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This page contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous. Such material is not meant to be taken seriously.

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Occasionally, Wikipedians lose their minds and get into edit wars over the most petty things. Though not comprehensive or authoritative, this page documents this "color of the bikeshed" phenomenon by showing some of the worst-case scenarios where obsessed Wikipedians have attached so much importance to some small detail that they fervently revert, dispute, and argue any change that happens to ruffle their editorial feathers, sometimes so much that no one else can get any real work done on the article in question (page protection and/or user blocks notwithstanding).

While humans have picked fights over the smallest things for centuries, back then they would settle these sorts of personal grudges by drawing weapons (swords, guns, etc.) and actually fighting it out. Now, it happens in the form of 3RR, RFC, ANI, and various other TLAs.

...Well, at least nobody actually gets shot.

Ethnic feuds

Belgaum border dispute

Is it supposed to be part of Maharashtra or is it inalienably part of Karnataka?

Florina and other towns in Macedonia (Greece)

Edit war about whether the alternative name Lerin is Macedonian, Bulgarian, or south Slavic (which covers both Macedonian and Bulgarian).

Foustanella

Who first donned a frilly skirt and threatened to kill anyone who questioned his manhood over it? Was he Albanian or Greek? If Albanian, Gheg or Tosk? Thankfully, none of the modern day warriors on this topic have access to real weapons (we hope!)

Ivana Miličević

Is she a "Bosnian actress of Croatian descent/ethnicity" or a "Croatian actress"? Should she be called American without sourcing because she's resided in America for nearly 30 years? Is she "Bosnian" because she was born in Sarajevo or "Bosnian-born" because Bosnia did not exist as a nation when she was born there? Go ahead and edit the article and see how long your version lasts before someone reverts you!

Nicolaus Copernicus

Was he Polish, German or Prussian? Or did he have no nationality at all that bears mentioning? If Copernicus were around today, he might have suggested that he would be satisfied to be remembered as an astronomer, but we will never know.

Nikola Tesla

Born of Serbian parents in a part of the Austrian Empire, which a short time later became a part of the Hungarian half of Austria-Hungary and is now in Croatia; so was he Serbian? Croatian? Austrian? Austro-Hungarian? You decide! But don't forget to leave an edit summary saying how pathetic it is to choose any other version...

Raven Riley

Is this porn star Italian? Native American? Puerto Rican? Cypriot? Does she have Indian blood? Make sure that, when you change it, you don't even think about citing any source, but please feel free to insult whoever put in the previous ethnicity. Anonymous editors--be sure to insert multitudes of different "real names" of her, with no sourcing whatsoever.

Werner Herzog

Born in Germany, supposedly of a German mother and a Yugoslavian father, and raised in Bavaria, Germany. Does that make Herzog Croatian or Serbian? How about the fact that the relatives live in in Bosnia-Herzegovina? Use edit summaries to publish interviews that you conducted — or heard rumors about. Mirrors and forks are great sources too. After consulting a printed source, it turns out that it was the mother who was from Croatia. Ouch.

Freddie Mercury

There was a feud that was going on for a long time on this one concerning Freddie Mercury's true ancestry. Is he the most famous Iranian rock star? Indian? Parsi? You'd be surprised how many people this pissed off, to the point that it is still a hotly contested item over there. Oh, and this one, like all the others, had its share of random vandals, people leaving unmarked anonymous insults, and gnashing of teeth.

Dokdo Liancourt Rocks Takeshima Dokdo → Dokdo → Liancourt Rocks → ?

A group of sinking volcanic rocks has been claimed by both Japan and Korea since really really long ago. Evidence of ownership for either side rests on hard-to-read decaying pieces of old paper. This is not a silly dispute as the rocks have important economic and military value, yada yada yada. Serious Wikipedians (of Korean or Japanese citizenship) may even choose to make these rocks their place of residence (living there not required!) to bolster their case. This article extensively documents every little factoid that could possibly indicate ownership by one country, with each, of course, having a countering statement. Few Wikipedians of non-Japanese or Korean descent and newspapers are part of the discussion, yet everyone claims their POV is NPOV. As properly befitting this major political issue, most edit summaries begin with "rv..." Luckily, at least the title of the article has been settled on...or has it?

Franz Liszt

Born in what was then Hungary but is now part of Austria to ethnic German parents whose families had lived in Hungary for a long time, and we had all thought it was common knowledge that Liszt claimed Hungary as his homeland and Hungarian as his nationality. Er, didn't he? Cue the largest and most acrimonious war in recent memory! It was mercifully confined to the talk page, but what a talk page it was. What was Liszt's real name, Franz or Ferenc? (It was actually Franciscus.) If he was such a Hungarian patriot, why didn't he fight in the war of independence in 1848? If he was really Hungarian, why is his "Hungarian"-style music actually based on Gypsy music? If he really thought he was Hungarian, why did he spend so much time in France? Why couldn't he write better lyrics for the Kronungslied? What is the significance of the Chopin-esque left hand octaves in Funerailles, Octobre 1849? What event of October 1849 was he referring to, the crushing of the Hungarian rebellion or the death of Chopin? Or was it the publication of Heinrich Heine's rude poem about him? Why couldn't he learn to speak Hungarian better? Did he like goulash? Could he dance the csárdás? The farce was compounded by the occasional appearance of anonymous Slavic vandals who insisted that Liszt was, in fact, a Slovak.

(see also Gdańzig below)

Names

English names

Avengers (comics)

Should there be a separate page for New Avengers (comics)? Is the name of the team now the New Avengers or is it just a new Avengers? Is it a new comic entirely or just a continuation of the old one? Following a positive merge vote, a series of reverts occurs when an editor "merges" the two by simply pasting the merged information into the article, creating two articles in one. The slow nature of the revert war means that, technically, nobody violates WP:3RR, and requests for help from other admins go unheeded because, well, it's lame. After a series of exchanges on the talk page questioning people's command of English as well as their sanity, the issue appears to have been settled with the creation of New Avengers (comic book) (note the oh-so-subtle distinction) based on the WikiProject Comics guidelines.

C Sharp

In the name of the programming language C#, is that # thing (octothorpe) after the C a number sign or the musical sharp symbol? What should the wrongname template say? Some argue that a Microsoft FAQ supports the sharp symbol, while others argue that the ECMA standard promotes the # symbol and that it has better browser support. Some propose using # as a superscript (C), which few editors like. Editors repeatedly reverted between each other, some refusing to discuss the issue on the talk page. The issue was resolved with an e-mail exchange with Microsoft stating that in their view it's an octothorpe symbol representing the sharp symbol, similar to how "<=" represents the less than or equal symbol, and that thus Microsoft does not disagree with ECMA. Written "Netscape" but pronounced "Mozilla", eh?

Devil's Lake (North Dakota)

Shockingly, there are multiple locations in the United States with the name "Devil's Lake." A very heated war broke out here regarding which one should be featured, whether a disambig page was needed, even over the usage of the apostrophe—eventually literally degenerating into "my lake is better than yours!"

Eris (dwarf planet)

Was Eris named after the Greek goddess Eris or the Greek and Discordian goddess Eris? Does it matter that the IAU and discoverer Michael E. Brown referenced only the Greek aspect, even though the referenced mythological event was identical with The Original Snub? Is mentioning Discordianism POV because it gives the religion undue weight? Edit war results in loss of good article status and temporary article locking. War finally resolved by not actually mentioning what type of goddess Eris is. See also: Pluto.

G4techTV Canada

Does the name of a Canadian TV channel, originally an offshoot of namesake American one, contain word "Canada" in its official title, ergo it should be parenthesized in the title? It's a terribly important matter, as witnessed by an intense move war and circular discussion on the talk page

Fossil fuel for reciprocating piston engines equipped with spark plugs

Should this substance be called 'gasoline' or 'petrol'? See the talk page for a debate about the total number of English speakers in the world (and whether Americans should be considered an important part of it); the relative utility of search engines; claims that UK-wikipedians are set to re-establish the British empire by moving pages to British spellings, counter-claims that Americans who want "gasoline" are being their usual nationalistic/culturally-imperialistic selves; RFC nominations, page-move warring and deletion debates, failed attempts to achieve compromise via some truly freaky article names (far beyond the suggested "Gasoline (petrol)" and "Petrol (gasoline)") and even the creation of templates to separate the article into sections individually tailored for both Commonwealth and American English tastes. Gasoline has been settled on for now, in part because that was the article's title originally, but the fallout has yet to settle.

Halo 2 and Halo 3

Should there be a disambiguation to pretty hate machine and "Head Like a Hole"? Are Halo numbers official and accepted by Trent Reznor? Are the Halo numbers notable enough to be disambiguated? Are any people going to search for Halo 2 or 3, not expecting information about a video game? Is the form of the Halo number Halo 3 or halo_03 or HALO 3?

Lady Jane Grey

Was she really a Queen of England? Should her page be at Jane of England or Lady Jane Grey? Should she be referred to as Her Majesty Queen Jane? Does her husband merit inclusion in List of royal consorts of the United Kingdom? Resulted in many cut-and-paste page moves, edit warring across multiple pages and flaming on those talk pages. Warriors did not come to their senses even when it was pointed out how long Jane herself had been dead.

Richard Kyanka

An unseemly brawl over whether the article should name him "Richard Kyanka" or "Richard Charles Kyanka". At least the anon editors insisting on the insertion of the middle name provided good verifiable sources.

Libertarian Socialism

Various supporters of the US Libertarian party (founded in 1971) argue that they own the meaning of the word 'libertarian', that placing it next to 'socialism' is a contradiction in terms, and hence that libertarian socialism (described circa 1850) cannot possibly have existed. An edit war and request-for-deletion war ensues.

Missing sun motif

Is it a collection of myths or a motif? Should "sun" be capitalized or not? What about "underworld"? Edit warring here over these and other weighty issues have involved four editors and most of the article's history.

Richard Neustadt

Two months of edit war on whether the page should say "]" or "President ]" (plus the same with several other presidents).

Pluto

For decades regarded as a planet, it became a dwarf planet (as defined by the IAU) in 2006. Shortly after, it was duly assigned a minor planet number of 134340. Much contention ensued at the talk page about whether the article should be at 134340 Pluto or whether the disgraced planet should retain its simpler name (or, for that matter, whether to consider it a planet or not).

Sea of Japan

Should it be called the Sea of Japan, the East Sea, or even the East Sea of Korea? Are both names valid, and if so, should the article be named Sea of Japan (East Sea) or Sea of Japan / East Sea? Or is the actual most common English and international name Sea of Japan (East Sea), parentheses and all? Should the dispute page be called the Sea of Japan naming dispute, or the Dispute between the body of water between Japan and Korea? (Ironically, the neutrality of the Sea of Japan naming dispute is disputed.) Given the existence of other names meaning "East Sea" in other languages, should East Sea redirect to the disambiguation page or to the "body of water between Japan and Korea"?

State Routes

Should articles for U.S. state routes use the format "State Route xx" or "Route xx (State)" or something else (where xx is the route number)? There were numerous edit wars and huge debates over official terms versus common vernacular and over uniformity versus state individuality. Some advocated for the pipe tricked version while others preferred full string method of disambiguation. This battle raged on for about a full year between roadfans, members of the U.S. Roads WikiProject, regular editors, and administrators, resulting in a few probations and even a song. The debate was finally settled with a poll after three previous "naming convention" conventions (#1, #2, #3) failed to resolve the conflict. In the end, the "State Route xx" format prevailed by a small margin. All the state route articles in the United States have been grandfathered into this format. Apparently the fourth try's the charm!

Straight Outta Lynwood

For this CD by "Weird Al" Yankovic, a dispute about whether "outta" should be capitalized spawned lengthy threads on the admin noticeboard, as well as accusations of abuse, and page protection. Arguments focus on whether "Outta" is a preposition, whether it's relevant that it's not shorter than five letters, and whether the way the title is spelled on the actual CD is more important than our manual of style. Until a naming convention change, Straight Outta Lynwood may be SOL (or SoL).

Cornelius Vanderbilt

When a vandal struck and a good user reverted all but one of his/her edits, an edit war ensued over whether Cornelius was nicknamed "The Ass" or not. Another good user stopped the short edit war by adding a comment about the missed vandalism.

Her Late Majesty

Must a queen deceased for over a century still be styled here "Her Majesty", an epithet conventionally reserved for the current monarch? This weighty dispute (pale reflection of warring here), filling talk pages and edit histories, has spilled over into other British monarchs, other royals and titleholders, several countries having or having had a monarchy, claimants and other royal pretensions, and even hundreds of holders of the papacy, where popes centuries dead are endorsed as “His Holiness” here, losing and regaining the endorsement with blinks of eyes. Ongoing debates deal with the format of dates, and the used or unused, existing or non-existent surnames family names house names former fiefs (some inherited names, but very few are sure what they precisely are) of monarchs and relatively unfamiliar variants of those (as well as the putative name of the horse of her late majesty's husband's family), with most edits being extremely trivial. Involved parties vouch for only aiming at accuracy, and certainly some argumentation goes deeper than believed humanly possible. This even created an edit war over whether it could be mentioned here. A truce, seemingly imposed by a Royal intervention that dragged in innocent bystander Prince Michael of Kent, Scottish accents and snail slime, appears to be holding, though occasionally some new fallout is being generated.

"Local girl makes good"

Pet views on royalty again, mostly the same parties warring - but this time, aligned contrariwise. Could an American woman who made an ex-king her catch keep the title she was bestowed by the marriage ... or is the "she stole our king" attitude a sufficient reason to revert her (posthumously) back to her second husband's surname, Wallis Simpson? See how contrary POVs enter the debate: persons who had wanted "majesties" and "highnesses" used in each minor royal's articles arguing to strip an American girl of her only nobility title, and see chivalrous Americans fighting to the metaphorical death in defense of a countrywoman's entitlement. An interesting point has been whether it is fatal or not that she married her Duke after his abdication, and this relates to various and sundry Austrian, Russian, and Romanian monarchies lost, as well as to her sisters-in-law and also to Fergie.

Wii

Is this article about "Wii" or "Nintendo Wii"? If it's "Wii," should it be called just "Wii" or "the Wii"? Or maybe "Nintendo's Wii"? Does it rhyme with "We" or "Wee"? Should "Wee" link to urine? Is "Wee" slang or a euphemism for urine? Is it a British or International word for urine? Is it even worth mentioning in the article at all? Just some of the hard-hitting issues that provoked in excess of 1500 edits in the space of two weeks -- long before the console was even released, and shortly before a massive war breaks out over "non-official external links" that leads to a huge strawpoll to end the issue, and continuing debates over whether the official or unofficial names of the console and its accessories (for example, the "Wii Remote" aka "Wii-mote" aka "Wiimote") are more commonly used and which ones should be mentioned in which articles.

William of Orange

was the name of one King of England and also of some totally obscure minor characters in the mists of history — or was it actually the name of two important and well-known Protestant Heads of State, etc? That became the object of a dispute over a redirect. This vital question divided a bunch of eminent readers of history and led to a revert war that alternated the redirect almost every hour. Casual viewers were holding their breath when coming to check what was the current position of that weathervane. As the name's usage in English-speaking cultures was perceived to be the determining factor, there were attempts to almost hand-count English-speakers in New Zealand, South Africa, etc. — all apparently using the hallowed name in certain way. Extensive and in-depth arguments in several talk pages and usertalk pages included claims of original primary authorship of a redirect as well as accusations of nationalistic POV, filibustering and "using all the tricks in the box." This teaches us some things about disambiguation pages and potential problems surrounding even such tools. A formal poll resulted in votes 9-5 in favor of renaming the disambiguation page as simply William of Orange, and most fallout is being settled.

Involving other languages

2006 FIFA World Cup

In Swiss German, "ss" is used in place of the ligature "ß". So should the German name use "Fußball" or "Fussball"? Despite the fact that even the German version of the page wasn't consistent, many editors were convinced that they knew best, and the edit war still lives on.

Bolzano-Bozen or Bozen-Bolzano

This city in North Italy has two official names, Bolzano and Bozen, which are used together on street signs and the like. Should the article be under Bolzano, Bozen, Bolzano-Bozen, Bolzano (Bozen), or Bozen-Bolzano? Surely one of these Italian-German German-Italian names is English usage; or should we try Botzen? Or Bolzano-Bozen-Bulsan-Bocen-Boceno-Bolzan-Bauzanum-Bocenas-Bulsaun-Bolzanu-Buzzanu? This has spread to several talk pages; highlights so far include the two separate move requests from Bozen-Bolzano to Bolzano-Bozen (or was it the other way around?).

Gdańzig

Edit wars have been occurring for most of Misplaced Pages's history with regards to the exact name of this Polish German Prussian Eastern Central Northern European Baltic Baltijas city. The edit war is so notorious that it is mentioned in the April Fools 2006 "Misplaced Pages's first IRC chat" log.

Kiev, the capital of Ukraine

Has the (mis)fortune of its Russian name being internationally much more widely known than its native Ukrainian name. The best efforts of the government of Ukraine to determine by legislation the name of its own capital in the English language led only to edit and revert wars in Misplaced Pages, as some editors refused to comply with the government's decision, insisting that the best-known version should be used, and in the end they won. Since it was unthinkable that any of the warring camps were wrong in their contentions, it must have been the NPOV policy that was faulty.

Tsushima Basin

Is it important to know that Korea has been preparing to officially register the name "Ulleung Basin"? The ocean feature is known both under the Japanese name Tsushima basin and under the Korean name Ulleung basin. There is also lots of disagreement which name is the more commonly used name in English for a place that pretty much nobody knows. (Also see the related lame edit war for the Land making up Tsushima subprefecture below)

Copyrights

Hitler Has Only Got One Ball

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

Numbers and statistics

André the Giant

Was he 7'1"? 7'4"? 6'10"? Was his height even consistent during his entire career? He's tall, just leave it at that.

Baltimore

Is the city's climate subtropical or continental? Are there a couple snowstorms a year, or several? Do some winters bring less than an inch of snow, or only a trace? How often does it get below 10°F or, for that matter, 5°F, or even 0°F? Is January's average low 29°F or 23°F? And just which weather station most accurately describes Baltimore's climate? These seemingly easily verifiable facts have been the subject of a slow-motion edit war for many months, with occasional language-parsing jockeying for position (for example, "However, winter warm fronts can bring brief periods of springlike weather, while arctic fronts drop temperatures into the teens" vs. "However, winter warm fronts can bring periods of springlike weather, while arctic fronts can briefly drop temperatures into the teens") continuing to this day.

Harry Chappas

Listed at 5'3", admits to being taller. Is he really 5'5"? Or 5'6"? Is an uncited claim valid for the latter? Sockpuppeting follows over a matter of one inch.

Brett Favre

Profootballreference.com lists Favre as having 8224 career passing attempts, while the official Packers website and NFL.com list him as having 8223. An edit war ensues over the 1 attempt leading to an editor getting indefinitely banned. Sockpuppeting followed, including "aging" accounts to circumvent semi-protection. All over 1 passing attempt... In a 16 year hall of fame career. His name is still spelled weird.

Cyclone Larry

It is widely acknowledged that Larry was a Category 5 storm on the Australian tropical cyclone scale (the one that matters with respect to Larry)... but what about the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale? Was it a Category 3? Category 4? Category 5 perhaps? Soon after Larry made landfall in Queensland, Australia, edit warring broke out and the talk page became filled with personal attacks and egos.

Death Star

Is it 120km or 160km in diameter? Even 900km? How shall they word that? Is the hyperdrive class 3 or 4? Who really cares?

Football World Cup

August 2005 edit war asking: who finished third in the 1930 FIFA World Cup? The United States? Yugoslavia? For a year before the Football World Cup 2006, and persisting after, this subject gives involved users something to pass the time.

Oscar Gutierrez

Is he 5'2"? 5'3"? 5'5"? Did he debut at 5'4" and later grow to be 5'5"? Is he actually 5'6"? Should the official WWE website be taken as accurate due to their common practice of increasing heights and weights for entertainment purposes? What about heights as they appear in video games? This edit war, which was strongly contested due to the many conflicting sources, led to the bizarre compromise of listing his height at 5'4½" with the text "We have come to a compromise between 5'2" and 5'5"." thus throwing out all sources and making a claim based on middle ground rather than accuracy.

Street Fighter character articles

Drawn-out revert wars over the correct heights and weights of fictional characters such as Ken Masters and Balrog are ultimately solved by leaving the statistics off entirely.

Xbox 360

Has it been sold as in sold to retailers or sold as in sold to consumers? There has been constant debate over whether or not if Microsoft has actually just shipped to retailers instead of sold to customers. Here's the actual question: does it matter? A certain amount of units have been delivered to these retailers.

Dates

2006 Atlantic hurricane season

Should a tropical cyclone that formed on December 30, 2005 and lasted until January 6, 2006 (Tropical Storm Zeta) be placed in the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season article? The debate eventually explores the terms of hurricane season, how long it lasts, why hurricane followers are so tied to the concept of a hurricane season, and even whether a stapler moved from one desk to another is considered to be on the other desk. It was a truly stunning debate that spanned seven months, drew comparisons to civil unions and gay marriage, and could restart at any moment. (January 2006 edit history)

2007 Atlantic hurricane season

Does a storm forming before June 1 mean the whole season becomes considered as having begun, when the official warning centre (National Hurricane Center) says otherwise and that it "begins June 1st"?

Ann Coulter

Edit war over whether she was born in 1961 or 1963, settled at 1961 after some damning evidence was found.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Was it released in 1988, or '89? Was it released straight to video before hitting the theaters? If so, does that count?

Death by Stereo

Was this band officially formed in 1996 or 1998?

Jamie Lynn Spears

Was she born in 1991 or 1992? After years of being born in 1991, her publicist slips up and accidentally mentions she is 13 years old (in 2005), and all hell breaks loose.

Jennifer Lopez

Born in 1969 or 1970? Even after a detailed explanation in the age fabrication article for 1969 was provided, many were still sure it was 1970.

Mountain Meadows Massacre

Ongoing arguments and edit wars over whether to include the word "Friday" in the date of the event.

Nancy Reagan

Was she born in 1921? Or 1923? (This also came about as a result of age fabrication) After days of editing, does anyone really care THAT much?

Ned's Atomic Dustbin

Was their independent EP The Ingredients released in 1989 or 1990?

Pennywise (band)

Did they release their independent EP Wildcard in 1988, 1989 or 1992? A user claims that it was recorded in 1989, but hadn't been released until 1992. Is there any evidence whether it was officially released before or after the other EP A Word from the Wise? The band has a compilation named Wildcard/A Word from the Wise, which contains both of the EPs, so does that mean that Wildcard was actually released before A Word from the Wise?

Slayer

Did the band form in 1981 or 1982? Some sources (like Metal-Archives.com) list 1981 as the date, but the booklet of the box set Soundtrack to the Apocalypse says they formed in 1982.

Suffer (album)

Was this Bad Religion album officially recorded and released in 1987 or 1988? The details on their official website claims 1987 as the date, but the CD release actually printed 1988 as the release date and the liner notes on the album also reads April 1988 as the recording date.

Robin Williams

Was he born in 1951 or 1952? The problem comes from the fact that a single biography says 1952 while hundreds of fans from a fan site say 1951. One expert vs. hundreds of amateurs. Who's right, David or Goliath?

Punctuation

Berwick-upon-Tweed

A slow-moving edit war that centred over the use of ... an exclamation mark. As User:Ulayiti exclaimed on the talkpage, "Come on guys, you can't actually be having an edit war over one tiny exclamation point!"

FOX News

One user rewrites part of a paragraph; another user reverts because of three commas placed outside quotation marks; and a revert war ensues.

Frequent date of birth to death punctuation

Frequent edit wars over whether there are spaces between the dash when writing a person's date of birth and death.
Example (January 24, 1943 – August 9, 1969) or (January 24, 1943–August 9, 1969). Related edit war over whether the month or the date comes first, i.e. 1 July or July 1, despite the fact that display preferences can be set to provide for either regardless of the wikicode placing.

Gloria Ladson-Billings

An edit war over spacing, which led to the article being protected.

Template:Wikipedialang

Edit war involving three sysops over whether there should be commas in "10000" and "1000." Leads to a blocking and liberal use of the rollback button.

WWE No Mercy

Three-way edit war (or "three way" edit war depending on interpretation) over whether the phrase "Fatal Four Way/Fatal Four-Way" contains a hyphen. This riveting debate, so important that violations of WP:3RR occurred, resulted in the page being fully protected for a month with the protector declaring it the lamest edit war they had ever seen.

Spelling

Ahmed Osman

Should the country with the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Nile be spelled "Egypt" or "Ægypt?" Should the doctrine or belief that there is only one God be spelled "monotheism" or "monotheïsm?" Plenty of hilarity concerning the validity of archæïc spellings ensues on the talk page.

Aluminium

The non-American English-speaking world spells it aluminium with two letter "i"'s, the official IUPAC spelling is aluminium also with two letter "i"'s, and that's where the article is - with two letter "i"'s. There are occasional futile attempts to put the word back to aluminum, which only has one letter "i" in it. See here and here for the gory historical details.

Avril Lavigne

Was her radio hit from her debut album, Let Go, spelled "I'm With You", or was it spelled "I'm with You"? Intense edit warring ensued, and continues, over this contentious matter. Many personal attacks and a request for page protection were also included.

Brazil

Editors constantly change spellings of the country name to Brasil, because this is the local name of the country. There have been heated debates about the spelling, saying that it is "American imperalism" naming Brazil with a z.

Dovzhenko

This Soviet Ukrainian film director is an example of wars over whether the first name of Ukrainians should be Olexandr instead of Russian Aleksandr or international Alexander.

Graem Bauer

Is it "Graham" Bauer, or "Graem" Bauer? The official site had it listed as "Graham" at one point, but several online sources called it "Graem". The series of micro debates on the talkpage were not resolved until episode six of 24 (season 6) revealed that his name was indeed "Graem" Bauer. After a move, all seems settled...right? Apparently not; the new argument is whether Graem's nickname is "Gray", "Grey", or "Grae".

Hannover 96

One n or two n's? Filling up many talk pages and much time.

Istanbul

It was Constantinople, but is it now Istanbul or İstanbul? A few editors make nuclear war over a small speck above the I, bringing new meaning to the word iota.

Matcha

Should the name of this Japanese tea be spelled using the non-standard and uncommon romanization "maccha"? Does its article need a five paragraph rant arguing why it should? To some persistent editors (or one very persistent editor using multiple accounts), the answers are yes and YES!

Orange (colour)

A cut-and-paste move to the American spelling "color". A move back, and statements that Canada, Australia, and the rest of the colour-spelling world didn't matter because the United States spelled it color. Other attempts follow, with one attempt to move it to simply Orange to end the war.

Potato chips

Should potato chips be flavored or flavoured? What is the provenance of the potato chip, America or Ireland? Four-user revert war on these important issues results in the page getting protected and listed on RfC. As a compromise, the chips become seasoned.

Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Jedi6

User:Cyde makes a remark about someone being a rouge admin. User:Doom127 edits Cyde's comment to the spelling "rogue". Cyde reverts, explaining that the spelling error was deliberate. A revert war ensues, and several editors change their votes Support to Neutral or Oppose.

Yoghurt or Yogurt

Does it need the 'h'? Should it use the turkish 'ğ'? Is "Yoghurt" the "traditional" spelling, and is it American cultural imperialism to not have it as such? The first time around, this controversy spawned a thread on WP:ANI and led to a wheel war over a block placed due to a move of the page; later occurrences merely involve arguments over what WP:MOS means and google page counts. (November 2003, June 2004, November 2004, May 2005, February 2006, October 2006, April-May 2007).

℮ (mathematical constant)

In addition to the debate over whether or not it is "actually" a number, the page has seen a pagemove controversy between whether the article's title begins with the letter "E" or the symbol "℮" (which resembles the letter "e") due to technical limitations on article names versus a desire to avoid having to tag the article as {{wrongtitle}} or {{lowercase}}.

Wheel wars

Main Page

What April Fool's jokes should be mentioned on the Main Page, if any? This protected page, editable only by admins, normally goes unedited for days—all content is included from templates, so there is no need to edit the Main Page directly. On April 1, 2005, it racks up more than 60 revisions of varying seriousness before finally being reverted to a days-old version. This does not even include all revisions of the templates the Main Page includes. (edit history)

User:Santa on Sleigh

"Santa" (possibly a sockpuppet of an experienced editor) gets 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) ensues over the legitimacy of the block -- was Santa being disruptive? Is Santa a troll? To which Santa laments about being unable to visit Misplaced Pages in 2006.

Templates

Jeanne Marie Spicuzza

Week-long edit war over whether there should be five pastel-colored boxes saying the article needs cleanup (and perhaps a sixth saying there are too many pastel-colored boxes) or just one, with little or no effort made from either side to improve the article itself. Led to a thread on WP:ANI and the article being protected. The article was eventually deleted as a fluff piece.

John Vanbrugh

Should Template:Infobox Biography be used in this article? Is it ugly or not? Are the place and date of his birth and death important enough to be highlighted in a big box? Does a box which repeats information that is already in the article offer any substantial advantage? Do the wishes of those who wrote most of this featured article count for anything? Multi-sided edit war over these issues.

Template:WikiProject Computer science

58kb of talk page debate plus a user block over how to copyedit a two line statement.

Template:Castes and Tribes of the Punjab

92RR in five hours between two users. After about 10 reverts, the war settles into an edit summary-less back and forth. See here.

Template:Crash_series

Two editors contribute more than thirty reverts in two hours over whether Spyro is a part of the Crash Bandicoot universe or not. Tempers flare in Edit Summaries, but Talkpage contributions are mysteriously left unsigned.

Userboxes

Even little boxes like these are not immune to lame edit wars.

Template:User admins ignoring policy

A userbox reading "This user is pissed about admins ignoring policy" (the word "pissed" was later changed to "annoyed"). Surprisingly enough, the userbox was speedy deleted by admins... ignoring policy. See the first, second, and third Templates for Deletion votes. During its third DRV, support wanes just enough and the userbox remains deleted.

Template:User Aspie

Should the font size for this userbox be 10pt or 14pt? 3rr violations, page protection, and vitriol spilling onto multiple talk pages ensue. Nobody is surprised.

Template:User review

This userbox (consisting of the bare statement "This user has an account at Misplaced Pages Review") has been speedied recreated speedied protected recreated speedied recreated speedied... Well, just see for yourself.

Template:User United Kingdom

A rather heated debate over changing the text of this user box from "This user comes from the United Kingdom." to "This user lives in the United Kingdom." This all arose from an argument over what took precedence; the text the user box said "This user comes from the United Kingdom." or the category it was grouped with Category:Wikipedians in the United Kingdom. It only got resolved by a straw poll vote and the changing of the text.

Userpages

User:Certified.Gangsta

A user's fake "you have new messages" banner, after remaining on their userpage for months without trouble, is removed as "disruptive" by an administrator. A quick revert war leads to a block of the user by the administrator and a giant thread on the administrator's noticeboard (now preserved in its very own page) over whether the fake banner, which simply links to practical joke, "takes away from contributing to the encyclopedia". Many users admonish the administrator's actions with some calling for desysoping of the admin, but in the end Misplaced Pages:User pages was expanded with a new section.

User:COOL CAT ON WHEELS!!!!

Should this indef-blocked user with no edits have an {{impostor}} tag, {{WoW}}, or {{pagemovevandal}}? Edit warring had to end, unfortunately, when the userpage and eventually all three templates were deleted.

User:Jimbo Wales

Edit war over background color of various parts of user page. Jimbo himself never made his color preferences known, but the war ended nonetheless. There later was an edit war over mention of Larry Sanger and the co-founder dispute.

User:The Trolls of Navarone

Two sysops in a revert war over the user page of a blocked sockpuppet of banned user:142. Then, a month later, a user takes one of them to Quickpolls over the revert war.

User:Cool_Cat, User:White_Cat

A user changes his username. The old talk page simply redirects to his new username, but he wants to delete his old userpage, not have a redirect. Several editors take exception to this, leading to oodles of drawn-out and disruptive discussion across many pages (see MFD, DRV, AN/I thread 1 and AN/I thread 2).

Pictures

Arachnophobia

Since Misplaced Pages is not censored, is it appropriate to include a huge picture of a tarantula for illustrative purposes on a page discussing the fear of spiders? Although this question can be pondered as far back as June 2005, this issue enjoyed nearly total dominion over the talk page, and accounted for virtually all edits to the article between November 2006 and February 2007.

Asian (people)

Edit war over which Asian pictures should be the representative pictures on the article.

Banhammer

Edit war in June 2007 over the inclusion of a screenshot from Second Life in which the character pictured is holding a hammer. This led to the page being protected, and a straw poll currently being held on whether or not the image should be included, along with accusations of sockpuppetry, single purpose accounts, and meatpuppetry.

Beelzebub

Edit war in December 2005 over whether the picture at the top should be on the left and face left, or be on the right and face left, or be on the left and face right, or be on the right and face right. Image was eventually replaced with a higher quality version.

Black people

Edit war over which pictures should be used to represent black people, and how to caption those pictures. Be sure to practice your absurd captions on the pics on the talk page. Then, ramble on ad nauseam on said talk page justifying your edits. Don't forget to continue your diatribe in your edit summary.

Cat

34 reverts in just over an hour. The pressing issues: Should one unremarkable photo be included? Is the cat depicted really smiling? Both users were blocked for 30 seconds — "a suitably lame block for a remarkably lame edit war" — after protection of the page had halted the reverts. One user resumed after protection was lifted the next day, leading to further 12 reverts over the same photograph. Another page protection put a stop to the lameness. As it turned out, the photo was deleted for not having any copyright status.

Celestial (comics)

Where a picture of the character "Tiamut usually referred to as The Dreaming Celestial or the 'Great Renegade'" should go. , , , , , , , , , , .

Cow tipping

Is it appropriate to include a picture of a cow with the caption An unsuspecting potential victim? People disputed this caption, largely because a couple people considered it humor and no evidence could be found that it was. Many different variations were put forth from plain "A cow" to humorous "Mooo?" Consensus was to delete the image, but the article ended up with the picture of "A cow in its natural upright state." There were attempts to add a cow laying down to dispute that cows can lay down and get up, but the edit warriors refused it. Perhaps cow tipping is just an urban legend and the implication that this cow could be tipped violates WP:NPOV. Can any reliable source verify that the cow is unsuspecting? Does it matter that the cow is looking at the camera? How does this segue into links to flatulence humor and the dozens? Learn the answers to these burning questions and others at Talk:Cow tipping.

Dental floss

Truly, an edit war over dental floss! Apparently a photograph and innocuous description have somehow offended someone's sense of fair trade. For those who take their dental hygiene seriously, this became quite a crusade. Page protection was applied in December 2006 to help heal the bleeding gums.

Feces

Revert wars, alleged sock-puppetry, and page protection: should the article on feces include this picture of a large human turd? As of early July 2005, the discussion on this issue alone had reached 12,900 words. Someone commented "Seriously, guys. You're arguing about poo."

Invisible Pink Unicorn

Edit war over what pictures (if any) to include of an invisible parody deity, and how to caption them.

JSTOR

Should the logo go on the left of the article or on the right? Straw poll results claims that the right side image is "better".

Missionary position

Should this drawing of the sexual position include a teddy bear? No, it's creepy and suggests pedophilia! Yes, it's incongruous, amusing, and adds atmosphere! Low-level edit war reverting between the two versions has been going on for over two years, with 46 reverts in 2006 alone.

PlayStation 3

A revert war over the top image. Some users felt that because the free image depicted an outdated model, it should be replaced by a promo image. Others cited the WP:FU policy that states that a free alternative should always be used. Heated debate commences on the talk page after it gets page protected. The issue still comes up time to time about why the free image is on the page. Since then, the PS3 has been released, a free image has been created, and the war has ended.

Red hair

"Should we have animals?" "Should we have a picture of this girl or another one?" "Should we have a picture of someone's principal?" "Should we exclude dye jobs?"

Semen

A user who "contributed" several photographs of his own penis to articles takes an actual photo of his own semen and puts it on the page. Cue an ongoing several-months-long revert war over the image on whether a badly taken picture of some exhibitionist nerd's spunk should be included as a "necessary" visual aid.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Which picture should top the article: "Old style" Sonic or 3D sonic? After a some discussion, including an image-by-image vote on every image on the page, consensus settled on both.

Utopia (Doctor Who)

Does an image of an unaired episode pass NFCC #8 or not? From a dispute between two editors, it quickly scaled into a WP:ANI thread involving several admins.

Talkpages

Talk:Homosexuality in Singapore

Probably the first instance of revert-warring on an article talkpage, where one editor accused another of using the talkpage as an alternative soapbox for a POV agenda. The accused editor first tried to insert a list of unpredictable predictions, then when that didn't work, transferred it to the talkpage, ostensibly for "discussion" when in fact none took place. That section was reverted back and forth numerous times, since no statute seems to govern behaviour in talkpages.

Talk:IPhone

Like the names of other recent Apple Inc. products, iPhone starts with a lowercase letter. Should there be a {{lowercase}} template on the talk page (in addition to the one in the article itself) to signify that peculiarity? ‘Yes, why not?’, say some; ‘No, it’s pointless!’, say others. Nine days after the iPhone’s first announcement (and five months before it will actually become available), this and other issues have caused over 500 edits to the talk page.

Talk:Jack Vance

Revert warring over the inclusion of the Misplaced Pages Biography Project template at the top of the talk page. Many breathless proclamations that this picture (previously part of the Misplaced Pages Biography Project template) was RACIST OMG and a direct attack on author Jack Vance.

Talk:Lolicon

Edit war over whether the template at the top, announcing that the article was speedy kept after an Articles for Deletion debate, should include the word "ZOOOOOOOM" to exemplify the speediness of the process. It was kept in until finally being supplanted by a note in the archive box template.

User talk:66.167.235.16

User:Arminius left the Template:test message on the anonymous user's talk page. The anonymous user removed the test message. A three hour, 25-edit war followed over whether or not the talk page should include such inflammatory messages as {{test}} and welcome notices. Edit warring about this edit war then proceeded onto this very page. Other admins were called in to look at the situation, and, after careful analysis and fact-checking, it was determined to be a very lame edit war indeed.

Misplaced Pages talk:BLP courtesy deletion

Edit war over which of two comments should go on top of the other one.

Talk:Godwin's Law

Misplaced Pages's favourite put-down gets sucked into a tetchy and bamboozling statistics analysis. And the winner (for now) is an editor named ... Mike Godwin.

Wording

Amy Dumas

Questions have arisen concerning the name of Lita's moves. Is it DDT, or Lita DDT? Hurricanrana or Litacanrana? Moonsault or Litasault? Powerbomb or Lita Bomb? Is the powerbomb even a finishing move, considering it's not used that often? Do you go by the games, by the announcers, or by WWE.com? After several arguments and many people exclaiming they will continue to change it back, a Fan Name section is created, listing the names fans have given her moves.

Angels and Airwaves

More than 40 reverts in one hour by two editors. The point of contention? Whether "Angels and Airwaves" is a band or "Angels and Airwaves" are a band. (British English requires "are," as the band comprises multiple people, while American English requires "is", as the band is a singular entity.) ALL-CAPS edit summaries laced with profanity and death threats liberally employed by one side. Stopped only after admin intervention, but resumed again two minutes after the 3RR block expired. Both get blocked for seven days, and one of them gets his block extended to eight days after stating he doesn't care as long as the other side gets a block of same length. The other side keeps his seven-day block. (Feb. 2006)

Apple pie

Is apple pie really "all American"? This weighty issue causes a revert war, ending in a 24-hour block, two ArbCom cases, and the temporary departure of one Wikipedian.

Aquarela do Brasil

Not so much an edit war as an editing armed standoff. Ask yourself: should this song be declared "written one pluvious night" or "one rainy night"? Ironically, "one" night was declared superior to the previous version, "in a" night. Pluvious actually won in a voting showdown, but when it was later changed back to rainy, nobody really cared.

Cat

Heated discussion (occupying an entire talk archive!!) over whether the words "owner", "caregiver", or "human companion" correctly describe the relationship between man and beast.

Christianity

An edit war surrounded the sentence "Theological disputes about the correct interpretation of Christian teaching led to internal conflicts and Church authorities condemned some theologians as heretics, defining orthodoxy in contrast to heresy, the most notable being Christian Gnosticism." The questionable wording was the switching of the words "orthodoxy" and "heresy". The user preferring heresy before orthodoxy claimed grammatical accuracy and no meaning change. The user preferring orthodoxy before heresy claimed it completely changed the meaning of the sentence. This discussion can be found here.

Conch Republic

Does the Conch Republic, the name assumed by Key West when it "seceded" from the U.S. in 1982 qualify as a "micronation"? For months, an edit war has progressed over this burning question. Supporters say the name is still used in tourist promotions, while detractors say the "Republic" was a joke protest, and the "Prime Minister" surrendered one minute later. Others say micronationalism is an incredibly silly concept anyway.

Cranky Kong

Was Cranky Kong the original Donkey Kong? Could it be the character in Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 games is actually his son? Or perhaps his grandson? Should we trust offhand comments made by a video-game character? Does being licensed by Nintendo make Rareware publications "official"? How official is the "Nintendo Seal of Quality"? To some people, these questions are a matter of life and death.

Daylight saving time

Or daylight savings time. Or Daylight Saving(s) Time. Or Daylight-Saving(s) Time. You've never heard "saving" in the singular in your entire life? Send in the dueling dictionaries. Either way, it's still dark at 7:00 AM and I'm tired.

Europe

Revert war over whether Europe is commonly considered a continent or not.

Exploding whale

Is the totally alliterative phrase "the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds" worthy of inclusion? Was placed on WP:RFC at one point.

Final Fantasy VIII

Week-long debate regarding the "Controversy/Criticism" section about whether or not Final Fantasy VIII has a "massive" fanbase or a "fanbase as large as the fanbase of Final Fantasy VII". Other wording issues were also discussed. Unfortunately, all options required that sources be cited. The article has since become a featured article.

Fred G. Sanford

Furious edit war that leads to a thread on WP:ANI and an editor proclaiming that they were leaving the project. The point of contention? Whether this fictional character from a sitcom in the mid-70s was to be described as an "irascible curmudgeon" or as merely "irritable".

Gary Glitter

Is he a pedophile famous for being a rock star, or a rock star famous for being a pedophile?

Guinea pig

Slow, simmering edit war between anons as to whether guinea pigs had no need to jump and climb in the natural environment in which they were created, or in the natural environment in which they evolved.

John Kerry

An edit war erupted over John Kerry's first Purple Heart award in Vietnam. Was it just a wound or a "minor wound"? Should wound itself be wikilinked? Was the injury "bandaged", or simply wrapped with "gauze"? Is Kerry's family background pertinent? The wound issue ended with the Rex071404 arbitration case and that editor being banned from editing the article for a year. One year later, the same edit war re-ignited, leading to another arbitration case and the permanent ban of said editor, who then departed Misplaced Pages.

Katie Couric

Is she an "entertainer" or a "journalist?" Is it necessary to mention that she "annoyingly" drops the "g" at the end of words (e.g. "morneen")?

Limp Bizkit

Dispute over the ordering of the two terms used to describe the band. Is the group a nu metal/rapcore or rapcore/nu metal band? The edit war also threatened to spread into other related articles as well, including Fred Durst and Rapcore.

London Underground

Should the term "period" or "full stop" be used to describe a full stop (or period)? An edit war and heated discussion on the talk page broke out over this very issue.

Mama's Family

Was Mama (Vicki Lawrence) "pro-active", "foxy", "clever", "cunning", or none of the above? Apparently this question is important enough to occupy over 30 edits in one day.

Psephos

Is Adam Carr Ph.D, a Historian, or does Adam Carr hold a PhD in history? In addition to 5 reverts, also spawns thread on the Administrators Noticeboard.

Squall Leonhart

Should he be called a hero or a protagonist? And if that's the case, what ill does this bode for every other fictional lead character on Misplaced Pages? An edit war that has also spilled over into other Final Fantasy character pages and is still going on now.

Switch?

The Price Is Right's "lamest" pricing game. Should it be said that it's "the only game that can be won by deciding to do absolutely nothing" or "the only game that can sometimes be won by deciding to do absolutely nothing"? After a few dozen reverts, a third opinion agreed that "sometimes" was redundant, leading the other user to remove the entire sentence claiming that it wasn't really the only game that can be won that way after all.

Tiger

A revert war on whether the tiger can properly be described as the "most powerful living cat" (complete with accusations that people were "tiger fanboys") gradually led to arguments about how tigers would match up vs. bears and crocodiles, complete with another revert war about the inclusion of a YouTube video showing a tiger fighting a crocodile, eventually leading to the article being semi-protected. The debates about bears and crocodiles continue on the talk page.

United Kingdom

Should the first sentence describe it as a country or state? The final conclusion being that it should be called both and left up to the reader to work out.

Urban75

Is Urban75 a "left leaning" or "liberal leaning" site? A two-month argument on this results in hundreds of reverts, userpage vandalism, sockpuppetry & two separate VfDs.

Weblog

Is a blog an application or is it the product of an application? See the discussion on the Talk: page for Weblog.

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment

What is the correct wording to indicate that an RfC may be followed by an arbitration request? Is it "Although not formally required before proceeding to arbitration, many RfCs are steps towards it", or is it "Many, though by no means all, arbitration cases are preceded by a user-conduct RFC"? Three-way revert war that has lasted two weeks and 50+ edits so far.

Lists

Tripoli Rocketry Association

Should this group devoted to high-power model rocketry and related legal advocacy, the subject of a New York Times article headlined "A Cult of Backyard Rocketeers Keeps the Solid Fuel Burning", therefore be included in List of groups referred to as cults? The debate raged in February 2007 and again in May 2007, apparently because its inclusion makes some sort of point about the list simply being a disguised non-NPOV list of cults. Two key combatants in this battle have dragged their bad blood to a third editor's talk page, where accusations fly regarding editing each other's comments.

Frank Rossitano

Edit war over whether a large, colorful list of truckers' hat styles worn by this fictional character should be included. Leads to page protection, allegations of ADMIN ABUSE and sockpuppetry.

GNAA

Should the infamous Gay Nigger Association of America be at the top of this irrelevant disambiguation page? The ongoing dispute leads to the page being protected and one administrator being blocked for WP:3RR. After 18 Articles for Deletion nominations, the association's article was deleted for lack of reliable sources (see Miscellaneous Lameness, below), and the dispute mutated into whether the page should include a redlink to the deleted article or not. This critical issue of a single Wikilink led to full protection (three times) and a Request for Comment on a disambiguation page. The disambig page later got permanently protected as sysop only, or at least very long term.

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.

Korea Republic national football team

Edit warring over whether or not the list of South Korea's achievements in the World cup should or should not merge the consecutive years when South Korea did not enter (and the same for when it didn't qualify).

List of multiracial people

Are people who are White and Multiethnic considered Multiracial?

List of numbers that are always odd

The number 3 was being considered as possibly being not odd. Page protection was needed to halt the heated debate. User:Wik's correction of a misspelling of hypochondriacs was re-reverted no less than 3 times. Supposedly as a means to illustrate the ludicrousness of the subject, various examples such as "the atomic numbers of gold and silver, but not their sum" and "the number of days in a year (except leap years)" were added to the list. Later in the edit war, no less than two thousand five hundred numbers of debated oddness (every second integer from 1 to 4999) were added and removed, four hundred ninety eight of them repeatedly before the edit war was solved by the article's deletion after a VfD vote. An ancient mirror out on the Net still had a version available, though, so it's been rescued for posterity: User:ConMan/List of numbers that are always odd

List of virgins

Dispute about whether or not Britney Spears belonged on the list, eventually resolved in a definitive manner: maintenance of the list proved impossible and it was later deleted.

List of Virtual Boy games

Should the list have a pink background?

List of Virtual Console games (North America)

Should Wii Points be included? Should they be in the main tables, or discussed in the header? Should there be one table or several, broken out by console? What should the default sort order of the list be? All of these issues came to a head at once, resulting in a huge revert war.

Rainbow Gathering

Dispute over whether or not "alternative gatherings" should be listed, leading to failed mediation, protections, blocks, and finally one party walking away from the whole project. Don't you want to know when your local subculture is gathering in a copse of trees?

Personal involvement

Daniel Brandt

Someone writes an article about him and he complains that he is a private citizen and not notable. He grows angry with Misplaced Pages and rants about it on his webpage. More people add to the article just to piss Brandt off, resulting in an article that is sometimes (depending on the edit of the moment) more detailed than that of most movie stars. Ironically, Brandt's anti-Misplaced Pages zeal leads him to involve himself in the John Seigenthaler Sr. Misplaced Pages biography controversy, thus establishing his notability and rendering his article immune to deletion. D'oh!

John Byrne

A somewhat controversial comic book artist who felt there were errors in his article and so blanked almost all of the content without explaining what specifically the errors he was objecting to were. He raised the subject on his own message board and both supporters and detractors flocked to Misplaced Pages to join in the fight, resulting in numerous articles in blogs and other comic industry media about the ensuing conflict.

Vic Grimes

Lameness originating from violation of WP:OWN leads to an epic edit war after the "author" attempts to remove all the information they ever posted on Vic Grimes claiming they own the information. The resulting war escalated and incidents that derived from the war ended up on WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:3RR, WP:PAIN, a WikiProject, and the talk pages of many users and admins. The war temporarily ends when the "author" was blocked indefinitely for violation of numerous policies and trolling but it soon began again when the "author" started using AOL sock puppets to continue their campaign.

Highgate Vampire, Talk:Highgate Vampire

You thought vampires did not exist? You thought vampire hunters do not edit Misplaced Pages? You thought two opposing factions of British vampire hunters (the "orthodox" Vampire Research Society and the "revisionist" Highgate Vampire Society, let's hope these links stay red like blood forever) would not clash on an Misplaced Pages article and/or its talk page? All I can say is - think again.

The Best Page in the Universe

The reason why external links sections are not web directories is aptly illustrated when the owners of two rival fansites, www.the3rdbestpageintheuniverse.com and www.thethirdbestpageintheuniverse.com, repeatedly replace the other's link with theirs. The link goes back and forth for weeks - as they leave no messages or edit summaries, few notice and none care. One uninvolved editor tries to add both, asking "Is there not room for both self-proclaimed third best pages?" - apparently not, as one is removed two hours later and the war continues on its merry way. Eventually yet another editor drops a train on all the spam, including that oh-so-vital link.

Suncrest, Washington

Constant reversion of Mark Richards's "vandalism" by original creator who lived there (as was mentioned in the article) and seemed to think it was his page. See page history and VfD discussion.

WNRI

Should we mention the fact that the station's broadcast power drops to a ridiculously low wattage at night? Yes, it's a fact. No, I could LOSE MY JOB.

External link wars

Better Days (webcomic) (deleted)

Among the reviews for the WebComic, should there be a negative review written by a group of anti-furries? Unlike most edit wars, this one was lazy and slow, with the presence or absence of the link appearing or disappearing for months at a time. This edit war was finally solved when someone realized that a webcomic didn't need a link to every review that's ever been written about it, and dropped all except for one, balanced set of reviews. Eventually it was deleted when the article's original author decided that it wasn't really worth having an article on it anyway.

Cosplay

Edit war over two external links, and over the existence of HTML comments that were added in an attempt to stop the war.

Derek Smart

Huge ongoing 13-month revert war over one external link critical of Smart. Discussion filled several talk pages, with each side accusing the other of POV, systemic bias, stalking, paranoia, bad faith edits and being lame in general. Escalated to a request for arbitration.

Real Life Ministries

A slow burning edit war lasting over three months over the file extension of one link. Not the inclusion of the link itself - just its extension (.txt or .prt).

VBulletin

A huge edit war regarding the inclusion of external links. Should commercial sites be linked, should the section be this big, or should the external links section be there at all? These are some of the questions plaguing this article.

Miscellaneous lameness

1994 FIFA World Cup

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

Adria (Stargate)

Is the language being spoken Latin? Or is it Ancient? Is it Ori? Is it Ancient-based-on-Latin? Is it Latin-based-on-Ancient? Is it Ancient or Ori rendered as Latin? All of the above? No? Oh, I'm so confused…

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.

Amerime

A term created to define American anime, Amerime was deleted as a neologism, then reborn, then deleted, then reborn, then deleted, and then stuck when the software jammed. It was then deleted and reborn again, at which point it managed a sufficient rally on the AfD to survive, roughly 18 months after the original was first posted; however, it has been moved to another location.

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.

Bahá'í Faith

Should there be a reference to a YouTube video?

Baby (Dragon Ball)

Is this character canon? Is Dragon Ball GT canon? Who decides what is and is not canon, anyway, and is it fact or opinion to say so? An eight-hour duel between two editors culminates in nearly one hundred assorted reverts, arguments posted in edit summaries, and both parties blocked for ignoring 3RR.

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 one recently closed RFAr. 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.

Daedalus class battlecruiser

Should the identity of the Daedalus class battlecruiser destroyed at the end of the Stargate SG-1 season 9 episode Camelot be mentioned? The show left this as a cliffhanger for the next episode but widely available casting information and episode summaries for upcoming episodes make the answer obvious. Is such information canon? Is this a "worse" spoiler than other spoilers already present elsewhere in Misplaced Pages? The edit war continued in fits and starts over the entire between-season hiatus, when the season opener aired and confirmed the information.

And then - it comes out that a new ship named Apollo would be introduced in an episode of Stargate: Atlantis to be aired several months hence, but the class of the ship is not specified - it might be a Daedalus or it might not. So a section on the Apollo is repeatedly added and removed.

Daffy Duck

Did Daffy Duck father any children? Should the events of certain animated films be taken to have occurred in "real life" while others should not? Daffy to Misplaced Pages: "No comment." A Barbara Walters special is reportedly in the works.

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, ...

Frank Iero

Page about a member of a rock group. This article has been subject to several long term, slow pace edit wars. One is about his height, of all things, with the number being changed several times a week. Another slow edit war is over who he is dating/engaged/married to, and whether this GF/fiance/wife is pregnant. (Considering how long this slow edit war has been going on, if she's pregnant it's one of the longest human pregnancies ever.) And a third slow edit war is over how to pronounce his name.

Gay Nigger Association of America

Though not really an edit war, 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 which was also eventually deleted. See Misplaced Pages:Deletion_review/Log/2006_November_28/Gay_Nigger_Association_of_America, which also has a complete list of deletion nominations.

Grace Kelly and Cher

Edit wars over whether each is a gay icon.

Homestar Runner

Are the official facts canon, or are they part of a universe? Should we even care?

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.

Jennifer Aniston

Is she American or American-born?

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.

Job (professional wrestling)

Edit war over a two sentence "Comedy relief" section.

Krystal (Star Fox)

Revert war on over the contents of the redirect; i.e. whether it should keep the original text or only have the redirect link.

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?

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.

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. He often says he's from Flint. Is that correct?

Micronations

Two self-proclaimed leaders of micronations in a lengthy revert war in this and other articles about the comparative value and notability of their made-up countries.

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.

Monty Hall problem

Is it a puzzle of probability or of game theory?

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.

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 propogadists to covertly "recapture" Connecticut via Misplaced Pages. A compromise is attempted by conceding in a subsection that the "...New York metropolitan area an important economic influence on Fairfield County..." but the editor is still not satisfied. New England editors offer to ceede Fairfield County to NYC to resolve conflict. Issue receives mention in a Nashua Telegraph article about Misplaced Pages.

Pwned

Slang term which originated from a typo displayed on a computer screen during online multiplayer video gaming (video game player meant to type owned) and is now the subject of heated debate as to its actual meaning. Does it mean to reduce your opponent to such a state that no actual words exist to express your dominance over them? Does it mean you possess "ownage" over them? Or does it mean to soundly defeat an opponent? Also, who invented it? What is the correct verbal pronunciation of it? What is its phonetic spelling? is it "powned", "pooned", "poughned", or something else? All these are the subject to serious and heated debates in academic style language mixed in with vandals who type in ALLCAPS, curse like sailors, and call everybody n00bs.

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 sprotected 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.

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. Etcetera. The only objection either had with the other's edits was that it reverted their own.

SkyOS

Fast & furious kindergarten catfight with accusations of GPL violations, advertising, lying and fanboyism.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Are Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader considered one character or two separate ones? Do they deserve separate listings in the "credits" section? This seemingly trivial disagreement degenerates into a full-fledged revert war, complete with allegations of vandalism, 3RR violations, aggressive edit summaries and a week long page-protection.

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Site of an edit war over whether Ian McDiarmid should be included in the credits or not for his role in the Special Edition version.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and other Star Wars film articles

Revert wars over whether or not the credit list should duplicate the official credits at the end of the film, or be edited by Wikipedians to include uncredited roles. Both sides of the war seem to feel they have the weight of policy on their side, but no one actually points to policies. Thankfully this seems to have eventually resolved itself, with an "official credits" section, and notes made afterward about uncredited roles.

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

Does the fact that this is not a film preclude it from being categorized as a Star Wars film? Many reverts a day.

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?

System of a Down

Are they alternative metal, or should they be on the List of Nu metal musical groups? See the "mature" arguments at the talk page, such as YES, THEY ARE NU METAL, OK! And you know it, don't you?! This band also spawned a few more lame edit wars regarding two of its albums.

Triple Crown Championship

Debate rages over whether the WWE United States Championship is included as criteria for becoming a WWE Triple Crown Champion. Edits for and against the inclusion of the title leads to several reverts, many angry people, and one fairly active user retiring due to the edits (he later returns on a semi-active status). Eventually the US Title was given its own section separate from the main list, though the debate is still going on. A similar case is made for the ECW World Championship, but due to its newness in the WWE, it is generally agreed on that it does not count. It's a prestigious title anyways, let's put it that way.

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??

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.

Misplaced Pages:Requests for de-adminship

Wik's nominations of 9 Misplaced Pages:Wikicops were moved; the wikicops page itself got in a move war about a week later and ended back at Misplaced Pages:Administrators.

Misplaced Pages:Yet more bad jokes and other deleted nonsense#Edit conflicts

The edit war on the Misplaced Pages:Edit conflicts page, preserved in Yet More Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense.

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.

WWE Armageddon

A lame edit war erupted at the page for the then not-yet-aired WWE pay-per-view event over whether the match between The Undertaker and Mr. Kennedy should be listed second or third. The official website for the event had the match listed third, but since the "order is unimportant", others continued to make it the second listed match. The ensuing argument led to the page being protected from all edits and spilled into the talk page, the page for the following pay-per-view and even the Wikiproject Wrestling page.

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" . Great, now editors can't even agree on whether saying that something doesn't matter, matters.

Meta lameness

Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith

An edit war on a page about preventing edit wars. Should editors assume their fellow wikipedians have above average intelligence? Resulted in full protection by two administrators, a waste of a talk page, and a demotion from official policy to mere guideline.

The weather in London

This is one of several phrases (two more being: a "red link", "like this one") used to provide a deliberate example of a red link, i.e. something that does not have an article. Nonetheless, before the introduction of cascading page-protection it was impossible to prevent mischievious editors from attempting to create the article anyway, as only existing articles (and thus blue links) could be protected. Attempts included simple vandalism, "serious" contents such as "wet" or "foggy" (quickly deleted under CSD A1), redirects to the actual "weather in London" article, and even admins attempting to tag the article as {{deletedpage}} -- all of which defeat the point of illustrating a red link. Finally, two years and seventy deletions later, "the weather in London" is now listed under Misplaced Pages:Protected titles, which is itself cascade-protected and thus allowing it to protect even redlinks -- including "red link" and "like this one" which account for an additional thirty-two speedy deletions in their own rights.

Misplaced Pages talk:Attack sites

In the course of the debate over a proposed policy banning all links to sites deemed to be "attack sites" against Wikipedians, some editors enforced the proposed policy against other editors who were, for the purposes of this debate, attempting to provide links to (in their opinion) legitimate examples of an attack site. Much edit warring followed, with accusations by both sides of bad faith, WP:POINT-making, and ulterior motives.

Misplaced Pages:Lamest edit wars

Edit wars over which edit wars are allowed to be on this page, or over how specific entries on this page should be worded (oh, the irony). See Recursion; see also tail recursion. Examples have included Cat (under "wording",) William of Orange, Her Late Majesty, Vic Grimes, List of virgins, e (mathematical constant), Template:User admins ignoring policy and -- yes, even this entry itself. WP:LAME has also survived at least five attempts at deletion, plus another attempt which was ultimately closed at the nominator's request.

Misplaced Pages:Spoiler

The meta-irony of an edit war over the presence of {{disputedtag}} on the page, amounting effectively to a dispute over whether there was a dispute, could only be topped by the version without the tag being protected with the protecting admin then adding {{pp-dispute}}.

See also

• Color of the bikeshed
• War of the Oaken Bucket
• Misplaced Pages:Historic debates
• Misplaced Pages:Talk page highlights
• m:The Wrong Version

• Misplaced Pages culture