Longest running edit war on Wikipedia

[Volunteer Marek]

I nominate: Occupation of Baltic States.

Full disclosure: I got some former EEML buddies there, but I also, actually, have a lot of respect for Paul Siebert and I like Igny just on a basic human level. Also I, actually, intensely dislike one of the former EEML folks involved (Estlandia/Miacek).

Feel free to nominate alternatives, but by my count this one's been going on for... five, six? years? The thing is, most of the folks involved are veterans so they more or less (sometimes less) know how not to run afoul of the explicit policies. The latest where Igny got crazy and violated 3RR is an exception. Usually it's like one revert per week or so, but in a very consistent, back and forth manner. Which sort of shows you that the whole 3RR policy is designed for dumb hotheads. You CAN have a six year edit war and nobody (well, hardly) will notice.

Broader point is that this is a phenomenon peculiar to the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit". As in, any other encyclopedia which takes itself as an encyclopedia seriously would have made SOME kind of an attempt, in the past five or six years, to establish a basic "editorial line". As in "ok, this is how we're gonna do it". It's another manifestation of the fact that the whole concept of "editorial judgment" or just "judgment" is alien to this website. This manifests itself in many different ways, the whole "NOTCENSORED!" cry being a prime example ("not censored" =/ "thoughtless") or the BLP thing (just because you CAN include some tabloidy defamatory info based on what could be regarded as a reliable source doesn't mean you should). Any kind of decent real publishing organization does take a stance on controversial issues and content but Wikipedia is just insanely incapable of that. And the reason it is insanely incapable of that is because most of the admin etc corps are folks who don't know crap except vandal patrolling or category sorting. The absence of expertise among Wikipedia editors actually manifests itself more at the macro level in that way, rather than the micro, article, level (where you occasionally do have some people with expertise slogging it out, but despite the general atmosphere, not because of it).

[The Garbage Scow]

The Russian nationalists versus Eastern Europe nationalists has been one fight I've rather enjoyed over the years. The downside is that some decent content contributors like Irpen got fed up and quit.

Holodomor has to be right up there with Occupation of the Baltic States. When is the last time either of these articles went more than a day without the "POV" tag slapped on it.

I think Stalin would enjoy Wikipedia. Whoever can gather the largest gang of drooling sycophants gets to write history. Bonus points for anyone who is or knows an admin and/or uses IRC.

[EricBarbour]

Yeah, the EEML stuff has been a huge mess for a long time.But I daresay that other things are even older, and still going on today.

Like LaRouche. The first shot in that little war was fired in September 2003.

Or Scientology. Originally started by The Cunctator in October 2001, people were fighting over it in November.
Eric Walker, aka Modemac, started putting his hatred into it in August 2002.
I should write something about Walker. What a flake. Well-known SubGenius, middle-aged comic book fan, and blind Wikipedia fan.
http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/evils/ ... S.TXT.html

I think Stalin would enjoy Wikipedia. Whoever can gather the largest gang of drooling sycophants gets to write history.

That seems to be generally true, provided they can read and write. Genghis Khan blew it, too many angry manchildren on horses and not enough scribes.

[Volunteer Marek]

The Russian nationalists versus Eastern Europe nationalists has been one fight I've rather enjoyed over the years. The downside is that some decent content contributors like Irpen got fed up and quit.

Holodomor has to be right up there with Occupation of the Baltic States. When is the last time either of these articles went more than a day without the "POV" tag slapped on it.

I think Stalin would enjoy Wikipedia. Whoever can gather the largest gang of drooling sycophants gets to write history. Bonus points for anyone who is or knows an admin and/or uses IRC.

Egh, Irpen was the worst of them, though, true, when he stuck to purely Russian topics he was a good writer. Holodomor has been quite, aside from the usual IPs, returned sock puppets, etc. for awhile. Actually part of the credit to keeping it quite should go to Paul Siebert,

[The Garbage Scow]

Egh, Irpen was the worst of them, though, true, when he stuck to purely Russian topics he was a good writer. Holodomor has been quite, aside from the usual IPs, returned sock puppets, etc. for awhile. Actually part of the credit to keeping it quite should go to Paul Siebert,

The longevity of some of these people on both sides of the fence (Irpen, Kuban Kazak, Piotrus, etc.) seems to be that they know how to fight but still be patient enough to do it generally within guidelines. The EEML thing was the "big controversy", but apart from that, these slow edit wars go on for years because the same (usually) cast of characters tend to revert each other, but then also make constructive edits. They also typically refrain from socking, making attack pages, etc. On one hand, they're pretty well high in the rankings of "perennial nationalistic edit war", but they also somehow seem to remain under the radar most of the time. I think most of them are just smarter or more disciplined than, say, the people who edit stuff like Climate Change, Israel/Palestine, or similar endless edit wars where socks are blocked on a daily basis and people are permanently under sanction. I think even the Digwuren sanctions were eventually allowed to expire, or at least are so stale that nobody seems to remember them anymore.

[Ismail]

I'm reminded of the old website WikiWatch and its commentary on Greco-Turkish relations.

I have no idea what the article will look like when you see it because it's had over 50 edits in the past month and a half, and will probably have a few more by the time I finish this paragraph, but here are a few items I scrounged from the version I found:

"Turks kept busy ... exploiting the profits while terrorizing the inhabitants."
"... adopted the inhumane measure..."
"...fanatic Turks and relentless killers to their own people..."
"... the supposedly liberal and constitutionally oriented Young Turks..."
"These islands had been liberated from Ottoman control in 1912."
"... 4,000 years of glorious and productive history..."
"It was a state founded on crime..."

What can I say? Accuracy aside, this is totally unprofessional writing. Here's some free advice: Let the facts speak for themselves. Using too many loaded words like fanatic, terrorizing, glorious, supposedly and inhumane makes you sound crazy.

Obviously, the article will never, ever be allowed to rest in peace. Whatever you write, no matter how accurate or fluent, will be changed by the end of the week. The best solution would be to get a couple of knowledgeable historians (or at least history majors) to write it from scratch, and then lock it against further edits. Unfortunately that's what a real encyclopedia would do, and it would admit the failure of the whole Wikipedia concept.

[Volunteer Marek]

Egh, Irpen was the worst of them, though, true, when he stuck to purely Russian topics he was a good writer. Holodomor has been quite, aside from the usual IPs, returned sock puppets, etc. for awhile. Actually part of the credit to keeping it quite should go to Paul Siebert,

The longevity of some of these people on both sides of the fence (Irpen, Kuban Kazak, Piotrus, etc.) seems to be that they know how to fight but still be patient enough to do it generally within guidelines. The EEML thing was the "big controversy", but apart from that, these slow edit wars go on for years because the same (usually) cast of characters tend to revert each other, but then also make constructive edits. They also typically refrain from socking, making attack pages, etc. On one hand, they're pretty well high in the rankings of "perennial nationalistic edit war", but they also somehow seem to remain under the radar most of the time. I think most of them are just smarter or more disciplined than, say, the people who edit stuff like Climate Change, Israel/Palestine, or similar endless edit wars where socks are blocked on a daily basis and people are permanently under sanction. I think even the Digwuren sanctions were eventually allowed to expire, or at least are so stale that nobody seems to remember them anymore.

To a first approximation (ie. excluding the possibility of socking) both Irpen and Kuban Kazak are gone. Well, Kuban Kazak probably came back as Voyevoda, at least that one was DUCKish. Irpen... I wonder about him, but without concrete proof I'm not gonna speculate out loud. I don't think Piotrus has been involved in any kind of controversy in at least two years or so. Actually, aside from the perennial Occupation of Baltic States, Eastern Europe has been pretty quiet in recent past, mostly cuz they finally got around to banning (or topic banning) the most obnoxious trouble makers (Russavia being the tail end of that).

[Miacek]

Well of course it's obvious that Kuban kazak is not Voyevoda. The latter has had an account in German Wiki for years, KK claimed at his user page that he's fluent in German. He mentioned he'd been fighting in Chechnya and other things, how likely is that he's actually a Russian guy living in Germany? Or vice versa?

Egh, Irpen was the worst of them, though, true, when he stuck to purely Russian topics he was a good writer. Holodomor has been quite, aside from the usual IPs, returned sock puppets, etc. for awhile. Actually part of the credit to keeping it quite should go to Paul Siebert,

The longevity of some of these people on both sides of the fence (Irpen, Kuban Kazak, Piotrus, etc.) seems to be that they know how to fight but still be patient enough to do it generally within guidelines. The EEML thing was the "big controversy", but apart from that, these slow edit wars go on for years because the same (usually) cast of characters tend to revert each other, but then also make constructive edits. They also typically refrain from socking, making attack pages, etc. On one hand, they're pretty well high in the rankings of "perennial nationalistic edit war", but they also somehow seem to remain under the radar most of the time. I think most of them are just smarter or more disciplined than, say, the people who edit stuff like Climate Change, Israel/Palestine, or similar endless edit wars where socks are blocked on a daily basis and people are permanently under sanction. I think even the Digwuren sanctions were eventually allowed to expire, or at least are so stale that nobody seems to remember them anymore.

To a first approximation (ie. excluding the possibility of socking) both Irpen and Kuban Kazak are gone. Well, Kuban Kazak probably came back as Voyevoda, at least that one was DUCKish. Irpen... I wonder about him, but without concrete proof I'm not gonna speculate out loud. I don't think Piotrus has been involved in any kind of controversy in at least two years or so. Actually, aside from the perennial Occupation of Baltic States, Eastern Europe has been pretty quiet in recent past, mostly cuz they finally got around to banning (or topic banning) the most obnoxious trouble makers (Russavia being the tail end of that).

[Miacek]

Ooops, wanted to say Kazak NEVER claimed to be fluent in German.