Talk:Parallel 54°40′ north

POV probs

As with the Oregon and Alaska dispute articles and related materials, this article is heavily USPOV in nature and also loaded down with more superfluous US electoral/domestic politics than is suitable for the topic/subject matter. I don't have the time or stomach to correct/balance it, but various comments within it are highly POV in nature and also make a lot of assumptions about the British position and gaffes about non-American history and geography. I removed a passage from the opening paragraph about the Treaty of St. Petersburg in 1825 "drawing the line into the interior", which it did NOTHING OF THE KIND, and in fact according to non-American interpretations of that treaty (which after all, being a British treaty you'd hope the British interpretation would be given...I also happen to know that 54-40 was the result of Bagot's negotiatory positions since the Ukase of 1821, which touched off the 1824 and 1825 treaties...); the British interpretation, later abandoned except for a re-assertion of the said interpretation by British Columbian politicians/advisors during the culmination of the Alaska boundary dispute; namely that the boundary turned north immediately east of Prince of Wales Island and did not hit the mainland until 56-30 North (the mouth of the Stikine River); this I'll get to in other articles but suffice to say the treaty said NOTHING about "the interior" (we always capitalize "the Interior" but never mind that for now) and stating that it does indicates that the 1824/25 treaties stipulated the Portland Canal, which was not the case at all - Portland Channel was the wording, and hence the disputed position; the wording of the treaty makes it unlikely that the intended meaning of the 1825 agreement referred to the Portland Canal at all; again, all these details for other-article expansion/explication but my point is that the language of this article is prejudiced to take the American position re the final arbitration of the boundary. Similarly the opening claim that teh US said it had a claim to the entirety of the Oregon Country, without mentinoing the history or fact of British claims/operations in the region, is utterly POV in nature.....I know it's how you were all raised from grade school on up, but there's more to articles involving other countries than only the United States perspective/bias.....even if you don't think there's a bias, because of the way you were educated, that doesn't mean that there isn't one; and that Canadian national history and British imperial history of late has given early BC history short shrift doesn't mean that there's not a British or Canadian or British Columbian position on this (there were three different positions, actually) I'll re-read the article and maybe tweak it, and move other POV matters here over time. But this kind of material is always tough because the POV isn't always obvious to those stuck in the middle of it; and Amerian media/publishing can dominate Canadian readerships so much that other Canadians aren't all that interested/versed in the material, as it's always presented as if everything out here were a "foregone conclusion" and that something like manifest destiny operated in pre-deetrmining 54-40 and the 49th as "natural boundaries"....I'm done for now I guess, figured I'd better leave a note here as to why the POV template. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skookum1 (talk • contribs) 14:00, November 10, 2008

Sloppy titling needs move

The extra space and lower-case "north" in the title are wrong, I think re 49th Parallel and 42nd Parallel the ordering of the title is also wrong. I'm also not sure that a minute-line is a "Parallel", which I'm under the impression is used only for integer-numbered lines of latitude. 54°40' North is maybe the right title, or 54°4' N (latitude) or something of the kind....Skookum1 (talk) 14:00, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Further to previous, can somebody explain why this article exists independently of Fifty-four Forty or Fight? Sure the latter's about a slogan, this is about a line of longitude; but they mirror each other's copy os much....date-formatting here also needs revision of course.Skookum1 (talk) 15:44, 10 November 2008 (UTC)