Misplaced Pages

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/Archive 1:through August 2007

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 05:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit wars between admins

In a small Misplaced Pages 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)

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.

1. ^ An article in a major local newspaper which quotes Jones as saying this.

By the wording of this guideline both editors would be edit warring, 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)