Talk:Barca (ancient city)

Requested moves

 * 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. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Pages moved per consensus Barca → Barca (ancient city), Barca (disambiguation) → Barca  Philg88 ♦talk 09:12, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

– I think that the ancient Greek colony isn't more important than other pages. --Relisted. Andrewa (talk) 22:17, 24 October 2014 (UTC) Vivaelcelta {talk  &middot;&#32; contributions} 03:47, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Barca → Barca, Libya
 * Barca (disambiguation) → Barca

Survey

 * Interesting case - I bet there is a way we can find out if a large portion of the views here are coming from people actually looking for the football team.--Yaksar (let's chat) 05:08, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep, looks like it. In May 2011, on the day FC Barcelona won the champion's league, views for this page shot up from around 150 or so per day to over 1700.--Yaksar (let's chat) 05:12, 16 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Strong support replacement with the disambiguation page, per nom. My first thought was for Hamilcar Barca -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 05:29, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support not least for the basic fulfilment of the basics of wp:AT. Gregkaye  ✍ ♪  10:07, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose moving Barca to Barca, Libya; it's not a place in Libya, and the modern city in this location has its own page with a ", Libya" qualifier. However, I'd support moving the page to something like Barca (Greek colony) and moving the disambiguation page to Barca. Dekimasu よ! 02:51, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Noting however your support (diff) for the alternative proposal below. Andrewa (talk) 21:03, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support move of the DAB. Probably no primary topic, but the current page is not the primary topic and I think we have a strong consensus on that, and that the DAB should move to Barca undisambiguated. Relisting to allow more consideration of where to move the article. Agree that Barka (Libya) is not ideal, agree that Barca (Greek colony) would be acceptable but perhaps we can do better, it was founded by Greece but didn't remain a Greek colony and the article deals with the later periods as well. Perhaps Barca (North Africa)? Andrewa (talk) 22:23, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Oops, meant Barca, Libya not Barca (Libya)... but they both seem to have insufficient support. And to move the article we obviously need to move it somewhere. Andrewa (talk) 08:03, 25 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Support. If there is a primary topic it's almost certainly the football club . Zarcadia (talk) 00:00, 25 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose the ", Libya" disambiguator for reasons stated by other users above. What about something with "ancient" or "antiquity" in it?  —  AjaxSmack   02:03, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Can you be more specific? Andrewa (talk) 08:03, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * AjaxSmack, you're a respected editor at Wikipedia but I don’t understand or accept your reasoning, could you please elaborate? Zarcadia (talk) 08:59, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * , I think they mean only to oppose the move of the article to that specific disambiguator, as do several others. So I'm hoping they may support the alternative proposal below, and have sent them a heads-up about it. How about you? You supported the original proposal, but would Barca (ancient city} be acceptable? Andrewa (talk) 04:25, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, you're right that my comment wasn't clear. I'm fine with a move but not to Barca, Libya which a) could imply a modern town/city, b) could refer to the (still as of 26 Oct) Libyan region of Cyrenaica which is also called Barqah, and/or c) is anachronistic as "Libya" was not used in the modern sense in antiquity.  The suggestions in the section below seem more accurate and are also concise. —  AjaxSmack   04:58, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support moving to Barca (ancient city), and making Barca a disambiguation page, the colony is not the primary topic. -Zanhe (talk) 04:00, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Support in principle (clear lack of primary topic), but maybe move somewhere else if people don't like using (Libya) as a disambiguator. Red Slash 01:12, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Article destination
A survey as to the proposals to date, and their reception.


 * Barca, Libya (or my inadvertent suggestion Barca (Libya) - several objections on the grounds that Barca was never in Libya
 * Hamilcar Barca - no discussion as yet, but the existing article is about a person, is this even a serious suggestion?
 * Barca (Greek colony) - I objected but not strongly, on the grounds that while Barca was founded as such so the disambiguator is accurate, the article also covers later periods (e.g. Roman) so it's misleading. The article is currently a member of Category:Greek colonies but not a member of any of the subcategories of Category:Greek colonies by region and Category:Greek colonies by time of foundation and probably should be. And it is also a member of both Category:Ancient Greek sites in Libya and Category:Roman sites in Libya, note the Roman.
 * Barca (North Africa) - no discussion as yet
 * something with "ancient" or "antiquity" in it - latest suggestion, some more specific suggestions of mine below
 * ...ancient...
 * Barca (ancient city) - We have a category:ancient cities and an article ancient city. Do we have any other articles disambiguated (ancient city)? How do I find them? This didn't work.
 * ...antiquity... See antiquity and North Africa during Antiquity
 * Barca (antiquity) perhaps? Again, do we have other articles disambiguated in this way?

In my opinion the best of the above is Barca (ancient city). Comments welcome, suggest make them below (whether for suggestions old or new) rather than trying to edit my already messy survey above.

In particular, and  are the two formal oppose votes above, would you support a move to Barca (ancient city)? Andrewa (talk) 20:33, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Barca (ancient city) seems fine to me: Dothan (ancient city), Vaishali (ancient city), Histria (ancient city) are some examples of this disambiguation found using plain Wikipedia search. Dekimasu よ! 20:39, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Excellent, that completely removes my one doubt... I did try plain Wikipedia search as well, but obviously not very expertly. Andrewa (talk) 21:11, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support Barca (ancient city) if others do. As these search results show, the disambiguator seems common enough. —  AjaxSmack   04:58, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

 * Barca → Barca (ancient city)
 * Barca (disambiguation) → Barca

This appears to have consensus (above) to date.

There is strong consensus, unanimous in fact, that the DAB should move to Barca undisambiguated. The only question has been where to move the article.

Of those who participated in the survey, all but two supported the moves, self included of course. But several of us questioned the proposed target Barca, Libya, and none of our arguments, including the original rationale of the nominator, particularly supported Barca, Libya over an alternative move target such as now proposed.

The two who opposed the original move proposal, for valid reasons IMO, both now support this alternative proposal.

Unless there are objections in the meantime (make them below) these moves should IMO be made when the current discussion period expires.

And feel free to explicitly support this alternative proposal below too! It will make it easier for the closing admin. It's not strictly necessary IMO, provided you think I've accurately summarised above. Just helpful. TIA Andrewa (talk) 19:37, 26 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Endorse all of the above, and request close by any available admin. Dekimasu よ! 21:02, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move
The dab will need to be corrected when the page realizes that it's suffering from and that the settlement didn't end in late antiquity but continued as Barqa through the Arab conquest and medieval period. It probably needs to be moved entirely to Barqa since (a) that currently mistakenly redirects to the modern district instead of the medieval city and (b) the city was more important during that era than it was in antiquity, serving as the capital of the caliphate province and somewhat independent emirates. If not, it needs to go back to Barca, Libya or Barca (Libya) as people previously suggested. It probably shouldn't be needlessly separated into separate ancient and medieval pages across the Latin and Arabic forms of the same name for the same place.

If the same name for the exact same place was used all the way into the 1940s and only changed to Marj as part of decolonialization, the page should probably simply be entirely merged to Marj's history section. — Llywelyn II   18:04, 28 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The site was abandoned between the 11th century and the early 19th century. It makes sense to treat the pre-abandonment city as distinct from modern Marj, particularly as the identification of Barca and Marj is probable, not certain.
 * I think using the Latin name rather neatly avoids the bias of choosing between Greek or Arabic names. Furius (talk) 03:00, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

"Berber" name
The intro previously included the unsourced claim
 * Berqa

but (a) that's a language family and not a language; (b) there's no language in that family that is anywhere near this city or that historically controlled the city; (c) it's the wrong script for any language in the family, even if there were one. If it's going to be reincluded, the history section should mention what the connection is to the specific dialect that's being given, ideally in the correct script. — Llywelyn II   17:58, 28 March 2024 (UTC)