports and Culture ministry uses "Thompson Okanagan", a term also used (but with different boundaries) by the Ministry of Environment/BC Parks.Skookum1 (talk) 19:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

[undent]Have a look at Historical geographic regions of British Columbia and Category:Geographic regions of British Columbia.....I'll try and make a list up for you of what "countries" are in which RDs and/or which RDs are in which "countries". Another example - someone from Nimpo Lake or Nemaiah Valley would not, unless referring to zoning and other things RDs mess in rural people's lives with (:-) ) would not say their "towns" (calling Nemaiah a town is a bit of a stretch) are "in the Cariboo", they'd definitely say "in the Chilcotin". That the Chilcotin is part of the Cariboo Regional District is something they either don't care about, or resent (as Williams Lake has all the clout); conversely parts of the Thompson-Nicola RD are in the Cariboo (Clint and 70 Mile).Skookum1 (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * My concern is not awkwardness, or historically or currently accepted parlance, but simply a way of "narrowing down the field" of the huge Province of British Columbia. I could have chosen to do this in any number of ways, including your more historically accepted regions, but I chose not to, based upon the primary consideration that most people, even local B.C. people, can't seem to draw an exact line between those regions. I chose to break everything down by RD because there I can find exact official definitions. I am simply trying to answer the question "Where the heck is this place?" without going into social acceptability issues. As I've stated before, I certainly do understand and your point of view, but I had to choose something. Backspace (talk) 22:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Fine for communities, regional parks etc as I've said before; irrelevant in real-geography terms; I know cataloguing one kidn of thing under one hierarchy and another kind ofthing in another hierarchy may seem strange but that's why the hierarchies are different. Derivative categories off these are the worst problem as outlined above; and even the use of Electoral Areas as "region" articles, or something approahcing them, seems to have begun (see Talk:List of regional district electoral areas in British Columbia. To me, using RDs for things they're not used for constitutes Original Research and encourages people to start using new paradigms; instead of reflecting a paradigm, it's creating one. That's not Wikipedia's job, and I can't help it if people need to have neat, tight boundaries to classify things with. Nature doesn't.....Skookum1 (talk) 22:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * To give you an idea how little even the provincial government uses Regional Districts, see this map of regions for "rural subdivision approval". Rural subdivisions fall under teh putative aegis of the RDs, but this map - from the Lands Division - bears little to no resemblance to RD boundaries (except where terrain is the delimiter).  Even the provincial govenrment doesnt' consider them adequate as a region-hierarchy; StatsCan does, but no one else does....Skookum1 (talk) 14:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Would you rather I had divided all my communities, lakes, rivers, mountains, parks, airports, etc. into the eleven divisions on that map? It would serve some kind of informative purpose, ultimately, I suppose, but I think that, all things considered, I will stick with my RD categories. Other people could take these items and divide them into any relevant categories that they see fit, and I would certainly welcome their doing that (and I do hope that someone will, [but that someone won't be me.]) It would be very interesting to see categorization under different criteria, actually. Backspace (talk) 23:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

People-from-RD cats
Please see comments at Category talk:People from Okanagan-Similkameen.Skookum1 (talk) 17:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Dewdney-Alouette Regional District
I had to make a stub for this tonight, no dates or refs yet as not sure where to look, as somebody had created Dewdney-Alouette and Dewdney—Alouette as redirects to Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, which is just a totally wrong thing to do (other than pointing out that many today still identify "Dewdney-Alouette" as the name of the Fraesr Valley region north of the Fraser and between the Pitt and Harrison Rivers. Fraser-Cheam Regional District and Central Fraser Valley Regional District also need stubs, and maybe there were other now-defunct RDs, I'm not sure; there shoudl be Category:Defunct Regional Districts of British Columbia.Skookum1 (talk) 02:55, 18 August 2008 (UTC)