Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Admin noticeboard/Archive 2014

Revisiting the elephants in the room

Konig and Santax have been a plague on this wiki's smooth running for some time now. Both self-appointed lore experts, they cannot tolerate any other user (especially each other) editing their contributions... despite the note at the bottom of literally every page telling them not to submit it if they can't handle edits. Konig had a long history of it on GWW, chasing away or bullying other users into leaving "his" lore section alone. When Santax stepped up to the lore plate on GW2W, Konig found an opponent (in his view, anyway - a user contesting his lore crown) he couldn't scare away. The result was disastrous, with each user harassing the other one, stalking each other's edits, reporting each other to the noticeboard like kids in elementary school, leaving passive-aggressive (and sometimes outright aggressive) edit summaries to each other on articles... the list goes on. After multiple attempts to reach each user, it became clear neither one had an interest in self-improvement; both sides felt the blame was 100% on the other person, and nothing they could possibly do would alleviate some of the drama the wiki was being bogged down by. Their blind zeal both ironic and disruptive, the wiki had to start weighing its pros and cons in keeping them around. Pling laid down the hammer for a short term ban, caught them both evading, and laid down another one for 6 months.
In the interim, Konig and I had a chat on GWW, where he basically refuted any wrongdoing on his part and acted like the bans just fell out of the sky. This tallies with the behavior from both users on the noticeboard over time, with each one focusing solely on the others transgressions and being unable to admit their own faults. Users with good intentions and no ability to work as part of a greater collective have been pruned from this wiki already; I think it's time we decide if that's what we want to happen here.
For now, Konig has "quit." I doubt it will last very long; he'll become increasingly annoyed that Santax is "ruining" lore articles with speculation until he "has to" come back to fix them. The two will not play nice with each other - they never have, and after serving multiple bans (or evading, as the case may be) their behavior has not improved whatsoever. Do we sysops want to side with one or the other? Konig seems to favor cold, hard fact and requires sources for all information; Santax is much looser with facts and includes entire paragraphs of unconfirmed content at whim (largely the topic of their unending war). Between the two, I'd say Konig's ideals fit more closely with what a wiki should be - a website documenting a game. If we had to "side" with one party and lay down the law, I'd favor Konig's method.
But is keeping either of them around worth the cost? I've received a handful of emails over the years from users complaining about Konig's mistreatment of them, his failure to collaborate and his tremendous arrogance preventing civilized discussion from taking place, resulting in the users simply giving up and letting Konig reign over his lore kingdom. After years of getting away with that behavior, he seems to think it's perfectly normal, and that compromising is for chumps - leading to the massive conflict with Santax. Even if the wiki "sided" with Konig's preference for facts and cited sources, Konig's behavior is often less than savory, and he would see any action taken against Santax as clear proof that he "won" the argument and take it as a sign he's free to continue his old behavior. I don't think he can change - I don't think either can. They've had their chances, and they've blown them arguing over minutia.
Pling stood alone in his decision to punish both parties, as far as I know, but I think the wiki (and its sysop staff) needs to address this issue once and for all. We got rid of the arbcomm process with the assumption that sysops can handle even the hardest cases, and this seems to be that hardest case. To summarize my thoughts: both users are a detriment to the wiki as it stands. Keeping both of them together is out of the question - their history attests to that. Keeping one or the other smells a fair bit like playing favorites, and even if we went with my choice (Konig) we'd have a host of problems stemming from that... namely Konig reverting to past behavior and lording over "his" lore section again. We've given them chances to improve, each trusted opportunity broken by bickering or ban evasion. I would not be opposed to a permanent ban of both parties at this point. Thoughts? -Auron 10:16, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I know this isn't what you're saying, but what it feels like you're saying is "Konig ragequit the wiki, so it's only fair that we block Santax". Everything in this, and the discussions above, feels like "it's six of one, and half a dozen of the other", and although it's the easiest thing to do to wearily shake your head and state that we're both as bad as each other, it's also a lazy conclusion, and I urge you to re-examine it. This happened last time, as well—of course, I'd still deny that I evaded my block last time round, since it'd be pretty stupid to report Konig for doing so if that was what I was also doing—but even if I had, it would have been six of one and 261 of the other. And yet, we were given the same block, and now once again, we are being treated as if we are just as bad as one another. I don't "harass" Konig, I avoid him as much as humanly possible, and I don't stalk his edits—again, I avoid articles that he's edited/rewritten for as long as possible, precisely to avoid this kind of conflict. And again, I don't ever leave aggressive or passive-aggressive edit summaries (with one recent excecption, which I will admit was totally out of order), because I'm not petty like that—and even if I was, I'm not looking to get blocked again. Look through my contribs, look at the edit summaries and you'll find that what you're saying just isn't the case. Whatever my faults, I can and do try to play nice with others.

I don't swear at new users, and I don't throw my rattle out the pram when a previously civil discussion isn't going my way. I don't put petty, unprovoked rants on my talk page, looking to start arguments for no reason. Although I would like to make a small correction to one thing you said further down that page, here, namely that I "encountered" Konig for the first time on GW2W. I have actually been an editor here sine 2007—I was 14 when I made my first GWW edit, and 15 when I made my first GW2W edit. I have been doing this for a very long time, and I don't feel like I receive a lot of thanks for it, probably because I don't socialise with any of you guys off-wiki (or even on-wiki, to be honest, other than to talk about editing) and fewer people notice me for it. I don't have a problem with this—there's plenty of users who do far, far more an me for far less praise, and it was my choice to not to engage with the community, after all. But I have done a lot for the wiki, and I'm disappointed that you could even think that keeping me around would not be worth the "cost".

Now, I don't think blocking us both would improve the wiki in any way, nor would it serve the best interests of the wiki. If Konig really has left, it means that there's only one lore editor left, and if you block me, there'll be none. If you block me and Konig comes back, there will still only be one because—using your words here, not mine—Konig frequently bullies other editors off the wiki. Which is precisely why we only have two lore editors to begin with. Seriously, we've spent so long treating the fact that GW2W isn't as well-maintained as GWW as a mystery, when this has been staring us in the face. Who would want to be adding new lore every two weeks with each Living World release, as well as maintaining older articles, when Konig is the self-appointed official GW2W loremaster.

I suppose my question to you is this: what would you have me do? You say that multiple attempts were made to reach out to me, but it honestly doesn't feel to me that this was ever the case. Like I said, nobody pays me much attention except when there's a dispute, and although that's fine, it does feel like a bit of a slap in the face to say that I have no interest in self-improvement when it feels like I've been editing in a vacuum for so long. Whatever my faults are, they are not unworkable, and none of them are nearly as bad as causing even one single user to want to stop editing, something which Konig has been doing for years without reprisal. That is inexcusable, and so is the fact that you were aware of it (seriously, I thought you just hadn't noticed, but you've been receiving emails for years?) and did nothing.

If I was not, as you said of me on Konig's GWW talk page, "just as bullheaded as you [Konig] were, just as unwilling to compromise", then I guess I would have quit the wiki long ago, like every other would-be lore editor that had to contend with Konig. And if that had been the case, this discussion never would have happened, and Konig would still be driving away editors who, like me, only ever wanted to document the lore of the game. From what you're saying above, it seems that you're proposing to kick me off the wiki, because I refused to be bullied off the wiki. --Santax (talk · contribs) 13:50, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Let's talk about this speculation thing

I made another section for this, because it seems to be somewhat separate to the issue of whether further administrative action to be taken, specifically

“

For now, Konig has "quit." I doubt it will last very long; he'll become increasingly annoyed that Santax is "ruining" lore articles with speculation until he "has to" come back to fix them. The two will not play nice with each other - they never have, and after serving multiple bans (or evading, as the case may be) their behavior has not improved whatsoever. Do we sysops want to side with one or the other? Konig seems to favor cold, hard fact and requires sources for all information; Santax is much looser with facts and includes entire paragraphs of unconfirmed content at whim (largely the topic of their unending war). Between the two, I'd say Konig's ideals fit more closely with what a wiki should be - a website documenting a game. If we had to "side" with one party and lay down the law, I'd favor Konig's method.

— Auron

You say Konig likes sources, but he frequently removes them from articles, in this example asserting that "We only reference non-game sources and non-wiki articles" as if it was discussed and decided upon by anyone other than himself, but doesn't link to any guideline or discussion (if one even exists). Imagine how confusing that could be to a new editor. And yet, he never asks for them. Konig believes his knowledge of lore is so complete that if he sees an edit that adds something he doesn't recognise, then rather than make a note on their talk page or the article talk page asking for a source (hell, we even have a {{citation needed}}), he just assumes that the editor is wrong and removes it (two examples from the last few days, off the top of my head). This is my biggest gripe with Konig, and has been for a very long time. And it is something he has never tried to change. The stuff I love to document more than anything is the obscure stuff, that's easily missed, so how am I supposed to work with Konig on that? (imo, anything that is obscure or likely to be challenged should require a citation, but I don't bother anymore because Konig just removes them).
My other problem with Konig is that his standard required for evidence is too high, but also inconsistent. He requires a dev or an NPC to say something explicitly before it can be included on the wiki, and even then, recently he has been documenting things with the assumption that the NPC's are lying and the devs are wrong. This has come up before, on Talk:Elder Dragon, when Konig wanted us not to document the possibility that Zone Green had anything to do with the Elder Dragons, which seemed incredibly likely even back in 2012, and now seems to absolutely be the case with the awakening of Mordremoth. During that discussion it was commented, to quote pling, that "The game is more than just dialogue, and documenting the game is more than just copying dialogue. I feel it's a bit of a disservice to readers not to include the large, plot-related/world-scale ideas that are inferred or deduced from the game. ANet likes to imply stuff when it comes to lore, and that's as much a part of the game as a quest or item". This, I think, is the crux of the issue between me and Konig. And it creates problems, because it means that important things that are never stated explicitly and repeatedly by some exposition fairy in each instance (which wouldn't make for great storytelling, btw) go undocumented, and like all good editors that is something I hate to see.
And yet, occasionally, he's happy to use "logical deductions" of his own as the basis for edits. Konig is actually fine with speculation—when he agrees with it. It's when the stuff that (to use pling's words) is implied by ANet disagrees with his theories that he removes it. And before you accuse me of accusing Konig of basing his edits on his own opinions about the lore, let me clarify that this is absolutely what I am doing. He's no made secret of the fact that he doesn't like how the lore is being handled by the devs—this is one of the things he cited last time he did this, and I suspect it's why he exploded out of nowhere here. And the aggressive and territorial manner with which Konig "debunks" the theories of others on the official forums is well known, but never did I expect that he would speak to the writers themselves in that way, and then complain about it in the references section on mainspace. Here is a good example of this - the Fractals of the Mists depict events in Tyria's past, not always exactly but usually with a good degree of accuracy. And yet Konig asks us that despite that the Thaumanova Anomaly is depicted as existing in the Thaumanova Reactor Fractal, we should say that "it is unclear" whether it ever existed in reality. To a user reading that, it could seem as if there is actually some remote probability that it didn't exist in reality, when we have nothing but Konig's own deductions to support this. The edit summary makes things clear - Konig has a theory that "a dev post during Cutthroat Politics hinted at chaos magic interacting with the Mists resulting in something "epic" - this could be that".
Now, none of this is to say that I am a perfect editor, or even anything close. I am absolutely capable of playing too fast and loose with the lore, getting too excited by new lore and adding things to the wiki before reading it more carefully, or checking for more sources (I'm even reddit famous, although I would dispute those two particular cases). The most egregious examples of these were, in the discussion on Zone Green above, when I added that "when the golem guard is defeated, it leaves a binary message which spells out 'PALE TREE'" because WoodenPotatoes had said so (he, like me, had heard it and not bothered to check), or when I thought that Mordremoth had got a Twitter account. These were both stupid things to do, but are they bannable offenses? I am trying to do things differently now. I am trying to use the exact wording of NPC's or devs when describing something as much as possible to avoid inserting my own interpretation (examples [1], [2], [3]), but now now Konig has a problem with doing that. So again, I ask—what am I to do? Because contrary to what you say, I feel like the only user who has ever actually attempted to "reach out" and discuss this on any level beyond individual cases before today, is, ironically enough, User:Konig Des Todes. --Santax (talk · contribs) 13:50, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Returning to Auron's point

@Auron: thanks for posting. I had an initial gut reaction to the situation when I saw Konig's ragequit "toodles," but I've reconsidered based on your comments.

My recommendation would be to give each one more chance: suspend them both for directly and indirectly interfering with the smooth operation of the wiki(s). I think even a month makes the point: this is the absolutely final chance to change their individual and collective behavior and that any attempt to circumvent the suspension or ignore the spirit of administrative reaction will result in complete revocation of their editing privileges, at least under those userIDs. They should both recognize by now this isn't about the merits of their edits, it's about how poorly they collaborate with the community.

Alternatively, Santax and Konig could be restricted to editing talk pages only (assuming that's technically feasible.) That would force them to actually establish a consensus for deciding whether an interpretation is reasonable or overly speculative before updating the article. It would also require that their arguments are sufficient to convince someone else to update the relevant article(s). (I'm willing to volunteer for that task.)

"History never lies. Historians, however..." I don't think people realize just how tricky it is to update lore. When we have explicit quotes from devs or copious amounts of "facts" that we can take from the game, lore is easy. But most of the time, we have a tiny amount of "data" that we want to turn into legible prose and, as with any historical analysis, that requires interpretation. Unfortunately, the line between that and speculation is thin and it's easy to disagree.

That makes us lucky to have two people like Konig and Santax that are smart and dedicated enough to track down seemingly unrelated quotes/events and blend them together into something worth documenting. Alas, both tend to elevate their theories into "facts" when someone posts an alternative point of view. The ideas of others are dismissed as speculation, misinformation, or as a misunderstanding (always by the other editor) of an obscure point of lore. Unfortunately, for Konig and Santax, they are sometimes absolutely correct. But more often, they are merely "less wrong" and sometimes, they are themselves engaged in the same practices that annoy the two of them: speculating from too little information and ignoring inconvenient "facts" that don't support their hypotheses.

Of course, that's a perfectly reasonable human reaction: as noted above, documenting lore is tricky. The problem is that neither Konig nor Santax are able to consistently reconsider their own viewpoint and rather than wasting my time bashing my head against that particular wall, I have decided to avoid even reading their lore-related edits. I agree with Auron that Santax tends to come up with theories based on less "evidence" and Konig tends to be more rigorous about documenting sources, but my impression is it just makes it that much more difficult to hold a discussion about how to interpret those sources.

To repeat my tl;dr at the top: I support Auron's idea that "something" should be done. I support his overall idea that any sysop could take action now and I applaud him for first asking for our thoughts. While I wouldn't argue against a perma-ban, I would prefer to see one last chance, especially in a way that allows us to redirect their passion productively, i.e. restrict their edits to talk pages so they actually have to, you know, discuss their ideas first. After all, the disruption we see is based on a general unwillingness to help establish a consensus before engaging in edit wars. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 17:03, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

accountname = ( "Konig Des Todes" | "Santax" ) & action = "edit" & article_namespace = "0"

easy enough to prevent them editing mainspace articles... you might end up with dozens of "requests" with feature length texts written out on talk pages though :/ --5.67.233.114 17:28, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

((accountname = "Konig Des Todes") & ("Santax" in article_recent_contributors)) | ((accountname = "Santax") & ("Konig Des Todes" in article_recent_contributors))
& action = "edit" & article_namespace = "0"

it would equally be possible to setup a filter to stop them from editing pages in which A) they have both appeared in the last 10 editors (and on lore articles that would mean neither could edit most of them :p) or B) the other has appeared in the last 10 editors list (this is what I've shown above in blue). --Chieftain Alex 17:38, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Pointless for I won't be coming back in the foreseeable future. Konig 17:47, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

That would actually exactly the sort of arbitration action I was hoping for, IP. If us trying to work together really isn't working, just keep us separated. It's less destructive than jut banning us both, and much less hassle for you, TEF, than having to read through a short essay each time we want to update a page (although I admire the bravery it took to volunteer). Would it be possible to use some sort of time-based filter? Like, we can't edit a mainspace article if the other has appeared in the last five editors within the last thirty days? Just so older, more obscure articles are excluded. On an unrelated note, the Saga of Konig and Santax, as told by Thalador. --Santax (talk · contribs) 21:22, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Do me a favor, and tell me which username do you go by on the forum? (drax?)

As to "time based" + last user combination filters, that I don't think that is possible I'm afraid. The only options we have to play with are those listed on mw:Extension:AbuseFilter/Rules format#All variables. (can't do a time comparison between last edit date + current date, and the lasteditors thing is fixed on 10 editors.) -Chieftain Alex 21:53, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I didn't realise the IP was you, sorry. As Konig said, I go by Tamias on the forum. And that's fine, I just saw the wiki magic above and started believing anything was possible, heh. --Santax (talk · contribs) 23:13, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to disagree on any suggestion on a partial ban. The user is voluntarily making the choice to edit the wiki, whether it's the article or the talk page, and is held responsible for all their contributions. If they aren't allowed to edit articles, they aren't allowed to participate in discussion.--Relyk ~ talk < 23:16, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Enough

I came back because of TEF's emails to me just to look at what he meant by "Auron's points on the admin noticeboard" and while I have not read this huge wall of text, let me explain in a bit more details why I am quitting the wiki:

1. Santax is not the sole issue. He's just the biggest and most constant. The issue isn't that we cannot get along, nor that I dislike him personally - we've interacted on the official wiki with a lot less hostility half the time, and I hold no issue with him on a personal level (I cannot speak for the other way and given his initial hostility, I'm doubtful). My issue with Santax is that he continues the same editing habits that he has held since way back on GWW in 2007 (specifically in that edit "Rumours persist that a powerful and valuable object, perhaps a weapon, lies within the tomb it now guards zealously." coming from a line from the Scribe newsletters talking about "treasure" with no hints to what said treasure is). Let me state this: Santax certainly has good intentions, he goes about to improve lore articles which are lacking. The issue is that even when told he continues past mistakes (just one of many, many examples). This means that someone has to follow him around and fix these mistakes - something I've taken up because I hold a rigorous "no speculation" rule on the wiki (rather than "I hold" I should state "I keep up GWW's rule of this over here too" - it is not my rule, in fact I seldom made any rules, I just maintain what was consensus for 'rules') and was called out for. And I for one am sick and tired of it, especially when I get called out with things like "This looks like a move to reinforce your own personal theories" over here, or strawman arguments like this or outright statements of "probably the case, so we should put it up as the case." He even repeats the same action when he agrees with fixing it earlier (most recent case).
   • For clarity, the issue in his edits is that he puts what he thinks falls under Occam's Razor as facts. Be they minor subjects, or major [[Entity|ones]]. This act of putting the "most likely" case leads him to put a LOT of speculation up throughout. It makes sense, it seems reasonable, but it's still just theorycrafting - and that stuff doesn't belong on a wiki that denotes facts, not players' thoughts.
   • And on a side thought, another reason why I dislike Santax's edits is because he writes them as if one were writing a description in a novel. What made me realize this was his line on Age of Giants that I made clearer that was "Given the oral nature of the jotun historical texts, and the scarcity of jotun historians (Thruln is the last), the veracity of this account of history cannot be stated with any certainty. Certainly, there are no other known other historical accounts that corroborate this version of history."
2. I decided to leave primarily because I'm tired of having what was recreation and stress-removing being the opposite - feeling like work and inducing stress. Most (possibly solely) of the reason being point 1 as said.
3. I will not come back, even if Santax is banned. So rather than banning him, it'd be more productive to either get Santax to fix his mistakes or to find someone to follow him and be capable of putting up with his backlashes which exist because - as it seems to me - that he doesn't like his "move to reinforce [his] own personal theories" being redacted - something he's done before. And if this is insulting - sorry, I'm tired of the kiddy gloves.

I don't really care either way on what's done. I felt like since this is about me, I should chime in. The ironic bit was that I first started this section to say "nothing needs to be done" and yet went on a rant for why I left in the utmost detail while being concise. Konig 17:47, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I realized I fell into my bad habit of lawyering, and will just state that everything following and including is exactly what I wanted to avoid when I decided to quit editing. I hold issues, Santax holds issues. I don't have the patience to work through more stress-inducing arguments where I'm dealing with strawman arguments on a regular basis. I'm stubborn and a completionist, but I've given up. So I request everyone to just drop this, because it's obvious that no one who has the authority wants to do anything but sit on their Ass until there actually is a problem that cannot be avoided, and the solution is always the way to get those people out of the responsibility their position holds.

So stop. Do nothing like you all want to do (and don't insult mine or Santax's intelligence by arguing otherwise). I'm solving the issue my own way, because no one else wants to. I'll monitor this discussion alone, but that is all. And I don't intend, presently, to make another comment. If you want to talk to me, you can email me. Konig 23:05, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

unhelpful peanut gallery subheader

“

konig and santax feel the fault lies 100% with the other user and accuse each other like elementary school children on the admin noticeboard

— Auron

>be on admin noticeboard
>section about konig and santax
>konig and santax respond with massive walls of text
>majority of text is accusations of wrongdoing of other user
65.190.6.18 20:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

yea they have both had a chance to make statements. Hopefully we can see more from other users right now I like the idea of restricting them to talk pages or at least santax (because I know of at least one instance were he ignored a active discussion and went ahead with disputed edits) but i would like to see more discussion.- Zesbeer 20:44, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Boy oh boy is this ever a mess. Well, it would be if I weren't antisocial and had any sort of problem with banning them both forever - with Claret thrown in as a bonus, just because. I feel like this position would not be well supported so I suppose I should say some other words. Before I get into it I want to point out that, while I have read the whole discussion above, and skimmed the especially contentious discussions, I've only recently met both Konig and Santax and therefore might make mistakes. If that should happen, deal with it.

Santax's edits are too speculative. He doesn't want the wiki to be dry and full of phrases like "of an unknown nature" or "for uncertain reasons", and so he fills in the blanks with what he thinks is most likely. However in a game like this, that's constantly changing and being revised, uncertainties are expected. Not every blank needs to be filled in and in his desire to try, he makes too many logical leaps. He seems to want to use occam's razor aggressively to put in a theory (that makes relatively few assumptions, granted), when no theory is present. He needs to accept that sometimes, the best explanation you can provide is none at all.

Konig on the other hand is too strict. For him everything has a right and a wrong answer. His answer is, in all fairness, usually the most "right", it doesn't need to be so absolute. This is a player edited wiki for a dynamic game, not the encyclopedia britannica. You don't need to ruthlessly hunt out the absolute truth, because there is none. There's going to be some speculation to some extent and he just needs to deal with it. Sure, speculation to the extent of Santax shouldn't be allowed, but some should be allowed. If something is unequivocally wrong, then it can be removed, but if something is unclear, there's no good reason why some reasonable speculation can't be accommodated. Also I'd just like to add that I find discounting something that some NPC says because they're "wrong" is pretty silly. When two official sources contradict each other, presenting both of the cases should be encouraged, if for no other reason than maybe anet will fix one or the other.

So what's to be done with Konig and Santax? I think that they should be given one last chance to play nice, cooperate, collaborate, and most importantly, accept compromises that make nobody happy. Are you stupid enough to disagree with Bill Watterson? No, you're not, and if you are, nobody asked you Claret. In addition, they should follow the following list of followable guidelines, presented one following the other:

Konig

1. Accept that reasonable speculation is going to happen, and that this reasonable speculation may appear unreasonable to you.
2. Instead of immediately removing speculation, consider rewriting it more clearly to indicate its speculative nature, and to reduce the amount of assumptions made.
3. Only totally remove speculation that is completely baseless or unequivocally false.
4. If someone adds speculation that is not immediately disprovable, but really rubs you the wrong way, wait a week then edit it out. I'm being serious. In all honesty they probably don't care as much as you and waiting a week will make them not feel like you're jumping down their throat, if they ever notice at all.
5. If in the course of doing the above, you discover that they do in fact care, or if you know that they care (as in the case of Santax) then proceed to talk page resolution.
6. You don't get to decide what official sources are/are not viable. One hundred NPCs saying that dragons are reptiles versus one saying they're birds means yeah they're reptiles, but 3 to 2? Or even 3 to 1? It's not so obvious then and you should accept that.
7. Don't remove cases where people cite in game sources. You say this leads to citing every single sentence, but this is a slippery slope argument based on your black and white world view. In reality, people will only cite especially obscure or contentious facts.
8. Consider citing in game sources yourself, actually, when it is information that people are unlikely to know the source to. It lends credibility to your position. It could be worked into sentences or as footnotes using ref tags, it don't matter.

Santax

1. Not every blank needs to be filled and sometimes the best answer is "we don't know."
2. Occams Razor is not a carte blanche to manufacture theories that make "just a few" assumptions, its used to select theories that already exist, but in this case, theories don't need to exist.
3. The wiki is at its heart an encylopedia. A dry dull information based encyclopedia. Calling magic the lifeblood of Tyria sounds nice, but is overly sensationalized at best, and not exactly fact based at worst.
4. Consider that in adding speculation to articles you are opening the floodgates to other theories and ask yourself if presenting one particular theory is worth dealing with this.
5. Don't be upset that Konig gets a bigger list than you, your issues are just more straightforward than his.
6. Don't be smug that you got a smaller list than Konig, either.

Ok now, what about the inevitable debates they have where nobody backs down and they just keep going on and on and on? Instead of trying to convince each other which they probably can't do, they should try to convince... the arbitrators! They're a group of schmoes, who have no dog in this fight and don't care much. Konig and Santax each write up their case to explain it to the arbitrators like they're some kind of idiot children, linking to dialogues, quoting shit, whatever they think is necessary. The arbitrators read both and create a hybrid mashup that neither Konig or Santax will like but that they can at least take solace in the fact that its impartial. Arbitrators can discuss amongst themselves when creating the hybrid, and since they don't care that much they likely won't get pissed off at one another and will be open to compromises. Neither Konig or Santax can give input at this point. They've already had their piece. I will be one such arbitrator and if nobody else wants to be one, I'll be one by myself. I'm right in the middle of the road, I think, and I don't care that much about lore or know much about it, so I won't bring my own biases into the system. I am also open to in-game bribery. My username is Psycho Robot.7835. Psycho Robot (talk) 23:18, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I think this issue can be somewhat sidestepped by getting more people editing lore articles. More discussion than the same two people, more than two viewpoints. Advertise on forums what pages need looking at, get the community more involved, and their disagreements will just be a small part of a bigger discussion. 216.158.71.145 00:05, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

We don't live in a perfect world. Ideally we'd have a bunch of people interested in editing lore articles. What we have is Konig and Santax. It'd be best if we don't lose either one of them. Psycho Robot (talk) 00:11, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Closure

After reading the feedback here, I think I see a pretty good set of solutions. Firstly, Alex, if you could set up those AbuseFilter profiles to prevent potential edit wars, that'd be a good first step. I don't think banning them entirely from mainspace edits is viable (if we want to maintain their worth as lore gurus), but most of their drama seems to stem from edit stalking/reverts on individual articles. Preventing edit wars, even "accidental" ones, would help.
Konig will receive a 3 month ban, an increase over Pling's original month-long ban (which was later lengthened to 6 for evasion). As the primary instigator of the majority of conflicts, he bears most of the weight of this war of lore. A history of similar behavior on this wiki and GWW, despite multiple warnings and bans, shows a lack of improvement in interpersonal communications. His attitude and lack of civility make it difficult for any user to have a "serious" conversation with him, leading to frustration and (directly or indirectly) causing users to either leave Konig's protected articles alone or stop editing entirely. Konig's brand of territorial behavior is not in line with the goal of this wiki and will not be tolerated. Any further drama, especially with Santax, will result in an immediate permanent ban. Evading the 3-month ban will also result in a permanent ban. Always remember; discussion is fine, disagreements happen, but a disregard for civility and harassment via edit wars is not okay.
Going back over the history of both users and their conflict, I'm not placing any ban on Santax now. He's certainly a participant in multiple edit wars and other heated disagreements, but largely as the result of instigation by the other party. He was placed in a fairly impossible position; he couldn't disagree with Konig without escalating the situation, yet he couldn't stop disagreeing lest he lose every argument and step aside, letting Konig essentially "win" the territory war. Santax's comment above rings true: "it seems that you're proposing to kick me off the wiki, because I refused to be bullied off the wiki." It was largely due to the sysops' collective inactivity (my own, especially) that the situation was allowed to get so far out of hand, and punishing another user for our failure doesn't seem justified. As much as possible, Santax, avoid Konig. If he tries to start shit, we'll be watching. But don't stoop to his level; don't boil over and get angry or personal with your rants. Just stick to the topic and it'll be all right.
Hopefully both parties can continue contributing to this wiki, as both have plenty to offer. But the drama is over. This is a wiki about a video game; this isn't your life, this isn't your job. If you're getting heated to a point where you feel the only recourse is angry walls of text, you should probably just take a break, grab a drink, listen to some music, and chill out for awhile. The wiki will be there when you come back. If you get banned for being a drama llama, it won't be. -Auron 16:56, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Rudimental filter setup. Its not comparing the last 10 editors, rather a few less than that since last 10 was super harsh :P But it will prevent Santax editing a page where Konig was the last editor. If Santax wishes to edit such a page - the edit will be rejected, + a request should kindly be made on the talk page, where another user will be able to make the edit. A few edits by other users inbetween Konig's historical edit + Santax's current edit (i.e. on the history page) will allow Santax to edit the page directly again. -Chieftain Alex 19:03, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

This seems like a good way to “solve” this, thanks Auron. I fully support this. poke | talk 13:13, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

What User:Poke said: works for me. And again, thank you, Auron, for taking the time to address this. I wish Konig had decided to try to work with the community, as Santax appears to have chosen to do. Still: better that we have a work-around that allows both to choose to contribute without getting in each other's or anyone else's way. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 18:00, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Vandals

Has anyone noticed that the vandals section is almost unused? If it weren't for TEF losing his rollback cherry today, Sunday, 01 June 2014, I would have forgotten it even existed. This is proof of the invaluable work done behind the scenes to make the abuse filter the mean, lean, spam-killing machine it is, plus the eternal vigilance of (mainly) Alex and ishmael. This isn't really the place for this, but I just wanted to say - well done, you guys. — snograt 10:41, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

must be ishmael because I'm doing sod all. Thanks for the prompt to setup filter #28 though. :D -Chieftain Alex 12:02, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Auron and Felix do their share, too. I only appear to do it the most because I've always been the most addicted to RC. —Dr Ishmael 14:37, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Good point, Snog — the abuse filter is pretty amazing. And we are also lucky to have a dedicated and effective admin team, that handle stuff before most of us pikers even notice there's an issue. Thanks. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:50, 1 June 2014 (UTC)