Talk:Secretary-General

Proposed move

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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this is a proposal to MERGE "Secretary-General", "General Secretary", and "First Secretary" (though some did not comment about the last, and the section title uses "move")

NOTICE The subject is currently a topic of the discussion in Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links#General Secretary and similar articles. - üser:Altenmann >t 15:51, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• Support merge. "Secretary-General", "General Secretary", and "First Secretary" are synonyms. Different organizations prefer one form or the other, but there's no consistent distinction between the types of organizations using each term, nor between the duties of the office holder. Some political parties are headed by a General Secretary, others by a Secretary-General; some international organizations are headed by a Secretary-General, others by a General Secretary. Having separate articles here would be like having separate articles for "Minister of Foreign Affairs" and "Foreign Affairs Minister". —Psychonaut (talk) 09:34, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
• Yes, I believe it may be a good idea to merge the two together and avoid unnecessary confusion. And with some new explanatory information of differences etc it should work out fine, I think.--Bemland (talk) 05:52, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support merge. The article has no sources and focuses on communist usage, even though I have noticed several non-communist groups (such as RPF) using the term. Bataaf van Oranje (talk) 16:09, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
• partial support. In many cases these are translations from other languages and the pick seems random, and often interchangeable. For example Leonid Brezhnev used to be called "General Secretary", "Secretary-General" and "Secretary General". On the other hand, "First Secretary" is a simply different word, and not always, "first secretary" is the boss. So all this becomes a mess.

Therefore I would suggest to simply make two disambig pages, for the following reasons:

• The narrative is weak, unreferenced, or none
• The actual functions vary wildly
• In some cases the titles S-G and GS are interchangeable and in some they are not.
• Not all people can "split the hair", especially referring to foreign titles.

During merging, I would also trim mercilessly the portrait gallery.

If someone manages to write a meaningful article, with the history of the title, and such (similar to e.g., "Chairman"), we can always make it "main" page, accompanied with "Secretary-General (disambiguation)" .

- üser:Altenmann >t 03:34, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• Merging General Secretary with Secretary-General is not a good idea. The Secretary-General of the United Nations nor the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations are not called General Secretary. The Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Commonwealth of Nations are the Chief Administrative Officers of their respective organizations, as is the Secretary-General of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). --Commonwealth Historian 03:21, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

A merged page would list "Secretary-General of the United Nations" as an example, among others of all three wordings (First Secretaries also), without proposing that "General Secretary of the United Nations" is a valid term. --doncram 16:12, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The UK monarch is not the ex-officio Head of the Commonwealth, rather it is a title that Queen Elizabeth II holds personally. So theoretically, however unlikely, the next UK monarch is not necessarily going to assume this role. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.239.239.148 (talk • contribs) 22:26, 3 July 2013‎

Re: "holds personally". Interesting. Where in wikipedia can I read about this in more detail? - üser:Altenmann >t 15:53, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• Support merge. A "Secretary" (in this context) is a holder of a ministerial portfolio; "General", whether before or after, indicates that the ministerial officer in this case does not hold a specific portfolio such as the treasury or defense or education, but holds the general portfolio, i.e. authority over all of the other portfolios. bd2412 T 16:08, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• Support merge of all three (including First Secretary). The fact that there is variation in usage (Altenmann notes a "First Secretary" is not always the boss) does not pose any problem. Examples of a First Secretary (or General Secretary) as the top person of an organization should be given, and contrasted with examples where First Secretary (or General Secretary) is known to have a lower role. And organizations where it is not known whether the First Secretary (or General Secretary) is the overall boss for all or some matters can be listed too. To clarify these possibilities is all the more reason to have a treatment in one page, I think. The merger can be done without having everything clarified in its first version. --doncram 16:12, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.