Talk:Bocce

message: Question...  In addition to the obvious 2 colors (4 balls per color), I see many ball sets sold with 4 colors (2 balls per color), plus the pallino.  What's the intent?  Is there a 4-team game played with 2 balls per team, or is it simply two colors per team, intermixed or ...?  Just curious. --Ds13 23:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colors and # of colors 

message: Q: Is this game related to curling? --24.94.189.11 08:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Curling 

message: Someone has proposed merging Boccia into this article - although they have not posted any justification for that proposal either here or on Talk:Boccia. I don't think a merge is justified. Boccia is a distinct sport for athletes with a disability; while it is related to Bocce, they are no more the same game than are pétanque or bowls. Eron 19:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with EronMain's logic and position.  DO NOT MERGE. N2e 03:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Other sports variants are covered in their own articles - see Rugby union, Rugby league, and Rugby sevens, or for a more directly pertinent example, Basketball and Wheelchair basketball. They are different sports and should be covered separately. Eron 04:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, fair principle.  But those are very large, deep articles.  We have nearly a stub here with Bocce — more content, including variations, could be included at this point to strengthen it.  An example to counter yours (there are many) might be Ultimate (sport), with its significantly different variants of Indoor Ultimate and Beach Ultimate included in the main article.  Anyways, I'm game for whatever the majority thinks will make the strongest article(s) for both Boccia and Bocce — if that means 90%+ copy-and-paste for the basic mechanics of play, then so be it. --Ds13 05:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I largely agree with Eron, though I see your point. Sports where there's unlikely to be any expansion, sure, merger would make sense - but I feel that both of these could be expanded, and that that would be a better thing to happen than running these articles together. Sure, the articles are currently small, but there's no reason to believe that will always be true in this case. Grutness...wha? 12:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I also agree with Eron.  Boccia is a separate sport, with its own rules and equipment.  It cannot effectively be given a section within this article.  I suggest things be left the way they are.  -- Tuvok^Talk|Desk|Contribs  22:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think so. Bowl, Pétanque, Bocce and Boccia have a conjunct for the rule - player if throw the ball to near the target ball, it will have a score.--Pierce (talk) 16:21, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

text: The problem with not merging is that, almost a decade after the merge was proposed, the boccia article, and that at bocce volo which was also proposed to merge, both remain rather pointless stubs. Their entire content (where not redundant) could be merged into the main bocce article, and it would be routine to do so; splitting into separate topics was not justified under WP:SUMMARY because there is not enough material for three separate but well-developed articles, nor is there likely to ever be (in English, anyway).  But, whatever. I guess this can be re-raised later if anyone feels strongly about it. This thread died, aside from this post of mine, over 6 years ago, so I'm tagging it as stale.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:51, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merger with [[Boccia]] 

message: I saw the request for photos of people playing Bocce on the Requested Pictures page and uploaded one of my own to the Commons here.  The article is short and already has a picture of bocce balls and a diagram, so if someone wants to figure out where to place it in the article, have at.  If it's a good enough photo (perhaps an action shot would be preferred?) then the request on the Requested Pictures page should be taken down, too.
--Xaven 01:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photos of people playing Bocce 

message: I think the section is wrong since I would never say that the objective of the game is to hit another ball. The goal is throw your ball and make it land as close as possible to the little ball. Hitting other balls that might be already close is a strategy, but not the ultimate goal. 200.101.50.150 18:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bocha in Brazil =

message: from the loc here: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g04322  140.247.240.181 23:52, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: great free image

message: Here is a possible sidebar that might be added to the bocce entry.
=== The Politics of Bocce Ball ===
The Scavo Family would play bocce ball on Sunday after Mass at Uncle Frank's house.  These lively bocce tournaments were played under special house rules.  After each throw, the two closest balls (regardless of color) were designated the "Boss" and the "Straw Boss," respectively.  The Boss could drink beer freely.  The Boss could also give beer to others as long as the Straw Boss approved.  In effect the Straw Boss had veto power over who drank beer, except for the Boss who could drink beer whenever he wanted.
As you can guess, the bartering between throws was intensely animated.  I always wondered if the friends and enemies made playing bocce carried over into real life.  At Uncle Frank's, the argument over who was Boss and who was Straw Boss continued into the dinner hour, between heaping plates of spaghetti, meatballs, and spare ribs.
Other families in Northeast Minneapolis played bocce with the Boss and Straw Boss.  The Ferraro's, for example, played with exactly the same rules.  I don't know where the concepts of Boss and Straw Boss originated or where else bocce was played under these rules.
Trscavo (talk) 21:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's interesting, but Wikipedia is not a place for posting personal experiences like that, at least not in articles. There could be a section about the general culture around casual games of bocce, if it can be cited to reliable sources. Graham87 11:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible Sidebar 

message: The Scavo Family would play bocce ball on Sunday after Mass at Uncle Frank's house.  These lively bocce tournaments were played under special house rules.  After each throw, the two closest balls (regardless of color) were designated the "Boss" and the "Straw Boss," respectively.  The Boss could drink beer freely.  The Boss could also give beer to others as long as the Straw Boss approved.  In effect the Straw Boss had veto power over who drank beer, except for the Boss who could drink beer whenever he wanted.
As you can guess, the bartering between throws was intensely animated.  I always wondered if the friends and enemies made playing bocce carried over into real life.  At Uncle Frank's, the argument over who was Boss and who was Straw Boss continued into the dinner hour, between heaping plates of spaghetti, meatballs, and spare ribs.
Other families in Northeast Minneapolis played bocce with the Boss and Straw Boss.  The Ferraro's, for example, played with exactly the same rules.  I don't know where the concepts of Boss and Straw Boss originated or where else bocce was played under these rules.
Trscavo (talk) 21:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's interesting, but Wikipedia is not a place for posting personal experiences like that, at least not in articles. There could be a section about the general culture around casual games of bocce, if it can be cited to reliable sources. Graham87 11:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Politics of Bocce Ball 

message: My grandfather brought from Italy his set which are made of pretrified wood and are all the same color.  Four of the balls have a inlayed line in them.  My grandfather had a court for bocce behind his restaurant in Chicago (Pete's EL Stop Bar & Grill).  He played that if one the balls kissed the small ball it was worth 3 points, but I have never heard anywhere else this rule.
My father now has this set and I tell everyone this set is my inheritance.  I'm the 8th generation of sole surviving sons.  My son is the 9th.
71.208.3.200 22:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bocce 

message: I have noticed that lots of vandalism on this page centers around re-naming the "greatest bocce player of all time".  I think a solid reference about this might help.  Is there a press release of the Confederation Mondiale des Sport de Boules naming Umberto Granaglia the "Player of the Twentieth Century"? ---- BAxelrod 23:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: I have corrected the section on scoring.  Whomever had edited this to read that the closes ball recieves 3 pts, etc... is misinformed and playing under regional or informal rules.  Only 1 team can score per frame.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.207.163.98 (talk) 20:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I know, I'm now the only active editor with this article on their watchlist, and I'm not the best person to carry out this task because I'm blind as it says on my user page. So if you eel like doing it, go ahead. Graham87 08:42, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

text: That'd be alright with me; reliable sources would be even better. However I know nothing about this subject, and the article is only on my watchlist because of some vandalism I stumbled upon in December 2007. Graham87 03:48, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scoring 

message: I read this in an article of a streetwise newspaper (located in Chicago) in Nov. 07:
The predecessor of Bocce was a game in Egypt (where you roll a ball as close as you can to a target), was picked up by Greece, then was picked up by the Romans, who spread it through Europe, which was then later a favorite of the English aristocracy.  But Bocce was originally a game played with balls on clay or sand, and the English had no such land, so they made close cut grass to play their game, which later became "bowling" from the french word for ball (boule I think).  And from there, close cut grass for games became a thing of the rich Europeans (~1600s), and then became the modern lawn of the U.S. today.  If you go to China or India or whereever, lawns as they are here are not a common thing - but are more common now than they were before because of westernization.  So it's interesting that lawns really are cultural, and trace their roots back to the game Bocce.  In fact, before the 1600s or so (think Feudal Europe) noone even cared about lawns, so they're actually a relatively recent thing historically in culture.Ashi Starshade (talk) 22:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: History of Lawns: Bocce

message: Would it be better to have the organization section listed before the players section and perhaps trim the verbiage a bit as a result of the increased clarity? Andrewhime (talk) 23:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the players section altogether - it just discusses one specific player without saying much about who else plays the sport. Graham87 02:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone has put the players section back without explanation. Since I don't feel strongly about whether it should be there, I've removed it below the organization section per this page. Graham87 23:12, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Layout 

message: See Talk:Bocce#External link removal for background on this dispute.  Two editors disagree whether the alternate names for the sport should be included in the lead.  They also disagree on whether three links to bocce.org should be included in the EL section.
* As an editor involved in the dispute, I feel that ample sourcing was provided to demonstrate the the terms bocci and bochi are in actual use.  I cited, among other things, a US patent that was awarded for a "bocci ball carrier".  I also found a wealth of information on the bocce.org website that was not directly includable, due to copyright restrictions, but of probable interest to the reader.  The same anon who objects to the alternate names also objects to these links, and persistently reverts the edits including either.  I seek broader input from the community to see what policy and concensus says. The version of the article that I feel should be kept as a result of this discussion is this diff.  JERRY talk contribs 23:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, I'm in Australia and when I've heard the word "bocce", I've always heard it pronounced "bocci". "Bocci" seems to be a fairly common spelling in Australia. Graham87 04:26, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So should the city of Florence, Italy only be referred-to as Fiorenze on wikipedia?  Florence is totally wrong... the official name is Fiorenze, and it is pronounced Fire-enza.  So should we scrub the encyclopedia of all the wrong information?  No... we can show contemporary useage in english language of the name Florence, and pronounciation floor - intz, so obviously we keep that there.  The same is true of another Italian word, bocce.  Bocci is used, cited and demonstrated to exist.  It needs to stay in the lead, as a redirect to the bocce article, and not have your POV slant about a small number of idiots who use the term that way. And, no, we won't wait thousands of years to prove-out the sources.  The sources exist today, and that's all we need to know.  Your puffery about which organization is the preemininet one is just plain silly, the links are not added to argue preeminence... they are added for the encyclopedic content, diagrams on how to make a court, examples of play, etc.  Your suggestion that I am a rogue bocce.org involved editor is outrageous.... I have 10,000+ edits, nearly 6000 to mainspace, and as an administrator here, I delete spam everyday.  You make bad faith comments about me, you take way too much ownership in this article, you revert without discussion, and I do not approve. JERRY talk contribs 18:30, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You're comments seem bizarre to me.  I have never played bocce in my life.  I have no interest whatsoever in bocce.org.  You can not discount the link references shown, because although they do not provide any context for including them in the article, they do demonstrate that the term bocci is in use in Canada, the United states, and Australia.  You are simply wrong here.  The value of the content in the websites I listed is immaterial... I'm not suggesting we should include these links in the article, or take any content from them... I am just showing you that several state and provincial goernments across all of North America use the term bocci... so it's not just a small circle of 3 dozen friends who don't know any better, it's a whole continent, and as another editor stated above, Australia also uses the term, so there's another continent.  I ADMIT, I AM WRONG. JERRY talk contribs 21:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Should alternate names be listed in lead, should bocce.org external links be listed?

message: Is there a good reason to remove that section? I won't put it back *again* without discussion on the talk page. Graham87 00:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is a good section and worth keeping. --- BAxelrod (talk) 02:59, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

text: OK fair enough, I'll let it be removed from the article. I think "something new" should have read "something new for them", as it talked about people trying a sport they had never played before. Graham87 01:04, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If it has that many errors, we can wipe it.  I am glad to know what all the fuss was about. --- BAxelrod (talk) 01:40, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bocce in the United States 

message: I removed the line about "boccia" being a form of bocce because it is an entirely different sport.   Bocce uses balls of metal, wood, or plastic; not leather.  Even in the wikipedia entry for "boccia" it is not described as a form of bocce.  It only claims to be "similar to bocce."  Therefore it should not be included.  The "Boccia" entry doesn't even have "bocce" listed in it's "See Also" section.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.213.161 (talk) 14:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not "entirely different"; let's not be hyperbolic.  It's a directly descended variant for a special player pool, using modified equipment and rules.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:52, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Boccia is not Bocce 

message: Bocce balls are not made of stone.  Try to find a stone set of bocce balls for sale if you don't believe me.  Boccia was removed for the above reasons.  And the the link to the Toccolana link was removed because it offers no useful information for the sport.  It is just and advertisement for an upcoming tournament.  Wikipedia is not a place to advertise tournaments.  There are many tournaments all over the place.  If they were all in the links section there would be hundreds of links.  Plus this is not for commerce, and the Toccolana tournament is a money maker.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.199.106.16 (talk) 16:05, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: @Will-o-the-west: Well, metallurgy dates to ca. 5,000 BC.  We have no sources for bocce itself being played with stone balls.  Copper and bronze, as well as wood, and bone/ivory, and sewn, stuffed leather, are all easier to work than most forms of stone. That said, various stone balls from ancient times have certainly been discovered, in association with other Classical-era gaming and sporting paraphernalia; for details, see:  (it's an expensive book, but very much worth the price, and has among the best-researched material to date on the history of the development of ball games in West and the Near East). The anon's point, "try to find a stone set of bocce balls", is missing the mark, because what equipment is available from stores today has nothing to do with what equipment was historically used.   said, there's a difference between "bocce, a modern Italian sport about which we have an article", and "historical games played on the ground with balls, which may or may not have had much in common with today's bocce".  We don't know  what games were played with ancient stone balls, as in what the rules were, or even the surface on which they were played.  It is pretty clear that they were some form of ground billiards, played with the hands and/or with a stick, and ancestral to various forms of bowls/boules/bowling, croquet (and ultimately golf and field hockey), palle-malle (and ultimately tennis), and indoor billiards games (invented by moving croquet-like games indoors for the winter, and originally played with cues that were more like golf putters). Some of the stone ball games are miniaturized and clearly intended for indoor use, too.  This kind of earlier history is better covered at a ground billiards article at some point, since it has little to do with any one modern game in particular (we needn't repeat details about ancient outdoor hard-ball games in every vaguely-related modern game's article, just add a reference to the article on their historic ancestor).  Right now Ground billiards redirects to Trucco, but this is not a good long-term plan; trucco itself is a comparatively modern development from the ancient game, which seems to have had some ritual significance as well as being a form of entertainment.@Cosand: It's a bit late, but yes, of course we should cover world championships, in any sport. The problem with the link was that we were not using it as a source for information in our article, we were just spamming our readers with it as a promotional advertisement. See WP:EL for guidance. And note that labeling other editors as "over zealous [and] self important" makes one desire to cite WP:KETTLE. It's not necessary to express scorn for other editors' mentalities in the course of expressing disagreement with an edit.@76.199.106.16: See WP:SUMMARY: We should still mention boccia prominently and link to it as a variant of the game. Same goes for bocce volo, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:43, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Stone Bocce and other edits

message: No sports article should have a single section related to a single player of that sport. The basketball article does not have a section devoted to Michael Jordan and the tennis article does not have a section related to Roger Federer. However, the tennis article does have a section about the greatest male  and female players (though the latter section is empty); an analagous section about bocce world champions is quite appropriate in this article. Graham87 03:48, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  World champions section 

message: An image used in this article, , has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Media without a source as of 21 December 2011 
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thread_title: File:Boccia-set.PNG.png Nominated for Deletion

message: The lead section says, in part: "(where it is known as bochas; bolas criollas in Venezuela, bocha (the sport) in Brazil)". What does "the sport" mean? I looked at the Portuguese page, and it just says "bocha." --BenjaminBarrett12 (talk) 20:02, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously it meant that  has more than one meaning in Portuguese.  The article no longer says this, since it's unnecessary to specify "the sport" when the context already makes it clear we mean the sport.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:05, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  What does "boccha (the sport)" mean? 

message: Someone has proposed merging bocce volo into this article. 
I don't think a merge is justified. bocce volo is a distinct sport that is also known as boule lyonnaise  (the ancestor of petanque).  It is also related to another more or less distinct sport known as "punto, raffa, volo".  If the bocce volo article should be merged with any article, it should be merged with the boule lyonnaise article.  But I think it should be kept separate from boule lyonnaise to document the "italian strain" of the game. 
Note that I have been working on the article on boules, attempting to document -- in, I hope, a helpful way --- the differences between bocce, bocce volo aka boule lyonnaise, and petanque.
I realize that there are legitimate questions about merging other articles into the bocce article.  Bocce is the ancestor of many, many different games, and it can be a tough call about some of the descendant games as to whether they need their own articles, or should be covered in the bocce article as minor sub-types of bocce.  But in some cases, for example petanque, the descendant has become so independent and so distinct that it is clearly NOT a minor sub-type of bocce.  In such cases, merging the descendant article into the bocce article makes about as much sense as merging the article on human beings into the article on apes and monkeys.
It seems to me that  bocce volo aka boule lyonnaise has achieved the degree of independence that makes it appropriate for it to have its own dedicated article. StephenFerg (talk) 07:25, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Bocce volo and boule lyonnaise are not the same game; what they have in common is a run-up to the throw.  Boule lyonnaise is the same as jeu provençal, which is why it redirects there.  Pétanque is a derivative of provençal/lyonnaise, not of bocce (it just is coincidentally similar to bocce in some respects, e.g. in that it does not have a run-up to the throw).At any rate, a good case can be made for merging both bocce volo and boccia to bocce as sections.  After nearly a decade, virtually nothing as been done to develop these articles past the WP:Stub stage, and it seems unlikely to ever happen. Meanwhile, people are wrongly using sources about one game as references in articles on the other, and otherwise confusing them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:03, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merger of [[bocce volo]] with this article 

message: ???  77Mike77 (talk) 04:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: In English, it's pronounced like "botchy", as noted in the anglicisations listed in the article. In Italian, there is a short "e" sound at the end rather than an "i". I don't know how the pronunciation would be done in IPA though. By the way, please write an actual message rather than just creating  a new section. Graham87 05:43, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I just put "???" to keep it simple. Anyway, the pronunciation should be at the top of the article, for those who don't speak Italian.77Mike77 (talk) 00:36, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added it with help from the relevant Wiktionary entry and the IPA keys for English and Italian. Graham87 05:03, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Can we get some sources on this?  The pronunciation /bɒtʃi/ ("bah-chee") is an East Coast US, and UK, pronunciation. It sounds weird to my Southwestern and West Coast (US) ears; we say /boʊtʃeɪ/ (boh-chay), in Americanized imitation of the Italian.  This probably comes from close proximity to and absorption of influences from Spanish.  E.g., we say /tɑːkoʊ/ (tah-ko) for "taco", an approximation of Spanish /tɑko/, while the British corrupt it much further, as /tækoʊ/ (tack-o) or even something like /tækɨʊ/ ("tack-eaux").  I'm skeptical that all dictionaries, even American ones, only give the "bah-chee" pronunciation of /bɒtʃi/.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:23, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation? 

message: # Vigilucci's Beach Bocce World Championship - just came across that. It's played on sand. Last WCh was in 2017 at Dog Beach in Del Mar. 400 teams. Probably some variant.
# are these listed below the same game??? If they are it needs to be clearly stated in the article and in the individual articles (of the below). There is just too much ambiguity in each of the articles. (sth is here but not conclusive http://petanque.org/around_the_world/italian.shtml)
##bocce volo 
##boule lyonnaise
##jeu provençal 
##sport-boules
#Article is definitely missing, in the variants section, these three below
##pétanque (world federation: FIPJP)
##raffa or rafa (CBI)
##bowls (World Bowls)
#some guy in North America invented Linear bocce. Don't really know if it is worth mentioning.
213.149.51.99 (talk) 14:55, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Variants 

message: "Boccie" is the main entry in both Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boccie) and Collins (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/boccie), and was used on the January 31, 2019 episode of Jeopardy!. It should be in the article. Andy Saunders (talk) 04:25, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Boccie" 

message: Bocce is traditionally played on natural soil and asphalt courts 
What does this mean, actually? That any game of Bocce requires both of those?
I imagine that is not the intent. 
I would expect instead:
    Bocce is traditionally played on a natural soil or asphalt court
Toddcs (talk) 17:51, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I fixed it. You could have done it yourself though ... Graham87 09:30, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Type of court used for play