Talk:Presiding Officer

Latest comment: 16 years ago by DrFrench in topic Speaker

Speaker edit

My edit[1] was reverted with the edit summary "rv - articles tend to suggest the prev text was more appropriate." Can you please clarify: what other articles, in what way do they tend to suggest it, and is there any reason why there shouldn't be a wider-ranging debate on whether 'speaker' is the correct name for all presiding officers of national assemblies, or just the name that happens to be in use in the UK, the USA and some other countries? Scolaire (talk) 07:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

In the absence of clarification I am reverting back. My reasoning is: the presiding officer is self-explanatory - a person elected to preside; similarly chairman is a person who sits in the Chair, whereas speaker has no obvious meaning and as I said above, it is just the name that happens to be in use in the UK, the USA and some other countries.

Quite simply. this is a disambigutaion page on an English-language Wiki. Speaker is a term that many readers will be familiar with (being as it is used in many English-speaking countries) and including it on the dab page will help readers to establish context quickly. Wikilinking Speaker helps those who may not be familiar with the term actually find the article(s) that they are looking for. Surely that's the point of a dab page? Just look here [2] on the website of the Dail's Ceann Comhairle, where the term Speaker is not the official title, but the term is used early on to provide context. I appreciate that you feel the term Speaker is perhaps Anglo-centric, but the fact is it's more useful to include it rather than exclude it. DrFrench (talk) 09:47, 16 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I've just realised that I didn't answer your apecific question. The articles I was referring to are the articles linked from this dab page. If you look at the the first line from the first three articles linked;
The Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales (Welsh: Llywydd) is the Speaker of the National Assembly for Wales...
The Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly is the presiding officer of the Northern Ireland Assembly...
The Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament (Scottish Gaelic: Oifigear-Riaghlaidh, Scots: Preses o the Scots Pairlament) is the speaker of the Scottish Parliament...
It's fairly clear there's sufficient contextual link with the term Speaker. DrFrench (talk) 09:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)Reply