List of edit wars on Wikipedia

This article is about rounds of conflicting editing on Wikipedia and is not to be confused with Wikiracing.

Representation of edit wars on Wikipedia by Czech illustrator Pavel Reisenauer  [ cs ]

Wikipedia is a free-content online encyclopedia that allows its users to write and edit articles via wiki software, which also allows users to revert each other's edits. Disputes on Wikipedia between editors, concerning content within articles, may give rise to edit wars, in which a repeated exchange of opposing edits is published on contested article. Some edit wars have received media and academic attention.

Background

Wikipedia is a free, collaborative, online encyclopedia which allows its users to write and edit articles via wiki software. ^{[1] [2]} The website provides a user-friendly interface for both editing on articles and reversing other users' edits. ^{[3] : 189} Conflicts over content within articles often arise among editors, which may result in edit wars. ^{[4] : 62} An edit war is a persistent exchange of edits representing conflicting views on a contested article, ^{[4] : 62  [5] [6]} or as defined by the website's policy: "when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's edits." ^[7] Edit wars are prohibited on Wikipedia ^{[8] : 146} and editors are encouraged to seek consensus through discussion, however administrative intervention may be applied if discussion is unfruitful in resolving the conflict. ^[9] Generally, edit wars are provoked by the presence of highly controversial content, ^[5] such as abortion or the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, but can also occur due to other disputed matters, such as the nationality of artist Francis Bacon. ^[6]

Edit wars

Various edit wars have received coverage outside the website, and media articles noting several such wars have been published. ^{[10] [11] [12] [13] [14]}

Article	Edition	Start date	End date	Description	Outcome	Refs.
Gdańsk	English Wikipedia	December 24, 2003	March 4, 2005	Whether to use the German name, Danzig, or the current official name of the Polish city, Gdańsk, was a subject of dispute and edit warring.	A vote was held to determine the choice of name, with 80 editors casting 657 votes in two weeks. A clear majority of votes decided on the Polish-language name on the modern city, while references to the city in the period from 1793 to 1945 would use the German name.	[15] [16]
Yogurt	English Wikipedia	December 25, 2003	c. 2012	Editors conflicted over the spelling used in the title of the article, with some promoting the American English yogurt and others the British English spelling yoghurt.	Consensus was established in 2012 to title the article yogurt, and to note variant spellings in the article's lead sentence.	[17] [18]
Nanjing Massacre	English Wikipedia	May 13, 2004	July 25, 2004	A Japanese-language translation label in the article's introducing sentence was repeatedly replaced and rewritten.	A temporary consensus decided on the inclusion of 南京大虐殺 (transl. Nanjing Massacre). A second label, Nanjing Incident, was also added.	[19]
Ganges	English Wikipedia	c. 2006	Ongoing	The name used for the river, whether Ganges (familiar to English speakers in Western countries) or Ganga (familiar to English speakers in India) has been contested.	—	[20] [21]
Star Trek Into Darkness [a]	English Wikipedia	c. December 2012 [b]	February 21, 2013	The capitalization of into in Star Trek Into Darkness was a matter of debate as some wished to have it capitalized and others preferred "Star Trek into Darkness."	Consensus was reached that the article be titled Star Trek Into Darkness, with a capitalized into.	[22] [23] [24]
Gamergate (harassment campaign)	English Wikipedia	c. August 2014	c. 2015	Various editors accused the article covering the harassment campaign of having bias towards a feminist viewpoint.	Following a decision by the Arbitration Committee of the English Wikipedia, several editors were banned from editing on articles relating to sex and gender. Although this decision did not end the edit war, the harassment campaign lost momentum during 2015.	[25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
Heights of presidents and presidential candidates of the United States	English Wikipedia	c. 2016	Ongoing	Various users made conflicting edits about the height of Donald Trump and about whether or not he is taller than Lyndon B. Johnson and Abraham Lincoln.	All edits that have put Donald Trump as being taller than Lyndon B. Johnson or Abraham Lincoln, or have made Donald Trump's height taller or shorter than 6 ft 3 in (190 cm) have been reverted.	[31]
Garfield (character)	English Wikipedia	February 24, 2017	February 27, 2017 [c]	The infobox of the cartoon cat Garfield, protagonist of the Garfield comic strip, was changed multiple times to indicate an indeterminate gender, after podcaster Virgil Texas claimed in a tweet that an interview of strip creator Jim Davis indicated so and subsequently updated the infobox to reflect this.	The argument ended in the consensus that Garfield was male, citing four strips. Jim Davis later clarified to The Washington Post that he was indeed male.	[32] [33]
Donald Trump	English Wikipedia	July 16, 2018	July 26, 2018	Various editors wished to emphasize criticism of Trump's comments during the 2018 Russia–United States summit.	After a vote "which clarified little," Wikipedia admin Awilley concluded the discussion with the article noting bipartisan criticism of Trump's comments.	[34] [35]
History of the Jews in Poland	English Wikipedia	May 15, 2019	June 4, 2019	An argument raged over the reliability of sources regarding the degree of restitution offered to Jews who lost property in Poland during the Holocaust.	The article eventually reflected the sources which describe the restitution as minimal.	[36]
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood	English Wikipedia	July 23, 2019	July 26, 2019	Several editors expressed backlash over the inclusion of movie spoilers in the article's plot summary prior to a more public release. The article was also repeatedly vandalized with erroneous plot summaries.	As public access to the film increased, editors swiftly resolved to include the entire plot.	[37] [38] [39]
2019 Yuen Long attack	Chinese Wikipedia	c. August 2020	September 13, 2021	Pro-Beijing editors and pro-democracy editors dispute over various topics in the article, including the title's naming, the tone of the content, whether certain pictures or videos can be used, and whether sources such as the Apple Daily are reliable.	2021 Wikimedia Foundation actions on the Chinese Wikipedia: Pro-Beijing editors were blocked by the Wikimedia Foundation after being suspected of infiltration.	[40] [41] [42] [43] [44]
Myles Turner	English Wikipedia	November 17, 2020	November 18, 2020	Following an intentional joke edit that remained for 30 minutes which the basketball center had been traded by the Indiana Pacers to the Boston Celtics, over 200 vandalizing edits were made in the course of only about 2 hours.	The vandalizers were believed to be a large group of Boston Celtics fans. The edits resulted in countless editors (the vast majority unregistered or newcomers) being banned from Wikipedia.	[45] [46] [47]
Recession	English Wikipedia	July 14, 2022	July 30, 2022	A dispute broke out among Wikipedia editors over the definition of an economic recession given in the article on that subject. Right-wing commentators accused editors on the platform of being influenced by the Biden administration's interpretation of the term, inciting further edit warring.	After the page was placed under protection from edits by new users, a consensus arose to explain the varied definition of the word among scholars and in common usage.	[48] [49] [50]
Yasuke	English Wikipedia	May 15, 2024	Unclear	Following the announcement of Yasuke as a playable character in the video game Assassin's Creed Shadows , editors conflicted on if the historical Yasuke was ever granted samurai status.	The pages were put on extended confirmed protection on both wikis - edit war on jawiki was suppressed after consensus to impose a series of heavy local rules was reached on the page. As of February 2025, the jawiki page describes Yasuke as a retainer, not a samurai.[ failed verification ]	[51] [52]
	Japanese Wikipedia		c. September 2024[ failed verification ]
Nuseirat rescue and massacre	English Wikipedia	June 8, 2024	October 12, 2024	An edit war erupted concerning whether an Israeli military raid during the Gaza war should be titled a "massacre" or a "rescue operation."	A consensus emerged to merge the two titles under the single name of "Nuseirat rescue and massacre."	[53] [54] [55]
Leon Schreiber	English Wikipedia	June 30, 2024	July 3, 2024	South African politician Leon Schreiber's article was edited multiple times over his birthplace and nationality. Schreiber was born in South Africa, however several users changed the article to indicate he was born in Zimbabwe.	On July 3, the article was protected from arbitrary editing and his birthplace was stated as South Africa.	[56] [57]

See also

• List of Wikipedia controversies

Notes

1. Main article: Wikipedia Star Trek Into Darkness debate
2. In January 2013, the Daily Dot stated that the war had raged for "nearly two months."
3. The Washington Post states that edit warring on Garfield's gender occurred for "2½ days" before administrative intervention.

External links

• Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring

References

1. Butterfield, Andrew; Ngondi, Gerard Ekembe; Kerr, Anne (January 21, 2016), Butterfield, Andrew; Ngondi, Gerard Ekembe; Kerr, Anne (eds.), "Wikipedia", A Dictionary of Computer Science, Oxford University Press, ISBN   978-0-19-968897-5 , retrieved July 21, 2024
2. McArthur, Tom; Lam-McArthur, Jacqueline; Fontaine, Lise (May 24, 2018), McArthur, Tom; Lam-McArthur, Jacqueline; Fontaine, Lise (eds.), "Wikipedia", The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press, ISBN   978-0-19-966128-2 , retrieved July 21, 2024
3. He, Zeyi (January 12, 2015). Digital By-Product Data in Web 2.0: Exploring Mass Collaboration of Wikipedia. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN   978-1-4438-7358-1.
4. Jemielniak, Dariusz (May 14, 2014). Common Knowledge?: An Ethnography of Wikipedia. Stanford University Press. ISBN   978-0-8047-9120-5.
5. Ayers, Phoebe; Matthews, Charles; Yates, Ben (2008). How Wikipedia Works: And how You Can be a Part of it. No Starch Press. p. 384. ISBN   978-1-59327-176-3.
6. O'Sullivan, Dan (February 11, 2016). Wikipedia: A New Community of Practice?. Routledge. p. 124. ISBN   978-1-134-76624-6.
7. Rutten, Ellen; Fedor, Julie; Zvereva, Vera, eds. (April 12, 2013). Memory, Conflict and New Media: Web Wars in Post-Socialist States (0 ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203083635-11. ISBN   978-0-203-08363-5.
8. Thomas, Paul A. (September 15, 2022). Inside Wikipedia: How It Works and How You Can Be an Editor. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN   978-1-5381-6322-1.
9. Levene, Mark (January 14, 2011). An Introduction to Search Engines and Web Navigation. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN   978-1-118-06034-6.
10. Edwards, Phil (September 17, 2015). "Wikipedia's lamest edit wars show why the site is amazing and infuriating". Vox.com . Retrieved July 21, 2024.
11. Dvorak, John C. (July 18, 2013). "Wikipedia's Edit Wars". PCMag . Retrieved July 21, 2024.
12. Gross, Doug (July 14, 2013). "Wiki wars: The 10 most controversial Wikipedia pages". CNN . Retrieved July 21, 2024.
13. "Wiki wars: Do Wikipedia's internal tiffs deter newcomers?". BBC News. August 5, 2014. Retrieved July 23, 2024.
14. Daw, David (July 25, 2011). "Wikipedia Wars: 10 Biggest Edit Battles". PC World . ISSN   0737-8939. OCLC   1117065657 . Retrieved August 1, 2024.
15. Lih, Andrew (March 17, 2009). The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia. New York: Hachette Books. pp. 122–130. ISBN   978-1-4013-9585-8 – via Google Books.
16. Fuchs, Christian (February 25, 2017). Social Media: A Critical Introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage. p. 330. ISBN   978-1-4739-8824-8.
17. Dale, Brady (August 18, 2015). "Wikipedia's Culture War: A Decade-Long Fight Over How to Spell 'Yogurt'". Observer.com . Retrieved July 21, 2024.
18. Yau, Nathan (June 26, 2024). "Decade-Long Battle for "Yogurt" vs. "Yoghurt" on Wikipedia". FlowingData . Retrieved July 21, 2024.
19. Li, Hongtao; Huang, Shunming (August 24, 2021). "Confrontation over the "Introduction": the writing politics of a Wikipedia entry". The Nanjing Massacre and the Making of Mediated Trauma. Translated by Chang, Xinyue; A. Schmitt, Edwin. New York: Routledge. pp. 174–177. ISBN   978-1-000-42786-8 – via Google Books.
20. Kumar, Sangeet (May 25, 2021). The Digital Frontier: Infrastructures of Control on the Global Web. Indiana University Press. p. 93. ISBN   978-0-253-05650-4 – via Google Books.
21. Kumar, Sangeet (June 3, 2017). "A river by any other name: Ganga/Ganges and the postcolonial politics of knowledge on Wikipedia" . Information, Communication & Society. 20 (6): 809–824. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2017.1293709. ISSN   1369-118X.
22. Morris, Kevin (February 12, 2013). "That epic Wikipedia "Star Trek" edit is still screwing up Google". Daily Dot . Retrieved July 23, 2024.
23. Morris, Kevin (January 30, 2013). "Wikipedians wage war over a capital "I" in a "Star Trek" film". Daily Dot . Retrieved July 23, 2024.
24. Lindbergh, Ben (January 15, 2021). "The Fight to Win the Pettiest Edit Wars on Wikipedia". The Ringer . Retrieved July 23, 2024.
25. Hern, Alex (January 23, 2015). "Wikipedia votes to ban some editors from gender-related articles". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved August 1, 2024.
26. Hube, Christoph (2017). "Bias in Wikipedia". Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on World Wide Web Companion - WWW '17 Companion. ACM Press. pp. 717–721. doi:10.1145/3041021.3053375. ISBN   978-1-4503-4914-7.
27. Salor, Enrinc (March 13, 2016). "Neutrality in the Face of Reckless Hate : Wikipedia and GamerGate". Nordisk Tidsskrift for Informationsvidenskab og Kulturformidling (in Danish). 5 (1): 23–29. doi: 10.7146/ntik.v5i1.25880 . ISSN   2245-294X.
28. Flöck, Fabian; Laniado, David; Stadthaus, Felix; Acosta, Maribel (2015). "Towards Better Visual Tools for Exploring Wikipedia Article Development — the Use Case of "Gamergate Controversy"". Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. 9 (5): 48–55. doi:10.1609/icwsm.v9i5.14701. ISSN   2334-0770.
29. Robertson, Adi (January 28, 2015). "Wikipedia denies 'purging' feminist editors over Gamergate debate". The Verge . Retrieved August 1, 2024.
30. Mortensen, Torill Elvira; Sihvonen, Tanja (2020). "Negative Emotions Set in Motion: The Continued Relevance of #GamerGate". The Palgrave Handbook of International Cybercrime and Cyberdeviance. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 1–23. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-90307-1_75-1. ISBN   978-3-319-90307-1 . Retrieved August 1, 2024.
31. Kimball, Whitney (December 26, 2019). "The Dumbest Wikipedia Edit War of the Dumbest Decade". Gizmodo . Retrieved October 15, 2024.
32. Schmall, Tyler (March 17, 2017). "The great Garfield gender debate ends after Wikipedia edit war". Mashable . Retrieved July 21, 2024.
33. Cavna, Michael; Selk, Avi (March 1, 2017). "Garfield's a boy … right? How a cartoon cat's gender identity launched a Wikipedia war". The Washington Post . Retrieved July 21, 2024.
34. Mak, Aaron (May 28, 2019). "Donald Trump's Wikipedia Entry Is a War Zone". Slate. ISSN   1091-2339 . Retrieved July 22, 2024.
35. Ford, Heather (October 13, 2020), Reagle, Joseph; Koerner, Jackie (eds.), "Rise of the Underdog", Wikipedia @ 20, The MIT Press, pp. 189–202, doi:10.7551/mitpress/12366.003.0017, ISBN   978-0-262-36059-3 , retrieved July 22, 2024
36. Grabowski, Jan; Klein, Shira (April 3, 2023). "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust". The Journal of Holocaust Research. 37 (2): 133–190. doi: 10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939 . ISSN   2578-5648.
37. Robertson, Adi (July 30, 2019). "A Wikipedia spoiler war created a ridiculous fake ending for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood". The Verge . Retrieved July 21, 2024.
38. Tyler, Adrienne (March 14, 2020). "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood's Fake Ending Controversy Explained". ScreenRant. Retrieved July 21, 2024.
39. Nicholson, Tom (July 31, 2019). "There's Been A Huge Fight Over The 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' Wiki Page". Esquire.com . Retrieved July 21, 2024.
40. Cheng, Selina (July 11, 2021). "Wikipedia wars: How Hongkongers and mainland Chinese are battling to set the narrative". Hong Kong Free Press. Retrieved August 11, 2025.
41. 林茵 (July 6, 2021). "【Back Up 香港．1】維基百科編輯戰". Standnews. Archived from the original on July 6, 2021. Retrieved August 11, 2025.
42. Cheng, Selina (July 14, 2021). "Hong Kong Wikipedia editors take precautions amid fears mainland peers may report users to national security police". Hong Kong Free Press. Retrieved August 11, 2025.
43. Silva, Shiroma (October 30, 2021). "維基百科中文版上演「編輯之戰」 中立原則受挑戰". BBC. Retrieved August 11, 2025.
44. Pasternack, Alex (December 18, 2021). "The war over Chinese Wikipedia is a warning for the open internet". Fast Company . Retrieved August 11, 2025.
45. Sims, Chris (July 30, 2019). "Pacers' Myles Turner was 'hacked' on Wikipedia. He's not with Celtics". Indianapolis Star . Retrieved May 25, 2025.
46. Silva, Orlando (November 18, 2020). "Myles Turner's Wikipedia Is Hacked: 'He Is Playing For The Boston Celtics'". Fadeaway World. Retrieved May 25, 2025.
47. Songco, Pablo (May 25, 2025). "Pacers' Myles Turner reacts to Celtic fans hilariously messing with his Wikipedia page". clutch points.com . Retrieved May 25, 2025.
48. Bowman, Emma (July 30, 2022). "What is a recession? Wikipedia can't decide". NPR . Retrieved July 22, 2024.
49. Breslow, Samuel (August 11, 2022). "How a False Claim About Wikipedia Sparked a Right-Wing Media Frenzy". Slate. ISSN   1091-2339 . Retrieved July 22, 2024.
50. Dress, Brad (August 2, 2022). "Wikipedia launching new restrictions for users editing 'recession' page". The Hill . Retrieved July 22, 2024.
51. Easby, Ryan (May 17, 2024). "Assassin's Creed Shadows 'critics' have started vandalising IRL protagonist Yasuke's Wiki page". GAMINGBible . Archived from the original on May 24, 2024. Retrieved September 10, 2024.
52. Moore, Alexander (May 16, 2024). "People Are Vandalizing the Wikipedia Page for Assassin's Creed Shadows Protagonist Yasuke". Game Rant . Archived from the original on May 17, 2024. Retrieved September 10, 2024.
53. Oxford, Dwayne; Shamim, Sarah (June 14, 2024). "Wikipedia war: Fierce row erupts over Israel's deadly Nuseirat assault". Al Jazeera . Retrieved July 22, 2024.
54. "Wikipedia article on Israeli army's Nuseirat massacre in Gaza sparks edit war, restrictions". The New Arab . June 15, 2024. Retrieved August 1, 2024.
55. Bandler, Aaron (January 3, 2025). "Wikipedia Editors Title Article "Nuseirat Rescue and Massacre"". Jewish Journal . Archived from the original on January 16, 2025. Retrieved January 30, 2025.
56. Alexander, Mary (July 4, 2024). "Wikipedia edit war not proof that South Africa's new home affairs minister Leon Schreiber is 'a Zimbabwean foreigner'". Africa Check . Retrieved July 21, 2024.
57. Davis, Rebecca (July 3, 2024). "Fact Check: Is SA's new Home Affairs minister Zimbabwean?". Daily Maverick . Archived from the original on July 3, 2024. Retrieved August 16, 2024.