Edit-War

Description
Two or more people, having different opinions and not being able to get along, change one piece of content in a way they see fit, removing work of others. A requirement for this pattern to occur is that the users are able to co-create content.

Examples
Two users are unable to agree upon whether handle the world war 2 article at their social site. One user says the war ended 8th of May (the time in English time-zone), while the other says it ended the 9th of May (the time in the Russian time-zone). Being unable to agree, they constantly change the date.

Pros and Cons
Edit wars are usually seen as a negative pattern, because of the inconsistency. However, edit wars can in many situation be good, as they highlight matters and opinions that are not universally true. Furthermore, edit wars usually end in one way or another. For the above example, a reasonable solution would be to have both dates as end-dates due to them both being correct.

Relations
The pattern is related to Boosting Content and Co-Creating Content, and may shares some of the last one's pros and cons. The pattern is countered by Maintaining A Reputation and to some extent by Crafting Content.

Contributors
Christian Broniewicz