Template talk:Tanzanian ministries

More ministries

Here's a list of the ministries of Tanzania: http://www.tanzania.go.tz/government/ --Mr Accountable (talk) 05:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More specifically, http://www.tanzania.go.tz/government/ministriesandinst.htm There seem to have been quite a few changes to the Tanzanian cabinet and the ministries, and we definitely should update the template, but I don't think AfricaTanz' edit is the way to go. He seems to have broken links while trying to impose his preferred naming convention. Huon (talk) 23:15, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Huon. I agree. There has been some changes in the ministries' portfolios since the last election. I shall try to update the content/titles after the weekend. Ali Fazal (talk) 00:12, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It appears, Alifazal, that you are reverting my edits here and elsewhere as some sort of personal vendetta against me. Or perhaps you have a misguided sense of ownership. Given that the edits I made to this template are 100 percent accurate, perhaps you can explain why you reverted them and why you characterized them as vandalism. I eagerly await your comments. AfricaTanz (talk) 01:42, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You should explain how I am "trying to impose [my] ... preferred naming convention". Did I invent the names of these ministries out of thin air, as your post strongly implies? Do you agree with Alifazal's characterization of my edits to this template as "vandalism"? Are you assuming that I was not going to fix the links and, more importantly, the articles to reflect the reorganization of the Tanzanian executive branch in 2010? Do you believe all this work can be done instantaneously? Have you been assuming good faith or instead stoking the fires of conflict and misunderstanding? I eagerly await your explanation because this is not the first instance of your comments like this. I can give you the diffs if you need them. Cheers. AfricaTanz (talk) 03:02, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Huon, please review Alifazal's latest version of this template and let me know if it is entirely consistent with the current names of Tanzania's executive branch ministries. Then, compare my version to those names. Which is more correct? Perhaps you should correct any inaccuracies instead of making inaccurate accusations about myself. Cheers. AfricaTanz (talk) 03:06, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For all I can tell AfricaTanz' edits consisted of three parts:

  1. Sorting the ministries alphabetically. Surely we can all agree that's an improvement.
  2. Updating the list of ministries to reflect the current cabinet. I haven't checked that in detail, but again I expect no one disagrees with that in principle, though we may want to keep the former ministries in a separate part of the template; compare Template:USCabinet for what I mean.
  3. Changing the links to ministry articles. That's the part I disagree with. Let me give a specific example: [[Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Cooperatives|Agriculture, Food and Cooperatives]] was changed to [[Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Cooperatives, Tanzania|Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives]]. We don't have a redirect or an article at Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Cooperatives, Tanzania, so the link pointed nowhere instead of to the ministry article. Similarly the links to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Marketing, of Tanzania and Ministry of Information, Culture and Sports, of Tanzania articles were broken, and while I agree with AfricaTanz that the current names for those ministries are just plain wrong, the solution is to move the articles and only then change the links (which are piped anyway so our readers don't see what the linked article is actually named), not to break the links.

It's getting very late over here; I'll propose moves for those ministry articles and notify the WikiProject of the overhaul over the weekend. Huon (talk) 03:40, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't answer my important questions that are relevant to you in particular because of the poisonous atmosphere you have helped instigate, promote, and maintain. I would appreciate your addressing them at your earliest convenience. AfricaTanz (talk) 15:07, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comparing AfricaTanz' version with Alifazal's version, I'm not happy with either and will indeed correct what I see as inaccuracies in both. Regarding the displayed names, AfricaTanz was much closer to the government list (though not perfectly so; eg "Finance" vs. "Finance and Economic Affairs"). Regarding the linked article titles, Alifazal's version was much better; AfricaTanz had four redlinks to ministries on which we do have articles, redlinks created because AfricaTanz made those links conform to his preferred scheme without regard for the current article titles. That's what I meant by "trying to impose his preferred naming convention", especially in connection with page moves such as this one where AfricaTanz indeed changed method of disambiguation according to his preference without prior discussion. I hope this answers all questions.
Anyway, looking forward, I'm about to implement the following changes:
  1. Alphabetic ordering,
  2. correcting the ministry names as given by the list above or, in case of disagreements, the ministry's own website (especially "Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives" and "East African Cooperation"),
  3. moving the ministries which no longer exist to a separate "Former" section.
All of the ministries that no longer exist seem to have a direct successor: "Infrastructure Development" has become "Works", "Higher Education, Science and Technology" was turned into "Communication, Science and Technology" and "Water and Irrigation" became "Water". I wouldn't be opposed to getting rid of the "Former" group again and instead linking the current ministries to the articles on their predecessors. Huon (talk) 23:10, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This problem resulting from the Tanzanian president's reorganization and reshuffling of ministries could recur at any time. Unlike in many other countries, this president has the legal authority to structure the ministries as he sees fit. A new reshuffling is likely to happen soon, per news reports. This argues for Tanzanian ministry articles having more generic names. Besides that issue, we are making educated guesses about which ministries were new, merely renamed, or abolished in 2010. That is not a satisfactory thing to do. Compounding the inadvisability of doing that is the fact that some ministries claim on their websites to have been created in 2010 when the high probability is that they were merely renamed or had functions added or subtracted. AfricaTanz (talk) 02:13, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Per its own website, it is simply the Ministry of Finance. AfricaTanz (talk) 02:35, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The finance ministry's website's "about" page calls it the "Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs", "Ministry of Finance" apparently is just a shorthand. Regarding generic ministry names I'm open to suggestions, but I don't quite see how more generic names would help when the actual functions of the ministries change. The issue relevant to this template is that we have three articles on ministries which no longer exist under those names. I don't think not linking to those articles at all is a good solution, and thus have added the "Former" group. AfricaTanz, what do you suggest for those articles? Turn them into more generic articles and link to them under their current incarnations' names, or under the generic names? Remove them altogether? I didn't quite understand your preference. Huon (talk) 04:33, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea why you believe that "Ministry of Finance" is shorthand for anything. http://www.mof.go.tz AfricaTanz (talk) 02:38, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Because their "about" page says: The Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs manages the overall revenue, expenditure and financing of the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania and provides the Government with advice on the broad financial and economic affairs of Tanzania in support of the Government’s economic and social objectives. And while third-party sources are ambiguous, there are some using the name's long form: [1] Huon (talk) 03:01, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
But their home page is unequivocal, as are the graphics on all their web pages. AfricaTanz (talk) 03:54, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The perhaps insurmountable problem is that we do not have an efficient way to determine whether in 2010 functions were moved, names were merely changed, ministries were abolished, or ministries were newly created. Without that information, I do not see how the existing articles can be changed without a ton of guessing, which would ipso facto be unsourced and against Wikipedia policy. AfricaTanz (talk) 23:46, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reworked

So for anyone not aware, Magufuli combined a lot of ministries, the template should be the most up to date list accounting for any mergers and split. Please update the pages (move them) if they're just a simple rename. If they're a merger/change of role/split, mark the existing one as former and create new pages for them. I'll probably keep working on them the next few days, but if anyone else is looking here after noticing all the red links, this is why! --Lewis Cawte (Talk) 14:29, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]