Talk:British Virgin Islands

Untitled Comment

I know it's good to organize and split up articles, but to have the entire article split up? I think we should all of the linked articles reside in this article. --Lan56 03:35, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Caribbean Wikipedians' notice board

I would like to announce the establishment of the Wikipedia:Caribbean Wikipedians' notice board. Anyone with an interest in the Caribbean is welcome to join in. Guettarda 1 July 2005 13:37 (UTC)

Saturates?

1999 census reports

   Black 83.36%
   White 7.28% (includes British, American, Portuguese, & Syrian/Lebanese)
   Mixed 5.38%
   East Indian 3.14%
   Others 0.84% (of which saturates: 0.67%) 

What does saturate mean? Claret 20:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

• I assume it's a joke (reference being food labels which say stuff like "10g fat, of which 2g saturates"). I'm removing it. If I'm mistaken and it's not a joke then if reinstated it definitely needs explanation. Matt 16:23, 10 September 2006 (UTC).

Economy

I have deleted "The economy is closely linked to that of the larger U.S. Virgin Islands to the west," because it just isn't really true (it was, perhaps, true in the 70s, but certainly not since the development of the offshore finance industry). If anyone disagarees strongly they can revert. Legis 07:36, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposed WikiProject

There is now a proposed WikiProject for the Caribbean area, including the British Virgin Islands, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Caribbean. Interested parties should add their names there so we can determine if there is enough interest to start such a project in earnest. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Merger of the US and British Virgin Islands

I saw an article in the Island Sun newspaper on the history of the British Virgin Islands [1] and it says that in 1964 "A plebiscite on the question of merger between the US and British Virgin Islands is suggested but not acted upon". Does anybody know any more about this proposed merger and what it would have involved? Would the BVI have become part of the US territory or vice versa? Or would they have become a single territory under joint administration? (I've copied this query at the USVI discussion page)72.27.2.68 06:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The proposal, as I understood it, was that the BVI was to be "offered for sale" to the U.S. in the same way that the Danish had sold the USVI. At the time the BVI was in fairly dire economic straights, and Britain had no real enthusiasm for supporting it (being in a period of extended recession itself). The BVI at the time was in a period of constitutional upheaval, and it was one of the options that got kicked around during some fairly fraught constitutional negotiations, but I don't think it ever got terribly far. Certainly no one ever thought of asking the Americans what they thought about it.

In the final analysis the BVI adopted a new constitution in 1967 (its current one, at time of writing), tourism grew a bit and kept the Territory afloat financially, and then about a decade later the offshore financial industry arrived, and the Territory never looked back. In Vernon Pickering's book, A Concise History of the British Virgin Islands, he says: "...the idea of amalgamation with the United States was simply a radical argument to obtain more autonomy ... popular support for such a move was more a matter of speculation than reality" (Vernon is also editor of the Island Sun). In the event, the gambit worked.

--Legis (talk - contributions) 14:30, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

GDP per capita

According to the CIA World Fact Book, The British Virgin Islands has a GDP/Capita valued at $38,500. That is even higher than Britan, which is rated at $31,400. Interesting don't you think? --nocturnal omnivorous canine 20:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

External Links

I remove the links to tax-news.com and to lowtaxs.net. They seem to be rather remote for the subject, and links like this tend to be from spammers anyway. Not that this ones necessarily was, but in general, I think we should be careful with welcoming this kinds of links. Greswik 12:12, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Spam links of this nature perpetually clog up the articles on offshore bank, offshore company and tax haven. --Legis (talk - contributions) 13:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I am disappointed to see that the 2 links I added have been removed but even more so to be branded a spammer!

Here is my explanation as to why I feel my contribution was useful.

The page says:

"Economy ……Economically, however, financial services is by far the more important. Nearly 50% of the Government's revenue comes directly from licence fees for offshore companies, and considerable further sums are raised directly or indirectly from payroll taxes relating to salaries paid within the trust industry sector …."

It is rather frustrating that having just come from your offshore Jurisdictions page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_jurisdictions) to look at precisely what is on offer in the BVI page and find that no additional resource is available to document that extremely important aspect of the country’s economy. This also applies to most other jurisdictions on Wikipedia.

Both LowTax and TaxNews are commercial sites and carry advertising but that does not stop the fact that the information provided is always precise, accurate, up to date, in reasonable depth and professional. Their editors are selective but always receptive to all relevant contributions. Their readership is comprised of international professionals of the offshore, tax and law industry and they are well established and respected in the industry. TaxNews also provides news content to selective external professional sites such as BNAI.com

It is because I appreciate that there is a lot of borderline information on the Internet about the offshore industry and its associated jurisdictions in particular that I especially felt that the links provided would prove an asset and certainly not spam.

Pascal Offshore 11:12, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand what you say, and I use those sites as well in my professional life myself, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and has firm policies about including links to external commercial sites. It was appropriate to remove those links, no matter how well intentioned they may have been. --Legis (talk - contributions) 12:08, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Is not the eventual purpose of an encyclopedia to be useful to its readers? A blanket decision that commercial links are 'wrong' is surely not in the best interests of a user, especially when they provide access to information that Wikipedia does not?

As an aside, the majority of the links in the external links section of this page are commercial and/or carry advertising - I'd be interested in knowing what distinguishes them from the ones that I attempted to add?

Is the decision to remove these links also to do with the subject matter being too specific for the breadth of the page as a whole? If I wanted to expand the offshore information relating to the BVI or another jurisdicition where do you suppose would be the right place to do so? On the jurisdiction page itself or on a specially created sub-page?

Thanks,

Pascal Offshore 12:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

If it was going to be posted on any of the articles relating to the BVI, Economy of the British Virgin Islands would be a more appropriate place, but neither of those sites are specific to the BVI, so you might be better trying to post them under (1) tax haven, (2) International Business Company or (3) offshore company. But I suspect they may well get taken down there as well. --Legis (talk - contributions) 12:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Both of the links I posted went directly to BVI specific information which is why I felt they were so useful. They were not general links about offshore as a whole.

Pascal Offshore 13:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Tax Haven

Added tags on references, NPOV, and self-published issues over the issue of Tax Haven being included within the economy information. The main article makes no mention of tax haven, and the information added is not cited. Additionally, some references are out-of-date. Edits by User:Ulster and proud are the beginning of my involvement. I noticed these changes, without citations and removed them as vandalism. If it is backed with good research, cited, and complies with NPOV than it should be included in the article. --TRL (talk) 00:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Removal of Tags from 2009-07

• refimprove - let's fact tag specific items, if any remain, so they can be addressed
• disputed - what specifically, that BVI is a "tax haven"?
• self-published - dismissed summarily after reading the policy, this is a country so this is completely inapplicable

disputed was the operative complaint, per the prior thread, it appears to have been addressed.

Lycurgus (talk) 08:17, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Drug trafficking

I removed the following statement from the 'Economy' section of the article.

The British Virgin Islands are a major target for drug traffickers, who use the area as a gateway to the United States. According to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, drug trafficking is "potentially the most serious threat to stability in the BVI".

However the link is broken. However, the FCO website, the country report for the British Virgin Islands (see here) makes no report of drug trafficking, much less indicates it as being a serious threat to National stability. The statement sounded a bit vague anyhow (what does it mean to be a "target"? Selling drugs? Trans-shipping them? Laundering drugs money?) so I have removed it.
--Legis (talk - contribs) 17:03, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Drug trafficking 2

I have moved the statement on drug trafficking from "Economy" to a new sub-section called "Law and criminal justice". I couldn't find many country articles which had references to crime on them, but in the United Kingdom article, it was pushed down to a new sub-division of Politics, so I copied that here. I also updated this to make reference to the recent arrest of Bob Hodge. --Legis (talk - contribs) 15:13, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

"Spanish Virgin Islands"

The above term is given considerable prominence in the article. This was added in during the past year or so. Does any one have good sources to the effect that this is in fact a proper term with genuine pedigree? The Spanish Virgin Islands article itself contains no sources whatsoever relating to the term. One sentence suggests it may just be a term invented by the PR tourist office. I really don't like that terms get invented and put into popular usage by Wikipedia. But I haven't researched this so would like to hear the views of others if any one reads this. Best. Anegada (talk) 02:44, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Edits to Economy section

I deleted the following two comments from the economy section:

"However, the captive insurance business has virtually disappeared from the jurisdiction since 2008 as the regulator changed from an experienced British insurance director to a local. More than 200 captives left the jurisdiction. There are widely believed to be less than 50 captives in the jurisdiction. At the same time there was an exodus of the small professional community supporting the industry."

There has been a drop off in the captive insurance sector, but there were never anywhere close to 200 registered captives. Plus this is a micro economics point - not something that relates to the national economy. If you want to explore this issue, I suggest doing it on the Economy of the British Virgin Islands page and cite sources. And for the record there is no need to suggest what is "widely believed". The exact number of licensed captives can be ascertained from the BVI FSC's website: http://www.bvifsc.vg/News/tabid/160/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1411/language/en-GB/Q1-2014-BVIFSC-Statistical-Bulletin.aspx (the answer is 143 - see page 6 of the statistical bulletin).

"On the corporate registry front, BVI is expected to lose more than 200,000 corporations from its registry as the anti-money laundering statutes are put into place."

That is that just hopelessly speculative and completely unsourced. Plus, the key anti-money laundering statutes in BVI were put in place in 2008. Why would there now be a sudden drop-off expected, six years later?

--Legis (talk - contribs) 07:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Virgin Islands vs "British" Virgin Islands

There has been a bit of editing and reverting on the main page relating to this, so I thought it might be useful to set up a discussion section on the talk page.

Whilst I appreciate that the official legal name of the Territory is the "Virgin Islands", and I also appreciate that Government has indicated that people should use the legal name where possible. But I think it is correct to continue to refer generally to the British Virgin Islands. On Wikipedia people, places and things are referred to by what they are generally known as in the wider world rather than their official legal name (so for example, the article on the footballer is entitled "Pelé", not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento"). Almost everyone in the wider world refers to the Territory as either the "British Virgin Islands", or more commonly, the "BVI".

But it would be useful to discuss this, see if we can reach some consensus on the issue.

--Legis (talk - contribs) 14:32, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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Hurricane Irma death tolls at variance

The reference for the lead, The Express, says 10 dead, one of the references, CNN, under "Natural disasters", says 4. There has been some recent slight edit-warring as a result. These figures should be reconciled somehow. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:59, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

@Dhtwiki: Hello, Dht. I guess I was an inadvertent part of that edit-warring, because I just checked the reference that was nearest to the changed statement and saw that it gave the other number. I have two thoughts here. First, do you even need to cite the death toll in the introduction? Why not just cite the fact that there was a devastating hurricane (leaving it unsourced) and provide the detail and the sources in the Natural Disasters section? And second, in the Natural Disasters section, either (i) let the reader know that there have been conflicting reports on the death toll or (ii) find some way to determine which of the two is the more reliable figure.

I'll be happy to engage in further discussion if you think that would be helpful. NewYorkActuary (talk) 00:44, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be an official death toll by now? I would put that under "Natural disaters". That toll doesn't seem to amount to an enormous loss of life, although the destruction seems to be regarded as enormous. So, I don't think the death figure needs to be in the lead, since it's not so much a part of the loss. Dhtwiki (talk) 02:13, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

As you've likely seen by now, I removed the statement that said there were ten deaths. On a closer reading of the source, it isn't clear to me that the source was limiting itself to the BVI, but might have been speaking of known deaths caused by the storm, regardless of where they took place. As for finding a definitive toll for the BVI, there probably is one that was reported in the local press, but I doubt that you can rely on CNN or other global networks to have reported it.

You'll also note that I've reorganised the treatment of the hurricane. Much of the material wasn't discussing the hurricane itself, but the economic aspects of it and the plans to rebuild. None of this seemed appropriate for the Climate section and, because this really was a significant event, I've moved it all down to a separate new section. NewYorkActuary (talk) 16:02, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

The final official death toll in BVI was four. If you need a source, I linked some local press articles under 2017 in the British Virgin Islands - of which this was probably the best one. Weirdly, it wasn't so much the death toll in the hurricane, it was the death toll after the hurricane that was so striking. I don't have any kind of reliable figures let alone a reliable source, but we were losing senior citizens at a helluva rate in the 3-4 months after the storm. Just sayin'. --Legis (talk - contribs) 17:08, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in. I'll defer to Dhtwiki as to whether to add the additional source (the article already has one, from CNN). But it's good to know that my recent edits got the figure right. Thanks again. NewYorkActuary (talk) 17:24, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't think I'm especially equipped to comment on what constitutes the best source. What Legis brings up—that there are deaths possibly due to the loss of facilities, and thus attributable to the storm, but possibly not—suggests that the death toll may be unknowable. One other thing: I think that the "Hurricane Irma" section is too far away from the "Climate" section, where the storm once had its own subsection, or the "History" section, where it might belong, due to its impact. Dhtwiki (talk) 00:20, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

@Dhtwiki: I've got no strong feeling about where in the article the section on the hurricane belongs, so if you'd like to move it to a higher location, feel free to do so. But as I noted above, it really doesn't belong in the Climate section because virtually none of its discussion is actually about climatic matters. The History section might be appropriate, except this section is supposed to be a summary of the History of the British Virgin Islands article, and that article doesn't mention the hurricane at all. The same is almost true for the Economy section, although the Economy of the British Virgin Islands article does at least mention the hurricane. In all, we have the odd situation where this top-level article seems to be the only BVI article that discusses the event in any depth. So, a separate section (perhaps moved to a higher location) does seem to be the right approach. NewYorkActuary (talk) 00:56, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

That's a hard one to call. In theory a storm doesn't belong on the main article page for a country, but conversely - seismic events which shape countries do. Although we are still close to the event, there is a sensible argument that Hurricane Irma is an historical event which fundamentally reshapes the country so should be reflected in the same way that a Monserrat or civil war would be. A good parallel would be the reference to Hurricane Ivan on the Cayman Islands page. That is included under history - which is probably a more appropriate placing. --Legis (talk - contribs) 15:38, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

@Legis: My apologies for the delay in response. I do see the point of your comparison with the Cayman Islands article, but there's a substantial difference. The article on History of the Cayman Islands devotes substantial discussion to Hurricane Ivan and the discussion that appears in the top-level article is just a summary of it. But that's not what we have here. I think a better analogy is Collectivity of Saint Martin, which includes a discussion of Hurricane Irma that is comparable in detail with the discussion we have here. And similar to what we have here, that discussion is in a separate section and is far more detailed than the brief mention that the hurricane receives in History of the Collectivity of Saint Martin. In both cases, the better long-term solution would be to expand the discussions in the "History of ..." articles and use the top-level articles for the brief mentions. In the meantime, I'll move the Hurricane Irma section higher up on the page, right below the Economy section. NewYorkActuary (talk) 17:03, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Please don't apologise. As I said, I don't actually hold terribly strong views on the subject in any event. --Legis (talk - contribs) 17:59, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Infobox name

The official name should just be “Virgin Islands” as per Ivory Coast and Republic of Ireland, WP:Common does not apply to official titles. Barryob (Contribs) (Talk) 20:45, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

OK, I see that the conventional_long_name infobox parameter is for the "Formal or official full name of the country in English." Per Template:Infobox country. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:50, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Currency addition request

As of April 18th 2019, BVI became the first country to adopt a cryptocurrency as an alternate currency. The British Virgin Islands Government and LIFElabs.io entered into a first-of-its-kind partnership to provide blockchain-based financial transactions and rapid cash response for emergencies as well as provide peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions for daily commerce, in the purchasing of essential goods and services from local businesses.

@BilCat: i apologize for my anonymous edits. First time editor and first time user, i wasnt aware of the appropriate etiquette, but I am now, and i won't be making that mistake again, which is why i am here doing the request edit (hopefully in the right format). Also, i hope that you can see that this is not "No original research" as you stated. Per my cited sources, this is straight from Premier Andrew Fahie himself as indicated on footnote 1. Again, i apologize. Have a great day sir. o7

BobTheFirewall (talk) 05:03, 21 April 2019 (UTC) BobTheFirewall 21 April 2019 05:02 (UTC)

References

Reply 21-APR-2019

  Edit request declined  

• The claim of one source (the BVI government: that a partnership was being entered into) has been combined with the claim of another source (LIFElabs: of an alternative digital currency payment method being made available during emergencies) in order to fashion a composite claim (that BVI has an official alternate currency). This is, in effect, synthesizing information, because neither of these sources on their own arrive at the conclusion mentioned in the prose of the edit request. The announcement that BVI was granting permission to LIFElabs to provide financial transactions to residents in the event of an emergency is not equivalent to "adopting cryptocurrency as an alternate currency".

Regards,  Spintendo  06:02, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:British Virgin Islands for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:British Virgin Islands is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:British Virgin Islands until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:29, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Britannica and CIA

Going to try my best to cleanup / swap out the sources from 1919 and CIA fact book listing. Anyone got a real publication we can use.....looking now.--Moxy 🍁 22:03, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Tbh I really don't get why the widely-referenced and respected World Factbook of the world's most powerful and well-resourced intelligence agency, or the world's most respected encyclopedia, don't count as credible sources....?? Sdrawkcab (talk) 00:40, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

population?

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=VG

world bank puts the population at only 30,000 (2021) 2804:431:C7D8:FE70:94D3:AE9E:4502:E7B6 (talk) 18:56, 10 August 2022 (UTC)