Obscure editwars, anyone?

[EricBarbour]

How about the one that's been "raging" over Polyglycerol polyricinoleate (T-H-L) for the past 5+ years?

Bitched about here.

The author of the Wikipedia article about PGPR, in his Yelp account as "Aaron P.," states that "It has a detectable and somewhat offputting aftertaste.... American chocolate makers have been lobbying for years to be allowed to add vegetable fats to their products so they can sell the cocoa butter at a higher profit to cosmetic manufacturers. So far they have been thwarted, so now they have moved to using PGPR to lower the levels of cocoa butter while still remaining undetectable to most people." He also noted that "Unfortunately, someone keeps altering the (Wikipedia article) to detail the glories of PGPR, and I have to keep fixing it."

[Anroth]

Start editing computer game related articles then complain about obscure edit wars.

The best one I saw was over the colour code for a characters skin...

[lonza leggiera]

Wikipedia maintains its own list of lamest edit wars. Of course "lame" isn't the same as "obscure", and the obscurity of the squabbles listed there is somewhat decreased by the very fact of their being so listed. Nevertheless some of them do seem pretty obscure to me.

[SirFozzie]

Let's see.. some of these aren't obscure (because they've been before the Committee etcetera), but that doesn't mean more then a very small percentage of folks care about them:

English English Spelling vs American English spelling (yogurt vs yoghurt, soccer vs football)
Diacritics (Really, it's that big a deal to some folks that a name shouldn't (to them) have a little curly cue letter attached to it?)
Hyphens versus En-Dash (this one just made me face palm everytime it showed up.. and it showed up, time and time again)

[TungstenCarbide]

Hyphens versus En-Dash (this one just made me face palm everytime it showed up.. and it showed up, time and time again)

Holy crap, I learn something new every day;

According to most American sources (such as The Chicago Manual of Style) and some British sources (such as The Oxford Guide to Style), an em dash should always be set closed, meaning it should not be surrounded by spaces.

[Zoloft]

Hyphens versus En-Dash (this one just made me face palm everytime it showed up.. and it showed up, time and time again)

Holy crap, I learn something new every day;

According to most American sources (such as The Chicago Manual of Style) and some British sources (such as The Oxford Guide to Style), an em dash should always be set closed, meaning it should not be surrounded by spaces.

If it's any consolation—I screwed that one up for years.

[Randy from Boise]

Hyphens versus En-Dash (this one just made me face palm everytime it showed up.. and it showed up, time and time again)

Holy crap, I learn something new every day;

According to most American sources (such as The Chicago Manual of Style) and some British sources (such as The Oxford Guide to Style), an em dash should always be set closed, meaning it should not be surrounded by spaces.

If it's any consolation—I screwed that one up for years.

That's where the style manual is wrong, as anyone who has ever done layout with computers and the inevitable software-based auto-wrap mess will attest.

RfB

[The Joy]

Let's see.. some of these aren't obscure (because they've been before the Committee etcetera), but that doesn't mean more then a very small percentage of folks care about them:

English English Spelling vs American English spelling (yogurt vs yoghurt, soccer vs football)
Diacritics (Really, it's that big a deal to some folks that a name shouldn't (to them) have a little curly cue letter attached to it?)
Hyphens versus En-Dash (this one just made me face palm everytime it showed up.. and it showed up, time and time again)

Wasn't there a case of Greeks and Turks arguing over whether a certain dessert was made in Greece or Turkey? The dessert was credited with being made in a border village, IIRC. I don't think it reached the level of the Yogurt.

Maybe it was Baklava (T-H-L) or Turkish Delight (T-H-L)? It was probably the Baklava article since the talkpage is full of Greeks and Turks talking smack to each other.

Looking at the Baklava article history, it seems the Armenians, Azeris, and Iranians are claiming it too and causing a ruckus. Looks like a slow-moving edit war has been going on for some time.

[Anroth]

Could be worse, could be Hummus, that has Israel and Palestine fighting over it...

[Volunteer Marek]

I know there was an edit war about "dirt" -- the very special fertile dirt of Ukraine- between Poles, Ukrainians, Russians and Lithuanians, and by what name it should be called, but I forget what the name actually was.

[The Joy]

There's been an edit war going on the CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder (T-H-L) article for some time. It has had problems since the article's creation with jet "fanboys" and Pakistani nationalists messing with it. The worst of it has been going on for nearly two years now. Ironically, one of the edit warriors (Dave1185 (T-C-L)) protected the page two years ago and it has not been unprotected since.

[Tarc]

Star Trek into Darkness (T-H-L), long debate regarding the capitalization of "into" winds up as no consensus, then becomes fodder for xkcd;

[Mason]

There's been an edit war going on the CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder (T-H-L) article for some time. It has had problems since the article's creation with jet "fanboys" and Pakistani nationalists messing with it. The worst of it has been going on for nearly two years now. Ironically, one of the edit warriors (Dave1185 (T-C-L)) protected the page two years ago and it has not been unprotected since.

Slight correction: Dave1185 just moved the page. He is not an admin and can't protect things.

It's actually been protected since 2010.

[HRIP7]

Star Trek into Darkness (T-H-L), long debate regarding the capitalization of "into" winds up as no consensus, then becomes fodder for xkcd;

Now the subject of news coverage discussed in this thread.

[The Joy]

Let's see.. some of these aren't obscure (because they've been before the Committee etcetera), but that doesn't mean more then a very small percentage of folks care about them:

English English Spelling vs American English spelling (yogurt vs yoghurt, soccer vs football)
Diacritics (Really, it's that big a deal to some folks that a name shouldn't (to them) have a little curly cue letter attached to it?)
Hyphens versus En-Dash (this one just made me face palm everytime it showed up.. and it showed up, time and time again)

Wasn't there a case of Greeks and Turks arguing over whether a certain dessert was made in Greece or Turkey? The dessert was credited with being made in a border village, IIRC. I don't think it reached the level of the Yogurt.

Maybe it was Baklava (T-H-L) or Turkish Delight (T-H-L)? It was probably the Baklava article since the talkpage is full of Greeks and Turks talking smack to each other.

Looking at the Baklava article history, it seems the Armenians, Azeris, and Iranians are claiming it too and causing a ruckus. Looks like a slow-moving edit war has been going on for some time.

Here we go again!

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =535753484

[dogbiscuit]

Here we go again!

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =535753484

"The history of Baklava is not well documented."

It's only a fucking pudding!

(Though they are very useful for keeping your ears warm when cycling).

[The Joy]

There's been an edit war going on the CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder (T-H-L) article for some time. It has had problems since the article's creation with jet "fanboys" and Pakistani nationalists messing with it. The worst of it has been going on for nearly two years now. Ironically, one of the edit warriors (Dave1185 (T-C-L)) protected the page two years ago and it has not been unprotected since.

Slight correction: Dave1185 just moved the page. He is not an admin and can't protect things.

It's actually been protected since 2010.

Once again, my inability to understand Wikipedia's logs confounds me. Sorry, Dave!

Still, nearly three years (almost four, counting the previous protection) is a long time for a non-BLP article.