User:N0n3up/sandbox: Difference between revisions
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Links:[https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=London&type=revision&diff=688129129&oldid=688128598] |
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For Wiki-Ed: I have read all your messages in the talk page and decided to go over your concerns. ''We're using contemporary language which does not carry an (anachronistic) association of a modern "superpower"'', when actuall |
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The consensus version of the wording is fine. We're using contemporary language which does not carry an (anachronistic) association of a modern "superpower", which it most certainly was not until comparatively late in its existence. Citing a bunch of not-very reliable sources that use that term does not mean that we should copy. I don't think the line "In the 20th Century the Empire emerged as a modern superpower" is correct - it didn't emerge - it was already there - someone just invented the word in the 1940s. We're better off without it - there is simply no reason to use it in the introduction. The fact that it would require caveats and sourcing tells us enough. |
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The term is contentious in this context - that's why we're having this discussion. If it's contentious then it needs referencing. '''But''', in an ideal world the introduction should not need references (see the MOS).[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section] This is unavoidable for some subjects, but here it is simply ''your'' preferred wording and nothing more. Moreover an article like this requires proper academic sources, not online dictionaries... so just three out the eleven links you've provided are suitable. |
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::Second: Those sources specifically only refer to the British Empire as a 'superpower' in it's later stages, and one of them makes a contrast between 'early-stage' and 'maturing' (i.e. late c20 US), suggesting it is wrong to use the term without qualification. If we have to use caveats to justify including a redundant term (the concept is covered in logical sequence in the first and third paragraphs) then we should strike it out; it adds nothing that hasn't been said in a more informative way. |
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::Finally, it is just repeating the idea that is mentioned in the third sentence. The reader doesn't need to be told twice in the same paragraph. |
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A whole book? Wow. So we'd better change history because one author has a particular opinion then? That's not how Wikipedia works. If the balance of historians referred to the British Empire in this way then we ''should'' refer to it as they do, but they don't. The concept is already covered in the text, both the introduction and the body. The word itself does not need to be used at all. Your interpretation, without the caveats used by the sources you mention, is bordering on OR. |
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Wow. Lots of words. Going back to the "compromise" proposal: Aside from diversionary forays into unrelated sections, I don't see any new arguments from User:N0n3up here. The assertion that "By the 20th Century the Empire became a modern superpower" is just wrong. It was already a significant global power, it didn't emerge/become/evolve into anything at this point; by the turn of the century its position was deteriorating relative to the growth in stature of other powers. And the position it held was not comparable to a '''modern''' superpower - at least one of the sources he has cited even says as much - a term which was invented nearly half a century later. The long-standing wording of the introduction is accurate and does not need to be changed just because one editor appears to have a fixation on the word "superpower". This is the kind of argument that gives WP a bad name. |
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For Snowded: |
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