Talk:Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom): Difference between revisions

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: Moved Foreign Secretary to Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom). Consensus there is no primary topic for Foreign Secretary. The option that seems to have the most support for the new title is Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom). Foreign Secretary to redirect to Foreign secretary. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 18:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

– We currently have the British foreign secretary at Foreign Secretary and a disambiguation page for the other foreign secretaries at Foreign secretary. This distinction is an arbitrary Wikipedia decision, with no basis in the external world. It is unhelpful to both readers and editors. I cringe every time I have to pipe [[Foreign Secretary|foreign secretary]], and I can imagine that the readers are misled or confused by this Wiki-invented distinction. So how do we solve this? Do we:

• A) treat the British foreign secretary as the primary meaning, leave this page at Foreign Secretary, and make Foreign secretary redirect to Foreign Secretary,
• B) move this page to an unambiguous title and make Foreign Secretary a redirect the Foreign secretary disambiguation page, or
• C) leave the circus as it is. Surtsicna (talk) 23:48, 26 January 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:49, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• And only now I realize that I could have solved this nonsense years ago by just moving Foreign secretary to Foreign secretary (disambiguation) and making Foreign secretary redirect to Foreign Secretary. Well, I am curious to read what people think anyway. Surtsicna (talk) 23:52, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I think this approach works best. Rafts of Calm (talk) 10:27, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Support b as king Esotericmadman (talk) 10:37, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Actually changed mind based on discussion. See my comment below. Rafts of Calm (talk) 12:23, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Rafts of Calm (talk) 12:18, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support B with Foreign secretary (United Kingdom) as the disambiguated title. — King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:46, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Question Why do you have to pipe [[Foreign Secretary|foreign secretary]]? Nyttend (talk) 19:50, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because job titles should not be capitalized; and if I were to write simply [[Foreign Secretary|foreign secretary]], it would not go where it is supposed to go. Surtsicna (talk) 20:59, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What’s the difference between this and “Prime Minister”? Our article there is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, not Prime minister of the United Kingdom or Prime minister (United Kingdom). Also, we would write “King Charles met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer” rather than “King Charles met with prime minister Keir Starmer”. Wouldn’t we do the same here, e.g. “King Charles met with Foreign Secretary David Lammy” instead of “King Charles met with foreign secretary David Lammy”? Nyttend (talk) 10:25, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those are all correct examples. However, it would be “King Charles met with the foreign secretary, David Lammy”, “the current foreign secretary is David Lammy”, “the foreign secretary, David Lammy, met with the king, Charles III”, etc. The capitalization dissonance between this and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is due to the overly complicated MOS:JOBTITLES. It calls for capitalization of “proper” job titles (e.g. Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom) when they are not preceded by any modifiers, but lowercasing the simple “prime minister”, “foreign secretary”.
MOS:JOBTITLES is trying to have its cake and eat it; job titles have been consistently lowercased in academia and journalism for 50 years except when immediately preceding a personal name, but MOS:JOBTITLES is attempting to appease the proponents of capitalization deferential to official government usage by instituting a half-measure solution that confuses everybody and pleases nobody. But this is now an off-topic rant. Surtsicna (talk) 10:48, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support A and move Foreign secretary to Foreign secretary (disambiguation). Clear primary topic. Has been around much longer, is far better-known and more heavily referenced and is the head of the entire Foreign Office rather than just a civil servant. — Necrothesp (talk) 12:21, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support B. I see no reason why the British Foreign Secretary is the primary topic – many countries now have foreign secretaries (both political and apolitical) and if we are aiming to be a truly international website, each national userbase will have their own view on who the best known foreign secretary is. Bayonet-lightbulb (talk) 12:35, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Because the British Foreign Secretary is the foreign minister of a major country and has been for well over two centuries. That is not the case anywhere else, where the foreign secretary is a civil servant and has been around for a much shorter time. Clear case of primacy by both long-term significance and pageviews according to Wikipedia naming conventions. — Necrothesp (talk) 16:31, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support B. The UK article begins The secretary of state for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, also known as the foreign secretary…. That “also known as the foreign secretary” – which I read as shorthand, for ease of reference – could equally apply to various other countries (the Philippines and Mexico come to mind). And Category:Ministerial offices in the United Kingdom has a score of the foreign secretary’s peers listed as “Secretary of State for…”: why is Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs the outlier? Moscow Mule (talk) 16:55, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Since the page does begin with Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Affairs, that would be an appropriate title.

  Also, other pages relating to British cabinet positions are formally titled, e.g. Secretary of State for Work and Pensions not “Work and Pensions Secretary”, so why shouldn’t this one be. GeorgeM2011 (talk) 20:11, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Because the Foreign Secretary is almost never referred to by his full title! WP:COMMONNAME. — Necrothesp (talk) 10:52, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support C: do nothing. MOS:JOBTITLE is the problem here: it’s illogical and confusing, but we’re not going to change it here. . I explicitly oppose B: the British Foreign Secretary is a primary topic. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 19:42, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support B: Many countries have foreign secretaries and it is confusing if you are from one of those other countries. The article should be moved, therefore, to an unambiguous name, Foreign secretary (United Kingdom). 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 21:00, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support B: British does not seem justified as primary. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:40, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The other posts are significantly more minor positions in their respective countries, where the equivalent to the British position is not the Foreign Secretary (a civil servant) but the Foreign Minister. Rafts of Calm (talk) 23:23, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  There is clearly no justification for the capital ‘S’ being used to distinguish between the UK position and those of other countries. It is also not the full title for the post, so it should not be capitalised per MOS:JOBTITLE. It should at least be Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom if not Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs or Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the United Kingdom. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The other posts are significantly more minor positions… Not true. Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo is a cabinet minister (and there he is again on state.gov); Foreign Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente holds a position in the federal cabinet (and there he is again on state.gov); Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud, as far as I can tell, is a political appointment ranking No. 2 at the ministry in a position created as a sui generis fudge because the chap formerly serving as minister was ruled ineligible (and there he is on state.gov). The Mexican and Philippines positions have longer, more formal titles, but for convenience’ sake, they’re known as “the foreign secretary”. Just like the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. Moscow Mule (talk) 22:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Neither post is really primary on the world stage as the British Foreign Secretary has been for over two centuries! You’re clutching at straws here. “Primary topic” doesn’t mean it’s the only topic. It means it’s the one most likely to be looked for and/or the one with the most long-term significance. The British Foreign Secretary wins hands-down on both. — Necrothesp (talk) 10:57, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Not so much “clutching at straws” as trying to set the record straight regarding the misconception (in this discussion and on the dab page) that the UK ForSec is exceptional in that he stands alone among the world’s various foreign secretaries as the head of the entire [foreign ministry] rather than just a civil servant, which isn’t true. Once that point is grasped, discussion about WP:PRIMARYTOPIC can proceed. Moscow Mule (talk) 16:39, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Which other foreign minister of a major country on the international stage is known as the Foreign Secretary? Which other one has been known as that for over two centuries? If you write, in an English-language work, “Foreign Secretary” without any qualifier, which one are you overwhelmingly likely to be referring to? As I said, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC under both criteria. The other arguments here boil down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I can see no good arguments that refute my assertion that this is primary topic for the term by Wikipedia’s definition of a primary topic. — Necrothesp (talk) 16:53, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Foreign Secretary of Philippines Addresses General Assembly (un.org); Secretary-General Meets Foreign Secretary of Mexico (un.org); Mr. Robert Persaud, Guyana’s Foreign Secretary (un.org). “Major country” involves a fair amount of value judgement: at present both Mexico and the Philippines outstrip the UK in population but, I’ll admit, they don’t have the legacy of global empire/commonwealth behind them. (It’s harder to argue a “major country” case for Guyana, but at least there it’s his official title and not a gloss because the official title is kind of unwieldy — as is the case in .uk, .mx and .ph; however, he appears to be No. 2 at the ministry, not No. 1.) And, with the first office-holder appointed in 1821, Mexico meets your “over two centuries” requirement. As for what I’d be talking about were I to write, in English, “Foreign Secretary” without any qualifier, that vastly depends on the context. Trump’s recent steel tariffs? Mexico. Guyana/Venezuela border dispute? Guyana. South China Sea dispute? Perhaps the Philippines. Moscow Mule (talk) 19:03, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Concerning the Filipino position, lI don’t see any evidence that the position is commonly referred to as “Foreign Secretary”. The position appears to be usually referred to simply as “Secretary of Foreign Affairs” or as the “head of the Department of Foreign Affairs”. The Mexican position is however sometimes shortened to Foreign Secretary. Rafts of Calm (talk) 12:12, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support B. This was the silliest rule ever developed on WP. If you were the first to name an article, you got the short, generalised form, and the reader is left to find that “Submarine” was actually “Submarine (Tibet)” (I joke with this example, but there are some doozies out there all the same. Tony (talk) 08:05, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support C per Shhhnotsoloud. Timrollpickering (talk) 14:49, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Support B, but use a title like Foreign secretary (UK) that’s not over-capitalized, per WP:JOBTITLES. Dicklyon (talk) 04:48, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is that what WP:JOBTITLES — widely acknowledged as a dog’s dinner — says? Honest question. I read it as requiring full caps in the article title but lowercase in the introductory paragraph. Thus, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions begins with The secretary of state for work and pensions, also referred to as…. Moscow Mule (talk) 15:36, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, it isn’t. Unique job titles held by a single person at a time should be capitalised. We also generally avoid UK and prefer United Kingdom as a disambiguator. — Necrothesp (talk) 16:49, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not per JOBTITLES or any major academic or journalistic style guide. Surtsicna (talk) 17:09, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

JOBTITLES in general requires lower case. One of the exceptions is when “a formal title is … not preceded by … a definite or indefinite article”. That is why it is capitalized in the page title, but not in the lead sentence which begins with “the”. There is a proposal to cut this exception, which does not appear anywhere outside Wikipedia, and hopefully make JOBTITLES clearer, simpler, and generally less shit. You are welcome to participate. Surtsicna (talk) 17:14, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, either rename this article to Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom), or rename the disambiguation page to Foreign secretary (disambiguation). GeorgeM2011^{(talk to me) | (My Edits)} 17:15, 12 February 2025 (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.