Talk:Postal administration

WikiProject notice
It depends on the numbers involved but it would be great to get this WikiProject moving. It is currently inactive. --Jack 11:41, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Proposed Rename to Postal Administration
I believe the current title of this article: Postal Authority is colloquial and inaccurate from a titling perspective. First, the phrase Postal Authority is not really sourced in this article in any contemporary way. Indeed, one might find reliable sources from the past that defined Postal Authority, but I suspect there would be significant inconsistency as one compiled a number of sources. The Encyclopedia of Postal Authorities is not a valid source for the phase Postal Authority as it merely used the colloquiallism in its title. I submit that the phrase Postal Administration is the proper contemporary term to title the content in this article. This is based in part on Postal Administrations in the UPC and in part because I suspect Postal Authority is a philatelically inspired colloquiallism and not an official Postal phrase. If we were to rely solely on reference works or offical documents focused on postal organization and operations (not the philatelic study of them), we would probably find postal administration used more widely than postal authority.

That said, there is nothing inaccurate about the content of this article, except the inaccuracy of its title.--Mike Cline (talk) 18:18, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * In fact the "Encyclopedia of Postal Authorities" is a website compiled by folks who are also WP editors, so it's not an independent source. "Postal Authority" is in some cases an official title, for instance in Israel . Googling doesn't show an obvious preference for either term, and it's a little "contaminated" by WP mirroring. My printed literature uses the term "postal service" as much as anything else. It's very often the case in WP that there isn't an obvious best term for a general concept, and a great many talk pages have been filled by arcane arguments about why one should be preferred over another. I suspect this is one of those cases. Stan (talk) 18:49, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Ironically, the collection of articles about individual postal authorities/administrations/services is entitled Category:Postal organisations. :-) Stan (talk) 18:53, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * On a quick, down and dirty, survey of the postal operators website, most use the term "Postal service" to refer to what they do or what they are and others call themselves "Postal operators". I did not see "Postal organisation" or "Postal administration" at all, though I did not look at all the websites. IMHO "Postal organisation" refers more to umbrella organisations rather than service companies and Postal service is a dab page. I have no axe to grind, so I will likely agree with the majority but a more accurate term we could seriously consider is "Postal operator" who provide "postal services". ww2censor (talk) 20:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * "Postal operator" strikes me as a thoroughly modern term that's only come into use in this age of privatization. Just for fun, I'm thumbing through Patrick Hamilton's A Hundred Years of Postage Stamps (guess when it was published :-) ), and it uses "service", except when quoting from the original treaty establishing the GPU, where it says "Postal Administration". Of course, the book is a little dated, as evidenced by the characterization of the semi-postal stamp as a, I kid you not, "n***** in the philatelic woodpile". Stan (talk) 21:21, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * As the Universal Postal Union seems to use the term "Postal Administration" to describe the principal national postal organization in each country (see the June, 2006, UPU report Status and Structures of Postal Administrations as correctly noted by Mike Cline), I would think that "Postal Administration" is therefore probably the best title (as opposed to "Postal Authority") to advance the "worldwide" view even if the 191 individual UPU member nations my use other titles locally (such as "system" or "service") in the official names of their various administrations. (Centpacrr (talk) 00:16, 29 July 2008 (UTC))
 * So, Centpacrr, discussion and consensus again mean nothing to you as far as I can see. We are in the middle of a discussion here and no consensus has yet been reached but yet you contribute some comments and then just make major changes to the whole article based on your viewpoint. That is not the way it is supposed to works, but you know that already. ww2censor (talk) 04:41, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The proposal being discussed, as I understood, was whether or not to change the name of the article from "Postal Authority" to "Postal Administration," and as far as I can tell, it is still called "Postal Authority." The other changes I made were to correct or modify unsourced or other language in the second paragraph which was (at least in my view) either vague, ungrammatical, inaccurate, misleading, and/or inconsistent with verifiable facts and/or other articles, and also tried to give it a little bit more of a "world" view (as opposed to being UK-centric), i.e., "editing", but as apparently any editing of any article of which any aspect is being discussed in any way appears to be objectionable (although I have been unable to find this policy stated anywhere), I have restored the earlier deficient language and will leave it up to those making the objections and others to fix (or not fix) in whatever way they feel most comfortable. (I cannot guarantee, however, that if I come across this article again in the future and find these defficiencies unaddressed and it still essentially in the same condition that it is now that I might not make another attempt to improve it myself.)(Centpacrr (talk) 15:06, 29 July 2008 (UTC))


 * Because the naming directly impacts the content of this article, especially if "Postal administration" is the decision as opposed to "Postal operator" which are entirely different things, I thought it would have been better to wait for the discussion to finish. You may well be correct that some additions, correction should be made, but let's get this finalised first. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 04:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The Essence of Postal Administrations
If one carefully reviews Status and Structures of Postal Administrations you'll see that Postal Administrations are comprised of two functions--The Regulator and The Operator. Beyond that there is little consistency from country to country as to what role each function plays in the administration of the posts and how they are named. In some countries these functions are carried out by a single organization, while in others they are divided up between different governmental and quasi-governmental entities of which there may or may not be a hierarchical relationship. If this article was strictly about the operators of postal systems--Postal Operator would be a correct title. However that would be problematic, because it would be difficult to separate the regulatory function from the operator function. For the most part postal operators don't set rates, determine what kind of services are or are not provided, etc., the Postal Regulator does. The probability that this type of regulation content would creep into the article is pretty high and thus would be inaccurate. I don't believe we need two articles--Postal Operators and Postal Regulators to keep these functions separate, but we cannot deny they exist. The umbrella term Postal Administration is so well defined by the way the UPU uses the term in the above document that its meaning is beyond debate. The fact that individual postal operators have names like Postal Service, Postal Authority, Postal Corporation, Post, or Post Office is not relevant to the overall concept this article is attempting to convey. Additionally, the fact that other 3rd party literature over the years might have referred to postal authority, organization, services, etc., doesn't negate the fact that the functions of Postal Regulation and Postal Operations are called Postal Administration by the largest official international body--the Uber-Authority - the UPU involved with postal stuff.--Mike Cline (talk) 13:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually I don't entirely agree with your interpretation of that UPU document. I do agree with Stan that "Postal operator" is the correct term to be used as a modern replacement for "Postal authority". Mike you are correct that there is not much consistency between the actual operator's own naming or descriptions of their service in general. What their names are is basically irrelevant to us here, however what they actually do is most important and in that document the UPU clearly lists only the postal authority as "postal operators" while "postal administration" can, and in some case do, encompass the "postal regulator" and often the government department responsible for overseeing the postal services. Additionally, now that postal deregulation is taking place in many countries around the world we will see other companies becoming "postal operators" but these will never become "postal adminstrations". For that reason alone administration does not cut it as the accurate or verifiable name for those who collect and deliver mail. Besides which, I found another UPU document UPU Standards glossary that, on p. 28, defines Postal operator as organisation licensed to provide postal services to the general public , which, without a doubt, is what postal authorities are. So, upon careful reflection, that Postal operator is my suggestion. We should be inclusionist so if we need a Postal regulator article, so be it. Cheers and thanks for the input. ww2censor (talk) 04:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Postal Administration=Postal Operator + Postal Regulator
The article as written would require minor modification to rename it to Postal Operator and Ww2Censor’s points about private postal operators are valid in the sense that the implied definition of a Postal Operator does not change regardless of the status of the operator—government entity, quasi-government entity or licensed private entity.

I jumped into this as I was drafting a new Airmail Stamp article and went about accurately trying to discuss the issuance of Airmail Stamps. Of course I used the term Postal Authority but found the article wanting, especially as regards the issuance of postage stamps. The term Postal Administration had no article and did not redirect to any article. This prompted me to begin researching the UPU and other documents regarding the concept that Postal Operators and Postal Regulators combine to form a universally used umbrella term: Postal Administration. I used the word universal here deliberately because I have yet to find any historic or contemporary reference that doesn’t support the notion that Postal Operation and Postal Regulation combine under the internationally accepted umbrella term Postal Administration Here’s a few examples of what I mean:
 * The title of the first chapter of this book is: Post Office Administration and it is evident from the text that Hill is discussing both the operations of the post and the regulation of the post.


 * One of the prominent discussions in this book is the UPU and it contains the entire text of the 1906 UPU Convention of which a typical paragraph is as below:

The postal administrations of contiguous countries, or countries able to correspond directly with each other without availing themselves of the services of a third administration, determine by common consent, the conditions of the conveyance of mails which they exchange across the frontier or from one frontier to the other. (Page 20)


 * Memorandum Of Understanding Between The United States Postal Service And The Postal Administration Of The People's Republic Of Bulgaria Concerning The Operation of The Intelpost Service Here we have an official diplomatic document between Bulgaria and the United States in which both entities subject to the agreement are consistently referred to as Postal Administrations. There are literally hundreds of diplomatic and other official documents that describe relationships between various Postal Administrations.  I have yet to find an official or diplomatic documents that refers to agreements between postal authorities or postal operators.


 * The Evolution of the Postal Service in the Era of the UPU This excellent 3rd party encapsulation of the history of international postal services consistently uses the umbrella term Postal Administrations to describe the participants in the business or providing international postal services. Indeed in the section of this treatise entitled The Basic Rules one can easily deduce two primary functions of Postal Administration—Postal Operations and Postal Regulations.

This leads me to the following conclusion: Having three articles in WP entitled Postal Administration, Postal Operator and Postal Regulator would be perfectly consistent with the world as we know it. Each article would deal with the subject as supported by verifiable sources. However, when it came to linking to other articles or creating redirects problems would arise. Generically you could not redirect the phrase postal authority to either the operator or regulator article unless there was specific context that made it valid. Generically all postal operators or all postal regulators don’t issue postage stamps so unless there was a specific context, postage stamps are issued by Postal Administrations. While the term Postal Authority is clearly colloquial, the notion thatPostal Operator and Postal Authority are synonymous is incorrect because although aPostal Operator may indeed colloquially be an Authority, a Postal Regulator is also an Authority and its doubtful one can argue that Postal Regulators are synonymous with Postal Operators.

I strongly favor a single article entitled Postal Administration because it is accurate, reflects a verifiable world view and significantly simplifies the linking of other relevant articles to the concepts it contains.--Mike Cline (talk) 14:23, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Concur.(Centpacrr (talk) 15:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC))


 * It is somewhat hairsplitting, but on balance I think I'd favor "postal administration" as the umbrella term, because "administration" is a nicely vague bureaucratic term that seems as applicable to the 1840 British Post Office as to today's operations. In addition, "postal operator" would be a good top-level article that all the individual modern operator articles link back to. The postal regulation aspect is probably sufficiently handled in the administration article - we can always split later if there is really that much material. We do need to be careful not to be too officious about terminology - after all, one of our "postal administrations" consisted of Reverend Millar working at his typewriter... :-) Stan (talk) 16:49, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Draft Postal Administration Article
I took a stab at drafting the beginning of a Postal Administration article with the idea that this article with a bit of work becomes the Postal Operator article. With these two articles, the terms postal authority can selectively be replaced in articles as appropriate with either operator or administration and postal authority would redirect to postal administration.

Draft at: User talk:Mike Cline/Articles Under Contemplation/Postal Administration --Mike Cline (talk) 20:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I though you were against having separate Postal operator and Postal regulator articles, so I assumed, as we are going to use the term Postal administration that we would include sub-sections for "postal operators" and "postal regulator". Would that not make more sense because I don't see regulator or operator being very big sections and administrator does encompass both operators and regulators? With that in mind, Postal operator and Postal regulator would be redirects to Postal administration. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 23:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks good, Mike. I would suggest including that the UPU was established in 1874 by the Treaty of Bern, and that it is now a specialized agency in the United Nations. Also while the UN is not itself a "nation" it does in fact have its own postal administration that operates a limited (mostly philatelic) postal service of its own. (Centpacrr (talk) 23:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC))
 * Good thoughts Centpacrr. Ww2censor you are correct in your assessment of my primary inclination but I was merely differing to Stan's idea that a Postal Operator article might be appropriate.  I think we've got some tortured consensus on this one.--Mike Cline (talk) 00:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * So Mike I am unclear what you are saying. Have you backed off from your statement above: "I strongly favor a single article entitled Postal Administration" or not? Cheers ww2censor (talk) 00:16, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes and No. Indeed it may seem that I am waffling at bit here.  I apologize. I do strongly feel that a single article is probably sufficient, but getting there might be a two or three step process to get it right.  Lets create the Postal Administration article and rename the Postal Authority article to Postal Operator because that's what its mostly about now.  Then as we cleanup the links from Postal Authority references throughtout WP, we will learn a bit about how best to finalize this topic.  A single Postal Administration article may suffice or the two articles may be the better approach.  If the single article proves to be the better approach we just propose and execute a merge of the Postal Operator article into the Postal Adminstration article.  I will go ahead and take the initiative to get us to TWO clean articles and then we can proceed from there.--Mike Cline (talk) 12:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, would it not be better to just rename Postal authority to Postal administration, as was agreed above, and create 2 or 3 sections within it for the sub-topics? If the one article become too big them we can demerge rather then make more articles now that may only mean more work later to merge? BTW I think title case is incorrect. I also notice that in your draft you do not have a lead section; you just go straight into the full explanation. Articles should have a lead section that: serves both as an introduction to the article below and as a short, independent summary of the important aspects of the article's topic.. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 17:30, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * A potentially useful link to refer to while developing the article.(Centpacrr (talk) 18:29, 2 August 2008 (UTC))


 * Finally Made The Move - Have been on the road making a new home move from Slapout, Alabama to Bozeman, Montana. Finally got an opportunity to do some work on this.  Old text from Postal Authority is saved below and I will reintegrate into the article over the next few days as time permits.

A postal authority organises collection and delivery of domestic mail (US), or post (UK), within its area of control, or in the case of foreign mail, delivery to or receipt of mail from other postal authorities.

Payment for the service has been performed in many ways. Most commonly, since the introduction of postage stamps in the United Kingdom in 1840, and later in other countries, the sender buys a small label (i.e., a postage stamp) that he affixes to the letter or package. The label is "stamped" with the postmark of the local post office and, after sorting, the letter is taken to its destination and delivered to the recipient. Before postage stamps were introduced, it was generally the recipient who paid for the letter on delivery. There are other schemes in place such as freepost, called "business reply mail" in some countries, which are variations of payment on delivery in that an organisation issues either pre-paid envelopes to its clients or customers in advance of them sending an order or a payment, or issue special envelopes that are paid for by the business or organisation when they are returned by the client.

History
In medieval times, posts were controlled by rulers and indeed a public post was almost unheard of. If a common person wanted to send a letter to someone in a distant town, he had to rely on a traveller to take it there, usually for a small fee. It might be possible, if the sender had sufficient influence, to have his letter delivered by a royal courier or perhaps by a merchant. Royal and merchant posts were usually delivered by parallel systems.

Monarchs of the time recognised the need to control all aspects of their domains and the transfer of information was certainly a prime concern. As a result, the so-called Royal Posts were established in most of the advanced countries such as England and France. The French King Louis XI (ruled 1461-1483), the notorious "Universal Spider", took a particular interest in the progress of his messages and established a system of staging posts, usually at inns or perhaps at remote farms, where his messengers could quickly exchange horses, leaving one in stable and taking a fresh one for the next stage of his journey. This reduced delivery times considerably.

Merchant posts originated in Renaissance Italy and had spread throughout Europe by the end of the 16th Century. These posts were a natural adjunct to trading missions but in time they became independent of trade and regular delivery services were established.

The royal and merchant posts were thus the earliest postal authorities. Gradually, the services were opened up to the public. In England, this was achieved in 1657 by means of a Post Office Act, which was consolidated by a subsequent Act of 1660 that established the famous Royal Mail. The main principle of this legislation was that the (General) Post Office which controlled the Royal Mail service was a state monopoly under the control of the Postmaster-General, an appointed government official.

The practice of "stamping" letters with a postmark was established at the outset to check on speed and reliability of delivery. Each letter handed to the Post Office at one of its many branches would be "stamped" with the date that the letter was handed in. In due course, the postmarks included the name of the receiving post office.

Great Britain's Post Office was the first postal authority in the modern sense. The Penny Post which introduced postage stamps was also a British innovation in 1840. The British model of main and sub-post offices under a central government-controlled authority has spread worldwide, as has the use of postage stamps. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:47, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Article Rewrite
Looks good, Mike. My only suggestion I would have is to change "is an international organization that coordinates postal operations" to read " is the international organization that coordinates postal operations" unless there is some other organization or body that has the same function. (I am not aware of any.) Other than that it looks fine to me. Nice job, sir. (Centpacrr (talk) 20:38, 11 August 2008 (UTC))
 * A pretty decent start indeed but as I mentioned previously the articles should have a lead section that (I quote): serves both as an introduction to the article below and as a short, independent summary of the important aspects of the article's topic. Did you forget? Hopefully you will soon also integrate the removed text and some new data into the two sub-sections "Postal operator" and "Postal regulator". Thanks ww2censor (talk) 04:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * According to the guideline, a lead section is the section before the first heading. As the article is not currently long enough to justify any such internal headings, it would seem that by definition such a "lead section" would also be superfluous (or at least premature) at this point. (Centpacrr (talk) 06:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

Page Topic
Is the page subject here about Postal administration or about the Universal Postal Union? In the intro' mention is made about the term postal administration that it is a general, or "umbrella" like term that is used in a diplomatic capacity -- and that's it. Nothing is said here about the basic duties and functions of a postal administration. Not even in the 'Function' section. Instead the article jumps right into the specific topic of the UPU and its history, disregarding the fact that various postal administrations existed and were in use long before the UPU was ever conceived. The Universal Postal Union is simply a standard that subscriber countries use, should their postal administrations chose to subscribe to it. A postal administration refers to a generic entity that performs the same basic generic functions. i.e. Organizing and delivering the mail from point 'A' to point 'B' for a fee, be it by Courier, Pony Express, or Crown Post. None of this is even reflected upon before the article goes into the (other) subject of the UPU, which is a different type of entity with completely different functions. i.e.Establishing international standards for the postal administrations that chose to subscribe to them. The given postal administrations deliver the mail, regardless of any international standards they may or may not adhere to. It would seem that most if not all the material here about the UPU should be moved to the UPU page if it is not there already.GWillHickers (talk) 08:48, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * GH, thanks for the note on my talk page. I've been fishing all week and am heading out again today before a long road trip. The article is indeed about Postal Administration, not the UPU per se.  I think your characterization of Postal Administrations above is really a definition of Postal Operator.  Although, that said, I would be interested in seeing some sources that define Postal Administration differently than the UPU definition if they exist.--Mike Cline (talk) 11:45, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi Mike. I did a google for Postal administration before writing the original message and while I didn't see any encyclopedia accounts the examples that surfaced were pretty much the same, they all referred to individual Postal administrations of various countries. The title United Nations Postal Administration came up often, but this is reference to the UN mail system, with its own stamps. Other results included Pakistani Postal Administration and British Postal Administration and Indonesia Postal Administration and Postal Administration of Gabon -- all references to entities that organize and get the mail delivered (via operators, supervisors, etc) for their respective countries. The UPU, if referred to at all, should only be mentioned as a side note to what a postal administration is, as we know the UPU only functions as a international standard that serves various subscriber postal administrations around the globe, and only for international mail, and simply because various Postal administrations were around long before the UPU. As it is, the page mostly pertains to the UPU, its history, etc. The page more than suggests that the term Postal Administration is only used to describe postal systems that subscribe to the UPU, as if the term in of itself is a proprietary or official term used only in reference to its subscribers. --  GWillHickers (talk) 19:57, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I reverted the edits that created a made definition of Postal Administration. The world doesn't revolve around Google. Postal Administration is a legitimate term, defined by the UPU treaty.  Indeed the UPU is not a Postal Administration and the article doesn't claim it is.  But that said, the UPU treaty does define and use the term.  That is appropriate for the article.  If one desires to write an article about Postal Operators, Postal Authorities, or Postal Regulators, please do.  But don't contrive definitions about Postal Adminstration that are unsupportable.--Mike Cline (talk) 20:32, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It certainly wasn't my intention to contrive or make up a definition, as the one that is there now is little different than the one I had written. The present definition reads.. all the functional entities within a country that participate in the regulation.. -- whereas the one that was previously there read.. body of officials in any one given country that organizes, regulates and supervises... -- Same basic ("umbrella") definition with different words. Both uncited. --  As for the terms Postal Authorities and Postal Regulators these are also general and generic terms with an 'area of overlap' that is so great they are redundant and could easily be (and are) used to substitute for Postal administration. When I looked up the terms Postal regulator and Postal authority they redirected to the Postal administration page. --   GWillHickers (talk) 18:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)