Wikipedia talk:Edit war/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Is this really the stuff of guidelines?

"Most users consider" and

"individuals using this definition sometimes disagree on whether or not a particular editing episode constitutes "warfare." Subscribers to the second definition consider the first to be a revert duel. To them, this term describes a particular type of edit war, it is insufficient to describe edit warfare in a broader context."

I'm new, so I could be completely off base, but these don't sound like the sort of language appropriate to a guideline or anywhere else in this encyclopedia. I've reviewed several other guidelines such as Be Bold and Categorization and they seem much more clearly focused on "Try to do this", "Avoid this", "This is when to categorize", "this is how to categorize".

And why does this guideline tell us examples of why people become "edit warriors"? The simple definition and the information on why edit wars make for poor version histories is very important, but I'm not sure some of the other stuff is really meaningful or appropriate. Doug. 02:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any reason this should be a guideline, nor any consensus in support of this edit. ←Ben^B4 05:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit wars between admins

In a small Wikipedia which has only two active admins, what's the best way to solve an edit war between two admins? To lock the page doesn't help. --Manop - TH 08:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I suppose if the situation came up I'd post it on either the admin incident noticeboard or the general admin noticeboard. Depending on the severity of the situation. Anynobody 01:36, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I bet some group even higher than the admins (like an IT at the actual WikiMedia foundation) would put an office lock on the pages, or potentially revoke their administrative capabilities. Promotion to an administrator requires answering a query stating "How would you respond to an edit war?" or something similar. Graham (talk, contrib) 08:43, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit war and removing sourced text

An edit war is when two or more contributors repeatedly revert one another's edits to an article. leaves a lot of room for exploitation by those who would game the system.

Imagine a situation where one editor is removing/rewording referenced statements over and over, somewhat like this:

The article starts out including this statement:

• ... according to him, Jones was "kicked out" of the organization. He also says that they have been infested with Nazis who are persecuting him.

Editor A makes this edit:

• Jones was a former member of the organization.

Editor B reverts Editor A and posts to the talk page that the original text is closer to what the source reported.

• ... according to him, Jones was "kicked out" of the organization. He also says that they have been infested with Nazis who are persecuting him.

Editor A reverts to their version without discussion.

• Jones was a former member of the organization.

By the wording of this guideline both editors would be editing , however it over looks the problem with one editor leaving out information which is both in the cited source, and is how the article's subject described their situation. Meaning that a person with a WP:COI or other agenda could simply revert until the editor looking to protect the information is seen as edit warring despite any attempts to discuss what's under disagreement. Anynobody 01:36, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit war (with users 203.214.3.64 and Downwards)

Hi there WIKIPEDIA people:

The unlikely happened: I have been here at WIKIPEDIA almost a year now, i do not possess an account though, have corrected more vandalism than i would have liked, and also received some messages regarding civility and assuming good faith. It is just i lose it when i see edits that i know for sure are vandalism; that i can handle (i mean receiving messages telling me to tone down).

But the past two weeks i have met two individuals who really blew me off the top "wiki-speaking" (but it goes beyond that): with user Downwards i have never actually talked (except for a few words in edit summaries), but he has reverted two edits of mine when the articles had been (especially LORENZO WILLIAMS' page) significantly improved, just because i did not cite any references. I checked his talk page, and he has more than 100 complaints about his MO, as well as several blocking threats. But it got worse with user 203.214.3.64, who also reverted LORENZO W. changes (AFTER I INSERTED REFERENCES!!!) and this guy has really insulted and been disrespectful towards me (i admit i did not stay pat or sleep on it, i retaliated). It all began regarding changes i made in OMAR COOK's article (check edit history to see what i and he said), and it's all gone downhill from there...

WHAT CAN BE DONE? Obviously i do not wish to interact with this "person" ever again, and wish to stress i do not want to leave WIKIPEDIA (if it has to be done, then i go). For the time being i already told these two types that they can change all they want in my edits (not messing around with edits they can make to other users), i'll revert them back.

SINCERELY, FROM PORTUGAL VASCO AMARAL - --217.129.67.28 17:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Guideline drift

The text of this guideline has drifted somewhat, so that various facts are no longer clear. These include "edit warring is disruptive" and "WP:BLOCK allows editors to be blocked for edit warring without violating 3RR". The text itself could use polishing and being divided into sections with a logical structure. Would anyone like to take a stab at that? — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Guideline or policy?

This page is marked as a guideline, yet "no edit warring" is actually treated as policy. It is well-known that users may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate 3RR. Also, the Arbitration Committee frequently sanctions users for edit warring, not for "repeated 3RR violations" or some such thing. It seems to me we are treating the prohibitions on edit warring as policy, which is exactly how it should be, and yet tagging them as a mere guideline. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing up this issue. It needs a serious rewrite if we really want it to be sensible as the main policy on edit warring as a behavior (as it should be), though. I'll take a look at it. Dmcdevit·t 07:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Please have a look at some of the changes I made. It's not perfect, but a significant improvement I think, and much closer to what this should look like in policy form. Comments welcome. Dmcdevit·t 08:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

So far I really like it. Has some teeth, but isn't harsh, and provides alternatives to edit warring that users can pursue. Also has the flexibility to avoid the 3RR-only trap. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 09:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite

Much better! As with most guidelines this one had suffered from textual fragmentation, the new version flows well and is descriptive, not prescriptive. I might add a summary paragraph to the top. Guy (Help!) 09:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. A massive improvement on the stuff we had before. Edit warring is a much bigger and more important concept than the mechanical 3RR and this should be the main policy page when it comes to dealing with the issue of abusive reverting. Moreschi ^Talk 22:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Yes, it should. It's already our de facto policy, since it is enforced by administrators (well, not all, but maybe we can work on that) and arbitrators. I'm about ready to suggest tagging this as policy rather than a guideline. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the template, if for no other reason than to start discussion, should it prove necessary. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Template

Do people think a template should be created to show an edit-war in progress? Simply south 18:44, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

length of page

Wikipedia is getting close to 40 policy pages. It is unreasonable to expect someone to read and understand this ammount of policy unless said pages are very short. At it's current length this page adds to that burden to an unreasonable extent. I suggest the pages is redundent given that Wikipedia:Dispute resolution is also policy.Geni 19:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. Wikipedia:Civility is incredibly long and tedious, and yet that remains policy. The DR page does not really address the issue of edit-warring, which is an absolutely critical concept to understand and have a clearly-defined policy on (far more so than civility!). Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 19:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

You are free to attempt shorten or even get the civility policy removed but until you have done that inreaseing the amount of policy is not acceptable. Or roughly translanted in WPs WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.Geni 19:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Geni, perhaps you could make a start at shortening the page if you feel it is too long? That would be a better way to demonstrate your claim that it has parts that should be removed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Last time I checked, there's no rule as to how long policy pages can be. Furthermore, the entire policy is pretty well summed up in the opening paragraphs. This means a reader can choose to simply read the opening and have a pretty good sense for the policy. The sections thereafter elaborate on the policy and help the reader get a firmer grasp on what we're talking about. This is a good thing, not a bad one. It's also how many of our policy pages work. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 19:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I just checked sizes. Of the 50 pages in Category:Wikipedia official policy, this is the 31st longest at about 8k. The longest 11 are over 20k each. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:37, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Then you should have no problems finding 8K of cuts should you.Geni 19:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I showed you which parts I thought should be removed at the present time.Geni 19:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

That's hardly constructive information about which parts you feel are too long. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Well you can't cut the EDP or GFDL but anything else would do fine for 8K of cuts.Geni 20:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we start cutting the fat from WP:3RR, first. ;-) Dmcdevit·t 19:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

As long as you can find 8K of fat fine.Geni 20:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying. I haven't seen a discussion anywhere that there is a fixed number of total bytes of policy, that new policies have to be offset by cuts elsewhere. If that's what you're proposing here, I hope you'll raise is on a village pump or somewhere else for general discussion. It certainly isn't reflected in WP:POLICY. The argument made by the person who placed the policy tag is that this page is already treated as policy; could you speak to that argument instead of to the page length? — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

No. If we expect people to be remotely familiar with policy then we have a responsibility to keep it as short as possible. Making sure that all additions are balanced by reductions seems a reasonable way to do this. Your abuse of process does not need to be made into everyone else's expanded reading list.Geni 21:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Could you expand on this "abuse of process"? Note that I did not write this page, I just asked for a rewrite to better reflect actual practice. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Treating this page as policy when it wasn't.Geni 21:32, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

No edit warring has effectively been policy for quite some time. The three-revert rule emphasizes that it is not an entitlement, but an electric fence, and that editors may be blocked for edit warring, even if they don't technically exceed three reverts in 24 hours. Furthermore, the Arbitration Committee has repeatedly sanctioned editors for edit warring. The recent decision to tag this page as policy is just catching up with our practices. As for abuse of process, there was none here. We discussed changing the page here and I left plenty of time for people to object before making the change. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 21:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:VP/P?Geni 23:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Abuse of process? No, but even so, the whole point of process is that it is there to be abused...Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 21:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Trimming the tree

Personally, I'm interested to see where it's noted that this or any other project page must be trimmed before becoming "policy". - jc37 22:25, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Actualy we have a rather neat process for creating new policy but if you fail to follow it it seems not unreasonable to ask that you don't increase the total amount of policy.Geni 22:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, our process involves you making constructive suggestions if you disagree with an edit, and then seeking consensus for them. You have not engaging in the process here, just being contrarian, and making arbitrary demands on the basis of length rather than content. And I don't think anyone else agrees with you. Dmcdevit·t 22:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

No the process is a bit more detailed than that.Geni 22:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I note the continued lack of a constructive suggestion. We're not going to get anywhere this way. Start a useful discussion, or, frankly, don't waste our time. Dmcdevit·t 22:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey you are happy to take up the time of rather a low of people have even more policy to read. If you are not prepared to justfiy why this 8K is more important than another 8K of policy I tend to feel that you are not takeing things seriously enough.Geni 23:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I see. So no constructive suggestions, just some bizarre demands about reaching a certain length rather than quality. Please move along. Dmcdevit·t 07:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Demote to proposed until it gains wider consensus

I understand that early this month, this page was upgraded to official policy. My view is that to do so, we need wider involvement and input from the community at large. The upgrade to policy needs to be accompanied with at minimum a post in WP:VPP. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Not to say that I am not in agreement that a policy page on the subject may be useful. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:27, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't really see your problem here. Are we saying that this page isn't policy? it has always been treated as policy, whatever the template at the top said. The demotion will only benefit edit-warriors and trolls, and make us the laughing stock of attack sites. Physchim62 (talk) 19:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The policy we have in place is WP:3RR, and to have another policy that explains what edit warring is, we need community consensus. Trolls and edit-warriors are already getting their dues without this page.≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I would appreciate if you would offer an actual objection rather than citing procedural grounds as to why the page is not policy. It is clear to me that this is current practice, even in your own words. It is already self-evidently policy then. Suggesting that 3RR is a policy about edit warring suggests that you need to think about it more carefully; one of the very purposes of this page is to describe the general concept of edit warring over and above 3RR, which has only ever been an enforcement policy for bright line cases. Dmcdevit·t 22:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I really do think that it is very poor form to "demote" a page describing a fundamental policy so that it misleads people. You reasoning smacks strongly of process-wonkery, and I fail to see how it is in the best interests of the community, let alone the project.

James F. (talk) 22:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The way you make policy is to add the policy tag and see if anyone disagrees for anything other than procedural motives (which are bankrupt). If no one disagrees with this page's description as policy, we have achieved consensus. You don't get consensus in advance, consensus applies after the fact (see WP:BOLD, WP:BRD). Anything else is pure wikilawyering. Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 22:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Before I get crucified, here, a question. A page is made policy and no announcement is made anywhere about this fact? Not on VPP, not on the Signpost, not on WP:AN? Do editors need to guess that this page has become policy after some editors come to WP:3RR and add a merge notice? I do not think that is a lot to ask to request feedback from the community before upgrading a page to policy after a complete rewrite just 10 days ago, and only three days after that rewrite? To ask for community input in these circumstances is neither wikilawyering, nor process wonkiness. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that this page has already been policy for a long time, and simply never tagged as such. But if there is a concern about inadequate community input, I see no reason we couldn't make a note on a noticeboard now directing people to the issue. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Now that there is a vigorous debate at WP:3RR about this issue, it may be a good time to post a note at WP:VPP to attract more editors to the debate. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Done ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Small clarification on tag teams

In checking to see if it covered one of my pet hates it does not. How would people feel to a minor but important change to point out that edit warring needs to be considered across all parties, for example tag team reverting. Some words like:

3. Edit warring often involves more than one editor on each side supporting each other making similar edits. The spreading of contentious edits across many users is not acceptable behaviour (historically it was a technique to evade the three revert rule).

only better in What is edit warring?. Spenny 19:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

That this is already covered in the WP:SOCK policy. Maybe a link to that page would suffice. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

No I am talking about the informal alliances that naturally seem to arise on various issues, in good faith, from different, independently minded people (ie not meatpuppets either). Spenny 21:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

A little more work, please

I find the quality of English to be somewhat under the standards for a policy page. I'm not sure how it all arose but it's a little didactic and imprecise. I'll try cleaning it up a little to cut out some rhetoric, starting with the "what is edit warring" section. It starts by saying edit warring is impossible to define. Whether that's true or not (the proof is in the pudding, I think, not in the assertion) the policy defines edit warring so that's a contradiction. Then it says edit warring is a "mindset that tolerates" something. No, I don't think so. It's the thing, not the toleration of the thing. And so on. I get what it's trying to say, I think, but it doesn't really say it so clearly. Okay, here goes...Wikidemo 01:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It said that edit warring is not specifically definable. If you don't like the wording, please don't remove the entire sentence, intent and all. You are also changing the meaning and making it much more strict and unhelpful. "it is any mindset that tolerates confrontational tactics to affect content disputes" is quite different from your replacement: "Edit warring is repeated use of confrontational reversions to win a content dispute." You've done this in several other places, or just removed them entirely. Copyediting is good, but please propose some of these meaning changes here first. Dmcdevit·t 03:21, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo, I agree here with Dmcdevit, some of the meaning has been lost with your edits. Please consider a self-revert and work one section at a time so that we can all help out in the copyediting effort. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Opining on a policy page that we can't define what the policy covers isn't useful. Particularly when there's a definition immediately above. Nor is repeating the justification for the policy in every section. Edit warring is not a mindset, that is a nonsense statement. My edits have significantly improved things but even so it's not ready for prime time. Perhaps we should demote it and consider it a proposal for a while longer.Wikidemo 17:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Anyone up for discussion? I'm with Jossi that this needs more discussion before it gets established as a policy. Yes, the changes I made did affect the meaning to some extent. I do think this page is a good idea, and overall a good effort, just not ready. I would oppose it in the exact form before I edited it, but I think it can easily be a workable policy. I'm not insisting my edits are the best ones, just that it needs some refinement. So don't be shy please! Wikidemo 03:57, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Everyone has their own preferred style of exposition. Mine is relatively dry, which is not surprising because that's the way I write. Other prefer more expressive content. I find that I need to look past the fact that a document like this isn't written in my own voice when evaluating it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:16, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that I should have been more patient with other people's writing style? That makes sense, though I do think there were some places where it went beyond style to become incorrect or unwise statements.Wikidemo (talk) 23:55, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

removed sections

Two sections were removed last night: "why edit warring is bad" and "alternatives". The first of these is clearly needed in the policy about edit warring, since its role is partly to educate new users who won't know why it's bad. I reinserted it as it was, although it could probably use some improvement. The other section was a little verbose for me, so I added back just a few sentences outlining some concrete things that can be done when disputes arise. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:16, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Per my essay-like thing User:Wikidemo/pg, it's okay to include justifications for policies, and helpful suggestions to users that are not part of enforceable policy, as part of a policy page. But best to segregate that from the operative part of the policy, and clearly indicate that it's just explanatory text. Wikidemo (talk) 23:10, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia policies are not legal documents. They just describe the way things are done in practice. When the way things are actually done includes modalities, the policies should as well. A central role of policy documents is to explain to new editors why things are done the way they are, and the consequences that could result from not following the standard practices. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:16, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I think restoring the sections was the right call. The legal profession could sure use a lesson in how to explain rules to people in a way they understand and accept. One thing we can learn from the law is to be clear on when we're telling people what to do versus when we're explaining things to them. Keep things short and sweet, basically.Wikidemo (talk) 23:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Causes for edit wars

After doing some editing of contested material, including the "lamest edit wars" nominee Copernicus, I have come to some preliminary conclusions about the causes of edit wars on Wikipedia. I believe:

• Edit wars are not usually the result of bad editors per se, but bad policy, poorly organized articles, and incomplete articles that encourage people to engage in unproductive editing practices.

• The deepest underlying problem is that WP:Revert and WP:ROWN are not policies or guidelines, and although it is widely recognized that reverts are extremely frustrating to editors, no action has been taken to limit their application beyond a "three-revert rule". Further, the "three-revert rule" provides no bias in favor of productive edits but strongly encourages sock-puppetry and partisan collusion.

• A further problem is that the "edit revert discuss cycle" is highly inefficient. A person adds a statement with sourced detail to an article, and instead of fixing it, someone reverts it without comment. If the editor notices and tries again, on the second try, there is a call to "discuss" or some vague statement "this is too radical (the word bold is never used) a change to make without comment" is made. Then the issue is talked to death, until (if one is persistent) the reverter offers some slightly reworded statement. But for cryin' out loud, why couldn't he have posted that in the first place? It takes an evening to add a sentence that was done in five minutes. If the original poster is not persistent, or not willing to post poor prose to satisfy the reverter, an edit war is born.

• Within articles, the effect of edit wars is to stunt the growth of most of the article, presumably through reversions and page protection, while encouraging the growth of an "Edit War" subcategory and voluminous talk pages. The lack of background information in the article encourages people to draw strong and knee-jerk conclusions favoring one extreme or the other in the edit war, while the classification and interpretation of many of the facts pertaining to the article in terms of the edit war makes many things contentious that would not at first have seemed relevant to it.

• It is my hypothesis that edit wars can be ended through the logical organization and full development of those aspects of an article which are not subject to dispute in the edit war (though they are subject to collateral damage). I have yet to prove this, however.

I believe that this problem can be solved by developing a guideline specifically dealing with reversion and deletion of material within articles, which incorporates information from the WP:Revert help file. I would suggest for example something along the lines of: "When reverting or deleting material from an article, you are responsible for maintaining that portion of an edit or paragraph which is relevant, non-redundant, sourced, and verifiable, especially citations of reliable sources, even if there are good reasons to object to other material in that edit or paragraph which is removed." I'm sure there are many nuances which can be added to that sentence - so many that it is likely to blossom into a full length guideline if pursued. 70.15.116.59 (talk) 18:41, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Blocking consensus

There is a discussion started about addressing those who would take entrenched positions and act in ways to block consensus, which could be considered a kind of, or related to, edit warring. Wikipedia talk:Disruptive editing#Blocking consensus. Input and opinions welcomed. Vassyana (talk) 21:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Objective main namespace article on this topic

I'm just throwing this out to the Wikipedia community, and those who are interested in this topic:

Where is the main article space article about this topic? Surely with the amount of ink that gets spilled about edit wars on Wikipedia, criticisms that get thrown around on blogs about the topic and nearly legendary edit wars on Wikipedia alone, we could come up with something better than a redirect from Edit war to this page?

I know this is a "So fix it" or "so write the **** article yourself", but there must be some people who are reading this page and have it on their watch list that know a thing or two about this topic and can at least start an NPOV stub of an article. Perhaps I'm missing something here and there is something written about this topic in the main article namespace. Wikipedia certainly is big enough to get something like that lost in the heap now. --Robert Horning 11:58, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

applicable not only to mainspace! or is it?

It should be made very clear imo that the policy not only applies to mainspace pages, but to all namespaces. Some of the most brutal and at the same time avoidable edit wars happen e.g. on policy pages. I dorftrottel I talk I 12:57, December 29, 2007

Late reply, sorry, but it definitely applies in all namespaces. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 02:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

BRD peaceful?

Ah, maybe WP:BRD is somewhat misnamed. Consensus in wiki-editing can be found with two major cycles, and the longer one is probably the thing that more properly deserves the name "bold revert discuss"

The current BRD page describes a method based on that cycle, where you go like "righto, here's a mighty dangerous critter of a page, let's poke it with a stick and see what happens" ... and then wait for someone to jump out and snap their jaws on your stick. After that you wrestle them 'till they consent.

This is not a particularly non-combative approach :-P It actually requires some amount of diplomatic/mediation skills to make it work.

It's probably not a good idea to recommend such a method to combative people ;-)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 17:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Any successful implementation of "Bold, revert, discuss" involves stopping after about two edits, and, well, discussing. You can call that discussion a wrestling if you like, but even if it's a poorly-managed discussion, that's not exactly what's meant by edit warring. Of course, you can mess up at BRD and revert again, or make a different bold edit, but that doesn't mean that BRD is confrontational, or edit warring. Actually, the point of that clause was the opposite of what you're making it out to be. Since edit warring describes an overall confrontational behavior and not just 4 reverts in 24 hours or some arbitrary measure like that, then even if you're reverting you can do it in a non-confrontational, constructive way (like BRD is intended) and not be edit warring. Dmcdevit·t 05:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The current BRD page describes a tool to fix particular issues in contentious situations. Reverting again or getting reverted again is not "messing up BRD", it's part of the process. (It's a cycle, and cycles repeat!). All reverts of non-vandalism are aggressive and contentious. And the whole time you're doing BRD, you have to continually make sure people don't get mad at you, while at the same time accepting aggressive behaviour against you. It's stressful and hardly fun, but it's one of the few methods I know to fix a situation where the consensus process is blocked. (see also: recent discussuion).

It's always great to see normal editing start again after you're done doing it though. :-)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 05:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC) Actually, there's very few descriptions of normal wiki-editing process on-wiki, but there are essays on exceptional situations. I guess people always took the basics for granted. I guess we need to fix that. :-)

Perhaps you misunderstood me, but reverting again without discussion is what I meant. That's not in the spirit of BRD, that's in the spirit of BRRR, which is how edit wars start. That's not what is being suggested here. Dmcdevit·t 05:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Could we suggest use of the nice, peaceful harmonious editing club rules instead? :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 05:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

The page seems to think edit wars are always between people each trying to impose their own views on the article & censor the opponents' views. What about those between people trying to do that & those trying to maintain NPOV & mentioning different views in the article? Peter jackson (talk) 11:07, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the page seems to be written with only bad-faith behaviour in mind. Although the concept of 'content edit' is explained, the explanation is hidden somewhere halfway the text and seems to be overlooked by admins on a regular basis. 'Edit war' is really nothing more than a technical term to describe a situation of consecutive reverts and does not automatically assume disruption. Situations with two good-faith sides, one good-faith and one bad-faith, and two bad-faith sides should be dealt with in different ways. Guido den Broeder (talk) 00:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Peter, the relative merits of the different versions are unimportant. First the practical argument: edit wars solve no problems. If you can make your change ten times, I can make mine eleven, but that doesn't achieve consensus.

Additionally, edit wars also unnecessarily increase the server load and therefore the costs of keeping Wikipedia in existence. Because of this, the edit war policy was "handed down from on high"; it is not a suggestion that editors came up with on their own. In practice, editors do not have the authority to authorize "good" edit wars.

See WP:WRONG and WP:BRD for further context and useful approaches to these situations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

All WP:WRONG implies is that we should be edit-warring as much as possible, since the faster and more consistently we revert, the greater the probability that our version will be on top when an admin comes along to protect the page.--Kotniski (talk) 04:08, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't saying it's OK to have edit wars in such cases; I was just pointing out that the page doesn't seem to have thought of that possibility. Peter jackson (talk) 13:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Peter, I'm not sure that this is true. I suspect that the case (two "reasonable" views fighting) was considered and rejected as unimportant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Why would you think that? Guido den Broeder (talk) 22:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

That wasn't the case I was talking about, tho' that might be a possibility too. It was the asymmetric case I was talking about. Perhaps the policy page should say clearly what to do in such cases, by link. Peter jackson (talk) 08:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

(undent) This page already covers the case of bad faith: Bad faith edits are called vandalism. See the bit that runs, "Reverting vandalism and banned users is never edit-warring; at the same time, content disputes, even egregious POV edits and other good-faith changes, do not constitute vandalism." Edit wars do not happen (by definition) if one or more editors is actually acting in bad faith. Edit wars primarily happen when someone tries to push the Truth™ without regard for any opposing views. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

There may be more types of bad-faith edits. Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. E.g., the text is replaced with the words 'You suck'. But what about a revert that has as edit summary: 'You suck'? Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

What does good faith actually mean? Is it

• they honestly believe what they put in the article is true?
• they honestly believe what they put in the article complies with WP content policies?

The 2 are not the same thing at all. Peter jackson (talk) 10:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

New editors might have only a very hazy (if any) awareness of such things as WP content policies. I guess good faith means that in their minds what they are doing is improving the encyclopedia, rather than damaging it.--Kotniski (talk) 13:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Kotniski has the right of it: Good faith is about the editor's intentions. You can easily discern the intentions of someone who replaces an entire article with "I love cheeseburgers!", but some cases are much more difficult. Many of the most frustrating cases are not, however, vandalism: they may be "egregious POV edits", but egregious POV edits are defined as being good faith. Those cases need discussion and consensus-building. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Class Ring

The Class Ring article has been gutted by an editor who is playing God. It is not worth making him or her happy, he is just playing games. What I cited as references was within Wiki guidelines. If you think I am going to waste my life trying to fight an IDIOT who has uses rules by bending them to get make himself feel important, forget it. Cool, down, don't attack blah blah blah. This is all crap and I have had it. Assume good faith. HAH!!! GOOD-BYE —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.153.43.39 (talk) 04:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Page title

The page is presently named Edit war. However, it only talks about the act of Edit warring, which is restricted to content reverts, and described as disruptive. What constitutes an edit war remains undefined. Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

At the moment, the first alinea reads:

• Edit warring occurs when individual editors or groups of editors repeatedly revert content edits to a page or subject area. Such hostile behavior is prohibited, and considered a breach of Wikiquette. Since it is an attempt to win a content dispute through brute force, edit warring undermines the consensus-building process that underlies the ideal wiki collaborative spirit.

I suggest to change that into:

• An editwar occurs when individual editors or groups of editors repeatedly revert each other's edits to a page or subject area. This is a hindrance to other editors and should therefore be avoided. Editwarring is the conscious act to engage in an editwar of content reverts. It is considered hostile behaviour, a breach of Wikiquette, and is strictly prohibited. An attempt to win a content dispute through brute force undermines the consensus-building process that underlies the ideal wiki collaborative spirit. Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

• • Certainly an improvement, but I'm not sure the "strictly prohibited" should be in there at all. Much behaviour that falls under this very broad definition of editwar is tolerated and even encouraged (see the list of exceptions to the three-revert rule, for example).--Kotniski (talk) 09:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

    To clarify: reverting bad-faith edits such as vandalism is, as I see it, not editwarring. It may still result in an editwar and this should still be avoided, e.g. by warning the vandal. Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

    I've added each other's to your new text, as otherwise it would not be a fight. The question remains whether repeated reverts of non-content edits is also an editwar. Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    • I don't see why it wouldn't be. The word "content" in that sentence could certainly be deleted AFAIC.--Kotniski (talk) 09:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

      Done. The lead seems ok now to me. Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Question

So, if an IP's work reverted several times because what they said didn't agree with sources...and they kept reverting back: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elizabeth_Swann&curid=900291&diff=217951182&oldid=217903272 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Will_Turner&curid=616917&diff=217950985&oldid=217903149

I have already pasted a warning on their page. I'm not really sure as to what to do now that I have kindly asked them several times on the edit summary. Thanks! BlackPearl14^{Pirate Lord-ess of the Caribbean} 19:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

You could perhaps report the incident at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RR.

It may be a good idea to add a line to this guideline that informs users where to go with a complaint. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much! BlackPearl14^{Pirate Lord-ess of the Caribbean} 22:09, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Confirmed revisions to handle edit wars

See a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Flagged_revisions#Confirmed_revisions where it is proposed to use a system of flagged revisions to handle edit wars and disputes, as an alternative to full protection. Cenarium ^Talk 23:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Rewritten

Rewritten and merged with Wikipedia:Three-revert rule; see also discussion on Wikipedia talk:Three-revert rule. -- Gurch (talk) 13:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Reverted. Such major changes require discussion before implementation. Jehochman ^Talk 14:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Why do you consider it a major change? I may be wrong, but I can't see any changes of substance, just a long-overdue organization of existing material, in line with an overall reduction in the number of policy and guideline pages which can only be considered a good thing (see recent discussion at WP:VPP). Reverting someone's good work only for this reason seems a tad disruptive - perhaps you can provide better reasons for objecting?--Kotniski (talk) 14:50, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

My reason for objecting is that policies should not be merged without first having a discussion on the policy talk pages, allowing suitable time for all concerned to comment. See the note at the top of every policy page. Jehochman ^Talk 14:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

If every bold edit was reverted just because it was bold (and for no other reason) then I think progress would be extremely tedious. Anyway, let's continue this discussion (maybe more productively) in one place, at WP:VPP.--Kotniski (talk) 15:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Many people may not know about that discussion. To do something this big, you should create a centralized discussion and announce it in all the relevant places, and give people plenty of time to comment. Jehochman ^Talk 15:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not as big as you think (a substantial change in policy would be big). But the discussion now continues at WP:VPP#Merge 3RR with EW.--Kotniski (talk) 15:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I think this is getting out of hand

First, can we do away with talk of "mindsets?" "Edit warring is not necessarily any single action; instead, it is any mindset that tolerates confrontational tactics to affect content disputes." Or we could also ban half of Wikipedia (after we have gazed deeply into their minds with our special powers). Also, this amorphous "policy" has now drifted into WP:3rr -- yes, I know admins blocked for edit-warring before, but these two pages give cover for random "I know it when I see it" blocks. There's already too much of that. Lastly, I think in almost all cases, editors must be given a warning before such a block (the exception might be if they have a long block record already). Thoughts? IronDuke 16:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, after hearing the chorus of enthusiastic yeas, I'm going to implement some changes along these lines, probably tomorrow. Speak now or forever hold your peace... well, or flame me after the fact, I guess. IronDuke 02:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't know if I completely agree with this. On the one hand, no one should be blocked for "mindsets", on the other hand, one's edits do often reveal one's mindset very clearly. The basic thing that should be made clear is that fighting over what version is right is unacceptable. Also, re:[this], while it may not be policy, it's very good advice, and really should occur on the page in some form, even if reworded. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 01:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I hear you, and what you say makes sense. However, Wikipedia articles that are at all interesting are often formed by edit-warring. If I could go back and retroactively block everyone who has ever edit-warred, virtually every editor of consequence on Wikipedia would have a block. Let's not have a rule against something that everyone does. Why not? Because it leads to selective enforcement. And I really don't trust any given admin to understand my "mindset". As for advice... I guess I don't really see the point, but I wouldn't yelp if it went back in. IronDuke 00:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's not so much a mindset a method or set of methods that we're concerned about. For example, if I see a person reverting with zero discussion, that's a strong indicator that there's edit warring. If, by contrast, there's discussion going on, there's a case that it's Bold, Revert, Discuss instead. When I consider whether to block someone, I certainly consider the 3RR (it's an arbitrary standard, but it's also a useful one), but I think it good to look at other factors, too (such as: Is someone else also edit warring, even with less than four reverts? Is there ongoing discussion? Is incivility playing a role? Plus also the standard exemptions from edit warring.) Anyway, that's just my personal approach to edit warring blocks. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 02:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Perfectly reasonable. And yet, one ca sometimes revert without discusison if a) it's just an anon vandal/POV pusher and/or b) it's someone you know who has a long history of disruption. Being forced to post a lengthy apologia increases the likelihood of being trolled. IronDuke 03:06, 23 December 2008 (UTC)