Talk:Competence

There is no such thing as COMPETANCE

The word is competence and www.onelook.com should convince one that every reputable English dictionary agrees. That is, except Wikipedia which links this wrong spelling to the right spelling. That seems incompetent.84.48.67.15 09:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

competences?

What is the reason for using the spelling "competences" instead of "competencies"? --richRich Janis 01:39, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

For anyone else who shares my former confusion, Naomhain provided the answer at Talk:European_Union, where I also posted the topic "competences?". -rich<Rich Janis 00:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC)>

This page cites a number of articles by two researchers who are not of eminent stature, as well as a Dutch language article. This entry seems to be constructed primarily for lending credibility to a largely Netherlands-specific theory on the importance of "competencies" in education and business. I suggest deletion of this entry.

Article reorganized, content moved --Azazello 16:57, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Competence (human resources) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 11:46, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Competence as a primary topic

I'd like to see this disambiguation page be turned into a primary topic. The term 'competence' was introduced in 1959 by R.W. White and has since been adopted by a growing number of fields, like, but does not limit itself to, education, business, human resources, organization, personal development, academia and science. At the moment, competence is being portrayed as an obscure subject, which scope does not reach beyond human resources. I'd like to see that change.

For this to happen, Competence (disambiguation) would have to become the new disambiguation page.

Does this sound like a reasonable proposal or am I missing important history here? Infogiraffic (talk) 08:05, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

So which of the Competences do you propose as the primary topic? On what basis do you argue for its primacy? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:26, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

This page, 'Competence', could fulfill it's role as a primary page and broad-concept article, overarching secondary topics like Competence (human resources), Competence (law), Natural competence (biology), Communicative competence and linguistic competence. The topic 'Competence (geology)' would be the extraneous subject with respect to this new primary topic.

As for a basis, I can't speak for others, but when I search for competence on the Google engine, this page pops up before all the secondary topics do, which is ideal for a primary topic. Infogiraffic (talk) 07:19, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I was going to suggest that a complete change in the meaning of a high-profile page like this one would perhaps best be done through a formal move discussion. However, it appears such a discussion is underway, but to a different title (competency, a redirect to this dab page). At the risk of pre-empting the outcome of the discussion, the likely rejection of that move should probably be considered as a rejection of this one also. At the very least, we shouldn't be making any rash moves here until that discussion is complete. Lithopsian (talk) 12:43, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

I've requested that discussion to be retracted instead of accepting or rejecting it, since I instigated that move myself. Hopefully, we can progress our discussion on this page. And like Lithopsian said, we shouldn't be rushing this. Infogiraffic (talk) 15:16, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

It has been silent for a couple of days, so I'm gonna summarize some points which were made by @SnowFire and @Lithopsian.

• SnowFire is wary of competence (competency) becoming a Frankenstein article because of its many contradictory definitions.
• Lithopsian, as I've read some of his previous discussions, seems to discourage setting up new pages by using extensive copy-pasting.

If we were to proceed turning Competence into a primary topic, would mitigation of these objections be sufficient for consensus? @​ Infogiraffic (talk) 08:19, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

You still haven't given any clue as to what you believe such an article would contain or, given the large variety of meanings, why it should be anything other than a disambiguation article. So, lest you believe that silence signifies assent and based on the information you have provided thus far, I oppose any change to the article as it stands. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:20, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I think we have a fairly good idea of what such an article might look like. Lithopsian (talk) 12:59, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

if it were made by copy-pasting information from Competence (human resources), which is an unmitigated undertaken.

As to why I haven't given much proof of concept, I have not yet found a suitable page, which I can use as a basis for envisioning what the page should contain. Infogiraffic (talk) 15:05, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Be careful about putting words into other people's mouths. I do indeed strongly discourage cut'n'paste move/renames, but this is not a personal fetish, it is Wikipedia policy. I am also wary of undiscussed splits. It is entirely acceptable to do this (properly, with suitable attribution), but it is also entirely acceptable to revert it if there are doubts about the need or the actual implementation. In this case, not only did you split content from Competence (human resources), you overwrote a disambiguation page at the root (Competence) and pasted its content into Competence (disambiguation). Not even close to acceptable before we even start to talk about whether your new article should become the primary topic. My advice would be to drop this idea; at most create your article under a different title (or in draft or your sandbox). You'd be well-advised to discuss it first at Competence (human resources), since your article would seem to be largely based on text from that article and other editors may feel that the text is better staying put. Just maybe, and I suspect not, but just maybe, after you've got an article that people largely seem happy with, revisit the idea of what should be at the root topic competence. The idea of immediately replacing the dab page at the root would seem to be dead in the water, but again if you really like pain, you can propose to move it to competence (disambiguation) and see what others think. Get very familiar with the relevant policies first and try to present a strong case; if you just turn up and think your plans will be self-evident to everyone, you'll get short shrift. Lithopsian (talk) 13:25, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Shall I then use the redirect page Competency instead of the disambiguation page Competence? Infogiraffic (talk) 15:06, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

No, absolutely not. The current redirection is intentional, --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:59, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

• Belated reply: I'd suggest creating in draft space some sort of new article, but I'm very wary of assuming it'd be the new primary topic. Rather, it'd be a new article linked to from the disambiguation page at the base. In general, "broad concept" articles work well when there's an idea that 50% of it people agree on 50% disagree on, but don't work well when they're simple homonyms. For example, Will (philosophy) discusses an idea that lots of philosophers talk about but often with sharply different meanings. But creating an article that tried to link philosophical will and will and testament would make little sense, because will as a directive after death simply isn't related. Anyway, I'd try to pick what exactly this article would discuss, and whether it would be notably different from the HR definition. If not, then just expand the HR article. If it is, then how? Are there sources that explicitly discuss this? SnowFire (talk) 04:32, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

  But as should be obvious from the list of articles in the disambiguation page, the concepts have nothing in common apart from the sense of capability. So it is really far from obvious that a narrative form will be any more accessible than the current list and very probably less so. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:43, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Just to add my recommendation, perhaps repeating myself. Leave the existing pages well alone. You don't have consensus to create a new primary topic at either competence or competency, and I don't think you're ever going to get it. Produce your article elsewhere, under a different title or in draft. It shouldn't be too hard since you've already produced a first attempt and it is sitting in the history. I can see just a tiny chance that you can create a broad concept article about competence in general, and then just conceivably it would be more useful at the root than the existing dab page, but don't get your hopes up. Lithopsian (talk) 12:27, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Out of sheer curiosity. What are your opinions on the article Performance and the corresponding dab page? Isn't that exactly what we're railing against here? Infogiraffic (talk) 09:49, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

IMO, that article is not needed and not helpful: the disambiguation article lists the various meanings and that article just cforks [some of?] the main articles. But WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS <sigh>. It would need too much time and effort to go through the wp:articles for deletion process to resolve. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:01, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Or the article Skill and corresponding dab page, or the article Aptitude, since it says: 'An aptitude is a component of a competence to do a certain kind of work at a certain level.' Or the article Behavior. It looks like that article could easily be split up... It gets me thinking really. Infogiraffic (talk) 10:59, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

You are still looking at it through HR tunnel vision. The word "Aptitude" as an aspect of competence is only meaningful in that frame of reference; it is meaningless elsewhere. The terms Skill and aptitude are fairly narrowly related to the performance (sic) of a single individual so the dissonance is not obvious; competence and competency have broader scope. And I still argue that a list of potentially relevant articles is generally more accessible; a broad concept article is really only needed where concepts overlap and some text is needed to help the reader make the fine distinction required.--𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:29, 25 July 2023 (UTC)