[WikiEN-l] Reversion warriors (was: User:Caius2ga)

Wed Nov 19 03:42:31 UTC 2003

Mirko wrote:
>Viajero made a good point when he said, that we need 
>new procedures to deal with this sort of users. These 
>users are discouraging serious contributors and chasing 
>them away (as already happened). 

I agree. And if I may be so bold as to add that edit wars should be viewed a 
similar way as schoolyard fights are; they are simply not acceptable behavior 
and who is right and who is wrong is a secondary issue. If Johnny punches you 
in the nose, duck the next blow and get away instead of hitting him back. To 
paraphrase Jimbo; leave a clean paper trail and let the wrongdoer clearly 
hang themself with their own actions. 

So, purposefully prolonging an edit war (not to be confused with repeated 
simple vandalism and reverting those edits) itself should be considered bad 
regardless of who is right and who is wrong. That can be determined later 
when the merits of particular versions are weighed and text/ideas integrated 
where appropriate. But things like finding consensus is not really possible 
in the middle of an edit war. 

In short: It takes two to Tango and fighting is bad in itself. 

Daniel Mayer (aka mav, aka part-time edit warrior)