You are right as usual, grandfather Louis. Which is why most of the time I myself bow out of conflicts.
Sometimes I wait a few weeks or months until the other party loses interest or moves on. I don't know if this is "fair" or not, but since I'm always trying to be neutral I'm not going to kick myself too hard for biding my time like this.
Sometimes I nibble away at the conflict slowly, as I'm doing with articles relating to my church. Someone anonymous user "messed up" the [[Moonies]] and [[Sun Myung Moon]] pages. Instead of reverting their changes wholesale, I decided to correct just a few points each week.
The only case I'm going head-to-head on, is the field of climate change: global warming and ozone depletion. That's because I think I know enough about science and statistics to detect a flimflam campaign going on, and I see no reason to roll over and play dead here. I'm trying to maintain cordial relations with the chief proponent of the "wrong" POV, Dr. William Connolley. Because he's a practicing scientist and I'm just an amateur. In some ways, I feel we're making progress toward neutrality -- without sacrificing geniality.
Oh, one more thing: just in case anyone imagines I might suddenly block a user who disagrees with me on global warming; rest assured, I won't be doing this. Jimbo specifically asked me not to, and that's reason enough. (Sunir Shah at MeatballWiki, and The Cunctator here, also have excellent arguments which I'm still in the process of digesting).
Ed Poor