Talk:Ministry of defence

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Proposed merger.[edit]

I am opposing the proposed merger, as it involves merging an article into a disambiguation page. In my opinion, this is not a good idea. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 10:29, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling for non-english speaking agencies[edit]

What determines the use of American or British spelling of denfence/se when translating a foreign agency. What conventions exist for this as the page indicates a mixed bag? Dainamo (talk) 00:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest MoDs were based on the UK one so they would almost certainly use the 'Defence' spelling, however many of the former-Soviet states now have similar ministries and they may spell their department titles differently. Also, some of the entries may have been written by US Wikipedians so they may have used their US spelling variant 'Defense' - it all depends on whoever was doing the translation.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.254.32 (talk)
Japan uses the US spelling, "Defense". Aparrently the entry was added by a British or Commonwealth wikipedian so they may have used their UK spelling variant 'Defence'. - BilCat (talk) 16:38, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Consistency[edit]

Some entries (roughly 1/3) have descriptions following the link. The page should either have these descriptions for all entries or for none. As a disambiguation page, I think any text beyond the name of the country is unnecessary and just adds confusion. I think we should remove any descriptions for entries on the page Ministry of Defence. Alternatively, we could add a description for each entry. Let me know what you think. In a week I will start cleaning this up in the way indicated by the consensus of responses. Thank you. SchreiberBike (talk) 14:52, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge with Ministry of War[edit]

Is "Department of Defense" just a re-branded "Department of War" that performs essentially the same purose? AdventurousSquirrel (talk) 09:09, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not always. Prior to WWII, most "Ministries of War" were Army ministries, while the Navy and the Air Force, if it existed as a separate branch, had their own departments. E.g. as late as 1953, the Soviets for instance had a "Ministry of War" alongside a "Ministry of the Navy". Constantine ✍ 09:18, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that they are different. However, maybe an article about the creation of a Ministry/Department of Defense might make sense that is more than just a disambugation page, like the Defence minister article. Like the latter article, I would suggest merging the Ministry of Defense with Department of Defence and Department of National Defense. Then we would just have a single article that talks about the general concept with a long list of links to individual countries' ministries/departments. Indeed, I would suggest merging the "Minister of..." and the "Ministry of..." articles.--Iloilo Wanderer (talk) 12:56, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, Ministry Of War should have its proper title, and actually the DABs tend to lead you in circles if you want the UK Ministry of War it gets you back to Ministry of Defence so the DABs really need sorting out first, they don't DAB they run you round in circles. I only came here to add Ministry of War to the article on Eileen O'Shaughnessy and she worked at the Ministry of War, not the Ministry of Defence. So I came to the DAB to make sure I got the right one not the Ministry of War of some other country. And then it leads you in circles. The DABs need sorting out first before any opinion on merging. Si Trew (talk) 04:44, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's also necessary to make the distinction of British spelling "Defence" and American spelling "Defense". Si Trew (talk) 04:47, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge.[edit]

I have gone ahead and merged all (Ministry/Department) of (War/Defense/Defence) articles per WP:DABCONCEPT, since they are all really merely examples of a single concept. I propose to also merge Defence minister here, as that concept merely describes the individual at the head of a Defence Ministry, and is a common component of Defence Ministries. It would make both articles more complete to combine the information contained in each, and explain all of the relationships between the terms used. bd2412 T 15:31, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agreed with bd2412. Frankly speaking, bd2412 looks completely right. The general remarks should be written in one article. However, it seems that crazy(, stupid, criminal) admins have already dispersed almost all of decent general editors in the world, who can edit and satisfy bd2412. -- PeteTakaN (talk) 11:34, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Since the proposed merge with Defence minister has received no support since October 2014, I will remove the merger proposal tag as no consensus for this. Whizz40 (talk) 16:46, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ENGVAR[edit]

Without any prejudice as to whether the page should be here (it began as a discussion of the British department and was originally a list only of those departments employing Commonwealth spelling), the editor's comment in the LEADSENTENCE when I got here was obnoxious, a lie (Japan does not use the British spelling), and should not be reincluded. Some particular departments' spelling has no bearing on Wikipedia's placement of the general list, which just falls under WP:ENGVAR. — LlywelynII 11:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Department of Defense should not link here[edit]

I was writing some text for another article and I wrote the phrase Department of Defense and linked it. But when I checked the link I saw it came here rather than the US DOD. I think that is wrong. I'm not real familiar with the UK but I don't think they typically call their Ministry of Defense the Department of Defense, I think "Ministry" is far more common for them but for the US I do have a lot of experience, I spent several years doing research sponsored by the DOD and EVERYONE just calls it the "DOD" or Department of Defense. I'm sure if you do a google search on "Department of Defense" virtually all of the first 50 hits will be to the US DOD. I'm not sure how to change this but wanted to at least document it here as a start. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:17, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

 Done --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:28, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are more than half a dozen countries with a "Department of Defense" (or "Defence"); we can not be America-centric about this. bd2412 T 22:57, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Whether or not it's "American-centric" is totally irrelevant. What matters is whether or not the US DOD is the primary topic for Department of Defense, and the OP actually made a good start toward proving that it is the case. For another example, the Royal Navy article is about the navy of the United Kingdom not because Wikipedia is British-centric, as has been claimed on several occasions, but because it is the primary topic. The fact that there are well over a dozen other organizations called "Royal Navy" doesn't matter one whit, and neither does the fact that there are other "Departments of Defense". - BilCat (talk) 07:22, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 5 February 2021[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Consensus to move this page to "ministry of defence" and split off individual ministries into a dab article. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 15:44, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Ministry of Defence → Ministry of defence – lowercase "d", generic term unless discussing a particular one. Facts707 (talk) 11:57, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink). GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 18:51, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This isn't a generic term at all. This is a bunch of specific institutions that are all universally capitalized, as can be seen in the article. Don't even see the merits in opening a RM discussion - I could maybe see a move to "List of defence ministries" if you really wanted to go with the generic style, but it's currently in a title style. SnowFire (talk) 17:36, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's usually only capitalized when discussing a particular title, e.g. Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom). See Secretary of state or Attorney general for analogs. Cheers, Facts707 (talk) 19:55, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Ministry of Defence would be a good title for a disambiguation page. Ministry of defence would be a good title for an article about what ministries of defence are. This page is a hybrid attempting to do both jobs. (Last year I diverted about 200 of its incoming links to specific national ministries, and I'm sure many more remain.) Certes (talk) 20:30, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Clearly about the generic form. Primergrey (talk) 20:51, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – but also fix the lead that says "A Ministry of Defence...is a...name". The article is not about the name, is it? It cover ministries of defence of many different names. Dicklyon (talk) 01:15, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per original RM request objection, but re Primergrey's comment, I don't think it is about the generic form - I think this article is essentially a disambiguation page with an unusually long preamble. I would be fine with removing or shortening most of said preamble and making this into a more orthodox disambiguation page if that would fix the issue. SnowFire (talk) 04:39, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose "Ministry of Defence" in caps should be disambiguation (as per SnowFire and Certes), "Ministry of defence" (lower case) should, if it exists at that name, be a general article on nations having a bureaucratic organisation for managing their armed forces and cover the subject, which this article doesn't do at the moment. This is - if anything - a List of article. If anything I see more than one disambiguation page. "Ministry of Defence (disambiguation) (possible separate "Ministry of National Defence") , Ministry of War (disambiguation) is a redirect to Ministry_of_Defence#Historical. I see Department of Defense (disambiguation) exists but doesn't cover the "ce" spelling. GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:57, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Can we find consensus to split the page into an article at Ministry of defence and one or more dabs in Title Case? Redirects could be retargetted appropriately, e.g. Defense department → article Ministry of defence but Department of Defence → new dab Department of Defense. Certes (talk) 12:34, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm good with that - would you have separate Ministry of Defence (disambiguation) Ministry of Defense (disambiguation)? GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:58, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have a single dab for both, and one more dab for Department of Defence/Defense, but there are other good solutions. (Department of defense (disambiguation) already exists but is incomplete and should be merged.) Certes (talk) 23:37, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dab or list?[edit]

This page is now a list, but a disambiguation page as suggested above might be better. Good wikilinks to the list will be rare; almost all should be about the concept of a ministry of defence or a specify ministry on the list. Certes (talk) 16:04, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

98% of the incoming links to here and Department of Defence have now been diverted to their national articles (mainly UK and US respectively) or to the generic article Ministry of defence. A second opinion on the remaining stragglers would be appreciated. Certes (talk) 23:58, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Mmitchell10 has moved this page. I think we agreed in the RM above that this should be a disambiguation page named "Ministry of Defence" rather than a list. Please can we get some more opinions on this matter? The bad links to Ministry of Defence are already appearing: Air Force Academy (India) is allegedly owned by this entire list, and Dulcie Mary Pillers' brother apparently served in them all. Who volunteers to spend their days monitoring such links and mending them? If no one steps forward then I intend to boldly request reversion, and to make the page a dab. Certes (talk) 12:09, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Certes: Thanks for your work on this. I wasn't aware of the discussion that had been held when I moved the article to the new title. Maybe I should have checked the talk page first. I wasn't trying to act contrarily. In answer to your question, I see the purpose of disambig pages being to list things which have no connection, other than their common name, whereas this doesn't fit into that - these are all the same types of thing, so a list feels more appropriate. There is precedent: List of education ministries, List of environmental ministries. Though Ministry of home affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Finance are lists that aren't titled 'list'. Note they all list organisations titled both 'ministry' and 'department', there's no separate page for ministries vs departments. Therefore I think how it was before (that is, a single article titled 'Ministry of defence', that includes the 3 paragraphs currently at Ministry of defence, and lists all such ministries and departments) is most consistent with the rest of Wikipedia, and should be the way forward. Thanks Mmitchell10 (talk) 20:37, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Set index defines "disambiguation page is a list of things (possibly of different types), that share the same name (or similar names)." Which is what we have here - a lot of things called 'Ministry of Defence/Defense' in English or English translation of the native name. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:05, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is formatted for best helping the reader in navigating to topic being sought.

Thanks for the responses. Unless we get any other opinions in the next few days, I'll go with the RM close to split off individual ministries into a dab article by splitting off Ministry of War, requesting a move back to Ministry of Defence and tagging it as a dab. I've already dealt with its incoming links, so it should be quick to fix the new bad links that the list is now collecting. Certes (talk) 22:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's now all sorted out, with a descriptive article, three dabs for the most common titles, and all incoming links and redirects fixed. Thanks to everyone who helped. Certes (talk) 20:27, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The disambiguation pages have changed back to SIAs, so I shall leave any further improvements to others. Certes (talk) 22:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DABCONCEPT specifically lists government ministries as broad concepts which should not be a disambiguation page. It is entirely feasible for such a department to exist with no corresponding article, in which case it is useless to point the reader to a disambiguation page providing no relevant link. BD2412 T 22:45, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We have a BCA at Ministry of defence. Wikilinks which relate either to ministries of defence in general or to a specific ministry lacking an article now lead there, whilst wikilinks specific to a particular ministry link to an article such as Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom). The only links to Ministry of Defence (uppercase D) are redirects, hatnotes, See alsos etc. Of course, that may change. Certes (talk) 23:53, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Department of Defence/Defense[edit]

I've been bold and shifted the Departments of Defenc(s)e off to their own index at Department of Defence. More likely that anyone who follows a link to the term will quickly find what they are after than having to look through to the bottom of this list. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:40, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Should we do the same for War Department? It now seems slightly out of place here, being a department rather than a ministry. Certes (talk) 23:55, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ministry of War was next in my thinking. There seem to primary topics for both War Department and War Office and few alternates which can be handled through the usual hatnotes or disambig pages. GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:06, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, let's split off "Ministry of War". Is there a primary topic for "War Department"? I fixed about 50 links for United States Department of War with 10 each for War Department (United Kingdom) and War Office, the latter two being almost interchangeable. There is a case for a primary redirect to United States Department of War but War Office is linked from almost 3000 article which, together with the general concept of war departments, may be enough to justify a dab or list in the same way as MoD and DoD. Certes (talk) 11:55, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Looking down the articles that link to War Office, I can't see any indication that there's a problem with them being wrong links. Four articles link to "War office" and from the look of them they are all references to the British one. GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:40, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Defence Chief[edit]

There's a similar issue on Chief of staff where the Military sections may need splitting into a separate article such as List of defence chiefs. Whizz40 (talk) 09:35, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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