User blog comment:Master Ceadeus 27/A User's Guide To: Edit Wars!/@comment-452-20141028164356


 * If you must break apart an edit war, do it by not participating.

Excellent advice. As an admin, I think that this is the golden rule. Unfortunately, many choose to "make it personal".

However, I do not think that protecting a disputed page is necessary, simply inform all users involved that they must discuss the issue on the talk page, and that any users who edit the disputed information while the discussion is ongoing will be blocked, because anyone editing a disputed section after being warned is no longer acting in good faith. (But blocks should not be given without warning.)

As you mentioned, adding references usually settles the matter: if anyone then removes the reference, or changes the information so that it does not match the reference, then that is no longer simply "edit warring", and should be dealt with however "removing valid referenced information" is usually dealt with.

One extra piece of advice: Never use edits summaries as a discussion area, to argue, or to insult. Using good edit summaries is a great way to avoid edit wars.
 * Good: "Undo revision 123 (452) - information does not match reference, see talk page."
 * Bad: "Undo revision 123 (452) - don't add stupid information, moron."