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[edit] comments
I started at the beginning of the second page to get something like a random collection. In each article, I only looked at the first occurrence of the term. When I had the impression that two articles were just consecutive because both links had been created at about the same time I discounted one of them. I also discounted articles where the link was in a template - but I counted the template instead. — Sebastian (talk) 03:20, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
- I'd say references qualified by US, (ie Pacific Northwestern United States) such as legacy or kokanee beer and many others, might not suggest US only, so much as those parts of the greater pacific northwest which are in the united states. If "the Pacific Northwest" meant US-only, there'd be no need to add "of the united states." On the other hand, I'd say The Mountaineers (Pacific NW) is pretty clearly US only. -- TheMightyQuill 02:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
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- Good points. There is definitely a big error margin in my assessments. I corrected Kokanee and the Mountaineers. Your other point about explicit mention of US raises another interesting problem: This case can be interpreted in two ways, depending on what you want to do with the information. You are right, if we want to assess what people actually mean it rather points to the fact that they're aware it goes beyond the border. My rationale was to see how we would have to change existing links if we made PacNW a disambig. In these cases, the links would go to the US PacNW. — Sebastian (talk) 03:20, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
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- Actually, Kokanee is a bad example for this count. It says "US PacNW + Canada". It is a mere stylistic question if this should be better "(overall) PacNW + Canada" - both mean the same. Instead of determining our decision about the PacNW article, the decision on the best wording there rather depends on our decision. — Sebastian (talk) 03:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
- Actually, Kokanee is a bad example for this count.
- And especially because it's a Canadian beer, as far as the Kokanee article goes its role in BC should be mentioned first before its popularity in the adjoining US...because and actually it was and is known as BC's beer, a hallmark of being west of the Rockies, i.e. not being like the rest of the country, and something for a long time you could only get in BC. They may have the label in other provinces now but it's not the same (Canadian beers of the same label can taste different from province to province)...I had a look at its article, which seems to be company bumpf to a certain degree, but in its opening line it describes the Columbia Brewery as "historic" without explaining why (it was only founded in 1959). The reason is it was the first successful brewery to withstand the Big Three breweries (Molson's, Labatt's and O'Keefe's) and to break their lockdown on the BC beer market; someone else had tried, Ben Ginter maybe, up in PG I think, but that operation would up getting absorbed by one of the Big Three. I gather it's been marketed south of the line lately, which is good to hear - you guys need good beer (somewhere I'll have to find a cite of one of its nicknames - Blue Cocaine).
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- The point of this digression is that, in reference to the combination form, "Canada" is not really the right terminology in the combinations given; doesn't feel right at all; I know "Canada" is how people in the US Pacific Northwest refer to British Columbia, but in British Columbia "Canada" has a much broader context (hence the original confusion/dispute, in part) and in the same pairing we'd definitely say "BC" since no other part of the country, not even the Yukon, is included. And in Canadian national parlance, especially as cultivated in (very) recent years by media stylebooks, "West Coast" (or in one particularly styleguide, "Westcoast") is the now-normal appellation for BC; or rather for Vancouver as that's about all they know of BC, image-wise, and the phrase is meant to epitomize a certain style or attitude; pseudo-California/HK/Tokyo trendiness as seen through the eyes of TO-based marketing empires....But for us here in BC, "west coast" was a shared affinity with points down I-5, all the way to San Diego; it was a statement of fact rather than an insistence upon a national orientation/definition. Likewise "Pacific Northwest". Because the difference in perspective is, even on the US side, how it's used within the region and how it's used from the national perspective. From the national perspective it ends at the border, as far as defined regions go; but from within the region, as has been noted, it's a given that BC is part of the equation. Fundamentally that's the case with the national perspective too, I'd think; i.e. if pointing at the blank spot on the map just north of Washington, whatever it is would still be considered Pacific Northwest; especially because it makes sense that if the Alaska Panhandle is part of the PacNW, and Seattle is too, then it stands to figure that what lies in between is also the Pacific Northwest. "The Canadian side of the Pacific Northwest" maybe, vs "the American Pacific Northwest" - with the "side of" in the Canadian-side description because, unless some Canadians can learn to be less fussy about their geographic definitions, "Canadian Pacific Northwest" is not interpreted as the Canadian Pacific Northwest, but the Northwest coast of Pacific Canada, which would tend to limit things to Prince Rupert; the northwest coast of Canada, in strict terms, is the Beaufort Sea and the western flank of the Arctic Archipelago.
- BTW your "American Northwest" redirect should be a disambig instead, because of "Great Northwest" and other potential definitions.
- Somewhere in the midst of all this, as far as more neutral names for the geographic regions go, is "Northwest Coast"; it doesn't include the plateau and inland cordillera (I created British Columbia Coast and have wondered about renaming/extending it; it's a directory of coastal geographic features in list form) but it gets rid of the further complication, that other Letters to the Editor people have complained about also, which is that it's really the Northeast Pacific, and not the Northwest....sigh. So drop the Pacific, accept the reality that both "Northwest Coast" and "Pacific Northwest" are continental in origin and context, and leave it at that. I think renaming the article isn't appropriate, nor is splitting off a separate article for the US region, with the caveat that any such separate article should have a clear and solid opening saying that the Pacific Northwest is a larger region that includes British Columbia, or parts of it (and also Alaska, or parts of it, as some American definitions may not include the Panhandle), and that the main article on the Pacific Northwest is the one for the whole region. And there can be a section in that article explaining to Canadians how it came to be called the Pacific Northwest, and when, and why the name/identity crosses the border (as does much of the region's history and society, which isn't fully understood in other parts of Canada, nor are there any parallels farther east).Skookum1 08:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
