JAY JG said: [....]
the common reaction is "well, these two guys are just edit-warring, and I don't know who is right, so I'm not going to get worked up about it."
Do you expect this kind of thing to happen a lot?
Certain areas of Wikipedia attract conflict; that's the way of the world.
I mean, you expect to get into an edit war and then ask others to either come to your assistance or relax the 3RR so you are permitted to continue?
I don't "expect to get into an edit war", nor have I ever suggested "relaxing" the 3RR;. Let's avoid straw-man arguments, and let's try to keep the discussion on the issue, not the person.
I think this is a highly contentious way of interacting on Wikipedia, and not one to be condoned. Talk pages exist for a good purpose.
Indeed they do. If only people used them, rather than POVing and "original research"ing articles, and then edit-warring to preserve their POV and original research insertions.
Revert limits and guidelines counseling against edit warring also exist for a good purpose. Edit warring is *not* considered a good way of dealing with problems.
No, it's not; however, it is sometimes the best of a number of bad choices. If only there were other remedies that actually worked effectively all the time.
Jay.