Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars/Miscellameness

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This page contains material which is kept because it is considered humorous. It is not intended, nor should it be used, for any remotely serious purpose.

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.

Contents 1 Miscellameness 1.1 1994 FIFA World Cup 1.2 Altrincham 1.3 Aphex Twin 1.4 Australia 1.5 Bahá'í Faith 1.6 Cauliflower 1.7 Charles Darwin 1.8 Democratic Party (United States) 1.9 Fred Saberhagen 1.10 Gay Nigger Association of America 1.11 Hitler Has Only Got One Ball 1.12 Irish breakfast 1.13 Italian Beef 1.14 Jesus 1.15 J. K. Rowling 1.16 KTVX 1.17 KUFO 1.18 Lucky Charms 1.19 Mayonnaise 1.20 Memphis 1.21 Michael Jackson 1.22 Michael Moore 1.23 Miss Kitty Fantastico 1.24 Monty Hall problem 1.25 Moscow Metro 1.26 New England 1.27 Puberty 1.28 REALbasic 1.29 Sarah Edmonds 1.30 Stegosaurus in popular culture 1.31 Stingray 1.32 Susan Hawk 1.33 Sweden 1.34 Land making up Tsushima subprefecture 1.35 User:Santa on Sleigh 1.36 What would Jesus do? 1.37 Wii Play 1.38 WKBS-TV (Philadelphia) 1.39 Year 2038 problem

[edit] Miscellameness

[edit] 1994 FIFA World Cup

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

[edit] Altrincham

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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 [...] debate continues on the talk page, including an interesting... table of opinions (!).

[edit] 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 advocation the inclusion that he was being ganged up on against WP policy and threats to have users blocked.

[edit] Cauliflower

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

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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, ...

[edit] Fred Saberhagen

Noted science fiction author dies, which is tragic. Then the tragedy is compounded when the death reverted for being an uncited statement in a BLP. Edit war and thousands of words of often uncivil argument ensues (sometimes valid, sometimes bitchy, sometimes both), 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Hitler Has Only Got One Ball

Can anonymously written folk songs be copyrighted? What if the anonymous author sues Wikipedia? Or his son? 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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]

[edit] Jesus

A very long dispute arguing over whether to use BC/AD or BCE/CE for era notations, resulting in the somewhat foolish use of 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. The dispute is sometimes resurrected.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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?

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 it.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Michael Jackson

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

[edit] Michael Moore

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

[edit] 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.

[edit] Monty Hall problem

Is it a puzzle of probability or of game theory? Is it even correct?

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.[7]

[edit] Puberty

Do boys or girls come 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?

[edit] REALbasic

Anonymous user with a bone to pick spends more than half 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.

[edit] Sarah Edmonds

Wik makes a correction, giving her middle name and month of birth. This gets lost through an edit conflict, and Danny and Alexandros add a paragraph worth of content. Wik reverts. Danny reverts. Et cetera. The only objection either had with the other's edits was that it reverted their own.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Stingray

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

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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?

[edit] 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??

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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...

[edit] 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.

[edit] Year 2038 problem

It turns out that some computers are going to run into date issues in the year 292,277,026,596. 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"[8] [9] [10] [11]. Great, now editors can't even agree on whether saying that something doesn't matter, matters.