[WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do?

Thu Jun 23 02:07:52 UTC 2005

Let's say that:

There is an article about a relatively controversial subject that, for
some reason, has not yet been through any massive edit wars. Maybe the
subject is fairly new, the word in itself is pretty new so no one has
actually written much about it- until now.

There are two people editing this article. You get involved a bit, and
try to create what you feel is a neutral version. This makes one side
immediatelly assume you belong to the Enemy. This person creates a
version that says "some people say this, some people say that" but it
is badly written, the reasoning is strange, it is hard to understand
what he really means. Both sides are getting loud and argumentative,
more concerned with being right than with what is logical and not. The
subject is probably emotional to them. Maybe one side is louder than
the other; maybe not.

You feel that hey - this isn't going to lead anywhere. 

What do you do? Do you just leave the article and let them fight? But
then, what happens if all the "good forces" just leave whenever
problem arises? Should you ask someone to try and talk to these
people? Is there a standard way of handling things like this, or is
the only thing to do to stay away and wait until things are so bad
that the article gets locked?

/Habj