Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars 2nd nomination

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was speedy keep. It's clear where this debate is going. —Mets501 (talk) 04:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars

Strong delete. While the purpose of the page is declared as "humorous", it grows to become a collection of insults for fellow wikipedians. There is no big deal that in the whole wide world of wikipedians two strongheads clash. People are not robots and can sometimes lose control over their temper. `'mikka 16:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• keep - internally this is often cited --T-rex 16:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• delete - Was funny when the wiki was small, but now it's big and edit wars can be touchy subjects involving large groups of people, even when they look trivial and petty to an outsider. This kind of page simply pours petrol onto the fire. --Barberio 16:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, useful to point people to who edit war about questions like whether it is Frauenburg (Frombork) or Frauenburg (Frombork) or whatever. Kusma (討論) 16:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Very strong KEEP - This page has been nominated 5 times previously (often by participants of the edit wars listed on the page) and each time the result has been the same: keep it. I can tell you from personal experience that this page helped bring an end to a ridiculous edit war on the Arachnophobia page (which, I should note, the nominator was a part of). Not only does it serve a humorous purpose, but it also helps people "see the light" and realize how petty their reasons for edit-warring are. --Hnsampat 17:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Thank you for reminding me about Arachnophobia. You cannot help but insult a fellow wikipedian again, even without seeing into the reason and origins of the war. All the more the page must be deleted, since it helps in propagating a derisive attitude and a desire to slap a label. It is outrageous how people are willing to demonstrate how they are allegedly smarter than those who are engaged in "lame wars". The page doesn't serve any constructie purpose, i.e., it does not point any ways in resolving conflicts. Only presents participants as idiots. I don't ming if someone portrays me as a moron, but I am quite sure some will be insulted. `'mikka 17:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. (Yay! Another WP:LAME deletion discussion! *sets clock*) If you find insults, remove them—not the entire page. —xyzzy<sub>n</sub> 17:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Yet another show of disrespect of other person's opinion. Now I see what kind of people defends this page. `'mikka 17:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • You mean you didn’t see what kind of people ‘defended’ this page the last four times? Well, sorry, but I do think that to ignore previous consensus (especially the previous consensus of five debates) is disrespectful. —xyzzy_n 17:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Yet another misuse of words. Please look up the word consensus and respect. If I were disrespectful to the previous decision (not consensus) I'd deleted the page myself. Please also keep in mind that it is usually difficult if possible to convince offended people that they are not offended. And surely this cannot be done by appealing to "consensus". I was quite sceptical about the outcome of this vote, because I suspected that this page is frequented mostly by dirt diggers who will readily come to defend their playground. At least I am glad to see that I am not alone in my opinion, despite your "consensus". Well, slapstick comedy and lists of bloopers are quite popular; makes you feel better than others. `'mikka 22:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • You say "Now I see what kind of people [defend] this page" when you are addressing how a page is insulting? Mekryd 15:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Its informative on how lame some of the things people argue over on Wikipedia are. This list could help newcomers to not engage in edit wars also. Xyzzy, you put it well in your comment above. -- Mikedk9109  (hit me up) ^{SIGN 18:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)}
• Strong delete - I MfD this before, I *totally* agree with the nominator! thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 18:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep because nobody has brought any new arguments for deleting yet.--GunnarRene 19:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Very, very, very strong keep. Is the wiki world much different than it was in November 2006 the last time this was nominated? No? Well then. It's sad that people view this as some kind of personal attack against them. It's meant to try to give people a bit of perspective on the amount of vitriol that they pour into fairly minor things. It is, to quote a long-ago defender of this page, "awesomely useful." --Jfruh (talk) 19:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  • To expand on my remarks somewhat, it is instructive to read the delete justifications here. It seems that people are missing the point of this page; they see that an issue they clearly feel passionate about has been attached to a page with the word "lame" in the title and, already in a defensive crouch due to the vicious edit warring they're in the midst of, see it as a personal attack. The point is not that (to use an example from the page) correcting Nancy Reagan's birthdate from 1921 to 1923 (or vice versa) is lame, and isn't that believing that one or the other is true is lame. What's lame is engaing in an angry, multi-revert, red-faced, all-caps-typing struggle over something that is by right easy to verify and ultimately not that important in the long run. Nothing on WP:LAME ought to imply that one side in the edit war is right; the point is that the struggle is titanic and vitriolic and ultimately not productive because of its vitriolic nature. If it is a "personal attack", it constitutes an attack on people's rude, short-sighted, and unreasoanble conduct, not their views or factual assertions. Too often, edit warriors think that their "enemies" have declared them "lame", when in fact the page exists to call all participants in the struggle lame, and to beg them to figure things out in a less lame fashion. --Jfruh (talk) 19:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • All is good what you said. The problem is that people dare to decide what is lame and what is not judging only by the color of faces and the all-caps ratio in texts. You would be surprized to know that when discussing really vital issues quite a few people tend to get red-faced as well. Of course, recalling that the whole wikipedia is the lamest project ever, one may agree that getting red-faced over a disagreement with a bunch of teenagers is quite stupid. `'mikka 22:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
      • You are still missing the point. As near as I can read it, you seem to be saying that screaming, rude, all-caps-typed edit wars are justified if the wars are over some deadly serious topic. This is simply not the case. The point is that nothing justifies the sort of lame behavior that is described on this page. --Jfruh (talk) 22:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete This essay serves no useful purpose that I can see. Keeping in mind the primary goal of building a better encyclopedia, this page does not assist. It belittles other editors who beleived that proper content was important. While their actions and the issues may seem trivial to others, and the participating editors in the various disputes might wish they had conducted themselves differently, it certainly was important to them at the time. This page does nothing to enhance the encyclopedia, except maybe as a warning to editors to think before warring or else they too may be held up to redicule. If the participating editors in a "lame edit war" are able to resolve their differences, they certainly can forgive but pages like this make it hard to forget. I seriously doubt this page helps people "see the light". The existence of this page certainly hasn't put an end to edit wars, which continue to occur on a regular basis. The page is also far too judgmental to be considered civil, starting with the title and running through the entirety of the commentary. Agent 86 19:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This page serves the useful purpose of giving context and perspective and providing examples of how out of control things can get. These are mistakes we can all learn from. My only objection to this article is that it doesn't yet contain the recent "TV Naming" controversy. --Milo H Minderbinder 19:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I've pointed people to this page to try to nip an edit war in the bud. It's a good reminder that my Devil's Lake is the real Devil's Lake, and yours is just a silly pond no-one cares about everyone's perspective is different. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 21:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Informative, funny, etc. --- RockMFR 21:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I hope the nominator isn't serious ... WilyD 21:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes I am serious. Since the deletion proposal sems doomed, I will think how to make this page less offensive. For example, by no means I see the war about the naming of Kiev or Gdansk as lame. These wars have led to significant improvements of (still imperfect) naming conventions. And to declare them as "lamest war" is a spit in the face of people who painfully tried to reach a reasonable solution based on argument, rather than on the notion of "consensus" wildly abused in wikipedia (to call 6:3 vote a consensus when 100,000+ editors didn't see the discussion and 300,000 didn't give a dime is mockery of the common sense and language abuse). `'mikka 22:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I appreciate your decision to improve the page. Regarding Danzig, I agree the entry is rather misplaced; my impression was it’s there more for tradition’s sake than for lameness. (You sound like you would like to write an essay about it, by the way…) —xyzzy_n 23:03, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Please, the conduct of the Kiev and Gdansk debates are the essence of lame edit warring. Again, that does not mean that the issues surrounding nomeclature are trivial, only that the conduct of the edit warriors was ridiculous. As for "spitting in the face," there's no need to be overdramatic. The painful groping for a compromise solution was done by editors in good faith trying to advance the project. The constant reverting back and forth between rival versions and calling people "Nazis" was done by lame edit warriors. Sometimes, due to the high emotions these topics engendered, the same editors fell into both of these camps, but I refuse to admit that the latter is somehow necessary to the construction of a good encyclopedia. --Jfruh (talk) 07:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Hey, I've been involved in lame edit wars, and almost quit Wikipedia over one (on the question of whether an article name should be pluralised, where I didn't even have an opinion, only insisted we not move the page until a concensus was reached - and I almost got banned for it. I know perfectly well it was a lame edit war - there's no offence in calling a spade a spade. WilyD 13:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Page is actually not harmful, and has helped at least me on one or two occasions to step back from an article when my actions were arguably as lame as some of these. GassyGuy 23:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• strongest possible keep: To my mind, the constant renomination of articles for deletion is a drain on the process. Honestly, once it's been nominated and kept more than twice I can see no valid reason for another nomination. I understand the nominators concerns, and this is in no way meant to critisize their motives, but the community has spoken; five times. Stare Decisis. Wintermut3 23:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - oh please... ST47Talk 23:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strongest possible Delete. I don't see even the remotest hint possible what the significance is of this essay. Does it help with policies? Does it help Wikipedians understand the process of editing? Does it, in any way, make a significant point? What purpose does it have? Just to post weird edit wars? Some editors that were in such "lame" edit wars can feel pretty embarassed or angry, especially if they don't know thet're here and just found out. And by the way, this somewhat POV. One person might think of a certain edit war lame, another might not. How can one tell whether an edit war is lame? No such thing. And besides, those of you who say keep just because it's funny, humorous or interesting, that's not good enough; read WP:ILIKEIT. Again, this serves no valuable purpose here on Wikipedia. ♥Tohru Honda13♥ 23:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  Actually, I find it helpful, as a kind of deterrent. As for the lameness measure, I think it’s sufficient to observe whether a particular item remains. —xyzzy_n 23:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. It serves as a very useful cautionary tale on the dangers of taking things too seriously. --cesarb 00:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. It is certainly an excellent tool to discourage edit/move/deletion warring. Also, no real arguments for deletion have been presented. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 00:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Might I ask what this is used for? it does hint something on edit warring/conflicts. ♥Tohru Honda13♥ 01:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes a series of concrete examples make a bigger impression than a general essay. --Jfruh (talk) 01:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

What "real" argument has been presented to keep it, other than it's funny, I like it? Agent 86 07:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It serves as a series of concrete cautionary tales for those considering abandonning sanity and engaging in lame edit warring. On more than one occasion, I have seen just the threat of adding an edit war to WP:LAME cause edit warriors on both sides to take a step back and approach their dispute more constructively. It is also a useful bit of institutional memory (in the sense of "gosh, I wonder if anyone has ever pointed out that Gdansk used to be called Danzig before") and a repository of Wikilore. Since it is resident in the Wikipedia: space rather than the article space, it also quite frankly has a lower threshold for sticking around (it's not actually part of the encyclopedia, after all, just part of the ancillary community process.) --Jfruh (talk) 07:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep humor is always good -- Selmo ^(talk) 02:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - the page helps to keep things in perspective. Admittedly, it may not seem that humorous to the involved parties, but neither is it fun for other editors to have to clean up the mess they make. When you find one of your favourite pages in the midst of a "revert-a-thon", it helps to skim through this article and know that you're not alone. --Ckatz^chat_spy 02:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep but edit to redact usernames of editors who request it. Newyorkbrad 03:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't believe there are any editor usernames currently on the page, and obviously there shouldn't be in the future. --Jfruh (talk) 03:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep without editing. Edit warring will not be tolerated.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Abeg92 (talk • contribs).
  • Threats will not be tolerated either. `'mikka 03:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep This page serves as a useful reminder to the purpose of an encyclopedia: to build a worthy encyclopedia, and not to settle petty scores with other editors in edit-trench warfare. If anyone deletes this article, I will set myself alight and have a friend post pictures of my heroism on my userpage. Rintrah 09:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep as Newyorkbrad says it shouldn't included names or be phrased in attacking language (and it is not). As a humour page, people finding it funny is a valid reason to keep. What other reason is there for keeping humourous and joke pages? I also agree that it is a useful reminder of what kind of mistakes have been made in the past, so as to help all of us avoid them in the future. Eluchil404 10:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, for some fun. On the serious side, it shows that edit wars are disruptive, dumb and not worth doing. This is to show how not to engage in edit wars over trivial stuff. I don't see any good argument on why this article should be deleted. Terence Ong 11:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep This page is important. As having been involved in two of the edit wars (Street Fighter and Smashing Pumpkins), I think perspective is sometimes required. JuJube 12:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Insert long and rambling essay regarding the importance of self-criticism pages on Wikipedia here. Xaa 16:40, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep. The most important part of cooling down is learning to laugh at one's mistakes. And this page is a great way to do it. —Dark•Shikari<sup>[T]</sup> 17:11, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - a bunch of clichés rise to the mind, among them "those who forget the history are doomed to repeat it". This is a perfect, and funny, illustration of What Not To Do. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 17:48, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Regretfully have to say Delete, although I see it is futile. There is so much animosity in wikipedia (although IMO good cooperation prevails), and to archive wars in any way brings no good IMO. Mukadderat 20:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Too damn soon for renomination. This is getting silly, you know. <sup>Thanks,</sup> <sub>Luc "Somethingorother" French</sub> 21:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Shall we make his page self-referenced, then? BTW, when different, each time new, non-voting-before people re-nominate, it is not so silly as you may seem, smartie as you are. `'mikka 21:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. This is useful. If there's specific content in it that's insulting, it can be removed, as xyzzy_n says. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Delldot (talk • contribs) 22:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC).
• Strong Keep I honestly don't see an insulting tone in the text. Perhaps a paragraph in the beginning stating the merits of being able to sit back, and view things in a light that gives you a chuckle even regarding your own actions might be nice to see. But if you retain the ability to do just that, it's a powerful ward and tonic against incivility and all sorts of bad feelings. Don't take it as users laughing at other users, just sit back and bask in the inherent ridiculousness that's a part of everything in life. Bitnine 23:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep A perfect tool for prevention...whenever I find my Wikistress level rising, I take a look at this page to remind myself that edit warring is so lame and not worth it... Gzkn 00:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strongest possible keep. This is not only funny, but it is educational and provides perspective on what we are all doing. If you don't want to end up on WP:LAME, then don't wage a lame edit war. It's really that simple. Grandmasterka 00:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
• keep - a good lesson for a lot of infatigable brawlers and wiseacres - and funny. Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 01:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.