2d4chan:How to win an edit war

So, you got in a edit fight with one of our regulars? And you want to win, we presume? Well, here's a guide to Winning Your Edit War on 1d4chan.

A few points you may not have thought of:

• The most important point: On a wiki, winning consists of either getting your opponent blocked (highly unlikely here, as Root is only rarely around and only blocks people when they're clearly spambots or persistent vandals), or getting your opponent to stop edit warring. Have a plan for victory, or you'll just be wasting your time and energy on a futile cause.
• Winning an edit war is a matter of days and weeks, not minutes and hours. Reverting your opponent immediately just leaves you open in turn to being reverted in turn immediately. Also consider the possibility that your opponent might be a regular here, who will probably still be around a month from now to revert you. Learn to wait a little while.
• You need to avoid making unnecessary enemies. It cannot be emphasized enough: Pissing off someone besides your opponent makes winning your edit war twice as hard, as now you're fighting two editors instead of one. There are a lot of subpoints to this, so see below under "How to avoid pissing third parties off".
• On that note: Remember you're playing in front of an audience, who can interfere if offended enough. Try to avoid pissing them off. Again, see below.
• Don't edit while angry. Give yourself a few minutes (or hours) to cool off. Anger, while a great motivator, leads you into making dumb mistakes, like just about everything in the "How to avoid pissing third parties off" section.
• Avoid taunting. Making your opponent even more angry is not a good way to win your edit war, because the only real way to win an edit war on 1d4chan is, as mentioned, to get the other side to back down. Taunting is very much not a good way to get people to back down.
• Take it to the discussion page. It's far easier to make a readable, convincing point on there than in the edit summaries of the revision history page, and it's where most edit wars get resolved anyway.
• Try and figure out what your opponents are actually saying, and if you can't, make that clear. A failure to see and understand your opponents makes victory impossible.
• Be willing to compromise. It cannot be emphasized enough: If there's a version that is acceptable to both you and your opponent, take it and declare victory there.

How to avoid pissing third parties off

It cannot be emphasized enough: It's really hard to win a two-to-one edit war, so either getting a third party on your side or avoiding making another opponent is a solid step to winning your edit war.

• Try to sound reasonable. You're playing in front of an audience who can interfere here, so try to go for methods that will convince them to take your side.
  • Citations help, a lot. If there's something objective wrong with your opponents point, it's that much easier to convince third parties, at least.
  • Try to maintain an, if not positive, then at least not aggressive and insulting attitude. We may be 4chan-related, but we're also a wiki, so a collaborative attitude is going to get you a lot further than telling people who you disagree with to "fuck off". (The 4chan comes out in the content, not the editing process, which is fairly bog-standard small wiki.)
• Avoid excessive insults. Being excessively insulting to your opponent just makes you look stupid and in the wrong. We can overlook a few minor insults, but repeatedly calling your opponent "subhuman", "nazi", "SJW", and "retard" at the same time is not a good look.
  • Alternately phrased: Yelling racial slurs at someone in excessive levels is probably just going to make you look like a crying bitch, since if that's all you've got left...
  • You'll see some of the regular editors here use insults, but the important thing to notice is that most successful 1d4chan editors use insults tactically, only using one or two that seem to accurately describe the target (for example, "Go back to /pol/" or "Go back to tumblr", depending on if the target is being fascist or marxist, or "Reverting vandalism" for removing an edit that looks like it was made by a eleven-year-old with Coprolalia).
• Try to be brief or at least provide a TLDR. Having to sort through a thousand word manifesto to figure out what you're trying to say is not going to make you look good. Quite the opposite.

Anger is a trap

We cannot emphasize this enough: Editing while angry makes you stupid, it makes you sound unreasonable, it makes your arguments sound weaker then they actually are. CALM YOUR TITS DOWN.

Seriously. Go away for a few hours, breathe, and don't take everything personally.

Know when it's not worth fighting

At the end of the day this a wiki about toy soldiers and playing make believe. It's not worth wasting too much time arguing with anyone about anything on this wiki and if you have not managed to win anyone over to your argument that is what you are doing.

Why do we offer this advice?

Well, mainly so we can point to this page when a newcomer is hitting three or four big points here, and say "you done fucked up". And, hopefully, see slightly fewer stupid edit wars.