Template talk:Administrative divisions of France

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[edit] ("Administrative divisions"?)

What sense does it make to re-label the whole thing from the more general "subdivisions" to "administrative divisions", with the consequence that you have to throw out the non-administrative ZEAT?Ratzer 05:49, 27 September 2006 (UTC)Ratzer

(Discussion here. David Kernow (talk) 10:32, 27 September 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Pluralization of administrative division categories

Discussion copied from David Kernow's talk archive:

Hello David- Why did you put the division names back in the plural? Have you found some consensus on this? I had made them singular a while back because that seems more appropriate to me for a reference work. -Eric ^(talk) 14:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess that at the time it seemed appropriate, as the terms are referring to particular sets of administrative divisions (viz. those of France) that each have more than one member... Does that make sense...?  Yours, David Kernow (talk) 06:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't not make sense, and both approaches are used on Wikipedia, but I think such terms should be written in their most basic form, the way entry words appear in a dictionary, e.g. "state", not "states". I don't know if it's worth me pushing for it too much, though, since, in the interest of consistency, we'd then have to re-examine titles like Departments of France. If I were king, that title would be more like "Department (French administrative division)". But, in our online democracy, it would probably take too much campaigning to "fix" those titles. -Eric ^(talk) 15:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I recognise what you mean, but, on reflection, I think I'd opt for the plurals "of [country]" as a singular (1) might give the impression that all divisions so named are roughly equivalent (e.g. the scope of a "district" in one country being roughly the same as a "district" in another – not always the case!); and (2) as with "Department ([country] administrative division)", more disambiguation would probably be required overall... Regards, David (talk) 16:12, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Re: (1), I don't think there'd be any danger of confusion there as long as the reader is familiar with the Wikipedia disambiguation format. From what I've seen in titles here, the only purpose of the part in parentheses is to distinguish the term from other uses of that same term in English (especially other occurrences of the same term in the English Wikipedia). The article itself will make clear how the administrative/geographic division differs from other classes of divisions. Re: (2), I agree. Regards, -Eric ^(talk) 19:58, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I came across this discussion some time ago, and have been mulling over my own thoughts, as well as the comments above from Eric and David. While I think both editors make valid points, I find David's to be more convincing. It seems more natural to have "Departments" rather that "Department" as a heading, and also "Departments of France" is definitely more readable than "Department of France" as a page title. Regards, Kiwipete 03:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

With Kiwipete on this one. --Bob 16:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I yield. But just to be clear, my main point was how the division class names appear in the Administrative divisions of France template, not how the word "Departments" appears in the Departments of France article title. As far as that goes--as I mentioned above--I would not use the current format at all for an article title--I would use one consistent with the standard disambiguation format, for example: "Department (French administrative division)". I think that fits much better with the title of the article which describes these divisions (Administrative divisions of France). -Eric ^(talk) 18:49, 7 January 2007 (UTC)