Editing Wikipedia (section)

=== Disputes and edit warring ===
{{Main|Disputes on Wikipedia}}
Wikipedia editors often have disagreements regarding content, which can be discussed on article Talk pages. Disputes may result in repeated competing changes to an article, known as "edit warring".<ref name="Wikipedia:Dispute resolution – Wikipedia" group="W">[[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution]]</ref><ref name="NBC WP editorial warzone 12">{{cite news |last=Coldewey |first=Devin |date=June 21, 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20140822010030/http://sys03-public.nbcnews.com/technology/wikipedia-editorial-warzone-says-study-838793 |title=Wikipedia is editorial warzone, says study |department=Technology |work=[[NBC News]] |url=https://sys03-public.nbcnews.com/technology/wikipedia-editorial-warzone-says-study-838793|archive-date=August 22, 2014}}</ref> It is widely seen as a resource-consuming scenario where no useful knowledge is added,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kalyanasundaram |first1=Arun |last2=Wei |first2=Wei |last3=Carley |first3=Kathleen M. |last4=Herbsleb |first4=James D. |title=2015 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) |chapter=An agent-based model of edit wars in Wikipedia: How and when is consensus reached |date=December 2015 |location=Huntington Beach, CA |publisher=IEEE |pages=276–287 |doi=10.1109/WSC.2015.7408171 |isbn=978-1-4673-9743-8 |s2cid=9353425 |citeseerx=10.1.1.715.2758}}</ref> and criticized as creating a competitive<ref>{{cite book |last1=Suh |first1=Bongwon |last2=Convertino |first2=Gregorio |last3=Chi |first3=Ed H. |last4=Pirolli |first4=Peter |title=Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration |chapter=The singularity is not near |date=2009 |pages=1–10 |location=Orlando, FL |publisher=ACM Press |doi=10.1145/1641309.1641322 |isbn=978-1-60558-730-1|doi-access=free}}</ref> and conflict-based editing culture associated with traditional masculine [[gender role]]s.<ref>{{cite news |last=Torres |first=Nicole |date=June 2, 2016 |title=Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia? |work=Harvard Business Review |url=https://hbr.org/2016/06/why-do-so-few-women-edit-wikipedia|access-date=August 20, 2019 |issn=0017-8012|archive-date=June 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617014645/https://hbr.org/2016/06/why-do-so-few-women-edit-wikipedia|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bear |first1=Julia B. |last2=Collier |first2=Benjamin |date=March 2016 |title=Where are the Women in Wikipedia? Understanding the Different Psychological Experiences of Men and Women in Wikipedia |journal=Sex Roles |volume=74 |issue=5–6 |pages=254–265 |doi=10.1007/s11199-015-0573-y |s2cid=146452625}}</ref> Research has focused on, for example, impoliteness of disputes,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Khazraie |first1=Marzieh |last2=Talebzadeh |first2=Hossein |date=February 7, 2020 |title="Wikipedia does NOT tolerate your babbling!": Impoliteness-induced conflict (resolution) in a polylogal collaborative online community of practice |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0378216620300771 |journal=Journal of Pragmatics |language=en |volume=163 |pages=46–65 |doi=10.1016/j.pragma.2020.03.009}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Smirnov |first1=Ivan |last2=Oprea |first2=Camelia |last3=Strohmaier |first3=Markus |date=December 1, 2023 |editor-last=Ognyanova |editor-first=Katherine |title=Toxic comments are associated with reduced activity of volunteer editors on Wikipedia |url=https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad385/7457939 |journal=PNAS Nexus |language=en |volume=2 |issue=12 |pages=pgad385 |doi=10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad385 |issn=2752-6542 |pmc=10697426 |pmid=38059265 |archive-date=October 7, 2024 |access-date=September 15, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007101400/https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad385/7457939 |url-status=live }}</ref> the influence of rival editing camps,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Lerner |first1=Jürgen |last2=Lomi |first2=Alessandro |date=December 21, 2020 |title=The free encyclopedia that anyone can dispute: An analysis of the micro-structural dynamics of positive and negative relations in the production of contentious Wikipedia articles |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0378873318300467 |journal=Social Networks |language=en |volume=60 |pages=11–25 |doi=10.1016/j.socnet.2018.12.003 |archive-date=November 26, 2024 |access-date=September 15, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241126001010/https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0378873318300467 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Morris-O'Connor |first1=Danielle A. |last2=Strotmann |first2=Andreas |last3=Zhao |first3=Dangzhi |date=April 4, 2023 |title=The colonization of Wikipedia: evidence from characteristic editing behaviors of warring camps |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JD-04-2022-0090/full/html |journal=Journal of Documentation |language=en |volume=79 |issue=3 |pages=784–810 |doi=10.1108/JD-04-2022-0090 |issn=0022-0418 |archive-date=October 20, 2023 |access-date=November 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231020151300/https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JD-04-2022-0090/full/html |url-status=live }}</ref> the conversational structure,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ziembowicz |first1=Karolina |last2=Roszczyńska-Kurasińska |first2=Magdalena |last3=Rychwalska |first3=Agnieszka |last4=Nowak |first4=Andrzej |date=October 3, 2022 |title=Predicting conflict-prone disputes using the structure of turn-taking: the case of Wikipedia |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1924224 |journal=Information, Communication & Society |language=en |volume=25 |issue=13 |pages=1987–2005 |doi=10.1080/1369118X.2021.1924224 |issn=1369-118X |archive-date=October 7, 2024 |access-date=September 15, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241007091334/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1924224 |url-status=live }}</ref> and the shift in conflicts to a focus on sources.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Chhabra |first1=Anamika |last2=Kaur |first2=Rishemjit |last3=Iyengar |first3=S. R.S. |chapter=Dynamics of Edit War Sequences in Wikipedia |date=August 25, 2020 |title=Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Open Collaboration |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3412569.3412585 |language=en |publisher=ACM |pages=1–10 |doi=10.1145/3412569.3412585 |isbn=978-1-4503-8779-8 |archive-date=September 15, 2024 |access-date=September 15, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240915052238/https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3412569.3412585 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ruprechter |first1=Thorsten |last2=Santos |first2=Tiago |last3=Helic |first3=Denis |date=September 9, 2020 |title=Relating Wikipedia article quality to edit behavior and link structure |journal=Applied Network Science |language=en |volume=5 |issue=1 |doi=10.1007/s41109-020-00305-y |issn=2364-8228|doi-access=free }}</ref>

[[Taha Yasseri]] of the [[University of Oxford]] examined editing conflicts and their resolution in a 2013 study.<ref>{{cite magazine |date=July 17, 2013 |title=Edit Wars Reveal The 10 Most Controversial Topics on Wikipedia |url=https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/07/17/177320/edit-wars-reveal-the-10-most-controversial-topics-on-wikipedia/ |magazine=[[MIT Technology Review]] |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]|access-date=June 25, 2021|archive-date=June 16, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210616191250/https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/07/17/177320/edit-wars-reveal-the-10-most-controversial-topics-on-wikipedia/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated3">{{cite book |last1=Yasseri |first1=Taha |title=The Most Controversial Topics in Wikipedia: A Multilingual and Geographical Analysis |last2=Spoerri |first2=Anselm |last3=Graham |first3=Mark |last4=Kertész |first4=János |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2014 |editor1=Fichman, P. |doi=10.2139/SSRN.2269392 |ssrn=2269392|author1-link=Taha Yasseri|author4-link=János Kertész |editor2=Hara, N. |arxiv=1305.5566 |s2cid=12133330}}</ref> Yasseri contended that simple reverts or "undo" operations were not the most significant measure of [[counterproductive work behavior]] at Wikipedia. He relied instead on "mutually reverting edit pairs", where one editor reverts the edit of another editor who then, in sequence, returns to revert the first editor. The results were tabulated for several language versions of Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia's three largest conflict rates belonged to the articles [[George W. Bush]], [[anarchism]], and [[Muhammad]].<ref name="autogenerated3" /> By comparison, for the German Wikipedia, the three largest conflict rates at the time of the study were for the articles covering [[Croatia]], [[Scientology]], and [[9/11 conspiracy theories]].<ref name="autogenerated3" /> In 2020, researchers identified other measures of editor behaviors, beyond mutual reverts, to identify editing conflicts across Wikipedia.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ruprechter |first1=Thorsten |last2=Santos |first2=Tiago |last3=Helic |first3=Denis |date=2020 |title=Relating Wikipedia article quality to edit behavior and link structure |journal=Applied Network Science |language=en |volume=5 |issue=1 |doi=10.1007/s41109-020-00305-y |issn=2364-8228|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Editors also debate the [[deletion of articles on Wikipedia]], with roughly 500,000 such debates since Wikipedia's inception. Once an article is nominated for deletion, the dispute is typically determined by initial votes (to keep or delete) and by reference to topic-specific notability policies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Mayfield |first1=Elijah |last2=Black |first2=Alan W. |date=November 7, 2019 |title=Analyzing Wikipedia Deletion Debates with a Group Decision-Making Forecast Model |url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3359308 |journal=Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction |language=en |volume=3 |issue=CSCW |pages=1–26 |doi=10.1145/3359308 |issn=2573-0142 |archive-date=September 15, 2024 |access-date=September 15, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240915025504/https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3359308 |url-status=live }}</ref>