Category talk:Archaeological sites in Samaria
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 | This category was nominated for deletion on 23 September 2010. The result of the discussion was Keep as named. |
Naming convention - West Bank vs Samaria
editAlthough I have read the discussion in the 2010 CfD, I feel that this category still violates Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank) and needs changing. I'm raising it here now to see if anyone else agrees or if we can sort out some satisfactory proposal for change.
The current category is "in Samaria". The only other sub-categories of Category:Archaeological sites in the Palestinian territories or Category:Archaeological sites in Israel refer either to geographically discrete areas (ie Category:Masada, Category:Temple Mount), the era of the site (ie Category:Bronze Age sites in the Palestinian territories, Category:Nabataean sites in Israel) or broad historical categories (ie Category:Maritime archaeology in Israel).
The only way "in Samaria" fits within these categories if it's being used to refer to the northern West Bank in a modern, geographical sense. To use "Samaria" in the ancient, historically relevant sense, which is what the editors involved in the 2010 CfD argued, would mean this category should include all sites from the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) stretching from Jericho and Jerash to Jaffa and Nazareth. That's not the case; if it were to be so, then the category could be renamed "Category: Archaeological sites from the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) in the West Bank" and other categories for other such sites in Israel and Jordan would accompany it well.
Instead, the category is exclusively listing sites within Samaria, which means it should be renamed to "Archaeological sites in the Northern West Bank" as per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank). Then the category could be expanded to include non-Kingdom of Israel sites within the north of the West Bank. Or, indeed, simply removed as unnecessary.
Most of the articles are in large parts summations of Biblical references to the sites, and some only have the most scant identification of these Biblical places with their supposed sites - but that's a separate issue. Some of the sites have pre- and post-Kingdom of Israel archaeological significance, which means categorizing them as "Kingdom of Israel" sites is also kind of problematic. TrickyH (talk) 18:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC)