Talk:National Railway Administration

Requested move 6 June 2019

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: not moved. There is no consensus for this requested move. (closed by non-admin page mover) qedk (t 桜 c) 18:37, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

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National Railway Administration (China) → National Railway Administration – all the other disambig listed do not use this name, hence the primary topic is clear, it is done so without discussion. Viztor (talk) 09:41, 6 June 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 17:25, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:48, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Viztor: Keep disambiguater. There are many organizations that could be described as national railway administrations. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:50, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
• @Anthony Appleyard:Federal Railroad Administration could also be described for many railway administrations, but the primary topic is clear. I would propose a hat-note, because no other is using the name per se. Also I believe we already have a list for national railway administrations, but I have to try find it. Viztor (talk) 13:52, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:TITLE. And put National Railway Administration (disambiguation) back. The fact that the (China) article is the only one created doesn't change the fact that the term is used for other countries as well. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:04, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

There is no evidence that the term "National Railway Administration" is used in any other country. Even Google results for "National Railway Administration" US almost all refer to the Chinese administration. -Zanhe (talk) 07:15, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support Unnecessary dab, and this should be an automatic move to revert a contested undiscussed move. This is the only article named "National Railway Administration", and Google results for "National Railway Administration" -wikipedia are overwhelmingly about this topic. None of the other articles on the dab page are commonly known by this name. -Zanhe (talk) 08:47, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Definitely not the only National Railway Administration in world history. For a start, the Norwegian and Swedish agencies on the disambiguation page both appear to have been alternatively translated as National Railway Administration. The German Reichsbahndirektion was also sometimes translated as such. The name also appears to have been used at various times in Czechoslovakia, Taiwan, Estonia and Nigeria, to name but four. A generic name that needs disambiguation. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:51, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

The fact is, there is no evidence that any of the other agencies are commonly known as the National Railway Administration. This is similar to National Institutes of Health, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, etc., where there is a clearly case of primary topic even if other entities can conceivably be called the same name. -Zanhe (talk) 04:57, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support. While there are other entities with the name, the Chinese one is the very clear primary topic. For example googling for "National Railway Administration" -wikipedia 10 of the first 10 and 18 of the first 20 results are for the Chinese agency, the other two related to Norway (one being a book from 1987). As is normal for all other cases where there are multiple topics with the same title and one is a primary topic, the other articles and/or a disambiguation page should be linked in a hatnote. Thryduulf (talk) 13:39, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Perhaps move instead to National Railway Administration of the People's Republic of China, its full name, since there is also one in Taiwan. Almond Plate (talk) 18:32, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Taiwan's railway operator is called Taiwan Railways Administration, not "National Railway Administration", and it operates a network about 1% of that of China. Any (minuscule) chance of confusion can be easily dealt with in the dab page, as per the well known cases of National Institutes of Health, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, etc. -Zanhe (talk) 07:20, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

And even if Taiwan's agency did have the same name, the PRC's agency is still the clear primary topic per the evidence presented in this thread. As the main article about the country is at China not People's Republic of China it is correct that articles about subtopics also default to "China" in the title (we have a policy about this but I can't immediately find it). Thryduulf (talk) 08:30, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

@Anthony Appleyard and QEDK: BTW, this article should be moved immediately back to National Railway Administration as it was originally titled that until someone did the controversial move, per policy, if a move is contested, it must be reverted as a technical move back. I'm not sure why QEDK closed this as no consensus, it must be moved back as closed as no consensus, thank you.Viztor (talk) 18:39, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@Viztor: Ideally, the revert should have been made and then the RM opened. However, Anthony Appleyard contested your request to revert itself — and I am not sure how that works. However, a no consensus here does not signify a reversal but that the current status quo is maintained. --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@QEDK: I'm not sure if that is an accurate reflection of the policy. If a move is contested, in this case the move from (NRA -> NRA(China)), then a technical move must be done. A technical move can only be objected based on the ground that it is not a technical move, not that if he/she agrees with the move or not, while in this case the controversial move is the one from NRA -> NRA(China), therefore must be reverted. I do also wonder why Anthony Appleyard contested the technical move though.Viztor (talk) 18:56, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

• I have to say I'm surprised to see this closed as no consensus given that all of the arguments in opposition seem to be either contrary to policy or incorrect, and none of the arguments for moving were refuted. Thryduulf (talk) 21:02, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
  • There is no evidence that the term "National Railway Administration" is used in any other country. is not a valid statement. Even if it wasn't refuted, there are dab pages which do not need to have similarity in the title, but simply similarity in context. Comments can be made without quoting a policy and have an underlying policy supporting it. --qedk (t 桜 c) 12:31, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
    • The title is against policy though: (a) this is the only article that exists at the moment (unnecessary disambiguation, not concise) and (b) even if other articles were to be created this is by a significant margin the primary topic. Thryduulf (talk) 20:35, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
      • I'm sorry, but this is a bit of a daft argument. If we had no articles entitled Ministry of Defence and someone decided to create one about the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom and just call it "Ministry of Defence" then it would obviously be moved to Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), since it's not the only one, even though it may well have a significant claim to primary topic. Some titles are just too generic not to be disambiguated even if we currently only have an article on one and even if one may be seen as the primary topic. Sometimes WP:IAR has to be invoked as common sense. The fact that you have initiated a proposal to rename National Railway Administration (disambiguation) to List of national railway administrations just highlights this fact, as it's a generic term. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:38, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
        • Just because something can be used as a generic term or has many other (potential) uses doesn't mean that one specific instance can't be the primary topic - e.g. National Gallery, National Trust, United States, etc, etc. There is no primary topic for "Ministry of Defence" so that isn't a directly comparable situation, but where we have only one article about an entity with a given name and that entity is the primary topic for that name then yes it would be at the base name and there would be a hatnote to entities with similar names (either directly or via a dab page, depending on number). Where "Foo (place)" or "Foo (thing)" redirect to "Foo", because they are the primary topic for "Foo" then they get moved to "Foo" because we don't have articles at disambiguated titles when they are the primary topic. Thryduulf (talk) 15:42, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

• Since the move discussion ended in no consensus, I've restore the article to its original title, reverting the undiscussed move that started this discussion. -Zanhe (talk) 22:41, 21 August 2019 (UTC)