International Community School (Kirkland, Washington)

Names

In the names section, I think it would be worth adding that the city is colloquially known as "Barna". As I can't edit, maybe someone with the necessary permissions could add this info. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.109.206.126 (talk) 09:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

stop changing districts/distritos/districts

Don't edit war about that name. If you look at the official website of the city of barcelona, you can see that they are called different on each language catalan, spanish and english. Since this is the english wikipedia, I think they should be called districts. Please make your point here before reverting again --Enric Naval (talk) 08:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

P.D.: Meh, I misunderstood the issue a bit. I saw it clearer when I edited the passage in question. It's already called "districts" on the article body. It was just a note on how they are called on Barcelona. At the end, I just added the name on both languages, since it's just called different on each language and there is no official name, I think. Official website will display a different name depending on what language you are using --Enric Naval (talk) 09:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Sensible approach, Enric. I guess we should have thought of that before. Rarelibra (talk) 13:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Nah, I live near Catalonia, on a bilinguistic zone, so this sort of issues arises often, it's just a question of having experience. (you'll find this duality of names occurs at most Catalonia-related articles, actually) --Enric Naval (talk) 14:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I will be in Barcelona in 5 days! :) I look forward to speaking Spanish and hearing the Catalan spoken - it sounds so different from Spanish. Rarelibra (talk) 14:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Capital of Catalonia and second largest city in Spain (or viceversa?)

I have restored the previous formulation for several reasons:

• It seemed to enjoy a general consensus for a long time.
  • Since when is that a reason not to improve an article even further? --user:israel.galan
• The proposed change was redundant. It is already stated that Barcelona belongs to Spain and it is its second largest city. Moreover, it does not seem necessary to claim here that Catalonia is nowadays a Spanish autonomous community, as this is one the first information anybody will find when following the link to Catalonia.
  • It is interesting how things can be seen differently by different people. While my edition was just to complete the article with additional information, this is viewed as claim of some sort... By the way, I like the "nowadays". It's getting easier to guess where this is coming from...--user:israel.galan
• The proposed change did not seem to be done for the sake of complete information, but with the goal of stressing unnecessarily the fact that Barcelona belongs to Spain.
  • Again, an assumption that hints a bias that is against the spirit of what we are trying to accomplish here. --user:israel.galan
• It seems that being the capital of Catalonia is somehow more relevant to define Barcelona, rather than the property of being the second largest Spanish city. Moreover, the former is an official and historical status while the latter is just some contingent state of things that could change any day (if some other important city would increase its population enough).
  • Whether it is more relevant or not is simply a matter of opinion (which you imply by saying "it seems"). In a Catalonian-centric mind, being the capital of Catalonia is surely the most relevant way (maybe even the "only" way) to define Barcelona. In a global world, which is what Wikipedia tries to reach, locating Barcelona in Spain is the first step to understand its location and its relevance in the full picture. In my mind, the initial words of an article describing a city should aim at helping the reader to narrow down the location and relevance of that place and doing so with a top-down approach strikes me as the most appropriate way. --user:israel.galan
• Other wikipedia entries about important cities which were capitals of former states have no problem in presenting things in the natural way I am restoring. For instance, Munich is primarily defined as the capital of Bavaria, or Edinburgh as the capital of Scotland.
  • Again, irrelevant. I can find just as many entries were the contrary applies. Take Marseille, for example: the fact that it is the capital of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur only shows up way down the first paragraph and Shanghai does not even have mention of its provincial status in the first paragraph. --user:israel.galan

I don't really want to play editing table-tennis here and waste time redoing my changes to see how they are undone again under cover of some self-proclaimed neutrality that is quickly negated in a couple of lines. So Cnoguera, if that is the way you want it, so be it. --user:israel.galan

--Carles Noguera (talk) 12:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Dear Israel, thanks for your comments. I think we can discuss politely about everything without any need for accusing people of being biased. Let us stick to the arguments. I have stated my points in a quite prudent way, don't you think? It is just that it seemed to me that the sentence was already informative, correct and neutral. I would be biased if I would be manipulating things (for instance by erasing references to Spain, or references to Catalonia) but it is not the case. The information about the location of the city is in the first paragraph. I just thought that the order was already correct as it was, since it seems to me that being the capital of Catalonia is some sort of more distinctive property than being just the second largest Spanish city. But, of course, as you said it is a matter of opinion and you, as well as anybody else, could prove me wrong.

--Carles Noguera (talk) 15:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta. I thought I was polite enough by higlighting how your comments may hint a certain bias, but it looks like you took it literally, which only strengthens my point further. Again, I think I proved that your arguments to reject my changes are a simple matter of opinion, so, unfortunately, the version that will prevail will only be based on who has the most time to spend playing this game. I concede my defeat.--user:israel.galan —Preceding comment was added at 03:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, so let's forget about what I should not take literally. And don't you worry. It's not a matter of victories and defeats. Luckily there are many other wikipedians working on the project, and so anyone could always improve this entry if we would be wrong in our points of view. Best regards. --Carles Noguera (talk) 12:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Transportation and infrastructures

There seem to be a number of logical/factual problems with this section:

• is 'Roads and highways' not wrongly positioned under Public transportation - they are surely not public transport, certainly no more than the airports or seaport?
• by the same token, having distinct sections for sea and air, it is then inconsistent to merge international-national railways and buses with municipal metro/trams/funicular/cable cars and cycling together without any secondary headings/navigation;
• the Montjuïc funicular/cable car reference lacks clarity, it would benefit from specifying that they are extensions of each other rather than mentioned separately, as well as saying where the former starts from;
• RENFE appears in both upper- and title-case - it should surely be written consistently, I suggest in the upper case as RENFE;
• the reference to the AVE extension is now some way out-of-date, and needs updating;
• I am fairly sure there is no such word as "bicing", surely it should read 'cycling'?

In addition:

• there is no mention anywhere of the city's other international railway station, Estación de França, even though it has its own Wikipedia entry;
• having mentioned the cycling scheme, it is surely only fair to make some reference (however brief) to wider cycling facilities/experiences;
• the reference to the AVE could benefit from what high speed means actually - such as "Madrid in just over two-and-a-half hours";
• it might also help to refer to links between different modes, specifically railway and airport.

--JSN2849 (talk) 11:32, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Grist's 15 Green Cities

Should it be mentioned Grist has ranked Barcelona as the 11th Greenest City in the world? I've seen articles of cities in this list mention it; this one does not. Here's the link: [1]. I think it's something worth mentioning. GnomesRuleTheEarth (talk) 19:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Map

The location map have to show the situation of Barcelona in Spain, not only in Catalonia, acording with any others location maps.--Phirosiberia (talk) 22:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid this is again the same kind of discussion we had above regarding what comes first (capital of Catalonia or second largest spanish city). I mean, is there any Wikipedia policy about it or is it again just a matter of opinion? By the way, the claim you made above is not true: there are dozens of entries about cities where the location maps are not those of the corresponding sovereign states, but those of the historical (or at least administrative) region (see Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff, cities in the USA, cities in Canada, ....). --Carles Noguera (talk) 07:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed Carles Noguera. It isn't worth explaining over and over again the same issue to all the Spanish nationalists who are invading this web site. Unfortunately most of them have never been to Barcelona. Otherwise they'd know that Barcelona is above all an international city, whose context can not be limited by Spanish borders. Barcelona has nothing to do with the rest of provincial cities of the Spanish state; Barcelona is a global city.

--Mreq (talk) 11:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Trinitat Vella

Trinitat Vella is not in Nou Barris, Trinitat Vella is in Sant Andreu.

History section

Is lacking anything past 13th century! Michellecrisp (talk) 03:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

10s BC establishment

Since this edit, Barcelona is categorized as a 10s BC establishment. But reading the article, it says that "at 15 BC, the Romans redrew the town as a castrum", but the town already existed since much before. The legends says between 400 before Rome and the 3rd century BC. Of course we cannot believe in a legend, but I think that Barcelona was not established in the 10s BC but much before.--89.131.125.120 (talk) 14:57, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

motorcycle transportation

i think i've heard that barcelona is something like the second city in europe (after rome?) in number of motorcycles. would be interesting to find such a statistic, as this is quite an idiosincratic behaviour anyone can see in the city..--Josepsbd (talk) 02:07, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It's major regarding motorcycles (scooters, called "Vespa's" like the brand name included of course). Just to find a source might be not so easy. If I didn't miss it, the Rome article doesn't state anything about this either. --Floridianed (talk) 04:57, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

i've been searching. the best thing i found is [2], the presentation of a motorcycle trade fair (which i think it's a quite important source). it states that bcn is the second motard city after rome with 265000 motorcycles. More anecdotically, a catalan writer also says this at [3], though he doesn't cite his sources.--Josepsbd (talk) 23:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Capital of Aragon?

As usual, the Catalanistas that troll the English-language wikipedia are seeking to indoctrinate the English-speaking world with their "unique" (to be polite) view point of history.

Some articles, when convenient, like to refer to the "Crown of Aragon" (a term that I still don't like but I have come to be a reasonable compromise between the more historically correct "Kingdom of Aragon" and the historical nonsense that is the "Catalan-Aragonese Confederation," but that is another issue) as a loose union of independent kingdoms/principalities. Thus, it is inappropriate to refer to Zaragoza as the "capital" of this Crown.

But, in this article, the Catalanistas have, in order to beef up the street rep of their capital, say that Barcelona was the capital of the Crown of Aragon, making it seem as if Barcelona was the capital of a centralized Aragonese state.

Catalanistas, you can't have it both ways. You can't claim when it's convenient in your ethnocentric logic that Aragon was a confederation (hence magnifying "les glories catalanes") and then in other articles try to artifically glorify Barcelona as THE capital of this Crown (hence magnifying "la ciutat comtal").

Either the Aragonese Crown was a centralized state with a fixed capital, or it was a confederation with no real fixed capital. You should not be duplicitous and at least be honest enough to not make such statements with such certainty, to fit with your "unique" view of history.

Eboracum (talk) 03:25, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Barcelona was the most important city of the Aragon Crown, and the city which hosted the kings of Aragon as well. Of course it can not be classified as the Aragon Crown capital city, since the Crown was a kind of confederation in current terms, so each territory had its own important cities and its own "capital". This fact has nothing to do with catalanism or Catalan nationalism. You're seeing catalanism everywhere, whereas most of the participants in here are just trying to do their best. Take it easy man ;-)

--Mreq (talk) 22:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Climate

I've been looking at the edits a certain Elefterio has made to the climate section and I feel he has diminished its quality. The information he's added seems to be contradictory and it seems as if he wants to change Barcelona's Mediterranean "climactic" image to one of some Northern European city, something it most certainly is not. Snowfall, while possible, is by no means annual. Any look at climactic records will show otherwise. How is Barcelona not the classical Mediterranean city? It's on the Mediterranean for crying out loud, and it most climatologists use Barcelona as the prime example of this climate: dry, hot summers and mild, wet winters. And while this may sound stupid, taken with the rest of his edits I think the cloudy picture of Barcelona also serves his purpose of changing people's image of the city. In addition, all this information about record low temperatures is contradictory. The city doesn't extend out to 400 m above sea level, that is just insanity and you can't have more than one record low temperature by the very definition of the word. Alright, so I suggest reverting the section to it's pre-Elefterio content. Deus Caritas Est (talk) 20:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)