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 to lowercase Ministry of foreign affairs (along with the other three). While there are (disputed) arguments that this is a proper name, and that this is actually a dab page in disguise (not disputed), a majority of posters agree that the article is about the general concept. Plus, there's the precedent at Talk:Ministry_of_Defence#Requested_move_5_February_2021. No such user (talk) 11:21, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ministry of Foreign Affairs → Ministry of foreign affairs – article is about the general concept Primergrey (talk) 07:53, 16 February 2023 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). UtherSRG (talk) 12:19, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Politics has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 12:20, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Lists has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 12:20, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Countries has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 12:20, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject International relations has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 12:20, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Proper name. – robertsky (talk) 21:16, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is about all ministries of foreign affairs. Surely the idea of a ministry of foreign affairs isn't a proper name. Primergrey (talk) 21:45, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This page also functions as dab page for all similarly named organisations. I would not oppose to other names that downcases it, i.e. List of foreign ministries, etc. – robertsky (talk) 02:43, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Support The article title is a generic name, describing all government ministries responsible for foreign affairs, regardless of whether they use that title or not (see content). The ministries in the individual countries have a proper names. WP guidance consensus is clear at WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS (specifically MOS:INSTITUTIONS) Davidships (talk) 21:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per Davidships. This is obviously not referring to one unique entity, and some of the institutions identified in the article have names that are different from the described term (e.g. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade or External Action Service). This is an article about a class of institutions, not one particular institution, so it is a common noun. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:16, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose This is a proper name. The page serves as a disambiguation page of various institutions which use that proper name. It is not about "ministries of foreign affairs". If it was plural, or listed as plural, I could go for it. But in singular form, it reflects a proper name.

Also, @Primergrey, I think it is rather bad form to split each ministry into separate RMs and force commentators to discover what other pages are being proposed to move, and repeat the same arguments elsewhere, forcing discussion to be fragmented and scattered across multiple pages. It is even poorer form not to even link to the other RMs here. The RMs should have been consolidated into one multiple-move request. If possible, I'd like to request that all the individual RMs be closed and for @Primergrey reformulate his RM request as a multi-page move. Walrasiad (talk) 06:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Procedural suggestion: There are four open RMs about ministries of Religious Affairs, Justice, Finance and Foreign Affairs. Since it was the first one that was requested, I suggest we focus the discussion at Talk:Ministry of Religious Affairs#Requested move 16 February 2023 and keep the others open until that discussion is closed, so we can avoid needing to make the same comments in four different places. (If someone wants to convert all these into a single multi-article RM, I would have no objection to that as an alternative approach.) —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. However, I see no point to the two separate articles: this one and Foreign minister. They should be merged, as should other similar pairs of articles. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:15, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. This article is about ministries of foreign affairs in the abstract, not a specific Ministry of Foreign Affairs of [Placename].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:32, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]