Battlestar Wiki:Edit war

This page is an official policy of Battlestar Wiki. This policy is considered by the community and its leadership to be the status quo of Battlestar Wiki and is not to be countermanded or ignored, though changes to it can be discussed on the appropriate talk page. This policy was implemented on 2006 October 25.

This is a derivative work from Wikipedia's Edit War, which is permissible under the GNU FDL license. All related edits will be released under this same license.

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Battlestar Wiki is an "edit war"-free zone.

Edit wars

Two main usages of the term edit war have emerged. Both are included for clarification. Some consider the term to describe two or more contributors' repeated reverts of one another's edits to an article. Others subscribe to a much broader definition, encompassing any situation in which two or more authors repeatedly edit an article (especially particularly contentious excerpts) extensively. This usage is harder to identify clearly; 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 (discussed in next section). To them, although this term describes a unique type of edit war, it is insufficient to describe edit warfare in a broader context.

Regardless of whether or not such activities can properly be called "edit wars," most users consider sustained episodes of unproductive but animated cut-and-thrust editing to be undesirable. If objectively-minded users observe such an ongoing exchange and cannot "talk down" the involved parties, or encourage them to enter the Request for comment process, users may request page protection via Administrators' noticeboard of the disputed article to enforce a cool down period. In severe cases of abuse, warring parties who persist in punitive editing may be subject to banning.

Reversion wars

Reversion wars between competing individuals are contrary to Battlestar Wiki's core principles and reflect badly on both participants. Instead of performing pure reverts, disputing persons should cooperatively seek out methods of compromise, or alternative methods of statement. While edits made in collaborative spirit involve considerably more time and thought than reflexive reverts, they are far more likely to ensure both mutually satisfactory and more objective articles. In the case of less experienced contributors, who have unknowingly made poor edits, reversion by two or more people often demonstrates that such reversions are probably not fundamentalistic or in bad faith, but instead closer to an objective consensus.

High-frequency reversion wars make version histories less useful, make it difficult for uninvolved users to contribute in a meaningful fashion, and flood recent changes sections and watchlists.

Reversion wars about blocks, protections or deletions (e.g. a page being repeatedly protected then unprotected by two admins) are occasionally called wheel wars.

Edit warriors may have many motivations. Such motivations may include, but are not limited to: strong political, religious, or other beliefs; an excess of free time; bigotry/prejudice; pride and a general dislike of a particular user.

Battlestar Wiki recommends reverting only once, and then taking it to talk.

• Dissenting persons might see reason in one's approach to a particular issue.
• Objective users may more easily step in and attempt to curb egregious edits.
• In emotionally heated cases, introspection and detachment from the subject oftentimes serve to cool tempers.

See also

• Etiquette
• Ownership of articles
• Civility