Or consider this list of the _lamest_ edit wars:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars</a><p>Everything from edit wars over fictional waterfowl to the correct size of the Death Star in Star Wars. Read at your own risk.
Mostly not surprising other than the list of WWE employees...?<p>There was a "famous" flame and revert war in Wikipedia's early days over the city of Gdansk/Danzig. A Wikipedia archive page: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-03-07/Gdansk_or_Danzig" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/20...</a>
I'd really like to see this kind of analysis in the non-western wikipedia sites. From the little I know, some languages have very different focuses on wikipedia compared to the west.<p>IIRC Japan has massive info and edits into pop culture, celebrities and manga/anime, and comparatively little in areas like politics, history and science.<p>(one of the longest lasting edit wars there is with respect to the lead singer of the band *l'arc en ciel's (hyde) height, which by urban legend is said to be 156cm, which in netslang is now a unit of measurement where 1 hyde = 156cm)
Link to the PDF being referenced: <a href="http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1305/1305.5566.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1305/1305.5566.pdf</a><p>My favorite is the top result in Hungary: <i>Gypsy Crime</i>.
The German list is a bit odd, particularly #1. I guess there's some edit war over the war since there are quite a few German speaking folks from all over the Balkan living in Germany, Austria etc....<p>* Croatia<p>* Scientology<p>* 9/11 conspir
acy theories<p>* Fraternities<p>* Homeopathy<p>* Adolf Hitler<p>* Jesus<p>* Hugo Chávez<p>* Minimum wage<p>* Rudolf Steiner<p>Interesting that Chile is #1 for es, Opus Dei #3
This isn't about the most controversial topics, it's about which ones are tactically up for grabs. Many very controversial topics have a well-ensconced dogmatic view on Wikipedia (just not outside).
I am not sure that the edit wars reveal correctly the controversial topics. Edit wars also show pages where contributors are more beginners, like perhaps 'List of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. employees'. Lots of new contributors don't understand the rules and try to push their edits by editing a few time a page.<p>The paper takes into account the weight of an editor – "The weight of an editor x is defined
as the number of edits N performed by him or her" – without distinction between small and large edits for instance. Is it really a relevant metric?
Here is the list for all the languages: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/fMGvxHJ.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/fMGvxHJ.png</a><p>Source Article:
<a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14472718/wikipedia%20controversial.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14472718/wikipedia%20con...</a>
I would really like to so a correlation between the quality of a article, and how much edit warring that been done. Looking at the list, some of the corresponding articles have even been marked as GA (like #1 with most edit wars).