Talk:British National (Overseas)

Merger proposal

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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I propose merging British National (Overseas) passport into British National (Overseas) and British passport. The BN(O) passport article has significant overlap with the other two. Background information for the status itself is covered in great detail in the main BN(O) article. Information like endorsements, physical appearance, and issuance are all dealt with in the British passport article. Given that almost the entire BN(O) passport article duplicates information already detailed in the other two articles, I feel that it should be considered for merging. Additionally, the article contains entire sections that are uncited or very poorly cited and contains non-free images (all UK passport images continue to be covered under Crown copyright). Horserice (talk) 06:42, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree, but given that this merger was rejected years ago I would suggest notifying any participants in that discussion who are still active (if any). Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:46, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Notified all participants in the last discussion. Horserice (talk) 18:21, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I think the BN(O) passport has quite a significant history of its own and deserves its own article. But I agree that a lot of the content in the British National (Overseas) passport belongs in British National (Overseas). The passport article should not be an article explaining the nationality, but rather focus on the travel document.

The purpose of the British National (Overseas) passport article should be to explain what is unique to the document relative to other British passports. This includes unique history such as the counterfeiting issues and how it was perceived in the 80s and 90s, how many have been in circulation and how that has changed over time, the documentation you need to get one, how applications are processed, unique annotations, etc.

Having taken a look just now at the current state of the BN(O) passport article, I agree that it needs a bit of a refresh and the odd passport photo needs replacement. I previously refreshed the British passport article, so I might take a look at doing the same for the BN(O). Gustave.iii (talk) 23:04, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

• I think the BN(O) passport has quite a significant history of its own Ehhh if the article could stand apart by itself, then it wouldn't be duplicating information found in the other ones.
• how it was perceived in the 80s and 90s I would say that it's inaccurate to talk about how the passport was perceived when that discussion should be directed at the nationality. The status was controversial because of the rights that it didn't grant, not the passport.
• how many have been in circulation and how that has changed over time Because the rise and fall of passports in circulation has been directly tied to the political stability/instability of the region and that has affected the rights associated with the nationality, it would be difficult to cover the topic effectively without including significant background information on the status itself, which brings us back to where we started.
• the documentation you need to get one, how applications are processed, unique annotations Since passports are all centrally issued by HMPO, the BN(O) passport does not differ from other British passports on this. Observations applicable to BN(O)s may also appear on British citizen passports so they are not unique in that regard. Horserice (talk) 08:14, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

British passport (Bermuda), British passport (British Virgin Islands), British passport (Gibraltar) all have their own articles. BNO passport is a direct descendent of the "British passport (Hong Kong)".

Support to keep nationality & passport articles separate The reasons that the merge was last rejected are still valid today. For example, Citizenship of the United States and US passport each has their own separate articles. By definition, the passport articles and nationality articles cover different content (and they should). Overlapping content should be eliminated, not the articles itself (or through merging). The passport articles cover the design, features, the scope of personal data printed on the passport etc, while the nationality articles covers the rights status, and privilege etc. Passport articles should only cover content that is unique to that particular passport. (In this case, it may highlight the similarity and difference from other British passports, but should not to overstep to include EVERYTHING that is said in other British passports) If Cayman Island Passport, with population of only 76000, has enough data to met the criteria for having an article on its own right, with population of a few million I don't see how British National (Overseas) passport can't. Having too much (overlapping) information on the article seem to be a weak reason to merge, as you can always delete irreverent/overlapping content. The aim should be set at articles improvement, setting and adhering clear article boundary, instead of taking the easy way of merging them. British passport (Bermuda), British passport (British Virgin Islands), British passport (Gibraltar) all have their own passport articles. Note that the BNO passport is a direct descendent of old British passport (Hong Kong) Da Vynci (talk) 20:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• Citing that other passport articles exist in itself is a "weak reason" to keep an article. All of the variant British passport articles should be merged into the main British passport article as well. These are all documents are issued by HMPO that only have slight differences in the text presented in the data page and front cover. The similarities and differences in design or information presented are already mentioned in the main article. We're not even supposed to show images of British passports since they fall under Crown copyright so any variant British passport article would continue to be stub articles that don't contain any information not already covered. Horserice (talk) 20:42, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Support to keep nationality & passport articles separate You purposed "merging British National (Overseas) passport into British National (Overseas) and British passport", and now in your last response you dropped or no longer mention "merging passport into citizenship" after I pointed out Citizenship of the United States and US passport each has their own different articles. (You went on talking about other issues such as your plan of merging of variant passports in to main passport article, which is not the "citizenship vs passport" you purposed first at the beginning, and copyright (you can fix that by going thought the proper procedure, but not here). You didn't really address my point that citizenship articles and passport articles have long established, and that they should cover different content (although poorly carried out in the BNO articles), and the solution of rewriting existing articles and setting clear content boundary, which makes more sense to me. Using your logic, if somebody started adding repeated content in British passport, to you that's a reason to merge British passport into British Citizenship? instead of keeping boundary? You talked far more about "variant passport vs main passport". Do you no longer pursuing merging "passport vs nationality" over BNO articles? (Just so that we are arguing on the exact same level of issue) Da Vynci (talk) 20:53, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Just because an article currently exists and has been around for a long time doesn't mean that it's not subject to a merger or deletion when the situation is appropriate. I only brought up merging the other variant passports because you mentioned them as part of your argument as to why the BN(O) passport article should continue standalone. After merging all the different variant passport articles, there would be a clear divide in content between the single British passport article covering all its alternate versions and the six articles on British nationality (British nationality law, British National (Overseas), British Overseas Territories citizen, British protected person, British Overseas citizen, British subject). There does not need to be a corresponding passport article for each of these statuses. Horserice (talk) 22:34, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Support. Horserice's arguments make sense to me, and I don't think the objections are addressing his points. A separate article on the citizenship issues is fine, but the article on the document shouldn't repeat all that material, so there's no reason to divide up the articles so finely. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:44, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Support for readers' convenience. Meow. Kiyokoakiyama (talk) 20:27, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Oppose per Da Vynci and Gustave.iii. Overlapped content is a point irrelevant. 124.217.188.171 (talk) 10:58, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

If you could refute each of the points I brought up, that would helpful. Just dismissing something as irrelevant isn't persuasive. Horserice (talk) 09:30, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. It is a different class of passport. BNOs for example don't have automatic right of abode in the U.K. It's not like how French outer regions are common / the same as metro-France. CaribDigita (talk) 08:44, 9 June 2022 (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.