Wikipedia:Edit warring

"WP:EW" redirects here. For To report editors who are edit warring, please see the Edit warring noticeboard, see WP:EW (disambiguation).

A severe edit war

Wikipedia pages develop by discussion, with users following editing policy and trying to work together to develop consensus, and by seeking dispute resolution and help if this isn't working. An edit war occurs when contributors, or groups of contributors, try to impose their view by repeatedly reverting each other's contributions, rather than resolve the disagreement by discussion. To report editors who are edit warring, please see the Edit warring noticeboard.

The most common measure of edit warring is the three-revert rule, often abbreviated 3RR. Under the three-revert rule, exceeding three reverts on any one page in under 24 hours (with some explicit exceptions) is generally considered edit warring. However edit wars can and do take place without breaches of the three-revert rule - and editors may be blocked for edit warring without having breached the rule. Users who continue to edit war after proper education, warnings, and blocks on the matter degrade the community and the encyclopedia, and may lose their editing privileges indefinitely.

Edit warring

The editing process

Main pages: Wikipedia:Editing policy and Wikipedia:Reverting

Wikipedia holds as its core approach, that an open system can produce quality, neutral encyclopedic content. This requires reasoned negotiation, patience, and a strong community spirit, each of which is undercut by antisocial behavior like incivility and edit warring. Reversion exists to undo in full an edit that has no merit whatsoever, not to refute an editor with whom one happens to disagree.

A content revert intentionally reverses all changes that may be made in good faith and for well intentioned reasons by another editor, rather than improving upon the edit or working with the editor to resolve any differences of opinion. Therefore reverting is not to be undertaken without good reason.

What is edit warring?

Edit warring is the confrontational, combative, non-productive use of editing and reverting to try to win, manipulate, or stall a content dispute.

Typically a user who edit wars is ignoring editorial norms and often reverting rather than considering others' points. On Wikipedia, content should be written appropriately in accordance with policies and guidelines. If editors disagree they should discuss it rather than fight, and should calmly seek outside opinions from other editors if agreement is not reached or the matter cannot be resolved. If there is a strong disagreement, then the users should accept they cannot agree and seek dispute resolution rather than disrupt the article or engage in improper editing. The fact that one user is "pushing an agenda" is not an excuse for another user to edit war.

"Edit warriors" are users who fight aggressively, or try to game the system or stack the discussion, rather than seek consensus. Such behavior is disruptive, harmful, and unproductive, and often leads to external intervention by other users. Edit warring is different from a bold, revert, discuss (BRD) cycle.

What is not edit warring

In a number of cases, reverting or rejecting edits is necessary, including (but not limited to):

• Reverting vandalism and banned users is not edit warring. Note that repeated posting of confirmed misinformation or repeated large scale removal of content is often considered vandalism, but in general merely editing from a slanted point of view, general insertion or removal of material, or other good-faith changes, are not necessarily considered vandalism. (See Types of vandalism and What is not vandalism)
• Enforcing certain overriding policies. For example, under the policy on biographies of living persons, where negative unsourced content is being introduced, the risk of harm is such that removal (possibly backed by administrative action) is the norm until it is fixed and policy-compliant.

The Three revert rule

The "Three revert rule" ("3RR") is a bright line rule concerning blatant overuse of reverting, a common kind of edit war behavior. It states that a user who makes more than three revert actions (of any material) on any one page within a 24 hour period, may be considered to be edit warring, and blocked appropriately, usually for a 24 hour period for a first incident. The aim of 3RR is to draw a line where edit warring via reverts is clearly beyond a reasonable level and action will be taken if it has not already been. As such it does not apply in a few narrowly defined situations where there is no edit war (listed below).

3RR is one specific measure of edit warring. Note that any administrator may still act anyway, if they believe a user's behavior constitutes edit warring, whether or not 3RR has been breached.

Application of 3RR

A "page" is any page on Wikipedia, including talk and project space. A revert is any action, including administrative actions, that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part. A series of consecutive saved revert edits by one user with no intervening edits by another user counts as one revert. (This differs from the definition of "revert" used elsewhere in the project.)

The rule applies per person, not per account; reverts made by multiple accounts count together. The rule applies per page; reverts spread across multiple pages so that an editor does not revert a single page more than three times do not violate the rule (but may indicate disruptive editing).

3RR is a bright line where action now becomes almost certain. It is not an "entitlement" to revert a page a specific number of times. Administrators can and will still take action on disruptive editors for edit warring that have not violated 3RR.

If an editor breaks the three-revert rule by mistake, they should reverse their own most recent reversion. Administrators may take this into account and decide not to block in such cases, for example if the user is not a habitual edit warrior and appears to be trying to rectify a genuine mistake.

Exceptions to 3RR

Since the rule is intended to prevent edit warring, reverts which are clearly not edit warring will not breach the rule. Since edit warring is considered harmful, exceptions to the rule will be construed narrowly. The following actions are exceptions to the three-revert rule, and do not count as reverts under the rule's definition.

Exceptions by user type

• Reverting your own actions ("self-reverting"). (Reverting in this context means undoing the actions of another editor or editors, so self-reverting will not breach the rule.)
• Reverting edits to your own user space (as long as you are respecting the Wikipedia:User page guidelines and not restoring material covered by a 3RR content type exemption).
• Reverting actions performed by banned users.

Exceptions by content type

• Reverting obvious vandalism – edits which any well-intentioned user would immediately agree constitute vandalism, such as page blanking and adding cruel or offensive language. Legitimate content changes, adding or removing tags, edits against consensus, and similar actions are not exempt. Administrators should block persistent vandals and protect pages subject to vandalism from many users, rather than repeatedly reverting. However, non-administrators may have to revert vandalism repeatedly before administrators can respond.
• Reverting the addition of copyright violations or content that unquestionably violates the non-free content policy.
• Reverting the addition of content that is clearly illegal in the U.S. state of Florida (where Wikipedia's servers are located), such as child pornography and pirated software.
• Reverting the addition of libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced controversial material which violates the policy on biographies of living persons (BLP). What counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Consider reporting to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard instead of relying on this exemption.

However, even such actions may be controversial or considered edit warring. If you are claiming an exemption it is a good idea to make sure that there is a clearly visible separate section of the talk page claiming, explaining and justifying the use of this exemption. When in doubt, do not revert; remember that Wikipedia is a work in progress. Instead, engage in dispute resolution (in particular, consider asking for help at a relevant noticeboard) or ask for administrative assistance.

Note that in the case of vandalism, blocking editors who have engaged in vandalism, or protecting the page in question, will often be preferable to simply reverting. Similarly, blocking or page protection will often be preferable in case of repeated addition of copyrighted material. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents for reporting vandalism (you may wish to check the definition - WP:VANDALISM), or request page protection at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. (Note that page protection is not designed to protect Your Version, it is designed to end edit warring and encourage discussion of the issue.)

Handling of edit warring behaviors

Edit wars that remain unresolved have several routes forward. Ideally the participants cease warring until consensus can be obtained, possibly involving other users to do so. Edit warring is usually futile and pointless; alternative approaches recommended within the community are suggested below.

If despite trying, one or more users will not cease edit warring, refuse to work collaboratively or heed the information given them, or will not move on to appropriate dispute resolution, then a request for administrative involvement via a report at the Edit war/3RR noticeboard is the norm. A warning is not required, but if the user appears unaware that edit warring is prohibited, they can be told about this policy by posting a {{uw-3rr}} template message on their user talk page. Note however that posting this generic template whilst actively involved in an edit war can be seen as aggressive; consider writing your own message more specific to the situation, with a view to explicitly cooling things down.

Administrators decide whether to issue a block; such blocks are intended to prevent disruptive behaviour, not to punish it. Editors may be blocked for up to 24 hours for the first offense. A first block for edit warring will usually involve violating the three-revert rule; later blocks are more likely to be issued for edit warring that does not breach the rule. Administrators tend to issue longer blocks for repeated or aggravated violations, and will consider other factors, such as civility when doing so. Where multiple editors edit war or breach 3RR, administrators should consider all sides. The three-revert rule is designed to limit edit warring. It does not entitle users to revert a page three times each day, nor does it endorse reverting as an editing technique. Disruptive editors who do not violate the rule may still receive a block for edit warring, especially if they attempt to game the system by reverting a page. Administrators take previous blocks for edit warring into account, and may block users solely for disruptive edit warring.

Administrators often must make a judgment call to identify edit warring when attempting to resolve disputes. In general, repeated reverts made without the support of prior consensus or without sufficient discussion are likely to be considered edit warring, as are other patterns of generally disruptive or obstructive behavior. The decision how seriously to rate the behavior is often influenced by whether a user appears to be deliberately trying to prevent others' editing, especially if it appears they are willfully doing so by gaming the system or more calculated or egregious abuse, such as spacing out reverts in a slow edit war, tag team reverting (where more than one user works together as a "revert team"), misuse of multiple accounts, or repeatedly using reverts in a combative fashion.

If an editor breaks the three-revert rule by mistake, the most recent reversion should be undone. Administrators may decide not to block in such cases, unless the incident forms part of more persistent edit warring.

Alternatives and avoidance

In general, communication is the key to avoiding conflict: follow Wikipedia:Editing policy#Talking and editing. Once it is clear that there is a dispute, avoid relying solely on edit summaries: discuss the matter on the article talk page. The primary venue for discussing the dispute should be the article talk page, which is where a reviewing admin will look for evidence of trying to settle the dispute.

It may help to remember that there is no deadline and that editors can add appropriate cleanup tags to problematic sections under current discussion. When discussion does not produce a conclusion, bringing wider attention to a dispute can lead to compromise. Consider getting a third opinion or starting a request for comments. Neutral editors aware of the dispute will help curb egregious edits while also building consensus about the dispute. When these methods fail, seek informal and formal dispute resolution.

A number of experienced editors deliberately adopt a policy of reverting only edits covered by the exceptions listed above, or limiting themselves to a single revert; if there is further dispute they seek dialog or outside help rather than make the problem worse. Editors may wish to adopt a policy of reverting only edits covered by the exceptions listed above; see Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary. This policy may be particularly appropriate for controversial topics where views are polarised and emotions run high, and as a result edit warring is more frequent.

The bottom line: use common sense, and do not participate in edit wars. Rather than reverting repeatedly, discuss the matter with others; if a revert is necessary, another editor may do it, which will demonstrate a consensus for the action. Request page protection rather than becoming part of the dispute by reverting.

See also

• Wikipedia:Reverting
• Wikipedia:Consensus
• Wikipedia:Dispute resolution
• Wikipedia:Ownership of articles
• Wikipedia:Sock puppetry
• Wikipedia:Etiquette
• Wikipedia:Disruptive editing
• Wikipedia:Tendentious editing
• Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars
• Wikipedia:Page move war