QUOTE(UseOnceAndDestroy @ Wed 6th May 2009, 8:40am)
QUOTE(trenton @ Wed 6th May 2009, 3:43pm)
Yes, but what exactly do you do if you don't edit war? The other side ... can talk indefinitely. Try to find consensus? ... You won't find consensus that the earth is not flat.
Uh-huh - that's exactly the process that wikipedia encourages, in the absence of named expert authority with a final say on content.
More accurately, a systematic lack of authorities, and ways to identify them, combined with an elevation of amateurs to an equal status with experts, and then a lack of process by which even learned people can reach and protect a consensus from eroding.
As has been said before:
"Wikipedia is a system that ensures that twenty idiots and one expert are indistinguishable from twenty-one idiots". It's a crude, infantile parody of an academic peer-review system, with results similar to what you would get if you gave a pound of flour, some eggs, milk, and oil to a toddler and told them to make pancakes.