
Lamest Edit Wars - ag8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars
======
willio58
The examples here are hilarious.

> Angels & Airwaves: Forty-six reverts in one hour by two editors. The point
> of contention? Whether "Angels & Airwaves" is a band or "Angels & Airwaves"
> are a band. (British English requires "are", as the band comprises multiple
> people, while American English requires "is", as the band is a singular
> entity.) ALL-CAPS edit summaries laced with profanity and death threats
> liberally employed by one side.

~~~
mehrdadn
I had no idea this is different in BrE and AmE! What are some other such
grammatical differences?

~~~
globular-toast
There are many small differences. Not grammatical but some off the top of my
head:

* Quite means something different. In British "quite good" is similar to "particularly good". In American it's more like "OK",

* Spelling of -ing form of words ending in l. Br: travelling, Am: traveling,

* Placement of stress on multi-syllable words. It almost seems like anything British people do is the opposite in America. Br: 'adult, a'ddress, ice 'cream. Am: a'dult, 'address, 'ice cream.

~~~
bovine3dom
> Quite means something different. In British "quite good" is similar to
> "particularly good". In American it's more like "OK",

I hear this quite a lot. In my experience we (Brits) use it mostly in your
second sense, to moderate statements. We use it as an intensifier more rarely
and usually in specific phrases: "quite right", "quite the ...". I believe the
key difference is that we use the word with greater frequency than Americans.
GLOWBE [1] is an excellent resource for checking such hunches if you are
interested.

[1]: [https://www.english-corpora.org/glowbe/](https://www.english-
corpora.org/glowbe/)

~~~
globular-toast
It depends how you say it. For me the default in British is still an
intensifier, but you can signal that you're using the American way using
context, tone, facial expression etc.

The more important thing, I think, is that Americans don't understand the
first sense at all. You have to say "pretty good" or something to have the
same effect.

~~~
bovine3dom
GLOWBE (which I linked above) has Americans in the wild using both senses of
quite. If anything it looks like they use it as an intensifier more often than
we do.

Wikipedia seems to be more in line with my experience, too:

> In AmE the word quite used as a qualifier is generally a reinforcement,
> though it is somewhat uncommon in actual colloquial American use today and
> carries an air of formality: for example, "I'm quite hungry" is a very
> polite way to say "I'm very hungry". In BrE quite (which is much more common
> in conversation) may have this meaning, as in "quite right" or "quite mad",
> but it more commonly means "somewhat", so that in BrE "I'm quite hungry" can
> mean "I'm somewhat hungry".

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_B...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_British_English)

~~~
globular-toast
GLOWBE seems to be stuff scraped from forums. Unless I'm missing something. I
think there's a huge difference with how "quite" is used in written and spoken
contexts.

The more I think about it, I think the word can mean quite a lot of things and
it's mostly driven by context and non-verbal cues.

~~~
bovine3dom
Yeah, it is stuff from forums and similar places.

It's interesting that you have such a different experience of it to me.

------
m463
This is a very long, debate-fueled, page.

It reminds me of the page on Toilet Paper[1].

It is 35,330 bytes

Meanwhile the page on Toilet Paper Orientation[2], of which there are two
choices:

\- OVER

\- UNDER

goes on and on, and manages to weigh in almost 50% larger than toilet paper at
49,667 bytes.

Amusingly, "vertical" is actually mentioned, but how a hero got that in, I
don't know. Probably killed or captured.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation)

~~~
YetAnotherNick
Is it just me or someone else also read all the 49,667 bytes of Toilet paper
orientation.

~~~
binarymax
Which conclusions have you drawn and have you changed to (or solidified) the
correct OVER orientation now?

~~~
6510
I have an interesting fact not mentioned in the article. Vandals may put the
end of the paper in the toilet before flushing. In the over orientation the
paper hangs closer to the toilet and is less likely to break.

~~~
binarymax
How many vandals are in your home? :)

------
cyborgx7
While most of these are very silly and fun, I have to admit that I do care
about some of them.

For example about the legitimacy of the "Nobel Prize in Economics" as a real
Nobel Prize.

In the end, the way history gets written is important for the propaganda of
the future. And Wikipedia is the primary authority on truth in the current
world. Wether we like it or not.

~~~
Tomte
That ship has sailed. The Nobel Foundation lists the economics prize alongside
the other ones.

If it's your word against theirs, you lose. No matter how "technically right"
you are. No matter what Wikipedia writes.

~~~
cyborgx7
Actually, I have found that if you point this out to people, for a lot of them
it will (rightfully) diminish their trust in the institution of the Nobel
Foundation, rather than increase their trust in the Economic Prize.

------
yummypaint
The section on images is great. Should there be a picture of a big spider on
the arachnophobia page? Which anus is most representative of humanity? The
(ro)bot wars section may be of particular interest to HN

~~~
stonecharioteer
I would like the photos on a phobia page to be blurred or to have a button
that hides by default. I have thalassophobia and gigantophobia. It's a weird
cross section of giant statues and depths. So I have a huge fear of bigass
statues partially or fully submerged. So needless to day, most of the posts on
/r/thalassophobia make me so scared. What if I want to reach out to that
subreddit for help and support in overcoming my fear? It's extremely scary.

~~~
swiley
If I where you I would open the page in elinks but I know not everyone uses
that regularly and might not be familiar with it.

------
yongjik
Glad to see both the Island of Dokdo (a.k.a. Takeshima) and Sea of Japan
(a.k.a. the East Sea) are recognized, but it missed my favorite(?) edit war:
was An(Ahn) Jung-geun, a Korean nationalist who shot and killed Japanese Prime
Minister Ito Hirobumi one year before Japan's annexation of Korea, a
terrorist? Should he be included in "Category: Terrorists"? You decide!

~~~
knolax
Calling An Jung-Geun a terrorist would be akin to calling George Washington a
terrorist. The difference between freedom fighter and terrorist may be murky
to some, but generally tact dictates that you don't call someone a terrorist
if his faction goes on to establish a recognized sovereign state, especially
if the side he was opposing was literally comitting genocide.

~~~
lifthrasiir
The word terrorist can have either a literal meaning (who intentionally uses
violence for their goals) or a politically charged meaning (who does that
illegitimately, with some---varying---definition of "illegitimately"). The
former is very clear, while everyone will have different opinions on the
latter (hey, I think the opposing state is still not compensating genocide's
victims). I wouldn't mind labelling An Jung-Geun as the former for that
reason, just make sure that the label is clearly documented.

~~~
dmos62
Those aren't the definitions I use. I'd argue a terrorist is someone whose
goal and/or means to achieve a goal is terror. Even further off topic, but I
really think we should dial down on usage of terrorist. A "terrorist" is first
and foremost a criminal, the rest is sensationalization and fear mongering.

~~~
jjgreen
In the UK, there are plenty of young Asian boys in prison on "Terrorist
related" offences: basically watching the wrong sort of videos online.

~~~
KMag
Note well: in AmE, "Asian" almost exclusively refers to East Asian or
Southeast Asian origin.

I can picture some of my friends back home wondering what some Japanese-Brit
kids are watching that gets them in so much trouble.

~~~
jjgreen
Thanks, noted. It's mostly Pakistani boys in Northern (English) cities in this
situation ...

------
jedberg
The saddest part about this page are the warnings and the fact that they felt
these needed to exist:

“This section is intended as humor. It is not, has never been, nor will ever
be, a Wikipedia policy or guideline. Rather, it illustrates standards or
conduct that are generally not accepted by the Wikipedia community.”

~~~
notRobot
It's not sad. Wikipedia is supposed to be a serious source of information, and
is used by people from all over the world, many of whom may not "get" this
kind of humour. The warnings make sense.

------
6nf
The lower the stakes the fiercer the competition

~~~
blaser-waffle
What's that Kissinger quote? Something like "the reason fights in academia are
so intense is because the stakes are so small."

------
incompatible
Not an edit war, but I was amazed at the time about the discussion over the
name of the Río de la Plata article, which just went on and on and on. I
didn't contribute. The article at the time was just a tiny stub.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:R%C3%ADo_de_la_Plata/name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:R%C3%ADo_de_la_Plata/name)

------
throwawayjava
The "Ethnic and national feuds" section seems like it gets a certain point
across: things that seem silly in current context were extraordinarily
important cultural touch-points at one point, and could well become so again.
E.g., the U2 Irish/UK thing. Easy to laugh at today, but equally easy to
understand why to some people at some point in time nationality difference
between Irish and UK really mattered. Most flamewars are just real arguments
that happen in the wrong time/place/tenor.

OFC some examples are clearly just the product of either drugs or a bad week,
or more likely both.

Kind of like reading slashdot articles about "websites", hacker news articles
about "capitalism", or newspaper article comment sections about "immigrants"
in the late 20th/early 21st century. Or whatever. You get the point ;)

~~~
MatekCopatek
Meh, dunno - a lot of people having strong opinions and emotions doesn't
really mean the fact they're discussing is important.

Let's say my parents are from A, I was born in B and live in C. There was an
important and well known historical conflict between A, B and C fueled by
nationalism at some point.

I am an established artist/scientist and I don't care about my own
nationality. Is it important that people flame about it on my wiki article?

------
cs02rm0
Has anyone ever made an edit on Wikipedia without someone trying to start an
edit war?

I think it's actually worse than StackOverflow.

~~~
kieckerjan
I dread making changes to wikipedia for this reason. You invest time and
energy to research something and write it up and then some semi anonymous
bastard comes along and deletes it. Frustrating and a waste of effort.

At least that was what I used to think until recently. I spotted such a
glaring omission on the Dutch wikipedia that I felt morally compelled to
remedy it myself. I did the edit and sure enough within five minutes I was
alerted that someone else had edited my edit.

Turns out he had just fixed a typo, sent me a thank you and added a new
section of his own on something unrelated. For what it is worth, it was an
uplifting little experience.

~~~
Jay2wu2u
I used to contribute a lot to wikipedia in its early days in the 2000' and
faced the same frustrating experience. I think this just happens to everybody,
from what I heard from other editors. I would expect it to be even worse now
that wp is well established and editors do not have to make a common front
against academics' denigration.

Still, wp is in my view easily the biggest achievement of the web, and I still
care for it. I would often fix small issues, like you mention, this does not
trigger any hostile response. Something else I found to work quite well to
contribute without risking annoying conflicts : to translate articles from
en.wp to other languages if their pages don't exist yet on the localized one.
And of course, there always need help to revert vandalisms.

Also, I would recommend against having an account. Being IP based editor makes
you more subject to scrutiny, but this prevents people deciding they don't
like you based on your history. That's an advice I would give for any public
discussion on the web, though (by always using fresh accounts).

~~~
ricardo81
While I used Wikipedia a lot and appreciate the generic layout which makes
things easier to find, it still is crowdsourced content creation that killed
off many independent content sites that provided their own value.

The web lowered the barrier to entry and the Wikipedia editorial system
somewhat raises it for anyone interested in creating something for the web.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> it still is crowdsourced content creation that killed off many independent
> content sites that provided their own value.

I'm not trying to "call you out" on this; I'm genuinely curious - do you have
anything to back up this assertion? I've had a couple of instances where I'd
written something on a topic that Wikipedia had inadequately covered, and
posted on the article's talk page. I included a link to my content, a note
that it was my original research, and asked that other editors consider adding
it as a source. In most instance - maybe every instance, as it's been a while
and I'm not even sure if I could find all the places I'd done that - it was
eventually cited and incorporated into the article.

~~~
ricardo81
Hi, no problem if you wish to call me out :-)

I think you may have slightly misunderstood me, as you make examples of times
where you've suggested edits to editors and they've been agreeable.

I was talking more along the lines of the syndication of content at scale,
perhaps a "death by a thousand papercuts (or citations)" scenario where
Wikipedia gets the pageviews, the visitors, the links.

For example, Wikipedia gets a lot of links as a 'credible' reference, and
tends to rank well in search engines for the topic titles due to this. This
pushes down all the other pages of course, including the pages that Wikipedia
uses as citations.

I feel that content has been homogenised and centralised too much, and could
go into that more but I'm sure you get my general gist, without any data to
back it up.

On the flip side, there is additional added value from something like
Wikipedia existing, like all the Natural Language Processor tools that get
trained up on well-formed and structured text.

~~~
Jay2wu2u
Note also that the centralization point is not necessarily true. On one hand,
yes totally, the process of gathering knowledge is centralized on
wikipedia.org . Although, it's not a place where original content is welcome,
so it still links to the sources. I guess that if SEO is of concern to you,
being linked by wikipedia probably have some value.

On the other hand, my usual way of reading wikipedia is by browsing localhost.
All data of wikipedia is open (you can actually download its database) and
under creative common, so it's perfectly legit to host it on your own computer
- quite the opposite of centralized, in that regard.

Of course, using the whole database with the whole history is not really
practicable nor useful, on a local computer. Personally, I use the dumps
generated by Kiwix, which only provide the last revision at the time of
generation of the dump. I download them using the torrents provided by Kiwix
and keep seeding them, so it can hardly be more decentralized, in that regard
:)

~~~
ricardo81
I wouldn't bother so much about the SEO angle as that's site owner's concern
if they wish to help search engines understand them better and/or try game
them - I'd say wrt search engines it's about the fact they're still the single
largest primary driver in how people find new pages, and generally how sites
get seen 'organically' without paying to be seen.

Yes, it's cool that the entire dataset is there to be downloaded and used as
you please. I have a parser written for it as part of a knowledge graph- don't
get me wrong there's good things about Wikipedia I think it just came with
collateral damage. Case in point is just searching for any wikipedia title and
seeing where it appears in search results, also most of the "knowledge panel"
results in major search engines are derived from Wikipedia/Wikidata and
deprive the original content creators of their visitors.

------
paganel
Re: Ányos Istvan Jedlik, I've had a uni colleague and former friend of mine
who shared a given name with this inventor and whose family name was 95%
similar to his, and seeing as we both live and used to study in Romania (where
even the ethnic Hungarians' family names don't generally sound like this) I
was curious at first what nationality he was, he told me that he's not sure
either, part-Hungarian, part-Slovak. Maybe a similar approach could have been
used in this inventor's case (i.e. using the "part-" thing)

~~~
MatekCopatek
Kudos for trying to find a sensible solution, but most of these disputes
aren't about determining which geographical area a person and/or their
ancestors stem from - that would be relatively simple to resolve with sources
which are typically available.

Modern nationality is a highly complex topic related to not only geography,
but also politics, language, religion etc. Often a dispute is not about
providing information on a historical figure, but about "claiming" important
people for your nation so that your collective "historical importance" is
increased.

------
omega3
It makes me wonder why are editorial pieces like this one hosted on official
wikipedia page.

Branding a discussion as a lame diminishes the importance of the discussion.
Taking as an example Chopin, the whole importance of of him being considered a
Pole is reduced (you can even see it in the comments in this thread) to
accusations of nationalism and tribalism. I'm worried that next time someone
tries to take a more nuanced, more informed approach to editing they will stop
themselves in the fear of being included in a piece like this.

~~~
huskyr
Note that this article is not hosted in the official 'article' namespace, but
in the 'Wikipedia' namespace (hence the Wikipedia: in the article title),
which is specifically reserved for non-encyclopaedic content, including
editorial pieces and opinions.

~~~
omega3
It's hosted on wikipedia.org, follows the stylesheet for Wikipedia articles
and below it states: "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

~~~
unethical_ban
The point made is that it is on a kind of "meta" article. In book terms,
imagine it being in some kind of "Extras" volume of the Encyclopaedia
Wikipedia, not under "L" for "Lame Edit Wars".

------
namenotrequired
I loved this detail under the discussion of Franz Liszt:

> This Liszt is incomplete; you can help Wikipedia by trying not to expand it
> further.

~~~
Tomte
Some list of serial killers or so (I cannot find it) also contained a plea not
to expand it.

~~~
37
Yes, it was [0] the list of serial killers by number of victims, but since has
changed [1] to say "You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced
entries."

[0] [https://i.imgur.com/hqiVtK6.png](https://i.imgur.com/hqiVtK6.png)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_numb...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_number_of_victims)

------
gwbas1c
This is dangerous:

> Be careful to avoid even the semblance of taking sides in the war. If one
> version was more or less accepted afterwards, it's OK to note that, but the
> fact that an edit war occurred means that neither side was "in the right all
> along".

What about when one party is actively spreading misinformation? A statement
that no one is never right in an edit war just gives misinformation
credibility.

(Examples could be that smoking is safe, climate change is a hoax, ect.)

~~~
chris_wot
Then it’s not lame. It’s quite serious.

------
TrackerFF
I'm surprised that there's no entry for "Is Finland part of Scandinavia?".
Always leads to heated debates with lots of technicalities.

~~~
boomlinde
As a Swede, I've honestly never heard this being debated.

~~~
freeflight
As a not-Swede, I know it as a friendly joke by Scandinavia and the World [0]

[0] [https://satwcomic.com/no-invitation](https://satwcomic.com/no-invitation)

------
milot
The upload war for the territory of Kosovo is not a lame one, it is still a
highly heated dialogue amongst politicians of both countries. While this topic
had consequences during the 1999 war between Kosovo and Serbia, is still
present today for which US is actively involved in this dialogue for that
particular map this wouldn't classify as lame.

~~~
MatekCopatek
An edit war being lame doesn't mean the article topic is lame. The lameness
comes from both sides taking their own opinion and using the article to
present it as the one and only truth.

An atheist and a christian could have an edit war on the article of Jesus,
changing it between "Son of God and our Saviour" and "fairy tale character
used to control masses", which would be absolutely lame despite the objective
importance of the religious figure in question.

And while sensible people can at least resolve religious issues by accepting
that they simply have opposing beliefs and no ability to disprove the other
side, politics are even more complex in the sense that they include a lot of
historical facts, not just ideological beliefs. This makes it more likely for
people to feel like their truth is objective.

~~~
milot
Understood, but again this is not an easy topic such as the example you gave
between an Atheist and a Christian. This is something tangible which is still
present and not something fictional or a belief.

~~~
MatekCopatek
This is what I was referring to in my last paragraph. We didn't discover
concepts like country and nation, we invented them. They're very real and have
a profound effect on our lives, but at the same time they are completely
fictional. If everyone ceases to believe in them, they disappear.

------
ericzawo
This. This is what the internet is all about.

------
kyle-rb
I enjoyed the C# section on whether it's a real sharp sign or a plain
octothorpe:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars#C#](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars#C#)

> The issue was resolved with an e-mail exchange with Microsoft stating that
> in their view it's an octothorpe symbol representing the sharp symbol,
> similar to how "<=" represents the less than or equal symbol, and that thus
> Microsoft does not disagree with ECMA. Written "Netscape" but pronounced
> "Mozilla", eh?

------
Kyro38
Endive ou Chicon ?

[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Guerres_d%27%C3...](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Guerres_d%27%C3%A9dition_les_plus_futiles)

~~~
reyqn
Is chicon the new chocolatine?

------
mertnesvat
After reading some of them, it became obvious nationality and the race always
creates a funny conflict :)

In good dishes like hummus or people who accomplished something, all
nationalities want to be part of their success.

------
umaar
I repurposed a WebGL globe to visualise anonymous Wikipedia edits made around
the world: [https://umaar.com/globe/](https://umaar.com/globe/)

This is the original, which visualised tweets:
[https://github.com/cedricpinson/globetweeter](https://github.com/cedricpinson/globetweeter)

~~~
asaibx
Beautiful! Reminds me a bit of Hatnote's Listen to Wikipedia [0].

[0]: [http://listen.hatnote.com/](http://listen.hatnote.com/)

------
aaron695
Go meta meta, you know you want to -

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:La...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Lamest_edit_wars&offset=&limit=500&action=history)

------
gerdesj
Well there's a thing: There are two types of vampire hunter here in the
UKoGB&NI!

"two opposing factions of British vampire hunters (the "orthodox" Vampire
Research Society and the "revisionist" Highgate Vampire Society, "

~~~
HeadsUpHigh
Die heretic!

------
reificator
I'm quite fond of the Star_trek: INto DaRkneSS edit war that was covered by
XCKD awhile back.

[https://xkcd.com/1167/](https://xkcd.com/1167/)

------
geoffbp
Oh geez, some people have a lot more spare time than me

~~~
LyndsySimon
... or some people have radically different priorities :)

------
iron0013
Wow, there are an awful lot of articles plagued by eastern European
nationalists trying to re-write history and reality!

------
WCityMike
"Wikipedia is a MMORPG for bureaucrats."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_an_MMOR...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_an_MMORPG)

------
skrap
Most of these are about people's (or groups') nationality. Man, tribalism
sucks!

~~~
noizejoy
> tribalism sucks

Arguably tribalism is just the consequence of our species being social
animals, and therefore at the core of our essence - for better and worse ...

~~~
jccalhoun
[citation needed]

~~~
noizejoy
lol - were you still in wikipedia editor mode when you wrote that?

Or do you really feel that my comment needed a citation here on HN (Hacker
News)? And if it’s the latter, I’m genuinely curious what the proper HN
etiquette would be.

My comment wasn’t attempting to be particularly scholarly or to be included in
a referencable work.

Quite honestly, I wouldn’t know which reference to pull? Wikipedia? A highly
Google ranked Psychology Today magazine article (q=
difference+between+tribalism+vs+social+behaviour) ? The entire Google search
result link?

At least 2 of the above options might have been interpreted as condescending,
and the other one an almost random pick, the randomness of it becoming a
potential point of critique.

So I’m genuinely curious how I might have done better.

~~~
jccalhoun
It was half joking. On the serious side, I am always skeptical of claims about
human nature.

~~~
noizejoy
and here I thought that using “arguably” in my post would communicate that not
everyone might agree. - Oh well ...

------
Jay2wu2u
A funny effect of this page : it seems to me that the discussion around it on
HN is way less bitterly contradictory than usual. Well, that's my impression
at least, I haven't measured it.

------
anigbrowl
Encyclopaedia Dramatica was an entire (and large) wiki written almost
exclusively in this irreverent-to-obnoxious tone, but the entire site is
offline because the administrator went to jail for something that isn't even
interesting.

Well, there's always [http://n-gate.com/](http://n-gate.com/)

------
schmudde
Wow. This is the perfectly self-referential Wikipedia entry that post-post-
modernist plebs want and deserve.

------
yitchelle
How some of these edits are not attributed to trolling, I don't know.

------
mrcartmenez
Oh god that was lame

------
einpoklum
Not all these wars are lame:

> Various supporters of the US Libertarian party (founded in

> 1971) argue that they own the meaning of the word

> 'libertarian', that placing it next to 'socialism' is a

> contradiction in terms, and hence that libertarian socialism

> (described circa 1850) cannot possibly have existed. An edit

> war and request-for-deletion war ensues.

The question of the meaning of "liberty" and the compatibility of liberty with
socialized means of production (and the meaning of "socializing") is quite a
deep subject. So, not lame.

~~~
drngdds
It's still quite lame to try and get the article deleted based on that.
Libertarian socialism is an ideology which exists and is noteworthy enough to
get an encyclopedia article, whether or not the name is self-contradictory.

~~~
einpoklum
I don't think the deletion is appropriate, but what appears to some people as
petty or lame may be ideologically significant to others.

------
downshun
Wasting time about wasting time. So meta.

------
6510
These are hardly as lame as it gets.

~~~
OrgNet
That is Wikipedia (you know what to do)

~~~
6510
I gave up long ago. There are guidelines for everything but it takes 1000
times the so called established editors time to enforce them. Very few people
are willing to take up tasks like that. Those who do might be unable to write
articles which makes their review more of an outside look. I don't see a way
to progress.

Its a kind of public secret that one should avoid working on topics where
editors might disagree. I find those to be the more interesting ones.

------
chkaloon
I just came here because "The Intervention of the Sabine Women" is one of my
favorite paintings.

~~~
ggm
My mum,an art historian took us to the Louvre as kids and this picture is
"nice firemen rescuing women". the gericault "raft of medusa" will always be
"the Tintin picture" As well (same trip).

~~~
chkaloon
I saw it at the Louvre as well. I saw it as a group of women taking charge
because the men were being a-holes.

------
interblag
This opinion could easily spark one of these wars, but I really wish a global
community like Wikipedia wouldn't use ablest language in a title of a post
like this...

(caveating that I realize the concept of caring about ablest language is
relatively new for most people, and that this type of language is deeply
ingrained in our cultural subconscious, but it still doesn't cost much to try
to avoid it where we can...)

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
"lame" is one of those words where virtually nobody uses it in its original
sense of "unable to walk properly because of a problem with one's feet or
legs". In fact, I suspect that if you polled a random set of teenage users of
the word, few would even know this meaning, much less intend it when accusing
a TV show, a new flavor of Doritos or their parents of being "lame".

As a somewhat tenuous comparison, should we stop saying "goodbye" because it
used to mean "God be with ye" and it's taking God's name in vain?

~~~
davb
> As a somewhat tenuous comparison, should we stop saying "goodbye" because it
> used to mean "God be with ye" ...

Thanks for a wonderful piece of trivia to start the week. I had no idea this
was the source of the word, but it sure was [0]. And equally fascinating,
good-day [1] predates good-bye by around 400 years.

[0] [https://www.etymonline.com/word/good-
bye](https://www.etymonline.com/word/good-bye)

[1] [https://www.etymonline.com/word/good-
day](https://www.etymonline.com/word/good-day)

