The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
As observed by another AFD earlier this year, this article is a hoax.
I am retracting this nomination as a result of the discussion below. Non-admin close should be fine. NotBartEhrman (talk) 21:51, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A major source for this article is a book chapter, "From Arzuges to Rustamids: State Formation and Regional Identity in the Pre-Saharan Zone", in Vandals, Romans and Berbers : New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa. That chapter contains no mention of a "Mauro-Roman Kingdom". The city name "Altava," which is supposed to be the capital, appears in that article only as a city destroyed by the Vandals, and as one of the sources of inscriptions. Despite this, the article falsely describes this book chapter as naming "core administrative centers of the kingdom".
This editor has also gone into the articles of the figures which appear on the "king list" at the bottom of the page, and changed them to say things that don't appear in the sources. For instance, the article John (Mauro-Roman king) reads, "John ... was a Berber military leader and briefly King of the Mauro-Roman Kingdom following the death of his predecessor". However, the source being given as a citation for this statement, " Martindale 1992, pp. 643–644" describes him only as a "rebel leader (in Africa)" and states that the rebels allied under him "numbered one thousand, namely five hundred Romans, some eighty Huns, and the rest Vandals". There is no mention of any kingdom.
Finally, a Google Books search indeed reveals that this term has never been used by historians, which makes sense because no such kingdom has ever existed. NotBartEhrman (talk) 11:56, 18 December 2023 (UTC) (edited 19:15, 18 December 2023 (UTC))[reply]
It's not a hoax, it was asked to be renamed and the vote was keep. Oaktree b (talk) 13:04, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The entire previous discussion is grounded a misunderstanding of policy -- the discussion mentions similar sounding words in primary sources, but original research is not allowed on Wikipedia. There are no academic sources for this "kingdom" because it never existed. NotBartEhrman (talk) 13:16, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keepand make sure to rename this time: topic is clearly notable per previous AfD, but the current title is an OR invention and needs to be fixed—the previous AfD clearly highlighted this issue. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a single example of this alleged kingdom appearing in scholarly literature? NotBartEhrman (talk) 14:36, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, see Grierson 1959; as "Regnum Maurorum et Romanorum", the apparent source of the article title, is just found on a coin, the article should be renamed to "Post-Roman Berber polities" or similar and rewritten to that effect. It is definitely rather bloated—I just removed a huge chunk of only tangentially-related information. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just so that everyone is on the same page in Grierson 1959, the coin claiming a regnum is mentioned in a paragraph which begins with the words: "The relationship between the Moorish chieftains and the Roman government was a curious one, since they regarded themselves as subjects of the emperor even when they were at war with him and engaged in ravaging imperial territory." The article does not claim that a kingdom actually existed. NotBartEhrman (talk) 15:28, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said previously, if a source failed verification, you tag it. That said, did you check all those that you tagged? Just checking to make sure you did before I go through them. M.Bitton (talk) 17:03, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I did check the three sources that I tagged just now. Note also that the citation to Morcelli 1816 is WP:SYNTH, but I am not going to remove it just yet as the whole article needs to go. This is just in the one part of the article I'm looking at which is claiming a kingdom was established. NotBartEhrman (talk) 17:11, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Yeah this isn't a hoax, it's just the conflation of many polities which emerged in post-Roman Mauretania into a single kingdom which doesn't seem to have had serious continuity by User:Ichthyovenator. Icthyovenator probably made this in good faith, but since Wikipedia is not for original historical scholarship, it isn't Icthyovenator's call to refer to this as a single kingdom. Alexschmidt711 (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep while the Berber kingdom that was established according to Roman tradition is not very well understood, it did exist. If a reference failed verification, then it should be tagged. M.Bitton (talk) 16:31, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If this kingdom did indeed exist, can you please provide me with a single citation that says so? NotBartEhrman (talk) 16:48, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@NotBartEhrman: Did you check all those sources that you tagged earlier? M.Bitton (talk) 16:57, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, none of them attest to the existence of a kingdom. I hope others are also looking for any sort of evidence, seeing as "Mauro-Roman Kingdom" gets zero relevant hits on Google Books. NotBartEhrman (talk) 17:14, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@NotBartEhrman: That's not what I asked. The sources are supposed to support what is attributed to them, that's all. Can you please confirm that they don't? Thanks. M.Bitton (talk) 17:17, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They do not -- e.g. Merrills 2017, Chapter 4, makes reference to two distinct populations, but there is no discussion of "core administrative centers of the kingdom", that is entirely fabrication. NotBartEhrman (talk) 17:25, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, what you're saying is that the sources that you tagged do not support what's attributed to them. I believe you, but I will double check for good measure. M.Bitton (talk) 17:31, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I just checked the first (starting with The core administrative centers of the kingdom ...) and apart from stating "core administrative centers" instead of "core of the state", I don't see what the issue is with it. @NotBartEhrman: am I missing something? M.Bitton (talk) 18:03, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@M.Bitton I think he is actually arguing against the existence of a centralized polity with his use of the term "dual state", as he's saying the Romani and Mauri created separate domains of authority. He states that the "formal administration" applies only to the urban areas, with militaries being paid on the other side of a frontier. Also, this article is not trying to establish the existence of any specific sovereign entity, but is making general statements about the devolution of authority (hence the reference to an inscription which refers "either to this polity or a similar one centred further to the west"). There is a long way to go from this to any "Kingdom of the Moors and Romans". NotBartEhrman (talk) 18:17, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Does the support supports the statement that you tagged? It's a yes or no question (just like the tag). If no, then please explain which part of it is not supported by the source. Thanks. M.Bitton (talk) 18:19, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It does not support the statement that there is a "kingdom" with "core administrative centers", no. Those statements are directly contradicted by the source being cited. NotBartEhrman (talk) 18:25, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I did mention that it states "core of the state" instead of "core administrative centers of the kingdom". Is that the only reason you tagged it? If so, why didn't you tag that specific part instead of tagging all of it? Come to think of it, why didn't you just correct it (since you read the source)? M.Bitton (talk) 18:29, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do not believe anyone has ever claimed this kingdom existed in the real world (as opposed to one editor's fantasy world), so I am not going to correct the article which is grounded in the premise that it existed at one time. According to who? NotBartEhrman (talk) 18:38, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, you cannot justify the tag that you added. While I won't ask you any more questions (given the lack of replies), I will simply assume with good reason that your other tags are problematic. M.Bitton (talk) 18:44, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have shown that the citation is contradicting the claims being made. Is there a more appropriate way to precisely tag the incorrect statements? (edit: I've tried to use another template to highlight specific statements not found in the source.) NotBartEhrman (talk) 19:18, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have shown that your tag was inappropriate. Now, I have to spend the little time that I have dealing with the tag bombing. M.Bitton (talk) 19:22, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Now I am not sure what I was meant to do, I came here to point out the general hoax and the fact that the article needs to be deleted, and you asked me to edit the article to identify specific misuse of references. I did so, and you said my tags weren't specific enough. Now I am trying to point to the specific word choices that have twisted the meaning of references to fabricate the fictional kingdom, but this is apparently tag bombing? NotBartEhrman (talk) 19:29, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I think we've established that this isn't a hoax. But if there was never a Mauro-Roman Kingdom, what is this article about, exactly? A well-referenced OR/SYNTH about the polities of the area in that period? If the verifiable information on this page is already covered by Mauretania#Roman-Moorish_kingdoms, we can simply redirect this page to it and be done. Otherwise, we face the task of coming up with a notable entity which is (a) supported by the supplied references, and (b) can serve as a WP:COATRACK for the text--at least until we rewrite it, and then rename the page after that entity. Neither is an appealing solution. Owen×☎ 16:36, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and improve. Clearly not a hoax, and it may not help that the person who's made the most extensive contributions recently (and tag-bombed it in at least two places, IMO) seems determined to show that it's a hoax. This article is in need of attention from someone versed in the materials covering the period, but I'm not convinced that every fact or characterization made is dubious. Some of the changes (for instance, changing the name to "Mauretania Caesariensis") seem to be contradicted by the sources I was able to locate quickly. It seems likely that PW would have something to say on this topic and the rulers mentioned. I note one objection raised was that someone whom the article refers to as a "king" is only referred to as a "strong ruler" in the cited source—that sounds like a quibble over titles rather than an objection to the underlying facts. My general impression is that these are a lot of small disagreements with the text of the article masquerading as an AfD. P Aculeius (talk) 14:24, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well said! Can we agree that the subject matter itself, under a better title, is notable? If so, wouldn't it be a good idea to draftify the page while working on reconciling the text with the sources until it is fit for main namespace? I get the sense that if named properly, what we're dealing with here is just a content dispute. Owen×☎ 14:35, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"I note one objection raised was that someone whom the article refers to as a "king" is only referred to as a "strong ruler" in the cited source—that sounds like a quibble over titles rather than an objection to the underlying facts."
The rebel leader in question was a real person, but this article's creator has claimed without any evidence that he was a king in this fictional kingdom. This kingdom did not exist and no historian has ever claimed it existed. If you can find me a single historian claiming that a "Mauro-Roman Kingdom" existed, I will immediately retract this AFD. NotBartEhrman (talk) 14:36, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Whether they were "real" kings or fictional ones is irrelevant, what matters is that they are referred to as such in the reliable sources. The not very well understood kingdoms did exist and here's a source that should help you retract the AFD. M.Bitton (talk) 14:50, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think I see the problem here, NotBartEhrman. You said, ...the author's article has claimed..., but this isn't "the author's article"; it's a Wikipedia article, with multiple contributors, one that we can--and should--all edit and improve. Whether the political entity in place there at the time was a kingdom or not is a secondary issue. That can easily be fixed by changing the page title, and correcting the mentions of king to a more appropriate role, if such is supported by sources. If your entire objection rests on the words "king" and "kingdom", there's no need to blow up the page to fix that. Suggest a better title for the page, and let's fix the text. This is as much your article and mine as it is the original page creator. Owen×☎ 15:11, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@M.BittonThank you very much for finding this source -- seriously, I felt like I was on crazy pills here. As promised, I retract my call to delete the article. I also retract my accusation of a hoax and my accusation of ill-will towards the article creator(s), as it seems their original research was not a malicious distortion of academic sources; rather, they were simply unaware of a number of academic sources which explicitly mention a kingdom, which can be found in Google Scholar by searching for the article you linked to, under different names than the one given in the article's title. For example, here is "From Periphery to Core in Late Antique Mauretania" which describes "the kingdom of Masuna at Altava". I will revert my addition of tags and add in these two sources as a starter towards improving the article, since the sources you found to attest to multiple kings. NotBartEhrman (talk) 15:13, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but perhaps rename -- The article is clearly a genuine one with a lot of references. The title used by the kings was king of the Mauri and Romani or we might say king of the Moors and Romans. This is a title, not the name of a kingdom. Furthermore the Latin for king (rex, regis) is closely related to the verb rego, I rule, so that some of the objections do not hold water. Whether a person is a ruler or a rebel will depend on the point of view of the speaker. This was former Roman territory, where a Roman might well have regarded an independent local ruler as a rebel. This may be compared to the description of the subRoman rulers of Britain as tyrants, persons whose names we often do not even know. If NotBartEhrman really knows about this subject, perhaps he can revert the changes to related articles that should not have been made and improve this article. Sub-Roman Mauritania would be a possible title. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:04, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep: seeing as the nomination has been withdrawn, and no one else here seems to call for deletion, I think we can close this AfD. Debate about renaming the article can continue on its Talk page. Owen×☎ 15:35, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.