Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars/Miscellameness

PLEASE include two or three edit history links about the lame edit war. It would be also useful to list the date the edit war was added.

Miscellameness

1994 FIFA World Cup

A revert war over what order the teams' names should appear in the list of results.

Age of the Earth

14 reverts to date on a hatnote: should it be explained that this is an article about the science of the age of the earth and you can also read creation myth if you want? Does the hatnote pander to creationism? Does deleting a hatnote constitute censorship and even disenfranchisement? Does putting this hatnote violate policy? Is it important who might want to read the hatnote?

Altrincham

These sock puppets fought honorably.

English town formerly part of Cheshire; should the article mention that many people still use Cheshire on their post? Inspired a talk subpage, and a sock puppetry accusation, not to mention the associated blood boiling rage and name calling on Talk:Association of British Counties....

Aphex Twin

Is Aphex Twin really IDM? Is IDM even a legitimate genre, or is it just a huge internet troll? Are 99% of things on the web rubbish? If you are an editor aged 38–42, your opinion is requested.

Australia

Should the royal anthem be included in the infobox, or should it be a footnote? Is it even worthy of a footnote? A long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long debate continues on the talk page, including an...interesting...table of opinions (!).

Bahá'í Faith

Should there be a reference to Baha'i YouTube videos? Should they have their own section? Is YouTube encyclopedic enough or should be counted as a personal website? Debate lasted for over a month and involved many a personal attack, accusations from the single user advocating the inclusion that he was being ganged up on against WP policy and threats to have users blocked.

Canada

Is this country in northern North America, in the northern part of North America, or just in North America? The first option is just vandalism, and a poll was needed to achieve consensus on this important issue.

Nutritious or malicious?

Cauliflower

Is cauliflower nutritious? Does specifying what parts are usable violate NPOV?

Charles Darwin

Is sharing a birthday with Abraham Lincoln important enough to include in the Charles Darwin article, or is it a bit of trivia that has no place in an encyclopedia? As of 4 February 2005, there has been an eight week-long revert war over a single sentence. There have been two polls on the Darwin Talk pages, one request for a debate, one WP:RFC, one WP:RFM, one WP:RFAr denied, and a Charles Darwin-Lincoln dispute arbitration case. The discussions at Talk:Charles Darwin/Lincoln and LincolnArchive01, plus the arbitration pages amount to some 30,000 words, which is about the length of a short Agatha Christie novel. Trivia: Agatha Christie was born on the same day as Frank Martin.

Cluster bomb

A lame edit war started in the wee hours of the morning on May 31, 2008 (for those in UTC) over whether or not the article should state that, from a certain angle, a cluster bomb resembles a certain part of the male body.

Democratic Party (United States)

This article has seen a number of frequent and repeating lame edit wars. These include:

• Was the party founded by President Thomas Jefferson in 1792 or President Andrew Jackson in 1828 and does this make it the oldest political party in the world?
• Should the party be referred to as the “Democratic Party” or the “Democrat Party”?
• Who is a “conservative Democrat” and what do you call them?
• Who should be considered a 2008 presidential front-runner?
• Is the party center-left, centrist, center-right, right, progressive, conservative, right from an international POV, left from a general POV, ...

Fortune Global 500

Is Royal Dutch Shell a Dutch company or half-Dutch, half-British? Leads to 93 consecutive reverts (79 of them deleted) over the course of a week.

Fred Saberhagen

Noted science fiction author dies, which is tragic. Then the tragedy is compounded when the death is reverted for being an uncited statement in a BLP. Edit war and thousands of words of often uncivil argument ensues (sometimes valid, sometimes invalid, sometimes downright stupid), noted by various external sites ([1],[2]), but Fred remains dead. The resulting article has three citations for his death and no citations for any other fact contained within.

Gay Nigger Association of America

Though not really an edit war per se, this article was nominated for deletion a very lame total of eighteen times. Finally deleted two and a half years after the first nomination for lack of sources. The article was, in its time, the subject of a proposed (and eventually rejected) policy to kick the ass of anybody who renominated the article, and was also the subject of a pool on when it would reach 10 nominations, which was also eventually deleted. See Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2006_November_28/Gay_Nigger_Association_of_America, which also has a complete list of deletion nominations.

Hitler Has Only Got One Ball

Can anonymously written folk songs be copyrighted? What if the anonymous author sues Wikipedia? Or his heir? Such a serious controversy on such a serious article can only be settled by a month-long, soul-scarring flame-fest, delving into international copyright law, which fails to convince an obstinately irascible user out to impugn Wikipedia's credibility.

Irish breakfast

What goes into an Irish breakfast; black pudding, white pudding or neither? Is the bacon boiled or fried? See the talk page for an in-depth analysis of the various issues.

Italian Beef

In 2005 a several week long edit war over the Italian Beef sandwich ensued over many many topics regarding the popular Chicago style dish, if a variation of it including cheese is common, if it is in fact Italian in anything besides name. A link to the talk page over this war still exists.[3]

"According to scripture, even Jesus was tempted to engage in a very lame edit war. Instead, he reverted once to "{{WPBiography |living=yes}}…"

Jesus

A very long dispute arguing over whether to use BC/AD or BCE/CE for era notations, resulting in the silly decision to use both systems within the article (i.e. 400 BC/BCE and 30 AD/CE) with the BC/AD terms usually preceding the BCE/CE terms. Both systems were used until an RFC was conducted in 2013 and the consensus was to have the article use the BC/AD notation. Much like Jesus, the dispute is sometimes resurrected.

J. K. Rowling

Edit war over long-time contributors preferring the old Harvard references versus the new Cite.php method. Multiple users attempt to use the Ref converter with other users reverting back. One side files a WP:RFC over the issue, while the other side takes a strawpoll. The strawpoll results in an overwhelming consensus to convert. The primary supporter of Harvard references left the project as a result.

KTVX

Is adding that rival KSL-TV is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vandalism that must be reverted on sight?

KUFO

Is the 12-5am DJ of this Oregonian radio station a "personality"? Or should she be removed from the page since she's supposedly a recording? The edit war receives mention on-air – and possible Wikipedia editing – from a KUFO DJ.

List of television stations in North America by media market

Nielsen claimed copyright over the concept of the DMA (or TV market), and the entire United States section of this article required a complete overhaul. This led to an edit war about whether a 40-year-old, incomplete, public domain list was better than something made up by some Wikipedian, or whether we should assume that the copyright claim, which no one has ever seen, doesn't exist and bring back the FCC DMAs. Is linking to the FCC officially verboten due to copyright, or is the government organization under public domain? Either way, the only solution seems to be having no list for the United States at all.

Lucky Charms

A long-running, slow-motion edit war between anonymous users seeks to address the big issue: Are they or aren't they sold in Ireland? See also: Irish breakfast. Or maybe not.

Manhunter (film)

Should Dante Spinotti be linked in a citation when he is linked in the infobox and the text? no, yes, no, yes, no ... (you get the idea).

Maryland

Is it North or South? Mid-Atlantic or Southern? Reversions were once a daily occurrence and the discussion page was rife with debate offering little more than personal reflections, but a subpage helped clean things up and provided the riff-raff a place to babble away. The subpage is now filled with passionate arguments, which of course wouldn't be complete without editors calling one another "redneck" and "yankee".

Mathematics

The "All Pages Lead to Philosophy" game states that the first non-parenthesized, non-italicized link in a page will eventually lead to the philosophy article. But this doesn't work with the mathematics page - the first word, quantity, eventually loops back to math. So at times people suggest or downright attempt putting the third link in the article, space, as first because it does lead to philosophy, but promoting this in-joke has not been deemed a good enough reason for a change so far.

Mayonnaise

It's dangerous stuff, not only for one's waist but also one's sanity, at least on Wikipedia. Does traditional Mayonnaise contain lemon juice or not? If so is it really required to make it? Those ponderous questions led to a major revert-war that stretched for the better part of September 2007, including the usual name-calling, bias-tag-adding and "summoning the admins" threats.... [4] [5] [6] So when you enjoy your fries with Mayonnaise, take a second to remember those heroes that fought for (against) the lemon juice that might be in it.

Memphis

Did David Saks write "the official song of Memphis", or did he write a Memphis "song of the year"? An editor calls the City Council to find out, only to find that the songwriter himself has already called requesting proof that he wrote "the official song"- citing Wikipedia as his source.

Michael Jackson

Is it really that big a deal whether his nicknames are in the opening paragraph or not?

Michael Moore

He grew up in Davison, Michigan, next to Flint, Michigan [7]. He often says he's from Flint. Is that correct?

The Mickey Mouse Club

Was Zachary Jaydon a cast member throughout the MMC incarnation of this Disney series? Some say yes, some no, as his name is added to and removed from the cast list with depressing frequency. A standard reference book on Disney television doesn't list him, but some online sources do. Were those references added by Jaydon himself? Who knows? Fans of the 1950s version of the show can only shake their heads in bemusement, grateful that nobody is edit warring about Moochie's appearances.

Miss Kitty Fantastico

Edit war over whether it is appropriate for the text some demons to link to the article Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet, which has since been merged and redirected to Ontario general election, 2003.

Monty Hall problem

Is it a puzzle of probability or of game theory? Is it even correct? This dispute has led to multiple mediation attempts and an ArbCom case. After ten years of disputing, as of August 2012 there have been 1,269,228 words posted on the article talk page without reaching any agreement.[8] By comparison, all of the Harry Potter books combined have 1,084,170 words in them.

Moscow Metro

Regarding the table of Moscow Metro lines, should the color of the line be in the first column or the second? Should the color names be spelled out or do the colors speak for themselves? Edit warring over the version of the table occurred at the onset of June 2006. Following a month-long full protection, a straw poll, a request for comment, and an appearance in the New York Times on June 17, 2006 for its protection (and almost certainly this lame dispute), the article was unprotected, not because anything was actually resolved but because the article had been protected for so long. And guess what? More edit/revert warring and ensues, to the point where the original table is re-added to the article and one frustrated editor proclaims: "Ah, so we've killed a couple of weeks to ... keep the old table. Amazing." Indeed. Amazing.

Nazism

Should quotes by Adolf Hitler be sourced using primary sources or are scholarly sources required? Does it really matter considering that they are just quotes? This dispute has resulted in a heated edit war, at least one AN/I thread, a RfC and two rounds of full protection, all without resolving this never ending edit war.

New England

A single editor from Connecticut objects to Boston being mentioned as the "business and cultural center" of New England. The editor endlessly reverts article to remove all mention of Boston from the article, believing it to be a conspiracy by Boston propagandists to covertly "recapture" Connecticut via Wikipedia. A compromise is attempted by conceding in a subsection that the "...New York metropolitan area [is] an important economic influence on Fairfield County..." but the editor is still not satisfied. New England editors offer to cede Fairfield County to NYC to resolve conflict. Issue receives mention in a Nashua Telegraph article about Wikipedia.[9]

Ōkami Kakushi

A two-way edit war between an unregistered user and a registered user was started in March 2010 over whether or not the characters identified as "kamibito" in the anime and video game Ōkami Kakushi qualify as werewolves.

Puberty

Should boys or girls be listed first? Should it be in traditional English or alphabetical order, or should it be in the order that humans start puberty? Is there some kind of conspiracy in favour of females over males, or is it entirely innocent? The eventual consensus was to list boys first, and the article has remained that way for some time.

Reach for the Sky

An edit war springs up over the addition of a single line of whitespace between the external links section and the navboxes in Reach for the Sky. Results in two ANI threads, a contested entry at WP:3O, and various accusations of vandalism and sockpuppetry. The true source of lameness here? Two newlines in the source had been stripped out at some point without either participant noticing, rendering the appearance of the two versions, which were reverted back and forth seven times, completely identical.

REALbasic

Anonymous user with a bone to pick spends more than half a year on a crusade to discredit the subject and to promote a boycott. Page is protected multiple times, several sockpuppets are blocked, threats are made to bring Wikipedians before an attorney general for consumer fraud, blocking an entire ISP is tried. Edit war stops as abruptly as it started, with the anonymous editor's final edit summary stating that he was personally defrauded by the company because they betrayed Macintosh customers by supporting Windows, or something like that.

Ronald Ryan

The last man to be hanged in Australia died decades ago, but the debate over his possible innocence still rages on (as all the best controversies do) in Wiki form. Accusations and counter-accusations are thrown around like confetti, editors are accused of promoting various (possibly fictional) books and ALL CAPS edit summaries abound. The only thing all the editors-turned-detectives can agree on is that the truth is out there.

Sarah Edmonds

Wik made a correction, giving her middle name and month of birth. This was lost through an edit conflict, and Danny and Alexandros added a paragraph worth of content. Wik reverted. Danny reverted. Et cetera. The only objection either had with the other's edits was that they reverted their own. The war can be seen here: [10]

Shiba Inu

An edit war between editors and the internet has resulted in several page protects and internal text warning users not to add Doge (meme). The debate rages on whether a link in "See also" is enough or whether a mention in the article is notable.

Stegosaurus in popular culture

Two admins disagree over the inclusion of a paragraph mentioning several Stego-like cartoon characters. The dispute eventually dissolves into slow wheel-warring over several days, with a careful attention to the magic number, leaving other users scratching their head as they attempt to understand what makes that particular paragraph such an obvious target for dispute.

Stingray

Does Steve Irwin's death by a stingray warrant mentioning? Immediately after news of his death emerged, a lame edit war ensued.

Susan Hawk

Was she in Survivor: Pulau Tiga or Survivor: Borneo? Considering both were in heavy use, one really shouldn't have precedence over the other (although Pulau Tiga was the term used for years before Jeff Probst introduced the term Borneo for the first season); in any case, the edit war between the older term and the newer term has gone on for months.

Sweden

Who was the prime Prime Minister of Sweden between October 5 and October 6, 2006? Did Göran Persson resign on the 5th or 6th? Was Fredrik Reinfeldt appointed on the 5th or 6th? Or did Sweden have two prime ministers during the period?

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

Is it a spin-off, a sequel, or a spin-off sequel? It's a direct continuation of the plot of Tales of Symphonia, but the playable characters are different most of the time. The developers have always called it a sequel, except for when they've always called it a spin-off. Has been going on for about a year now.

Talk:Tyrannosaurus

Perhaps one of the most truly bizzare edit wars ever, this was a short but tense edit war where an anonymous user apparently argued with themselves over whether Tyrannosaurus rex was a predator or a scavenger (ridiculous arguments abound including comparing Troodon to Tyrannosaurus and much Jack Horner-bashing). It later turned out that it happened to be two anonymous users who shared the same IP address. Concerns of violating WP:3RR came up but were shot down because the IP was technically reverting their own edits.

Land making up Tsushima subprefecture

Is it an island or a group of islands? Does it matter if there are islets surrounding what people call an island? Can we still consider it an island if the navy blasted a shipping channel in the middle of it? Maybe the Japanese name should be used to decide. Or possibly the English term used to refer to it by the government of Japan. Or is it just a case of one side thinking about the landmass in the sea (e.g. British Isles) while the other side thinking about the island as a political entity (e.g. United Kingdom & Ireland) and couldn't actually agree on what the article is actually about??

U2

Is it relevant that Bono plays the harmonica? Should it be mentioned in the lead paragraph along with vocals and guitar? Does this mean that we should also state in the same sentence that The Edge also plays piano, organ, and bass, in addition to background vocals, guitar, and keyboards? As an anonymous IP user kept adding "harmonica" as one of Bono's instruments, other editors kept removing it. A discussion on the talk page took place and was closed, with the consensus that "harmonica" will not be included. Of course, the addition of "harmonica" continued. A second discussion was created following the first one, and the anonymous editor eventually got the hint after "harmonica" was removed following six previous attempts.

Ultimate Fighting Championship

Are Ultimate Fighting Championship events notable enough for individual articles or do they fail the criteria? That's the debate that continued on MMA talk pages, which resulted in omnibus articles being created.

UMBC

Long edit war back in 2005 regarding whether the school is located in Arbutus, Baltimore, or Catonsville. A compromise was attempted when the location was changed to Baltimore County, but that was considered too general by some, but unnecessary by one Baltimore supporter who asserted that "Baltimore" includes all of Baltimore County anyway. And since one lame edit war apparently wasn't enough, another one raged over whether the school's full name is "University of Maryland, Baltimore County" or "University of Maryland Baltimore County". Look closely. Yes, the only difference is the comma, a comma which generated a heated debate on the talk page over whether the school wished to identify itself with the punctuation mark. One vandal even gave a nod to the comma edit war by changing the bolded title to "University, of, Maryland, Baltimore, County".[11]

User:Santa on Sleigh

"Santa" (possibly a sockpuppet of an experienced editor) was blocked on Christmas day for attempting to spread cheer and goodwill to other users. A long discussion on WP:ANI (and a wheel war over Santa's blocking) ensued over the legitimacy of the block – was Santa being disruptive? Was Santa a troll? Santa lamented about being unable to visit Wikipedia in 2006.

What would Jesus do?

Should the article link to Brian Boitano or What Would Brian Boitano Do? (in the end it linked to both). Should a movie title be italicized? Did something happen in the middle of the 1990's or the mid- to late-1990's? These and other probing questions were at the heart of five-day long edit war between Anthony and Wik, during which the page had to be protected twice. The campaign spread to other pages, with What Would Brian Boitano Do? surviving a VfD listing by Wik.

Wii Play

Should the article about this video game show the box art from the European release, the Japanese release, or the US release? National pride is at stake, so the article has been locked. Furthermore there is an even more heated debate as to whether its 58% rating should be considered above or below "average" here...

Wikipedia

Is Jimbo the founder or a co-founder with Larry Sanger? Edit war begins on the Larry Sanger page, involves AN/I threads and moves to an edit war across dozens of articles.

Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars

Was Psychosurgeons an edit war or not? Five editors wrangling over whether an argument about a comma was an edit war or the same editor changing his own edit back and forwards – 97 times! In the end, it was resolved when the original article was deleted.

WKBS-TV (Philadelphia)

An edit war over the inclusion of these nine words: "the first-ever Kickoff Classic, played at Giants Stadium". Things get so heated that one of the editors starts making personal attacks and is blocked. A compromise remains, where a link to the page on said game is a piped link in the transcript of the general manager's final speech.

Year 2038 problem

After 2038, it turns out that some computers are also going to run into date issues in the year 292,277,026,596, well after the predicted end of the universe. Which means we've still got some time to discuss whether the article should include a sentence that says "this is not widely regarded as a pressing issue".[12] [13] [14] [15] Apparently saying that it didn't matter itself didn't matter, because the phrase was deleted when nobody was watching and nobody even seemed to notice. And then the reference to the problem was deleted as well, so if you're reading this after finding a copy of Wikipedia amidst the fallout of the war caused by the Year 292,277,026,596 problem, the Wikimedia Foundation extends its condolences.