How to prevent edit warring

[Larry Sanger]

Let's start over.

How, again, should we prevent edit warring?

I'll contribute to this topic some more sometime in the next few days.  There are some interesting proposals on the table and I might want to make one of my own.

[Will Nesbitt]

It's quite simple: give more power to the editors.

But that means you'll need to be extremely selective about your editors.

[Greg Woodhouse]

It's quite simple: give more power to the editors.

But that means you'll need to be extremely selective about your editors.

Let's start with a question: Why do edit wars occur in the first place? Perhaps there is no one reason, but it's hard to come up with a cure without a proper diagnosis.

[Will Nesbitt]

Edit wars occur because:

1. Some people don't understand or agree with the neutrality policy.

2. Some people confuse opinions and conclusions with facts.

3. Some people feel threatened by, angered by or scoff at the opinions and conclusions which contradict their opinions.

All of these issues are solved swiftly and quickly by editors who understand both the spirit and the letter of the neutrality policy. 

[Stephen Ewen]

Let's start with a question: Why do edit wars occur in the first place? Perhaps there is no one reason, but it's hard to come up with a cure without a proper diagnosis.

Because people have a felt personal interest in the content of an article and wish to tailor it for that personal end.

[Aleta Curry]

Will, let's not hijack this back to neutrality, please.

There are conflicts over all sorts of other things as well.

Let's start with a question: Why do edit wars occur in the first place? Perhaps there is no one reason, but it's hard to come up with a cure without a proper diagnosis.

Because people have a felt personal interest in the content of an article and wish to tailor it for that personal end.

Quite.  Other issues are style, tone, spelling, dialect, usage--and the occasional war over the placement of commas.

[Derek Harkness]

I concur with Aleta Curry here. Neutrality is a side issue to the topic of edit wars. Many edit wars do not involve the issue of neutrality. If we are to solve this problem we must examine all the causes. I also think we need to define what is meant by the words 'edit war' to ensure we are all talking about the same thing.

[Larry Sanger]

Greg asks exactly the question I wanted to examine in more detail: what causes edit wars in the first place?

What I want to do is to analyze a couple of examples in detail.  I'll post these analyses soon.  Just, please, do not debate the merits of the arguments in the examples; I'll delete your post if you do!!!

[Larry Sanger]

I'm just going to list several exchanges and after each make some comments.

Exhibit 1.  http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Jesus

Citizen 1: I open this article and the first sentence I read is "By virtue of the impact of Christianity, Jesus (also known as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth) is one the most influential people who ever lived." Excuse me? Who says a person called Jesus of Nazareth ever lived? Where is the textual or archaeological evidence for his historicity? We will have to do better than this.

Citizen 2: See Archive 1.

First, the point the first author makes seems valid: the article simply asserts something that a good many people (but still a minority, even of scholars) either deny or at least doubt.  Given that, I think Citizen 1 could have simply edited the sentence, and avoided the conflict altogether.

Similarly, Citizen 2 could have avoided the rise of any conflict simply by saying, "Well, why don't we reword it as follows..." or "Why don't you simply reword it so it does not take a stand on whether Jesus actually lived?"--or by editing the article.  Instead, by inviting the editor to look at a whole long archive, the implication is that (1) the issue raised is actually contentious, and (2) the outcome was such as to deny this rather simple and, it should be, non-contentious point.

I observe that the initial truculence of Citizen 1 did not help matters.  Citizen 2 perhaps naturally assumed, because of this truculence, that there actually was something to fight about.  If the point had been made more diplomatically, Citizen 2 might have recognized that Citizen 1 had a good point, and might have tried the tacks suggested above.

Citizen 1: OK, I have read all that, for my sins. None of it seems to address my point, which is that the statement that Jesus was a person who lived (ie, a historical figure) is not universally accepted, and supported by very slender evidence (texts written by Christians). Placing such a statement in the opening paragraph as though it was an uncontested fact is POV and unacceptable. The Brittanica gets around that by prefacing its description with the phrase "In Christianity,..." In other words, "this is what Christians believe, not necessarily what we believe." That seems to be a fair solution.

Citizen 3: I respectfully disagree. There is not more than very slender evidence- in the scheme of things- that any particular named individual from a couple of thousand years ago lived in all but very few parts of the world. Here there are several texts and references. It is not limited to a Christian view. As was made very clear in the full discussion in the archives. Perhaps you missed some of it?

This reply from Citizen 3 contains a very big mistake and matters go downhill from here.  Perhaps certain closely related matters were or weren't settled in the archived discussion.  But Citizen 1 has a perfectly valid point that is simple to state: not everybody believes that Jesus was a historical figure.  Citizen 3 assumes--perhaps because Citizen 1 seems so eager to argue the point--that it is somehow germane to debate not whether anyone disbelieves the historicity of Jesus, but the history of Jesus itself.  Citizen 3 is apparently operating on the assumption that it really is relevant to argue that.  If Citizen 3 can establish Jesus' historicity, Citizen 1 will have to back down.

This, of course, is the big mistake.  Citizen 1 will not back down, for two reasons.  First, not everybody believes that Jesus was a historical figure, which is perfectly true.  Second, Citizen 1 knows (or certainly acts this way) that there is considerable grounds for doubt of Jesus' historicity.

[Larry Sanger]

Exhibit 2.  http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Intelligent_design/Archive_2#Theory.3F

Citizen 1: We have to remove the Biology GRoup category from this article. We cannot have such a poor decision associated wih the bology workgroup.

Citizen 2: I do not agree that Intelligent Design is part of biology, I guess any more than Creationism is, and I can see how silly it would be to have Creationism considered part of Biology - but if the article discusess evolution, and Darwinism- what then? Should not Biology oversee it? Or can that be done best just by individual review and being sure that the article is accurate and neutral? A biologist probably would always know to check out an article that is about a subject famously at odds with biology, but what if the article is about some lesser known thing that - like this article, talks about evolution? Maybe there should be a different mechanism than a category workgroup to alert members of the workgroup-Criticisms of intelligent design .

Citizen 3: Of course discussion of intelligent design--whatever you want to call the content of the claims it makes, theory, "concept," or something else--is germane to biology. We shouldn't remove a workgroup from an article simply because we disagree with how the article is named. In that case, the way forward is to propose a better name, one that biologists (and grammarians--it isn't a "concept" in any case) can agree with. Please do.

In general, what should we call bodies of thought that not everyone wants to bless with the name "theory"? (I personally am willing to call all sorts of absurdities "theories," but scientists have a different usage from mine.) To call it a "hypothesis" implies that it is testable, so that won't do in this case.

Citizen 1 raises an important question: should the "intelligent design" article be assigned to the Biology Workgroup, or not?  The Citizen simply speaks ex cathedra on the issue, offering no arguments, which does not help matters.

Citizen 2 concedes that intelligent design is not part of the field of Biology, but disagrees at least that it is obvious the article should therefore be excluded from the workgroup's purview, and presents some options.  It is not clear whether Citizen 2 is agreeing with Citizen 1, or not.

Citizen 3 points out that "theory" (which at the time was part of the article name: "intelligent design theory") might be inappropriate in this case, but even if we name the article simply "intelligent design"--and thus making it look less like a serious theory in biology, managed by the Biology Workgroup--it is still "germane to biology."  Citizen 3 might have skipped the bit about "theory," which was distracting and actually argued that the article belongs in the workgroup.  Simply to say it is "germane" to biology is not really an argument.

Citizen 2: Actually I don't think this theory/idea is part of biology, although it concerns the origin of living things. For example, phrenology is not neuroscience, and is not health science. It may have been both those things once, but it is not either now. This theory has never been part of biology and is not now. We take biology to mean the science of living things and this theory is not science as accepted by scientists, it is philosophy, and religion -though I guess that the religion category is debatable. Again, and I am no expert in Intelligent Design-but I am an expert in Biology, I have never seen anything written about this intelligent design idea ( including this article) that does not contain an explanation of Darwin's theories and of the theory of evolution- which are, of course, very much part of biology, as a major part of the narrative. That's the only reason I see the Biology workgroup category as legitimate. Intelligent design is not only not a recognized theory in biology, even a disproven one, it relies on a philosophical construct rather than the scientific method and so is not, as I see it, science. That doesn't mean that an article on this topic is not needed. It's just a question of category. "Critical views of intelligent design" could be written entirely as biology and be part of the biology workgroup without question. This article is a kind of "alternative biology".

Citizen 2 here insists that ID is not part of biology--not something that Citizen 1 disagreed with.  Citizen 1 merely said that ID is germane to biology, which is consistent with what Citizen 2 said earlier.  But since Citizen 3 was not clear enough, and seemed to be disagreeing with Citizen 1, Citizen 2 assumed that Citizen 3 was arguing that ID is part of biology.

The difficulty at this point in the debate is lack of clarity and focus.  Citizen 2 seems to think it is relevant to point out that ID the topic is not part of Biology the field, but then seems unwilling to draw the definite conclusion that "intelligent design" the article should not be part of the Biology Workgroup.  Citizen 3 furthermore could have helped matters by conceding that ID is not part of biology, but replying that does not entail that the article shouldn't be managed by the workgroup.

Along comes Citizen 4:

Citizen 4: I apologize if I am out of line, because I am not a biologist, so it will be too easy perhaps to dismiss my opinion, but here goes anyway because I'm not providing a biological argument, I'm providing an editorial argument.

I would agree with you that this theory/idea is not science by the definition of some, but I would disagree with you that the idea is in the same category as phrenology. I would disagree because phrenology has generally been proven to be quackery. While the idea of intelligent design was assumed to be outdated, but Intelligent Design has not really been disproven. I also disagree that this theory has never been a part of biology. I would submit that some form of a theory of intelligent design was a foundation of biology up and until the origin of species was widely accepted. (Medieval zoological (i.e. academic) works described animals and "why God made them that way.")

I fear that Intelligent Design's credibility has been tainted by its association with people who have an agenda. They are pushing ID mainly because they really don't understand Evolution's undeniable truth and they think that ID somehow disproves Evolutionary Theory. Thus, I can understand why you as a biologist would dismiss Intelligent Design Theory out of hand. Boiling all the verbiage out of it, you think Intelligent Design equals magic and magic does not exist, therefore Intelligent Design does not exist.

... [10 more paragraphs, who knows what they're about because who in his right mind is going to read all that.]

The bombshells laid down are these: "While the idea of intelligent design was assumed to be outdated, but Intelligent Design has not really been disproven."  And: "I also disagree that this theory has never been a part of biology. I would submit that some form of a theory of intelligent design was a foundation of biology up and until the origin of species was widely accepted."

This is, not to be too nice about it, a complete waste of time and totally irrelevant.  Whether or not Citizen 4 addresses the question at issue--should the article be part of the workgroup?--is completely lost after saying these things.  It turns the debate into one that never needed to be had in the first place, about the merits of ID itself.

One might maintain that this is a debate that, somehow, the community must have--it must eventually "duke it out" and come to some uneasy truce on the question.  I disagree and strongly, because anybody who has argued much, in any context, knows that hardly ever is anyone's mind ever actually changed, especially not from strongly held views.  A debate over the merits of ID is completely irrelevant to deciding any question about how the article should be written.  The alleged merits and demerits of ID belong, in fact, in the article itself.

Later on, we have comments like this:

Citizen 1: Concept was OK. Hypothesis barely acceptable. Theory unacceptable, postulate, maybe ok, conjecture also maybe ok.

This is Citizen 1 speaking ex cathedra (or, as an old professor of mine used to say, "ex catheter") again.  But you can hardly fault the good Citizen: there's so much confusion and noise going on by this point, what's the point in spending too much time on it?

Then the Citizen decides to weigh in at greater length:

Citizen 1: Its not a trap for us to reject material because it lacks merit as a scientific concept, its our job as scientists and Citizendium Biology editors to eliminate presentation of concepts that are without merits. We do this, and should do this, with every statement to ensure that the content of the atricles is an acceptable quality. Similarly, with scientific concepts that have been refuted, such as for instance, simple views of Last Common Ancestor, of parts of Lyn Margulis' theories that are poorly supported, or the HIV does not cause AIDS, we do not present them as acceptable, as it would be misleading the reader. Its not an philosophical stance, but an ethical position. We must not as professional scientists knowingly mislead the reader about the science of biology or suppress inconvenient facts. ...

What the question at issue is, at this point, nobody can quite say.  There is the question of whether the article should be assigned to the workgroup, but we're no longer talking about that.  We seem to be talking about whether biologists may or may not "eliminate presentation of concepts that are without merits."  This is a very ill-formed topic for debate, if the question is whether we should present any information about ID at all, because we most certainly will have an article about intelligent design.  For the good Citizen to seem to argue otherwise is, therefore, a complete waste of time.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Re: Exhibit 1

Hmm, interesting. I actually interpret the last exchange [which I also agree as being the crucial one] as being in the following form:

Citizen 1: there is not universal agreement that X actually existed. Please include this fact in the text.

Citizen 3: as a general rule, we cannot prove that any particular individual existed 2000 years ago. As we have some limited references to X, why do you expect more? Your position is unreasonable.


Where, for me, the logic is faulty is in claiming that the general situation of identifying individuals 2000 years ago, should also apply to X [a very important figure]. If X had a massive impact on world history, it is a little strange that we have as actual historical knowledge no more than on other completely insignificant persons of that period. It is also significant that the followers of the teachings of X should have attached no importance to the realities surrounding X in his lifetime: we can make some tentative hypotheses from that point. ONe of them might be that X didn't really exist; another might be that he did, but led rather a different life from that portrayed by his followers; etc etc.

My point is, that Citizen 3 is conducting poor research, and defending his position through conventional practice. This is quite common, but I do not see how you will be able to change it in open discussions...

[Larry Sanger]

Exhibit 3.  http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Oriental_(word)#PC_silliness

Things do not begin auspiciously:

Citizen 1: PC silliness
Maybe I'm just too insensitive to understand it, but sentences like this one amuse me and leave me baffled:

The Orient is a term that traditionally used in European culture ...

Huh?

Like every other word in the English language, "Orient" was not a word used by European culture. English words are used by English speakers. French words are used by French speakers. Finnic words are used by Finnish speakers, and so on. European is not a language. Much like the word Oriental, European is an adjective describing a conglomeration of diverse cultures and peoples located in a specific part of Eurasia. Traditionally, Orient was not a European word. It was an English word.

In contemporary usage, Orient is still an English word. Although the euro may be currency across Europe, and although English may be spoke around the world, the English language is still ... well ... English.

The very title itself should have been commented out by the Constabulary with the {{civil}} template.  It is simply not polite to say that other Citizens engage in "PC silliness" (even if they do!).  There are other ways to say what you want to say, without insulting people, too.

Citizen 1 has a point to make.  I don't know if it's right or not in this case (certainly some concepts can be called European concepts, because they have Latin or Greek roots and ancient European traditions).  But, Citizen 1 could simply have changed the text and briefly and politely explained why.  Instead, Citizen 1 has to bloviate at length and impress us with his wit.

A helpful and sensible reply arrives:

Citizen 2: Let's say "The "Orient" and its cognates" then -- since French uses "l'Orient," Italian "l'Oriente" and Spanish "el Oriente" -- a similar term is found in nearly all Romance languages (Germanic languages are an exception).

Citizen 1 could have figured this out without assistance, but OK--sometimes, people need help.  So does Citizen 1 say, "Oh, of course, we can say that" or make no reply (even more helpful)?  No:

Citizen 1: Is it now proper to refer to Europeans as "West Eurasians", thereby not lessening the vital distinctions between the cultures of say Holland from Germany or Norway? ;^)

This doesn't even make sense, not in itself nor in response to Citizen 2, and yet it is supposed to be a joke.  (They speak Dutch, a Germanic language, in Holland.)  The implication, I suppose, is that "orient" is only a Romance language term (+ English)--and so not a European term?  Well, that doesn't follow.

Then there's a section titled "Almost an outrage," and on and on.

[Larry Sanger]

Re: Exhibit 1 ...
My point is, that Citizen 3 is conducting poor research, and defending his position through conventional practice. This is quite common, but I do not see how you will be able to change it in open discussions...

Well, it doesn't matter to me whether Citizen 3 is conducting poor research or not.  What matters is the very clear question at issue, namely, whether anyone denies Jesus' historicity.  Obviously, many people do, including some scholars.  Period, end of discussion.  I wasn't meaning to accuse Citizen 3 of faulty logic, but that the Citizen had changed changed the subject by arguing Jesus did exist, which is irrelevant to the question at issue.  And when you think about it, that's quite often how these things go.  More in a bit.

[Larry Sanger]

I haven't made anything close to an exhaustive inventory, but already I spot a few common problems.

Probably the single biggest problem that explains these edit wars (well, sometimes they're not really edit wars, because nobody's touching the article, they're edit page wars) is that people lose thread of what the issue is.  In every case, even the last, brief exchange, we begin with a fairly clear question.  But after just a few back-and-forths, it isn't clear what the question is.

It's worth examining how the dialogue changes.  It's as if people want to talk, not about the question at issue, but about the most contentious possible issue that has anything to do with the question.

Often, I've observed (but only once in these exhibits), the move from "Some people disagree with p, therefore we should not say that p without qualification," to debating the merits of p itself.  But look, this is silly.  We could simply have a rule against it.  If p as a general claim is actually contentious enough that people want to argue about it on CZ talk pages, that means that the article will not actually state either p or not-p, because to do so would be contrary to our Neutrality Policy.

Got to go eat a meal, back in a bit.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Larry, I agree with your diagnosis. We need a rule, that dissent must be recorded, and recorded as accurately as possible, as part of the Neutrality Policy. This should not be expressed as "controversy" which people seem to enjoy claiming is normal, but as minority dissent which is part of a longer-term quest for knowledge. Minority positions frequently mutate into consensuses, decades later...