Avoiding Edit Wars

Question

I basically have three questions, all about edit disputes: How can I avoid edit wars, who has the final say over the content of an answer, and what do I do if an answer was locked?

Who has the final say over the content of an answer?

If there is an unresolvable dispute about the content of an answer, does the original author have final say, the community opinion (eg as expressed via comments), moderators, or someone else?

My reasoning would be that independent of good reasoning or valid sources, the original author of an answer should always have the final decision about the content of their answer, as it's their name associated with it. It also seems that giving others the final say would be hard to manage and that it could easily lead to edit wars.

If other users disagree with an answer and their edits where reverted by the original author, they are free to voice that disagreement in the comments, to downvote the answer, to create their own answer (if applicable), or to create a new question about the disputed topic (if applicable).

Handling repeated edits / avoiding edit wars

I'm also wondering what to do if a user repeatedly edits/reverts an answer against the expressed wishes of the original author (possibly without giving a reason for the edit and/or ignoring the reasons for the existing version)? Should these edits just be reverted each time, should a moderator be contacted (if so, how?), or should something else be done?

How to handle locked answers

When an answer is locked, the description reads:

This post has been locked while disputes about its content are being resolved

This sounds like a temporary measure. But what if the dispute cannot be resolved? Will the answer be locked forever, making all future edits impossible? This doesn't seem ideal, especially if the lock is the result of an edit war, meaning that the lock will possibly be permanent.

The text also gives off the impression that the answer is wrong or highly disputed. But what if only one user repeatedly edits an answer (possibly without giving valid reasons)? In that case, the text seems misleading.

Is there a way to unlock an answer without reaching a consensus with a user that fundamentally disagrees with it?

Because I think that locking an answer in the case of one user repeatedly editing an answer against the wishes of the original author is not a good idea. I don't think that it meets the reasons for locking, and I think that it could easily be abused.

If I don't like - possibly well-sourced - content in an answer, I can just repeatedly remove it. Either the original author gives up after a while and keeps my edits, or the post gets locked after a while, giving the impression that the content was in fact wrong or disputed by more than that one person, and making votes, further edits, etc impossible. Either way, I have reached my goal.

To me, it seems that the correct solution would not be to lock an answer in such cases, but to contact the user editing the answer and telling them to stop.

This concrete answer brought the questions up for me, but it's mainly about how to handle these situations in general.

Answer 1

Who has the final say over the content of an answer?

All our content is community edited. In this sense no one has the final say. Changes can't be normally prevented, unless we lock the question, and we only do that in exceptional cases.

Handling repeated edits / avoiding edit wars

and

How to handle locked answers

You are free to flag for moderator attention when you see something bad happening. Moderators are also automatically notified when many edits are made on the same post.

The official policy on what edits are valid and which are not is here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/edit

Locking is one of the ways to avoid edit wars, but normally I would expect any edit wars to stop after a moderator steps in and comments. In other cases we can also be more drastic and suspend one or all the accounts involved to let people cool off. Finally, locking can be made permanent.

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In general, I'd advise all parties not to get too hooked up on single terms. Chances are that there are perceived differences due to cultural bias and I think that assuming best intentions is always the safe choice of action.

One way you could improve your post is by inlining the evidence that supports the contentious statement. This is good because at the same time strengthens your argument and moves its focus from you to your evidence.

Example:

Original

Judith Wolter - a member of the right-wing extremist, racist, and nationalist Bürgerbewegung pro Köln and a member of the city council - did write an open letter which was published at the pro koeln website, in which she called the area around the train station at new years eve a no-go-area for women.

Improved

Judith Wolter did write an open letter which was published at the pro koeln website, in which she called the area around the train station at new years eve a no-go-area for women.

She is a member of the right-wing extremist, racist, and nationalist Bürgerbewegung pro Köln and a member of the city council:

Im Verfassungsschutzbericht des Landes NRW aus dem Jahre 1994 wurde die Partei als nationalistisch, rassistisch und völkisch-kollektivistisch eingestuft

(tr.)

In 1994, in Verfassungsschutzbericht of NRW, the party was classified as nationalistic, racist and nationalist-collectivist.

(source)

Answer 2

Who has the final say over the content of an answer?

I am not sure that there is a simple answer to that question. Wish there was. If might makes right, it is the moderators, because they can lock out other people, but I don't think that is how anyone wants disputes to be resolved.

My reasoning would be that independent of good reasoning or valid sources, the original author of an answer should always have the final decision about the content of their answer, as it's their name associated with it.

I disagree that the answer is irrevocably associated with the answer. It is indicated that the question has been edited, and the edit history reveals the authorship.

I'm also wondering what to do if a user repeatedly edits/reverts an answer against the expressed wishes of the original author (possibly without giving a reason for the edit and/or ignoring the reasons for the existing version)? Should these edits just be reverted each time, should a moderator be contacted (if so, how?), or should something else be done?

Reverting once is reasonable. After that, a flag seems appropriate.

Will the answer be locked forever, making all future edits impossible?

It is unfortunate that the interface doesn't reveal that locks can be time-bound. The initial lock was for just one week, to give people time to sort it out civilly. This seems to have been achieved early and the lock has been removed.

I think the rest of the questions are best answered with: flag for moderator attention, bring up a meta-question or discuss in chat. If you have a reasonable case, we can lock it with a different version, deal with the recalcitrant user or - ideal case - use rational argument to persuade each other and/or find a compromise text everyone is satisfied with.

Answer 3

I think this site isn't quite like Wikipedia, but their advice about writing with a neutral point of view is helpful, especially their advice about using contentious labels.

When you must use a contentious label in order to address the question, I'd follow their suggestion to use in-text attribution. I think that helps push the responsibility for the contentious label to the reliable source and not you.

If the label is not material to establishing the answer to the question, I'd drop labels alltogether.

Answer 4

I agree with Dawn's post that Wikipedia's advice on this issue is completely applicable in this case.

As quoted from their manual (emphasis mine):

Value-laden labels—such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist, terrorist, or freedom fighter, or a sexual practice a perversion—may express contentious opinion and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution

The usage was clearly value-laden. In that case, you should simply do as Wikipedia does, and cite the term "racist" from reliable sources.

If this is done to Wikipedia's standards, then I would argue that temp-banning the edit-war user would be a reasonable course of action, since it would be a large stretch to assume that they are acting in good faith.