Talk:Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State

Page move has resulted in odd wording of lede

The article begins The Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State was a transitional post established in January 1922, lasting until the creation of the Irish Free State in December 1922 in the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland. What does 'in the Provisional Government' mean? Should it read 'by'? 'of'? 'for?'

Does it [also?] need a comma after 'December 1922' --Red King (talk) 16:25, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

The move also created a disconnect between related articles. This article is now called Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State and the govt article is called Provisional Government of Southern Ireland. Could Scolaire please explain the reason for the move? Snappy (talk) 16:40, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I posted to Talk:Provisional Government of Southern Ireland#Title at the beginning of February saying why the title of that article is wrong. I intended to move it after a couple of days, but then realised that it had over a hundred incoming links and that I simply did not have the time to change them. I am not bot-literate and I am very slow with manual changes. Then the other day I discovered that this article exists. There was a clearer rationale for moving this: There are a number of quality hits in a Google Books search for "Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State", while "Chairman of the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland" only produces (for me at least) a book consisting of Wikipedia articles and a book by Michael Collins the astronaut – which of course makes no mention of the Provisional Government of anything. There were also fewer incoming links, and it would have to be done at some stage anyway, so I did it. I still intend to move the other article, but I don't know when. If one or two editors were to volunteer to help to fix the links on an agreed date, that would be great.

The first sentence was just odd, full stop. The page move may have made it odder, but not much. I've deleted the unnecessary last bit. Scolaire (talk) 22:08, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Tx, I didn't see your post on Talk:Provisional Government of Southern Ireland as I wasn't watching it, I have replied there. Snappy (talk) 08:25, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

The end result of this series of edits is that

The Chairman of the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland was a transitional post established in January 1922, lasting until the creation of the Irish Free State in December 1922 in the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland.

has become

The Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State was a transitional post established in January 1922, lasting until the creation of the Irish Free State in December 1922 in the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State.

The sentence is no clearer to me than it was before. What is "lasting until the creation of the Irish Free State in December 1922 in the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State" supposed to mean? Is it meant to say

The Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State was a transitional post in the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State, established in January 1922 and lasting until the creation of the Irish Free State in December 1922?

Even if that's what it means, it seems excessively wordy. "The Irish Free State" appears three times in a single sentence, and "the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State" twice. Scolaire (talk) 15:38, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

I wanted a link to Provisional Government of the Irish Free State in the article. I've moved it to the See also section. Feel free to edit it again. Snappy (talk) 16:02, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

No, that's fine now. Scolaire (talk) 17:22, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Move?

Surely this page should now be moved to Chairman of the Provisional Government of Ireland (1922) ??Osioni (talk) 18:58, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I would prefer to merge it with Provisional Government of Ireland (1922). With only two names and a time-frame of a few months, it has no usefulness as a standalone article.

It could be replaced in the Heads of government of Ireland template with "Chairman of the Provisional Government". --Scolaire (talk) 15:52, 3 August 2015 (UTC)