User talk:HerscheltheHerschel/How to stop an edit war

Don't delete

I clarified the "preferred term". - User:HerscheltheHerschel

Even with the clarification (which seems to contain a typo at the moment) I think confocaloid is right about "preferred term" not being a very useful rule of thumb for trying to stop an edit war.

As an example, let's look at the 'transition' vs. 'condition' issue where you (Haycat2009) tried to apply this rule recently (though most of those posts have been reported, and were deleted recently). There honestly isn't just one "preferred term". There are two terms, preferred in different situations by different people. Trying to use that rule of thumb will only move the argument to the question of which term is "really" the preferred one.

If there's a dispute, there probably isn't actually one uncontroversial "preferred term". It's probably complicated. My opinion is that the really useful rule of thumb would be

when there are multiple terms in common use, be careful not to try to pick one of them and say that it's the "right" one. Let people use whatever term they prefer, until a consensus emerges naturally (if it's going to).

-- All of that said, it rarely seems like a good idea to put proposed-deletion tags on someone else's user page, unless there's something really damaging or rule-breaking on it. That doesn't seem to be the case here, so I would vote to not delete this page. Dvgrn (talk) 02:01, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Are you referring to me or HerscheltheHerschel? That post you linked is not mine. Haycat2009 (talk) 04:50, 21 December 2023 (UTC)