[Wikipedia-l] Intervening in an edit war

[Fred Bauder]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Andre Engels [mailto:andreengels at gmail.com]
>Sent: Saturday, March 3, 2007 03:07 AM
>To: wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Intervening in an edit war
>
>I have been asked to look at a page where there has been an edit war for
>half a year as an 'impartial outsider'. Does anyone have experience with
>doing that? I have not started yet, but I fear that the outcome will be one
>of the following three:
>
>* I consider myself too little known about the subject to say anything
>useful
>* I agree with one of the parties, and get shit on by the other parties
>* I agree with neither party, and get shit on by both.
>
>-- 
>Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
>ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels

The first thing to do is take a long look at the editing history of both the article and its talk page (reading the cited references helps too). The theory behind this is that the more information you have, the better you can do with the situation. Likewise, without taking sides, let each party tell their side to you. They will probably do that if you email them and ask them about what is going on. Your course after you gain information depends on what you find out. If the parties are reasonable they may listen to suggestions based on what you have learned. If they are determined, come hell or high water, to get their way, they won't, but you won't know that without patient investigation and patient attempts to make helpful suggestions.

Work from the assumption that they are both trying hard to to the right thing and trying to follow Wikipedia policies as they understand them. Often there is considerable misunderstanding of our policies and practices as applied to specific issues. Perhaps you can clear these up.

Fred