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Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars |
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This page contains material which is kept because it is considered humorous. |
| “ | What mighty contests arise from such trivial things | ” |
Occasionally, Wikipedians lose their minds and get into edit wars over the most petty things. This page serves to document this Parkinson's Law of Triviality or "color of the bikeshed" phenomenon. It isn't comprehensive or authoritative, but it is designed to show the worst case result of people attaching such importance to a trivial detail that they are willing to engage in the lame pastime of edit warring over an even lamer cause.
Back in the good old days, people would settle this sort of thing with a gunfight; now they do it by toying with an encyclopedia. Truly, the Wikipedia outlook has changed the way things get done. It has changed them from actually getting done to never getting done. On the other hand, nobody gets shot.
If you want to add a "lame edit war" to this page, keep the following in mind:
There was a feud that was going on for a long time on this one concerning Freddie Mercury's true ancestry. Is he the most famous Iranian rock star? Indian? Parsi? Azeri? You'd be surprised how many people this annoyed, to the point that it is still a hotly contested item over there. Oh, and this one, like all the others, had its share of random vandals, people leaving unmarked anonymous insults, and gnashing of teeth.
A centuries old Frisian warlord of whom a certain editor claimed she knew he was in fact gay because some relative told her. This was the beginning of a lame edit war in which his name was put on several pages of Lists of gay people and stuff. Eventually stopped when the editor was banned. Very lame. There also were some quite lame edit wars on his height (was it 7 feet 5 or "just" 7 feet?).
Is she a "Bosnian actress of Croatian descent/ethnicity" or a "Croatian actress"? Should she be called American without sourcing because she's resided in America for nearly 30 years? Is she "Bosnian" because she was born in Sarajevo or "Bosnian-born" because Bosnia did not exist as a nation when she was born there? Go ahead and edit the article and see how long your version lasts before someone reverts you!
Is she American or American-born? Is she Greek-American? Is she English-American? Is she Greek-and-English-American? Does she need all-those-prefixes-in-front-of-her-nationality-American? Did Kiriakis mastermind the entire affair?
Was he Polish, German or Prussian? Or did he have no nationality at all that bears mentioning? If Copernicus were around today, he might have suggested that he would be satisfied to be remembered as an astronomer, but we will never know. Was he ever married? What is his middle name? No one knows exactly.
Born of Serbian parents in a part of the Austrian Empire, which a short time later became a part of the Hungarian half of Austria-Hungary and is now in Croatia; so was he Serbian? Croatian? Austrian? Austro-Hungarian? You decide! But don't forget to leave an edit summary saying how pathetic it is to choose any other version...
Who said the anglosphere was immune to inane ethnological disputes? This debate, over a single word in the article, consumed most of the month of September 2007. The key question is: is he an English writer or is he a British writer of English origin? Can we add American in there somewhere because he moved to America at age 74? Well, over 50% of the talk page is dedicated to this one issue. The two editors warring over it filed simultaneous 3RR reports against each other and an RFC. Accusations of weasel wording appear in the talk page. Fine points of policy debated: does reverting to prevent a revert war constitute a real revert? Does it count as a revert if you call it vandalism, even if it is a content dispute? Is it bad faith to remove HTML comments from the page if only editors will see them, or do such invisible comments constitute a vandalism of their own? Is it a bad thing to use the "minor" button to "conceal" changes?
Is this porn star Italian? Native American? Puerto Rican? Cypriot? Does she have Indian blood? Who cares? She's hot and she gets naked, but make sure that, when you change it, you don't even think about citing any source; please feel free to insult whoever put in the previous ethnicity. Anonymous editors--be sure to insert multitudes of different "real names" of her, with no sourcing whatsoever.
Born in Germany, supposedly of a German mother and a Yugoslavian father, and raised in Bavaria, Germany. Does that make Herzog: a) Croatian or b) Serbian? How about the fact that the relatives live in Bosnia-Herzegovina? Use edit summaries to publish interviews that you conducted — or heard rumors about. Mirrors and forks are great sources too. After consulting a printed source, it turns out that it was the mother who was from Croatia. Ouch.
Is he French? Is he British? Is he Russian? German? Franco-Russian? South African? Believe it or not, there was an extensive debate on where this obscure character class inherits his accent from- despite only having a handful of spoken lines in-game. To be fair, this was mostly the result of every other class in the game (except the Pyro, who is near-unintelligible under his fire mask) having a clear regional upbringing, whereas the Spy's accent is much harder to place.
A group of sinking volcanic rocks has been claimed by both Japan and Korea since really, really long ago. Evidence of ownership for either side rests on hard-to-read decaying pieces of old paper. This is not a silly dispute as the rocks have important economic and military value, yada yada yada. Serious Japanese or Korean Wikipedians may even choose to make these rocks their place of residence (living there not required!) to bolster their case. This article extensively documents every little factoid that could possibly indicate ownership by one country, with each, of course, having a countering statement. Newspapers and internet forums like 2channel are part of the discussion, yet everyone claims their POV is NPOV. As properly befitting this major political issue, most edit summaries begin with "rv..." Luckily, at least the title of the article has been settled on...or has it?
Edit war about whether the alternative name Lerin is Macedonian, Bulgarian or south Slavic (which covers both Macedonian and Bulgarian).
Who first donned a frilly skirt and threatened to kill anyone who questioned his manhood over it? Was he Albanian or Greek? If Albanian, Gheg or Tosk? Thankfully, none of the modern day warriors on this topic have access to real weapons (we hope!)
Hummus: they love it in Israel, so shouldn't it be in Category:Israeli cuisine? Or is it a purely Arab food that the Zionists have illegally occupied?[1]
After a related skirmish on Za'atar, the ingredients were listed in alphabetical order, but was this all part of a shrewd Zionist plot? Don't be silly, came the response: and anybody who removes the Hebrew name from the first sentence is a racist vandal.[2]
Meanwhile, back at Hummus an attempt is made to replace a mention that the Oxford English Dictionary says that the word entered English via Turkish with a reference to the Greek name for the dish.
Finally, Tabbouleh saw action, this time mercifully free of Arab-Israeli connotations; instead, the question was: can we call this dish a part of Levantine cuisine, or is the very term "Levantine" a European colonial plot to divide the great Arab nation?[3]
In the mean time, another attempt is made to expunge the Turks from description of the traditional Greek (or maybe Arab) dish of pita. (Or is it pitta?)
Conclusion: Tasty snacks in the Middle East are hilariously politicized.
Not the dancer, but rather the tasty antipodean dessert, which was invented in Australia[4], New Zealand [5], Australia[6], [7], [8], New Zealand [9], Rabbit Season, Duck Season, fire!
Should it be called the Sea of Japan, the East Sea, or even the East Sea of Korea? Are both names valid, and if so, should the article be named Sea of Japan (East Sea) or Sea of Japan / East Sea? Or is the actual most common English and international name Sea of Japan (East Sea), parentheses and all? Should the dispute page be called the Sea of Japan naming dispute, or the Dispute between the body of water between Japan and Korea? (Ironically, the neutrality of the Sea of Japan naming dispute is disputed.) Given the existence of other names meaning "East Sea" in other languages, should East Sea redirect to the disambiguation page or to the "body of water between Japan and Korea"?
Are these beautiful waterfalls on the Kaveri River located in Tamil Nadu—or on the border between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka—or in Tamil Nadu on its border with Karnataka? Or is it really the Cauvery river, and Hogenakal Falls? Do a dispute over water usage, and a separate dispute over access to an island below the Falls, have no bearing on this, or do they prove that the location of the Falls must be on the border? Whatever you believe, be sure to bring a (Google) map to the debate, and point out that your opponent's sources are not RS or NPOV!
There is an ongoing dispute on the order and necessity of transliteration of the famous actor RajniKanth's names into languages like Marathi, Hindi, and Kannada. The people for the inclusion and giving a higher priority believe that the actor has significant history in that state of India, as well as sufficient fan-following to merit a transliteration, while the editors from Tamil origin are of the opinion that they would be surrendering their most prized possession. The talk page has been bubbling with so many threads on this singular issue.
Is the main character Serbian, Slovak, Bosnian, or from some unnamed Eastern European country? Despite several reliable sources proclaiming the character Serbian, the actual game itself is just ambiguous enough about the subject to create dissent (and of course this is a part of the world where nationalist feelings run high, see Balkanization). At one point, the article contained five consecutive citations, repeated each of the three times the character's nationality is mentioned, totalling a whopping fifteen citation numbers throughout the article to justify the purported nationality of a fictional video game character.
The headquarters of this British organisation are located in Buckinghamshire. But should it be called 'Buckinghamshire, England' or 'Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom'? In April 2008, this crucial issue became the focus of an edit war involving no fewer than 8 users and one anonymous editor over a period of a week. (This is particularly inexplicable since England is, of course, part of the United Kingdom.) On April 23, 'England' was finally settled on and the edit war ended - perhaps in recognition of St. George's Day?
So which group of yuppies first thought that making milk substitute from soy is a good idea? Do Koreans love to take credit for everything everyone else did like claiming that Confucius was Korean, or is every bit of pro-China info Chinese government propaganda?
Should there be a separate page for New Avengers (comics)? Is the name of the team now the New Avengers or is it just a new Avengers? Is it a new comic entirely or just a continuation of the old one? Following a positive merge vote, a series of reverts occurs when an editor "merges" the two by simply pasting the merged information into the article, creating two articles in one. The slow nature of the revert war means that, technically, nobody violates WP:3RR, and requests for help from other admins go unheeded because, well, it's lame. After a series of exchanges on the talk page questioning people's command of English as well as their sanity, the issue appears to have been settled with the creation of New Avengers (comic book) (note the oh-so-subtle distinction) based on the WikiProject Comics guidelines.
The creature from the movie Cloverfield was never explicitly named in the movie, or was it? Is "Cloverfield" the name of the military casefile, or the monster, or both? Some reporter refered to the creature itself as "Cloverfield" so lets go with "Cloverfield (creature)" Wait, shouldn't we follow suit with Frankenstein and call it "The Cloverfield creature"—Or wait, maybe it should just be "Cloverfield creature", maybe it should be "Cloverfield (monster)", no we can't do that, it shows bias and isn't NPOV. Rumor has it that the production staff just called it "Clover", but that's just a nickname, it doesn't count, does it? No matter, we can't use that until we find a source confirming that they call it Clover....OK, now we have one. How's about we skirt all naming conventions and call it "The Monster/Clover (creature)" to make everyone happy. Nah that's no good, back to "Clover (creature)" But wait, that's still not the true name of the creature, so we shouldn't use that. Followed by and interspersed with a cavalcade of "Alright how about we just compromise and set it back to <editor's favorite name>." It's extremely important that an article on a fictional topic which only narrowly escaped AfD be properly named. Rather amusingly, considering how much edit warring there was/is on the page, it's been awarded "Good Article" status.[10]
In the name of the programming language C#, is that # thing (octothorpe) after the C a number sign or the musical sharp symbol? What should the wrongname template say? Some argue that a Microsoft FAQ supports the sharp symbol, while others argue that the ECMA standard promotes the # symbol and that it has better browser support. Some propose using # as a superscript (C#), which few editors like. Editors repeatedly reverted between each other, some refusing to discuss the issue on the talk page. The issue was resolved with an e-mail exchange with Microsoft stating that in their view it's an octothorpe symbol representing the sharp symbol, similar to how "<=" represents the less than or equal symbol, and that thus Microsoft does not disagree with ECMA. Written "Netscape" but pronounced "Mozilla", eh?
Shockingly, there are multiple locations in the United States with the name "Devil's Lake." A very heated war broke out here regarding which one should be featured, whether a disambig page was needed, even over the usage of the apostrophe—eventually literally degenerating into "my lake is better than yours!" Solution: RENAME THE FREAKIN' LAKES!!!
Was Eris named after the Greek goddess Eris or the Greek and Discordian goddess Eris? Does it matter that the IAU and discoverer Michael E. Brown referenced only the Greek aspect, even though the referenced mythological event was identical with The Original Snub? Is mentioning Discordianism POV because it gives the religion undue weight? Edit war results in loss of good article status and temporary article locking. War finally resolved by not actually mentioning what type of goddess Eris is. See also: Pluto and Ceres (dwarf planet).
A heated debate took place on whether English Robin was an alternate common name for the European Robin, often simply called Robin. With one editor persisting [11][12][13][14] in this essential piece of information being added despite opposition.[15][16][17], until there was a concession of sorts,...or not. Or does persistence pay off? Maybe not. Is this the last word on the matter? Who knows.
Should second-season winner "Deelishis" be credited as her birth name, Chandra Davis, or her stage name, London Charles? Months of IP additions and months of "IF YOU REVERT WITHOUT DISCUSSION, YOU'RE GONNA BE BLOCKED!" ensue. In the end, nobody got blocked and the dispute died down on its own, probably because both sides realized they were battling over a woman who willingly went on a reality television show to "fall in love with" Flavor Flav. Yeah, boyeeeeeee!
Does the name of a Canadian TV channel, originally an offshoot of namesake American one, contain word "Canada" in its official title, ergo it should be parenthesized in the title? It's a terribly important matter, as witnessed by an intense move war and circular discussion on the talk page.
Should this substance be called 'gasoline' or 'petrol'? See the talk page for a debate about the total number of English speakers in the world (and whether Americans should be considered an important part of it); the relative utility of search engines; claims that UK-wikipedians are set to re-establish the British empire by moving pages to British spellings, counter-claims that Americans who want "gasoline" are being their usual nationalistic/culturally-imperialistic selves; RFC nominations, page-move warring and deletion debates, failed attempts to achieve compromise via some truly freaky article names (far beyond the suggested "Gasoline (petrol)" and "Petrol (gasoline)") and even the creation of templates to separate the article into sections individually tailored for both Commonwealth and American English tastes. Gasoline has been settled on for now, in part because that was the article's title originally, but the fallout has yet to settle.
Or is it 'Gender of god'? How about 'Gender of Gods', gotta remember those damn heathens. Or is that 'Gender of gods'? Is 'sex' more appropriate than 'gender'? Is God/god/Gods/gods appropriate at all? How about (D/d)ivine entit(y/ies)... or supreme (B/b)eing(s)... or some mix of all the above? Meanwhile this doesn't account for religions with no explicit sex (or is that explicit gender?). We haven't quite decided yet but rest assured whilst some silly people are trying in vain to reach consensus those with the power are proving their point with reverts. There's even threats of ArbCom.
The protagonist from Konami's survival horror video game Silent Hill 3 is known to those who have played the game as 'Heather'. But what is her last name? Is it Morris after the actress who portrayed her? Is it Mason? Does anyone care? Many sources disagree. A 'my source is more valid than yours' edit war broke out in an unlikely place. It wasn't on the page for the character in question. Certainly not on the page for the game itself. It actually broke out on the Silent Hill 3 blurb on the series overview page and its talk page.
Should there be a disambiguation to Pretty Hate Machine and "Head Like a Hole"? Are Halo numbers official and accepted by Trent Reznor? Are the Halo numbers notable enough to be disambiguated? Are any people going to search for Halo 2 or 3, not expecting information about a video game? Is the form of the Halo number Halo 3 or halo_03 or HALO 3?
Is the southern terminus of Interstate 75 located in Hialeah, Florida, or would it serve the typical Wikipedia reader better if the infobox says "near Miami, Florida", a better-known city with twice the population 10 miles (16 km) away? A discussion followed by a straw vote indicated that the majority of the participants preferred the latter wording, but there was no consensus. The debate (and the edit war) settled down for a few months until someone associated with Miami Dade College, whose Hialeah Campus is, er, near Miami, rekindled the reversions with an insistence that the phrase should be cited with an online reference and that "near Miami" violates WP:NPOV. Since then, the dispute - mainly through edit comments - has spread to a question as to whether a cited "in Hialeah" should be trumped by an uncited "near Miami". The dispute has pitted students and faculty of MDC against a handful of Wikipedians who believe that a precedent should prevail. As the standoff persists, the rest of the world rolls by.
Was she really a Queen of England? Should her page be at Jane of England or Lady Jane Grey? Should she be referred to as Her Majesty Queen Jane? Does her husband merit inclusion in The List of royal consorts of the United Kingdom? (Notice that "Royal Consorts of the United Kingdom is a red link, not unlike The weather in Liverpool.) Resulted in many cut-and-paste page moves, edit warring across multiple pages and flaming on those talk pages. Warriors did not come to their senses even when it was pointed out how long Jane herself had been dead.
Is her name pronounced like "rolling" or to rhyme with "howling"? Rowling is on record claiming she pronounces her name like "rolling". Several editors have argued that this is a "British" pronunciation and the "American" pronunciation of her name should also be noted. Cue endless spats on talk pages over whose arguments are "more cogent", and multiple reversions.
Should this article (and other articles and templates that mention this award) use the common name of the award, the official name, Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the even more official name, Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne, or perhaps a compromise name, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics? The debate has involved endless discussions, requested moves, revert wars, blocks, and more.
An unseemly brawl over whether the article should name him "Richard Kyanka" or "Richard Charles Kyanka". At least the anon editors insisting on the insertion of the middle name provided good verifiable sources.
Is it a collection of myths or a motif? Should "sun" be capitalized or not? What about "underworld"? Edit warring here over these and other weighty issues have involved four editors and most of the article's history.
Two months of edit war on whether the page should say "[[Harry S Truman|President Truman]]" or "President [[Harry S Truman]]" (plus the same with several other presidents).
For decades regarded as a planet, it became a dwarf planet (as defined by the IAU) in 2006. Shortly after, it was duly assigned a minor planet number of 134340. Much contention ensued at the talk page about whether the article should be at 134340 Pluto or whether the disgraced planet should retain its simpler name (or, for that matter, whether to consider it a planet or not). See also: Ceres (dwarf planet) and Eris (dwarf planet).
The Potrero Hills are "a range of low hills on the western edge of Richmond, California". They're pretty unremarkable; there happens to be a Chevron oil refinery there. But is it the "Chevron Richmond refinery" or the "Chevron Richmond Refinery"? An on-and-off edit war over this detail roils for months. After an exasperated (if excitable) administrator goes to the length of fully protecting the page, the war spills over onto Potrero Hill, San Francisco, where it is now being "debated" whether the disambiguation tag at the top should say "For the Potrero Hills in Richmond, California, see Potrero Hills" or "For the bluffs in Richmond, California, see..." or "For the minor mountain range...".
Is Scotland a Constituent country (linking to constituent country), or a Country within a country (linking to constituent country), or a Country (linking to constituent country), or Country (linking to country), or a Semi autonomous subdivision of the United Kingdom, or a Semi autonomous constituent subdivision of the United Kingdom, or a Semi autonomous subdivision of the United Kingdom, or a Home Nation, or a Nation, or a Kingdom, or a Part, or a Province, or a Region, or a combination of any of the above, or none of the above?
There have also been similar edit wars on pages about England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
This edit war has spilt over into unlikely places - for example, cities twinned with Scottish cities have had flag icons repeatedly switched between the Union Flag and that of Scotland.
What name should Wikipedia give to the article about the railway station in London which direct international passenger trains depart from? Should it be primarily given the historic, shorter, simpler and everyday "St Pancras" or the (mostly) official, longer, more formal and more descriptive "St Pancras International"? Should the UK convention of calling a railway station "X railway station" be overturned in favour of "X station"? For that matter, as "St" is an abbreviation, should it have a full stop (I'm not joking)? All rather lame as they all redirect to the article and the two most popular variations are bolded in the lead anyway. Multiple moves and a stupidly long, long, long talk page court case (complete with "exhibit A" and various chums) ensued. As yet unresolved.
Should articles for U.S. state routes use the format "State Route xx" or "Route xx (State)" or something else (where xx is the route number)? There were numerous edit wars and huge debates over official terms versus common vernacular and over uniformity versus state individuality. Some advocated for the pipe tricked version while others preferred full string method of disambiguation. This battle raged on for about a full year between roadfans, members of the U.S. Roads WikiProject, regular editors, and administrators, resulting in a few probations and even a song. The debate was finally settled with a poll after three previous "naming convention" conventions (#1, #2, #3) failed to resolve the conflict. In the end, the "State Route xx" format prevailed by a small margin. All the state route articles in the United States have been grandfathered into this format. Apparently the fourth try's the charm!
For this CD by "Weird Al" Yankovic, a dispute about whether "outta" should be capitalized spawned lengthy threads on the admin noticeboard, as well as accusations of abuse, and page protection. Arguments focus on whether "Outta" is a preposition, whether it's relevant that it's not shorter than five letters, and whether the way the title is spelled on the actual CD is more important than our manual of style. Until a naming convention change, Straight Outta Lynwood may be SOL (or SoL).
That odd little reptile from New Zealand, no wait, it's a diapsid, no it's a reptile, no it's a higher animal, reptile again, higher animal again, reptile once more, ...an amniote (??) The drama unfolds... but the tuatara itself just doesn't care.
Must a queen deceased for over a century still be styled here "Her Majesty", an epithet conventionally reserved for the current monarch? This weighty dispute (pale reflection of warring here), filling talk pages and edit histories, has spilled over into other British monarchs, other royals and titleholders, several countries having or having
