User talk:Sprotch

Welcome

Hi and welcome to wikipedia. I hope you like it and decide to stay. Here are some handy links for newcomers.

Also you can sign your name on talk pages and vote pages with three tildes like this ~~~, and your name with a time stamp with four like this ~~~~. If you have any questions, ask me on my talk page.Howabout1 ^{Talk to me!} 21:00, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

The UK as a superpower.

The UK may never have been described as a superpower, but I'm pretty certian that the British Empire is frequently described as such. In fact, if you look further down in the article, it describes the British Empire as a superpower, and cites a source for that statement. ONUnicorn 17:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't reverse the statement. ONUnicorn 14:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ferguson on Hyperpowers

I'm more than happy to give you my reading of the piece.

First and foremost this is a comparison between the British Empire and the US. It is not a treatise on 'hyperpower'. Having looked at it in detail, I'm not sure that it can be quoted as a source - it simply does not address the concept. Perhaps, examining the comparitive analysis in the piece, we could conclude that the UK and US are equal/equivalent in power - that if the US is a hyperpower the UK must have been too, but I think that would conflict with WP:OR. Anyway...

Hegemony is the chief concept in this article. This isn't about empire, it's a question of global leadership as defined in the article. This is an important point. I approached this article with my own conception of international power in mind, but it it theirs that we must use to properly understand the arguments.

The 'British Myth' section deals with the opinions of the authors of the book 'Two Hegemonies' (the 'UK had a brief moment of hyperpower' view actually comes from a Patrick Karl O'Brien). These authors are largely of the opinion that the US surpassses the Empire eg. lack of foreign (ie. European) intervention (UK being a sea based power with relatively small army), contemporary US economy outperforms UK's, US influence in WTO/IMF etc, etc.

The 'Recluctant Reader' section contains Ferguson's own opinion. Ferguson criticises this conclusion, based, as he sees it, on excessive reliance upon financial considerations. Instead he points to: Germany and Japan's economic v. political power shows that more of one does not lead to more of the other, the greater willingness of the UK to exercise power (given the reluctance of the US to be thought of as doing anything remotely imperialistic). US has larger economy than UK, the US is insular (UK had 15 million emigrants living abroad, US has 4 million), UK spent more time/money on imperial defence/strategy than US spends. The US might exercise power (especially military) but they don't like doing it, as a result they often don't act when it's open for them to do so - unlike the UK which had no such qualms.

All this rounds off with criticism of the concept of hegemony, as neglecting military and cultural aspects of power in favour of economic. The end result is inconclusive. Does it answer any questions re. hyperpowers? No. Can we make any inferences from this article? Well, I accept Ferguson's analysis of the faultiness of 'hegemony' as a measure - there's more to power than economics and in many other areas the UK surpasses today's US. I'm sure that this piece would give fertile grounds for argument and speculation on the talk page, but the problem is that we are constrained by WP:OR.

In conclusion, I am now persuaded that the UK of 100 years ago and the US of today occupy largely the same position re. the rest of the world. In blunt terms, the UK was a hyperpower (much as I dislike the term). But I agree with you that this paper is no source for that contention.

Xdamr^talk 12:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for your opinion. I realise now that I had not read the article properly myself. Incidentally, my own opinion after reading this article remains that the UK of 100 years ago was rivalled by France, Germany, the USA, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Holland, Russia, Spain and Portugal. It was a time of great powers, not super or hyper powers. The US of today is unrivalled. [Addendum: I've just read most of the talk page on "British Empire". They seem to have reached the conclusion that Great Power was the word used at the time and that super power is anachronic.]Sprotch 13:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hypermarket

You wrote Would you recommend that I disengage for a while? I did not feel that my interventions warranted Tuxide's banner and comment.

I've dropped a note on Tuxide's talk page, saying that I also didn't understand why the banner and comment were there, and asking that it be moved if it pertained more to another section (as I think it does). I've reviewed the section where he posted it, and, quite frankly, I found it to be almost a model of a productive, civil discussion.

I do think that your (understandable) frustration has resulted in comments about Caldorwards4 that are too focused on him as a person, and if you want to, we could go over some of those comments and I could suggest wording that would have conveyed the constructive parts of what you felt was a problem without violating procedures such as WP:AGF. But we don't need to rehash the past if you don't want to.

So, to answer your question, no, I don't recommend your disengaging. I would say yes if, for example, this were a raging battle (a couple of editors on each side), but it's pretty slow, and Caldorwards4 seems to be rethinking his approach (which was revert but don't discuss). What you might want to do, if you see something you don't like (but can live with), is to wait a day or so and see what other editors do. I've got the article on my watchlist, and I have no problems with reverting an edit of Caldorforwards4 if I think it's not constructive. John Broughton | Talk

You're welcome. A couple of (probably not) final suggestions, for editing (in general):

Pick your fights. If someone you've been having difficulties with makes a minor change (say, rewords a sentence), and you think it makes the article worse, but not that much worse, let it go. Another editor is likely to fix it at some point in the future, anyway. Save your time and energy for things that are really important.
Look for compromises: if someone makes an almost-totally worthless edit (in your opinion), try to figure out why: was something not clear? something not included? some nuance missing? Then reword the edit so that the article addresses the other editor's concern without including (most of) the worthless stuff. This is, admittedly, much more difficult than simply reverting an edit, so I sometimes don't follow this advice when I see an anonymous IP edit (without an edit summary, typically) that is mostly worthless. As for difficulty, this approach is challenging because (a) you have to put yourself in the other editor's shoes, and (b) you have to find wording that you can live with that also addresses (to some extent) the other editor's concern. But it's normally worth it, because it increases significantly the chance of (some degree of) a harmonious working relationship. John Broughton | Talk 14:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I completely missed something, but the latest set of edit revisions seemed to be about whether or not to include one note in the heading section. I looked at the cited source, and, quite frankly, it seemed not to that relevant to the sentence it was included in (I didn't read the entire article because it requires a paid subscription). So I added it back to the article in a different place, where it was relevant.

If there is more to the matter that I've missed, why don't you post a note here? (It's on my watchlist; if I don't respond in a day or two, drop me a note.) Quite frankly, whatever disagreements the two of you are having look quite mild compared to most edit wars I've seen, and while one could argue that C--- should post (more) to the talk page, he is doing (mostly) doing edit summaries (so, some explanation). Also (again, I may have misread), this seems kind of a minor difference of opinion, something not worth a lot of time thrashing out. John Broughton | Talk 13:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In sum, I have been suggesting a rewrite on the talk page that contradicts what he has added recently and would like to avoid an edit war. I would like to get him to discuss on the talk page. The other thing is that he bases his edits on sources that are clearly not relevant to the edit (they do not mention the subject matter of the article) and are self-published material (but hopefully this can be resolved on the talk page). Sprotch 14:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you're talking about the History section, I suggest that you post a proposed revision on the Talk page, and also drop C--- a line saying you've done so, and will move it to the main page if he doesn't comment on it within a day. Then do so if he doesn't. If he reverts without any explanation, then Tuxide and I can presumably help. I'm glad you're looking for a conversation, but at some point you need to force the issue in order to get the other editor to realize that conversation is in his/her best interest.

On the other hand, I suggest not getting into a fight about extraneous or improper sources (see, above, about picking your fights), unless it comes down to his version (bad sources) versus yours (good sources) - then, of course, sources matter. But if there is consensus on the text, let someone else, in a month or a year or whatever, take out any sources that don't meet standards. (For example, if this can be expanded, it might be a good Featured Article, in which case it will get a very thorough review by others.) John Broughton | Talk 21:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just finished with my finals, let me write this month's newsletter for WP:RETAIL. I will drop a request for Hypermarket#History expansion. It will be available for reading on Wikipedia:WikiProject Retailing/20061201 newsletter. Regards, Tuxide 06:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Hypermarket, expanding the History section

Thanks a lot, now you got me thinking on Talk:Hypermarket#Expansion, History :P Happy editing to you! Cheers, Tuxide 06:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]