Talk:Îles-de-la-Madeleine Airport

Intention to revert to French place names
Thought'd I'd put my thoughts here rather than in an editing comment, but it is my intention to undo the last edit that changed the place names into English translations. Sept-Iles, Quebec has a Wikipedia article - it is not entitled Seven Islands, because that is not its name, its name is Sept-Iles; Andre LeBlanc has an article, and again, not entitle Andre White, because that is not his name.

The Iles-de-la-Madeleine airport is not located on House Harbour Island, it is located on Île du Havre aux Maisons. I have never heard it called House Harbour Island, even when the person speaking of the location is English. A name is a name, and while it is nice to include a translation for interest sake, unless a person or place is commonly known by its translation as well as its original name, I don't believe a name should be translated.HiFlyChick (talk) 00:04, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi! In principle, I agree - the relevant question is not "What is the translation?" (...Which is what you've kind of implied that I was thinking - I wasn't).  Rather it is "What is the English name?"  I want to be clear that I didn't change the name to "House Harbour Island" because I was impressed with my French being good enough to be able to translate it, I changed it because the article itself said that the English name was House Harbour Island.  I think that it would be completely valid to say that it's on "Île du Havre aux Maisons" but, if so, it shouldn't have in parentheses afterwards "(House Harbour Island in English)".  If it's Île du Havre aux Maisons in English, so be it.  If it's House Harbour Island in English, so be it.  We just can't use French in the English Wikipedia, then translate to English in brackets...  I'm going to guess that you know more about how people who talk about the Magdalen Islands actually talk, so I'll be willing to defer to your authority.  Make your changes.  I'll be happy with any informed result, as long as it doesn't include a translation of a name to English in the English Wikipedia. I hope that works for you. AshleyMorton (talk) 01:12, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your input - I wasn't sure if it was standard procedure to translate every non-English word or not. The majority of the place names in Iles-de-la-Madeleine are not translated, with the exception being Grindstone.  I'll have to think about how to deal with that one, because although Cap-aux-Meules is not usually translated, the airport itself is often referred to as Grindstone (I didn't know why until I read it on Wiki), and in fact its ident seems to be based on that - CYGR.  In general there appears to be too many entries for Iles-de-la-Madeleine - in addition to two articles under that name (one seemingly based on a political definition), I just found one for the Magdalen Islands, which in this case is indeed a valid common name/translation.  I've got it on my To Do list to try and combine them if it looks logical to do so.HiFlyChick (talk) 03:33, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. My experience, and a general policy is that if a name actually exists and is used in a language, then use that one - no matter what language it's grammar is actually part of.  Trondheim is not "Trond's Home" in English, it's Trondheim.  We can indicate, if we want, that the words mean "Trond's Home", but its name, in English, is still Trondheim, and we shouldn't write so that it is implied otherwise.  On the other hand, when a perfectly good and long-used name exists in English (say, "Germany", instead of "Deutschland"), then we use that, because that's the actual name in English.  So, there are places on the edge: Surely it's still okay to call Sicily "Sicily" and not "Sicilia", but does anyone really know or care that Livorno was once very commonly known in English as Leghorn?  Indeed, Beijing was long called Peking.  An encyclopedia from 1800 would have been correct to title the article "Peking", just as Wikipedia is correct to today call it "Beijing".  Okay, that's a long diatribe, but it boils down to "What do English-speakers (ones who know what their talking about) actually use?"  As I mentioned above, I will leave it to you to determine whether "House Harbour Island" is more or less appropriate than "Île du Havre aux Maisons".  I presume the second, but I defer to the more experienced.  I do feel very strongly that the Magdalen Islands are still called as such in English (not Îles-de-la-Madeleine), having discussed them with both Newfoundlanders and New Brunswickers who fish in the Gulf, but I'm much less familiar with the place names on the Ialands. On the other hand, I imagine the airport itself has always used the French version of the islands' name as its name, even when speaking/writing in English, so it makes sense to stay where it is. Cheers, AshleyMorton (talk) 04:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the Magdalen Islands is a common use name for Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, but there is an article called Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec that I think should probably be merged into the Magdalen Islands one. I don't see the point in keeping Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec separate just because it is a separate municipality - the split is confusing and duplicates information (there's also one called Îles-de-la-Madeleine (provincial electoral district) which deals only with political divisions so although strange, doesn't seem to overlap the others). You seem to have more editing experience than I do - what do you think about merging Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec with Magdalen Islands? HiFlyChick (talk) 12:28, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * End results look good out there on the actual article. I like the comments about seagulls, too! :) I think you're right, in principle about combining the articles, although there has been a lot of hand-wringing over articles that mostly-but-not-fully match a municipality with a place (Toronto, say - is it okay to mention Mississauga?  Mississauga is part of the larger concept of Toronto, but it's not part of the municipality.  Halifax Regional Municipality is another one that bugs me to no end!  I may be moving to Halifax, soon.  If I do, I will take on that fight.!) So - I'll start a draft version as a subpage to my personal page here, and once it's up to "first draft" status, I'll let you know, so that you can come and have a look. AshleyMorton (talk) 14:51, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The Magdalen Islands lemma should not be merged with the lemma about the municipality. The Magdalen Islands consist of several municipalities that don't even all speak the same language. You wouldn't merge Quebec with Quebec City, would you. Ds77 (talk) 09:06, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Update to CBSA paragraph, please
I assume the paragraph about limited CBSA service is, or will soon be, outdated, as Air St. Pierre will be connecting the airport with St. Pierre, which is part of France. Ds77 (talk) 09:04, 7 March 2018 (UTC)