Edit war: Difference between revisions

The term '''edit war''' is a misnomer, but a catchy misnomer that is not likely to be replaced by a more apt term. In reality, '''edit wars''' on Wikipedia are ''reversion wars'' involving two Wikipedians, or sometimes two factions of Wikipedians. To wit, one Wikipedian edits an article, another Wikipedian reverts the article, and the first Wikipedian reinstates the changes that they made to the previous version, prompting the second Wikipedian to revert to the previous version. In the game of chess, three repetitions results in a draw. However, on Wikipedia, an edit war can go on for quite a while. This clutters the article history. And, it makes it difficult for uninvolved users to make edits, since participants in an edit war are unlikely to be careful about merging third-party changes.