Etymology

From edit +‎ warCategory:English compound terms#EDITWAR.

Pronunciation

• enPR: ĕd′ĭt wôr′
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɛd.ɪt ˈwɔː/Category:English terms with IPA pronunciation#EDITWAR
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˌɛd.ɪt ˈwoɹ/Category:English terms with IPA pronunciation#EDITWAR
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˌed.ɪt ˈwoː/Category:English terms with IPA pronunciation#EDITWAR
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˌed.ət ˈwoː/Category:English terms with IPA pronunciation#EDITWAR
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /ˌɛd.ɪt ˈwɔɹ/Category:English terms with IPA pronunciation#EDITWAR
• (India) IPA^(key): /ˌɛɖ.ɪʈ ˈwɔʳ/Category:English terms with IPA pronunciation#EDITWAR

• Audio:

  (file)

  Category:English terms with audio pronunciation#EDITWAR
• Hyphenation: ed‧it war

Noun

edit war (plural edit wars)Category:English lemmas#EDITWARCategory:English nouns#EDITWARCategory:English countable nouns#EDITWARCategory:English multiword terms#EDITWARCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#EDITWARCategory:Pages with entries#EDIT%20WARCategory:Pages with 1 entry#EDIT%20WAR

2. (wiki jargonCategory:en:Wiki#EDITWAR, originally Wikimedia jargonCategory:en:Wikimedia#EDITWAR) A dispute over the content of a page on a wiki or other editable work where opposing editors continually change the page without discussion.

   As with dinner-table discussions, it is best to avoid editing articles about politics or religion unless one wishes to become entrenched in a perpetual edit war.

   Category:English terms with usage examples#EDITWAR

   • 2008, Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, Ben Yates, How Wikipedia Works: And How You Can Be a Part of It, No Starch Press, →ISBN, page 388:

     An unproductive edit war results as editors change the page back and forth between two incompatible versions, without troubling to engage in discussions.

     Category:English terms with quotations#EDITWAR

   • 2011 September 12, Noam Cohen, “On Wikipedia, Echoes of 9/11 ‘Edit Wars’”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     In 2008, doubters of the official account of the attacks — sometimes called truthers — were told by the arbitration committee not to edit the main page on the attacks after so-called edit wars over what should be included there.

     Category:English terms with quotations#EDITWAR

   • 2018 August 7, Alexis C. Madrigal, “Wikipedia, the Last Bastion of Shared Reality”, in The Atlantic‎:

     Edit wars—about everything from Roseanne Barr to the Minneapolis suburb of Edina to the Death Star’s size to whether tigers are in fact “the most powerful living cat”—have been part of Wikipedia since its beginning.

     Category:English terms with quotations#EDITWAR

Verb

edit war (third-person singular simple present edit wars, present participle edit warring, simple past and past participle edit warred)Category:English lemmas#EDITWARCategory:English verbs#EDITWARCategory:English multiword terms#EDITWARCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#EDITWARCategory:Pages with entries#EDIT%20WARCategory:Pages with 1 entry#EDIT%20WAR

2. (wiki jargonCategory:en:Wiki#EDITWAR, originally Wikimedia jargonCategory:en:Wikimedia#EDITWAR, intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#EDITWAR) To engage in an edit war.

   When a dispute arises, it is common to see a page protected to avoid edit warring.Category:English terms with usage examples#EDITWAR

See also

• edit warrior

Further reading

• “edit war”, in Urban Dictionary, launched 1999.

Anagrams

• wardite