Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Major power


 * 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.  

The result of the debate was Redirect to Great power. Deathphoenix ʕ 01:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Major power
This article is Original Research. The users writing the page have been deciding according to their own debates what countries are and are not "major powers". Since "major power" is not a properly defined political science term (it's really only used colloquially), it's impossible to establish a clear criterion for inclusion or exclusion from this article. There is no criterion for what qualities and in what quantity are necessary to deem a country a "major power". This article ought to be deleted and set as a redirect to Great power. &mdash;thames 02:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Just a couple of things. Firstly, it was nice of you to give no warning or notice to the editors that have worked on this article before nominating it. Secondly, is Great power the only term that can be used for a power that is not a Superpower yet is stronger than a Middle power or Regional power. If there is any other term that defines such powers then a simple move will do I think. The majority of the content should stay, in one location or the other.  Noble eagle   (Talk)   08:15, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Great power, a much more specific and better-documented term, in agreement with Thames' comments. Barno 03:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect per Barno. TheProject 03:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete and redirect per nom; OR with no definable criteria, content (such as it is) being largely redundant with Great Power. Once we've established that the relevant polisci concepts belong on other pages, all we're left with here is a bulleted list of questionable trivia. And all the list has ever produced is a flurry of counterproductive editing by people who really have no grip on the discipline, but who see dates and nations and automatically want more for their own countries and less for the other guys. (A "honeypot for national self-aggrandisement," it's been called, that attracts "more than [its] fair share of cranks.") A quick look at the talk page confirms this. Albrecht 03:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect per nom. Or, to be really clever, rewrite to deal with the Europa Universalis concept ;-) Kirill Lok s  h in 03:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect and save anything worthwhile. - Richardcavell 04:20, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Great power, merging verified facts as required.  (aeropagitica)    (talk)   06:26, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect with large merging - the whole series on powers needs looking at though. --Robdurbar 06:47, 8 May 2006 (UTC) Change to weak keep, editors of page now realise, I hope, that this page (and the whole power series) need to be sourced. Perhaps at some point in the future it may be merged with great power, perhaps there will be scope for two articles. If the page is kept and doesnt change within a couple of months, I'll renom for delete or merging myself. --Robdurbar 15:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect per nom, but you don't need AfD to do that, just be bold and have this discussion on the talk page.  &middot; rodii &middot;  12:58, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: part of the idea, I think, was to reach a consensus on the need to jettison (delete) most of the content that's there (OR). Have you seen that article's talk page? Suggesting a merge would only lead to endless clamour and bickering from people wishing, against all good sense, to keep what's there. Albrecht 15:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * An Afd proposal is not the way to force changes to an article. If you object to the contents then as a matter of courtesy you ought to bring it up with editors on the article talk page (as a matter of fact, I might be wrong but don't believe that you have made any particular contribution to the article - 1 minor edit, that seems to be all).  As for the article title, 'Major power', I will take your word for it that this does not have a basis in academic political science.  If this is the case then it would have been nice for you and Thames to bring this up on the talk page; I don't think that you would have found any disagreement with moving/editing this article if you had calmly and reasonably explained the situation - simply slapping OR tags on the page isn't really a meaningful contribution towards its improvement.


 * Xdamr, you, I think, are missing the point. We have before us a purely OR article; discussing "changes" or plastering its content on another page won't solve anything. It simply needs to go. Also, your talk of "forcing changes," I find, is disingenuous&mdash;"Major power" is not a scientific term and so cannot be "defined" in a manner that would not run contrary to Wikipedia principles. I think this AfD nomination is legitimate and its goal is simple and very clear: delete the current OR article and replace it with a redirect to Great Power, where the general concepts, provided they are encyclopaedic and verifiable, can be developed. I am glad you noticed that I never substantially contributed to what I have openly identified as OR; why would I add to the problem? I see no contradiction. In brief: do you dispute that the article is original research? If not, let's get this behind us and turn our discussions to something called Political science. Albrecht 21:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * So, for those with the relevant academic background, is there or is there not a term for 2nd tier powers, powers such as the UK, France, and Russia?


 * Xdamr 16:11, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You're going about this backwards (that's how this mess was started in the first place). One does not create ad hoc polisci terms to fit arbitrary groups of states; one classifies countries according to existing categories and principles. Albrecht 21:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Redirect per nom. ISTM (as a non-expert) that most of the content is indeed original research, so there may not be much to merge. &mdash; Haeleth Talk 22:15, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Obviously I can't vote in this matter, but I would like to defend the claimed OR in the article. GB, France, Germany, Japan, China, Russia, and India are widely talked about as Major Powers in the world.  Other countries also deserve mention such as Italy, but because they are not "documented" as a major power are not included.  Whats ironic about this is that Major Power is the older article of the two. Anyway, if this is merged, all content should be merged. Anyway, the content currently presented, is only there after a LOT of discussion. Slowly but surely, these articles are becoming NPOV, with the current group of  dedicated editors, namely Xdamr,  Guinnog and Noble Eagle but several others as well.  12.220.94.199 01:44, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, being "widely talked about" doesn't mark them down as legitimate. If these countries were expressly classified as "Major Powers" in social science texts and peer reviewed journals, you'd have grounds for an article. They aren't, and you don't. Like it or not, Xdamr, Guinnog and Noble Eagle, whatever their other qualities, are not the arbiters of polisci taxonomy, and their discussion, however much of it there was, is no justification for an encyclopaedia article. Albrecht 02:11, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * A point I have made several times on the talk pages of these articles (Superpower etc, which this one derives a lot of its OR from).Guinnog 19:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The term major power perhaps. But major power is simply a term describing the usage in the media. Take this link that took me five seconds to look up for example. While the article is purely speculative, it does make the important point of the major powers in the world. It lists off China and the U.S.(obviously) as the main powers, with the spoilers being India and Russia and the signficant allies being Europe for the U.S.(speculative) and Japan for China(highly speculative). Nonetheless despite the large amounts of speculation, it does show who are the signficant powers in the modern world. 12.220.94.199 02:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I do think that there is scope for an article on major power/great power etc. Whether they should all be redirects to one article, or could even deserve their own, I'm not sure. However, this current version appears to be almost entirely an invention of someone's mind. Delete it, redirect, and then hopefully in a few months it can be recreated with decent conetent. --Robdurbar 07:44, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I know the article is largely unsourced. We were going to pursue that in time and already cut down on much OR in the UK and Russia sections. But firstly and most importantly, rather than going on about your 'no political term' talk can you just tell me what political science students would call powers such as the UK, Russia, China, India etc. that are NOT Superpowers. Just tell me that so that we can move the information to the related page.  Noble eagle   (Talk)   08:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Well if you want to keep the article then vote keep; as it stand its being redirected but there's nothing to stop you changing that by voting against it. This isn't really a place to discuss the article's content; hell, you have three or four days - go, find sources, improve it, and people might even alter their votes. --Robdurbar 08:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete as original research, or provide sources for the term. Vizjim 16:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete as original research, or come up with proper sources. As well as being OR this is also a highly charged political topic and thus draws away editors' energy from more worthwhile work they could be doing. Guinnog 19:38, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Sorry, but appears to be original research through and through. Was tagged for sources on April 25 and I see no attempt by anyone to add any. Other articles such as Hyperpower, etc. should be investigated as well (I have not done so). There would be a need for a non-OR NPOV article on great powers listing some of the factors outlining some of the issues in these classifications, but this is not it and the gentle prod of the sourcing tag seems to have had no impact - I suspect (but cannot be sure) that this is exactly because it is OR/interesting intellectual speculation. Martinp 19:40, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Redirect, not Delete The only "power" weaker than a major power is a minor power. Xaxafrad 03:59, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep - the political science / geopolitics journals don't really do peer review per se, but all of Hyperpower, Superpower, Major power, Regional power and Regional superpower are in moderately common colliqual use in those communities. They may not precisely define them, but they do use them.  If they're terms in use, Wikipedia can and should report on that.  Georgewilliamherbert 04:17, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Let's not mince words: Since when is Wikipedia a repository of terms that are in "moderately common colloquial use?" Which guideline sanctions; whose authority supports, the creation of Wikipedia articles that are venues for personal opinions developed through the editors' own research? Our mandate here is not, I would think, to pick up scraps of what the media blurt out and to try to cobble articles out of them. Another expression used fairly commonly in the media, for instance, is "major player," i.e. "the Republic of Foo is now a major player in Southeast Fooian affairs." Should I then go ahead and create Major player (international relations) and define it arbitrarily? Albrecht 05:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Moderately common colliqual use within the political science / geopolitics journals. I don't care what comes up in popular press reports; this is in use within the professional journals and publications of the political science / geopolitics research and policy communities.  Georgewilliamherbert 17:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Further that: Geopolitics/Political science book title, College course title, Ppaer by geopolitics researcher at policy center, paper by former US secretary of state. These primary sources are from the first page of googling the term, not even starting back through my library at home of books or back issues of  Foreign Affairs or other journals.
 * The claim that this isn't in sufficiently common use to document in wikipedia is ill-informed. This is Clearly NOT WP:OR and the AfD premise is faulty.  Please DO YOUR HOMEWORK.  Georgewilliamherbert 18:04, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * George, I've done enough homework to know that the Major power article is OR in all its bearings, that this AfD premise is sound, and that your own "sources" (such as they are) confirm this. Your third link, in particular, bears out the problem with its flippant talk of "major Eastern actor," "major and active players," "major geostrategic player," etc. These are all off-handed, rhetorical expressions with no strictly defined application in the field of international relations. Even its use of "major power" is shaky and suggests a morphous definition:
 * "Japan is clearly a major power in world affairs..."
 * "Great Britain, to be sure, still remains important to America. It continues to wield some degree of global influence through the Commonwealth, but it is neither a restless major power..."


 * Nowhere have you illustrated a common usage subject to verifiable criteria. If the term "major power" were a staple in the political science discipline, as you seem to suggest, there would be no need to clarify its meaning with a phrase like "in world affairs." And all this, of course, does not even address the plain and obvious OR nature of the article's content. Albrecht 18:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It is somewhat beyond me how you can state that there's no common usage subject to verifyable criteria. I just pulled up a bunch of sources with 30 sec on Google, and from having studied the field for a decade on and off I can tell you that any semi-competent library search in a Poli Sci / Geopolitics section will find loads more.  The word is
 * in common use in the field
 * clearly enough defined that people in the field don't argue about it all the time
 * The specific country entries are highly problematic; they don't say anything I know to be false about the state of geopolitical analysis / publication, but it's very opinionated and many of them approach or pass OR on content summarization. A shorter list of nations which are labeled Major power in the literature would be far superior, without the problematic longer expansion.  Georgewilliamherbert 19:06, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * You just pulled up a bunch of sources that use the term frivolously and arbitrarily along with a handful of others ("major player," etc.) that ought not to have articles. Good effort, but not good enough. ("common usage," by the way, means that the sense (meaning) of the word shouldn't vary substantially. It does.) And if you think the term is "clearly enough defined that people don't argue about it all the time," then you ought to conduct that semi-competent library search you've been talking about and find a definition. The onus is on you. (Oh, and I recommend you take a look at the article's talk page, for instance the section titled "ITALY, WHY YOU DON'T YOU EVEN MENTION ITALY?" Not exactly encouraging.)
 * Then feel free to try and get reputable cites for the criteria the article is based on, and the content written around them. The main reason it fails is its all-OR nature. Change that and I might change my vote. Guinnog 18:11, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I've put those references into the article. The basic definition there, and its usage re: the validity of the term, should be established sufficiently by now.
 * The question of whether the individual nations listed, and the format or detail of their listings, are appropriate is a completely different question. Shrinking those to a much more compact list, and clarifying that there is no universally accepted list but that these nations have been labeled as such (and preferably, working to reference each nation's labeling) are good things.  But that's article improvement work, not deletion justification.  I will poke around and work on that, but I can't do it all today.  It does need to happen over time, though.  Georgewilliamherbert 18:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Good effort. The trouble is, as it stands, beyond the dicdef, the entire article consists of "the individual nations listed, and the format or detail of their listings". I don't think anybody doubts the possibility of a viable article with this title in the future, though it is harder to justify when there an adequate article exists on Great Powers, a term with a much better academic pedigree which seems to include this article's subject. Guinnog 18:37, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Great Powers are distinct from Major powers; conflating the two is a mistake.
 * In terms of fixing this article; articles which need major repair are specifically listed as a reason not to AfD in the AfD criteria. This needs to get tagged with cleanup and related tags (and fixed...), not deleted.  The "nuke it and recreate it later more appropriately" approach is against stated WP policy, though it's something people commonly want to do.  Georgewilliamherbert 18:59, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The only difference between "Great Power" and "Major Power" is the former is well-defined and solidly entrenched behind history while the latter remains redundant and unsubstantiated (look at the list of Great Powers and spot those without a "downfall" date&mdash;they correspond exactly to your ad hoc list of "Major" powers!). As "Great Power" falls out of fashion, other terms like "major power" (or "major geostrategic player," as per your links above) are popping up to express basically the same concept. Or am I missing some Earth-shattering difference between states "that have substantial influence on other states" and those "whose opinions must be taken into account by other nations before effecting initiatives"?
 * Uh... the only difference between "Great Power" and "Major Power" is that a Great Power status is a historical recognition and that a Major Power is a current status designation. A country was a Great Power, or is arguably a Major Power.  This is not just a minor semantics point... Georgewilliamherbert 19:33, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * "Nuke it and recreate it later more appropriately" is a gross misrepresentation of the situation when we're talking about an unencyclopaedic term defined only by a smattering of OR: There's nothing to nuke, and very little to recreate that can't be added to Great Power or Power in international relations. Moreover, your calling into question the politics of this AfD does not constitute a defence for the article. Defending the article would involve backing up the substance, structure, and assumptions of its content with the proper sources, and so far, you simply haven't done this. Albrecht 14:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * There is at the very least a major overlap between the two terms, and if you deleted the OR bits, there wouldn't be anything left. Sorry, but FWIW I am not convinced. I speak as someone who has tried hard to improve the current article over the past months. Guinnog 19:10, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * If criticising all the efforts to improve the articles is improvement then pardon my ignorance. See Talk:Superpower to see what I'm talking about. Firstly, we've got the criteria sourced by a reputable organization, what more do you want? Secondly, your work on this article has comprised of very few edits. I didn't want to make this personal, but as a guy who's accepted as a frequent editor of the Power in international relations articles, you've got on my nerve with your criticism and lack of helping the action. Anyway, no hard feelings. It seems we've got a Political Science dispute here, which should have been sorted on the talk page before nominating for deletion. I'm voting keep until you PS students can come to a conclusion.  Noble eagle   (Talk)   08:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 *  Show me  criteria sourced by reputable organizations and I'll change my vote to "keep" in a heartbeat. So far, the citations in the opening paragraph lead to a laughable assortment of blogs, news stories, dead links, and a book cover. Sorry, no game. Also, (and I hope I don't "get on your nerves" by saying this), my conviction is that a "delete" vote on this gangrenous wreck of an article is the single best "helping action" one can offer here. Albrecht 15:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * An organization by the name of Global CPR was used and is used to source the criteria.  Noble eagle   (Talk)   07:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I would question though whether this one reference (interesting though it is) is notable enough to base an entire article on.

I would note too that their criteria (which are unreferenced) are subtly different from the ones in the article, and that the conclusions they draw are slightly different from those in the article. There remains the nagging doubt in my mind too about whether this article may be based on an earlier version of this Wiki article, leading to a circular situation! Best case scenario, we establish that this article is based on (plagiarised from?) the OR of one website, moderated and modified by the original research of several Wiki editors.

While it is an interesting debate, whether such-and-such a power is a "Major Power" or an "Emerging Superpower" etc, I don't think it belongs on an encyclopedia as it is too arbitrary. Really, who are we to decide whether Russia (say) is a Major Power?

If this article is allowed to stay on Wiki in anything like its present form, we could have next an article on Possible Superpowers of the 22nd century, or one on Countries which will probably never amount to much, or one on Countries which could have been Superpower contenders but blew it. Synthesise some OR criteria and make a list of countries, then let the arguments begin. Entertaining though this might be (up to a point), it doesn't seem apppropriate for an encyclopedia.

I appreciate the work you have put in to try and improve this article, and understand how galling it must be to see the work seemingly deprecated; be assured this is nothing personal (as I mentioned in your talk page), but just a recognition that there is no way to save this from being OR. Guinnog 12:40, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete, OR, Wikipedia is not a Repository of Terms in Moderately Common Colloquial Use. See discussion on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2006_May_9#What_the_heck Hornplease 07:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect and Merge verifiable content with Great power. I've decided to put my vote for something worthwile as the Keep vote just won't work. Unfortunately, these aren't the best days for me to actually edit these articles and I don't get too much time on Wikipedia. So I'm not going to do rapid changes to the articles as I did for another political science deletion a couple of months ago.  Noble eagle   (Talk)   07:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Change vote to Keep.


 * Redirect and merge verifiable content. I would urge to extend this same discussion to thr following articles : Emerging superpowers: India, Emerging superpowers: Europe and Emerging superpowers: China. Same problems, such as original research and colloquial knowledge and citations, happen there in an intensive way. Cloretti2 17:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * India's an FA, the guys involved with that don't want the content in the Emerging Superpowers India article. :)  Noble eagle   (Talk)   08:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

If you decid not to keep the page, I think you shouldn't delete it, simply merge all its conyents plus the expanded ones with the page Great Power and complement the two pages, but I think this is a wrong idea. ACamposPinho 1:40 10 May 2006
 * Redirect per Barno and merge per WP:V. --Slgrandson 20:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, rehash of Emerging Superpowers—India and similar crystall ball articles. Pavel Vozenilek 20:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * KEEP the page The only thing that must be done is expanding the sources, which exist and include one or more countries that have this status but you don't mention them becuase you think there is proofs or documentation of their Major Power status, which is the case with Italy. There are enough books about this, there are also internet sources and if you want more sources you can contact some persons which where in Italian government, specially in foreign affairs and defence that can provide reliable sources too you.And in the end there are many italian books regarding this theme. One major writer of italian geopolitics is Mr. Lelio Lagorio, a military that was defence minister in the early 80's.


 * KEEP  I've been away for the fast few days and have been unable to follow or contribute to the discussion, however I see that there have been developments.


 * From my reading of the Afd proposal there are two main points of contention: firstly, the concept of 'Major Power' is OR and secondly the listing of nations within the article is OR. To my mind only the first is a valid AfD criticism; debates over OR in the article content are properly dealt with on the article talk page - the fact that an article is poorly written is not a reason for its deletion, it is a reason to improve it.  As Georgewilliamherbert says above, 'the "nuke it and recreate it later more appropriately" approach is against standard WP policy'.
 * Either you have not thoroughly read the discussion or you are deliberately obstructing the issues involved. No one wants to delete the article because it's "poorly written." What we have here is an indefinable term built on foundations of bickering and sloppy OR. The grounds for deletion, as previously stated, are that the term is redundant, OR, and, not being a polisci term, "cannot be 'defined' in a manner that would not run contrary to Wikipedia principles."
 * The question of whether 'Major power' is a term of political science is one for political scientists to debate. Personally, I accept in good faith Albrecht's assertion that it is not.  However I do not consider that this alone makes the article OR.  We see above, and now in the article, that 'Major power' is a term in colloquial usage amongst those involved in the area; it can no longer be seriously asserted that this is 'OR/interesting intellectual speculation' (per Martinp above).  Whether it is a strict term of political science is not the point; it has been shown to be a term of art, this makes it worthy of remaining.
 * If colloquial usage warrants an article then I expect your full support when I create Major player (international relations), Geostrategic player, and Restless Power.
 * The term is now sourced. The content of the article may remain open to debate, but the grounds for a legitimate Afd have surely now gone.  Informed discussion as to content should now take place on the talk page.
 * The term, as I said above, is sourced to a laughable assortment of blogs, news stories, dead links, and a book cover. Sorry, no game. The AfD, if anything, is more valid now than when it began since we now know that none of the article's main contributors have shown any serious interest in finding a legitimate basis for the term or demonstrating that it can stand on other foundations than OR (the poor job with sources confirms this). Why not channel our energies toward something productive?
 * I question whether the votes above can now legitimately stand; now that the term is sourced it is no longer OR. Those who voted above based their conclusions on a superceded version of the article.  Either way it would have been much better to have thrashed this out on the talk page before bringing it to Afd.  Albrecht said '[I] have never substantially contributed to [an article] I have openly identified as OR'.  No-one expects you to contribute to such an article but I would ask whether this precluded you from raising your concerns on the talk page?
 * Xdamr 13:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Nice attempt to dismiss the process out of hand. And if you want to thrash things out on the talk page go right ahead; I invite you to debate ACamposPinho's Italian case and his assertion that "there are many italian books regarding this theme. One major writer of italian geopolitics is Mr. Lelio Lagorio, a military that was defence minister in the early 80's." Good luck. Albrecht 16:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Its not necessary luck, only money tobuy the books, go at www.internetbookshop.it(ibs.it) and search for Lelio Lagorio, there you can buy his books.There are many others from other sources,including anglo-saxon schoolars and researchers of these theme. ACamposPinho 3:48, 12 May 2006
 * That's just quoting an example of a one-off. It doesn't happen very often that someone comes and says that they want different nations in the Major power article. In case you haven't noticed, the same nations have been on the article since it's creation.  Noble eagle   (Talk)   07:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The fact of you saying that it doesn't happens very often,is alreadymentioning thatit happens.

I talked to people in wikipedia and they say that I could edit the page, according to the facts that I showed. Neverthless, I talked in the discussion page,because I want things to be done fairly. I'mnotasking to includ my country or other minor powers. Its Italy.I already showed more facts than all thefacts that areon that page for all the countries, and I showed only for one, because I know what I'm talking about. Even if GDP, military, industry know-how and self-knowledge to construct their own things besides geopolits aren't enough, look at Italy cultural and historical impirtance since Roman epoch untill nowadays. 50% of the worldpatrimony is there. I can provide facts and facts, people doesn't wan't to see them because they prefer a forgotten and more fragile Italy.But the reality is very different. I reed above someone saying that Japan is Major Power, while UK is also a Major Power, usefull to USA but a restless power. Its wrong. Besides UK GDP, financial markets strenghtit has the second most active personel on "peacekeeping" actions in the world, its a major EU member, member of Nato with nuclear power, has a UN Permanent Seat on Security Council besides being the chief country of the British Commonwealth. As you said,one must take into account the powerof the region itself and the power that the coutry has in the region to determinate its power in the world stage. Japan is a Major economical power, but can't influence all Asian continent byitself, altough itsan importantcountry in world stage, its more a regional power of East Asia, not even Asia at allits dimension. Japan cannot deploy its armed forces for war purposes, only in peacekeeping or if it where attacked.In that it's more a puppet of USA than UK. The fact the page has the same nations since the begging is a very poor argument.Everything evolves and develops. The Wikipedia project is always in development, look at the newarticles, pages, expanded articles it has compared with the beggining of that project. The english page is evolving every day. The fact that you don't want the page to be developed is that it was created according to your views or its you that have some prejudices against the thruth. Since you have a personal aproach to these geopolitics,you say that are the others that have this sentiment. Nobody its ownerof the thruth, people could only know more of this or moreof that and someone knows more of this and the other knows more of that. You are not owner of the thruth and not even of Wikipedia, you should listen, or reed what someone knows better than you. I've been studying Italian Geopolitics,culture, politics, military,...,for a very long time. What I want is that the Major Power page shows more fairness and the Great Power pages shows historical accuracy, things I don't see on them now. ACamposPinho 2:18, 13 May 2006
 * OK, you don't need to get touchy about it. And this isn't the place to discuss it anyway.  Noble eagle ]]  (Talk)   01:31, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment: I dislike the antagonistic approach to deletion; I had thought to persuade the article's editors of the validity of my concern. If their consensus is against me I will annul my vote and leave the rest to their judgment. But I'm not touching that article again. Albrecht 16:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect Strong Keep as per my notes. The crusade has begun, and must be stopped. For this article, I'd have to agree it'd be better served being in Great Powers. However, if this is the start of another crusade against any article with the word "power" in it, then Strong Keep as all the others are well-known, well thought out political articles that tally with public knowlege and the media. It'd be a Wikipedian failure to the public not to include these kinds of articles. However, for this particular article, I fail to see need for a differentiation between Major Power and Great Power Trip: The Light Fantastic 00:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment I would invite all people here discussing this subject to extend this treatment to the Emerging superpowers (China, EU, and India and Russia...and blablabla). All sourced points there can be used in their appropriate articles (India..or China..etc). All of them contain original research and NPOV. I know that many fragments are sourced, but to draw a global conclusion based on several facts (very recent ones, still needed to be analized in an historic context) is a little complicated. Anybody here remembers about Japan in the 80's? When the Japanese Royal palace used to worth more than California??? Well, that's my point. Even with sourced facts, a great deal of crystal balling still remains. 200.171.168.91 01:03, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
 * First of all, Emerging Superpowers and Major powers aren't related enough to be dicussed in the one AfD. Secondly, the Emerging Superpowers articles already survived AfD. Thirdly, fragments aren't sourced, everything (at least in India and China ones) is sourced, the India one uses inotes because it was way to messy with 130-odd sources lying everywhere. Fourthly, there are also a number of links used that directly link India's, China's, EU's power with a rise to Superpower status so that isn't OR. Fifthly, the Russia one and a couple of other made by patriotic editors need to be speedily removed.  Noble eagle   (Talk)   01:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
 * You would be foolish to begin this again. It'll only lead to an edit war. You know full well that these articles need to stay for the good of Wikipedia's political section. I will not tolerate this tiny majority inviting people who know little of the subject matter to swing deletion votes. The majority of people who worked on these articles want the articles to stay. Never mind if you manage to whip up enough support from faceless editors in an AfD, you will be defeated by the majority. You were warned. Wikipedians please note the contributions of 200.171.168.91 and their counterpart 201.1.154.57 - nothing other than these articles for deletion. Yet they seem strangely knowlegeable of the Wikipedian workings. Sockpuppets if I ever saw one.Trip: The Light Fantastic 21:12, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

PS. All random faceless editors who've had their say on this, please note all the media sources appearing on this article. Whoops. As these articles are all OR by us, someone really out to ring the media up and tell them to stop lying! Shocking, eh? Trip: The Light Fantastic 21:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Strong KEEP. Excellent article, very valid topic. Maybe a bit long, but should NOT be deleted. Theonlyedge 23:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * 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.