Talk:Chalcis (ancient state)

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Contested deletion

This article should not be speedy deleted as being recently created, having no relevant page history and duplicating an existing English Wikipedia topic, because... (it is a recreation/renaming of a deleted article that, in my opinion, should not have been deleted. One of the main objections to the original article (Kingdom of Chalcis was that it was not (except perhaps for short periods) actually a kingdom--hence the renaming on recreation. Previous comment on this matter reproduced below. I invited a full discussion on the issue of deletion, to which the response seems to have been the speedy deletion tag, which was not appropriate under the circumstances, and should not have been acted upon.) --BPK (talk) 17:17, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Previous discussion

Chalcis

Please consider restoring "Kingdom of Chalcis" to its previous redirect and speedily deleting your new unattributed "Chalcis (ancient state)" which has the same sourcing problems as its predecessor. Your so-called "ancient state" is basically Iturea, where I redirected, since most of the listed rulers are described as rulers of Iturea (1, 2), not just Chalcis specifically. Any information should be merged there, not copied into an entirely new page. Avilich (talk) 00:03, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We are evidently in disagreement as to the validity of the article. If I recall correctly, your main objection to it, expressed when you deleted it, was its characterization as a kingdom, an issue I addressed on recreating it. Your more general objections may be valid, but do not, I feel, warrant unilateral deletion, or speedy deletion, of a long-standing article developed by multiple contributors. You are certainly welcome to initiate a deletion nomination. BPK (talk) 17:44, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You misunderstood then: the rationale was not simple terminology, but that it was not a distinct state from the one described in the article I merged it into. There was no unilateral deletion, I merged it into the correct article, but you recreated the incorrect one (together with all of its old sourcing problems), so please undo it. Avilich (talk) 03:20, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your rationale. I simply don't concur with it. You made assumptions about the validity of two articles without, as far as I can tell, consulting with other Wikipedians who contributed to them. You then acted, also without consultation, on the assumption your action was routine and would not be contested. So, yes, you acted unilaterally. I do not question your good will or or desire to make improvements, only whether this was, indeed, an improvement. I don't think it was.

In regard to the sourcing issue, I don't really see the problems you do. The Chalcis article seemed to me reasonably well-sourced, better, in fact, than quite a number of other articles whose validity has not been controverted, and which have been allowed to let stand.

In regard to the distinct state issue, again, we are not in agreement. Ituraea was only a unified kingdom (possibly) during the reign of Ptolemy, and, if anything, the term better describes an ethnicity than a state. The city-states of Chalcis and Abila/Abilene that emerged from the ruin of Ptolemy's realm seem to have been longer-lived, more stable, and actually more state-like. As such, I believe they warrant separate articles, just as, say, Rome warrants an article despite having formerly been part of Latium.

I also note that it doesn't appear that much of the material in the Chalcis article has actually been incorporated into the one on Ituraea, meaning that the "merge" resulted in the loss of information--and, indeed, much of the evidence that the Ituraeans ever in fact did succeed at effectively establishing anything like a state or states.

There is nothing wrong with a routine merge if it is truly routine--that is, obvious, uncontroversial and uncontested. This, in my view, isn't. In such cases, there's s process to sort things out, which, again, you are welcome to pursue. If the consensus is in accord with your position, that would be the go-ahead for the merge. Otherwise, your concerns may be better addressed by efforts to improve both articles.

Returning the situation to the status quo, which is essentially what I did, after taking into accord your contention that Chalcis wasn't really a kingdom (which appeared valid), seems a better way to go until the issues in dispute are resolved. BPK (talk) 16:43, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how you found that Chalcis was longer-lived: the sources I posted above refer to Ptolemy, Lysanias and Zenodorus as king, tetrarch or high priest of Iturea, and while their principality may be called after their capital at times, there is no evidence that they were distinct (Abiene may be another matter, though). The "Independent kingdom" and "Roman vassal state" sections of the page are virtually unsourced, but not even there a clear distinction is drawn. After that there is only the partition of Chalcis among many other territories between the Romans and Herodians, and the rest is simply the history of Chalcis as an individual city. Avilich (talk) 21:47, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]