edit war

plural edit wars

1. wiki jargonA dispute over the content of a page on a wiki or other editable work where opposing editors continually change the page without discussion.

   As with dinner-table discussions, it is best to avoid editing articles about politics or religion unless one wishes to become entrenched in a perpetual edit war.

   3 more examples

   An unproductive edit war results as editors change the page back and forth between two incompatible versions, without troubling to engage in discussions.

   2008, Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, Ben Yates, How Wikipedia Works: And How You Can Be a Part of It, No Starch Press, →ISBN, page 388

   In 2008, doubters of the official account of the attacks — sometimes called truthers — were told by the arbitration committee not to edit the main page on the attacks after so-called edit wars over what should be included there.

   2011 September 12, Noam Cohen, “On Wikipedia, Echoes of 9/11 ‘Edit Wars’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Edit wars—about everything from Roseanne Barr to the Minneapolis suburb of Edina to the Death Star’s size to whether tigers are in fact “the most powerful living cat”—have been part of Wikipedia since its beginning.

   2018 August 7, Alexis C. Madrigal, “Wikipedia, the Last Bastion of Shared Reality”, in The Atlantic

present singular third person edit wars · participle present edit warring · participle past edit warred · past edit warred · alternative edit-war

1. intransitivewiki jargonTo engage in an edit war.

   When a dispute arises, it is common to see a page protected to avoid edit warring.