Talk:Department of Transport and Planning

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Department of Transport (Victoria, 2008–13) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 22:22, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 9 July 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: moved. Please refer to Special:Permalink/904426513 for the version of the Department of Transport (Victoria) page before the move. (non-admin closure)​ — Newslinger talk 23:27, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

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Department of Transport (Victoria, 2019–) → Department of Transport (Victoria) – Government departments that are currently existing should not have the year of formation in the article title.

It is unusual for an existing and current organisation/agency to include years/year of formation in the title in Wikipedia. This is so even if the same name has been used in a previous incarnation of the department.

I have requested a similar move back in March 2019, but the discussion was mainly focused about the Department of Transport (Victoria, 2008–13) page. I understand that Department of Transport (Victoria) is a disambiguation page that provide the links to many incarnations of the Victorian transport department, past or present. However, anyone typing Department of Transport (Victoria) into the search box or google is most likely searching for the current DOT and not a past/defunct DOT or any other previous incarnations. Hence the "Department of Transport (Victoria)" should directly be linked to this article.

This article (the 2019 one) currently has a brief history of past incarnations in the Department of Transport (Victoria, 2019–)#Background section. My suggestion is to expand the section, separate each incarnation into separate sub-sections, with an appropriate {{Main}} tag at the top of each sub-section. The sub-sections could be as follows (or any alternative):

• Before 1996, with a Ministry of Transport (Victoria) wikilink in the {{Main}} tag. Just a brief summary of that article.
• 1996-2013, with a Department of Transport (Victoria, 2008–13) wikilink in the {{Main}} tag. Just a brief summary of Department of Infrastructure and the Department of Transport until 2013
• 2013-2019, with Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure and Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources wikilinks in two {{Main}} tags. A brief summary of the super departments. May also mention Transport for Victoria in here.
• Current incarnation (or 2019-present). This will be about the current incarnation of the department, how it is formed, and about PTV & Vicroads recent merger into DOT.

Any alternative suggestions are welcome to address the disambiguation issue, such as {{About}} tags, or replace the sub-sections with dot points and placing {{Main}} tags at the top of the "Background" section etc. Marcnut1996 (talk) 07:30, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Survey

• (edit conflict × 2) Support per what readers are most likely to be looking for. Also the proposal with the most potential to resolve the situation with Department of Transport (Victoria, Australia). Triptothecottage (talk) 07:53, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Extended discussion

I created {{Transport departments of Victoria}} as a navbox to help with the navigation issue. Adding subsections to the background of this article is IMHO lending WP:UNDUE weight to organisations that are not the focus of this article. Listing them in brief prose with links is quite adequate in my view; there is no need for {{main}} to clutter up the section repeatedly. Triptothecottage (talk) 07:43, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

I just found the {{Transport departments of Victoria}} template just now at the end of this article and other DOT articles. I agree that the template can also act as an alternative to the disambiguation page, and can remove the need for the abundance of {{Main}} tags. Marcnut1996 (talk) 07:46, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Now knowing that the template exists, my new preferred alternative is to list the years as dot points with just the names/wikilinks of the past incarnations, with no need for {{main}} tags. Something along the lines of what I wrote in Transport for NSW. Marcnut1996 (talk) 07:51, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Per MOS:PROSE, I would argue that a prose explanation is more appropriate, but it can be covered quite simply in a paragraph. Transport policy has been the responsibility of a number of departments since the first Victorian Ministry of Transport was created in 1951...

That's fair. The current text already lists it in a prose with the information needed. Marcnut1996 (talk) 08:05, 9 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.