Edit conflicts

This page is about the technical problem where multiple editors try to edit the same page at once, leading to a conflict the software cannot resolve automatically. For editing disagreements between editors, see Wikipedia:Edit warring.

This page discusses edit conflicts, and how to deal with them. To understand what an edit conflict is, consider the following situation:
Bob clicks "Edit source" on a page. The software sends Bob the current revision of the page, #123.
Alice clicks "Edit source" on the same page, while Bob is editing. The software sends Alice the current revision of the page, #123.
Bob finishes his edits and clicks "Publish changes". The software saves Bob's edits as revision #124, and publishes #124. Alice is still editing #123.
Alice finishes her edits and clicks "Publish changes". The software saves Alice's edits as revision #125, but discovers that #125 is based on revision #123, although the currently published revision is #124. The software tries to automatically reconcile the differences, but fails. Alice therefore gets an "edit conflict" page, giving Alice a chance to reconcile the differences between #124 and #125 manually.

## Resolving an edit conflict

In most situations, an edit conflict can be resolved by merging the two changes to a page -- including the contributions of both editors.

If Alice made only small changes, and Bob made large changes, she may choose to work from Bob's version, and re-merge her changes in. Alice might choose to add some text like "via edit conflict" to the edit summary, or use template {{edit conflict}} on a Discussion/Talk page, to warn Bob and others that she had to do this – Bob can then peer review her merging for accuracy.

If Alice made large changes, and Bob made small changes, Alice may choose to work from her version. One option is for Alice to copy the bottom text into the top text (or just copy over the one section of the top text, if Alice was section editing), with an appropriate edit summary (e.g., "via edit conflict, will remerge"). Then Alice can view the page history, determine Bob's changes, and re-apply them to her version, in a separate edit.

If both Alice and Bob made large changes, matters become complicated, and Alice and Bob just have to do the best they can. For example, if both Alice and Bob simultaneously add a large section of text on the same subject, then it may be best for Alice to submit her changes, and then for Alice and Bob to both have a look at the two versions and decide between themselves which version is better.

Alice should not just post her changes over the top of Bob's. We assume good faith – mistakes are occasionally made, and newcomers may not understand the edit conflict window. However, Alice must not routinely ignore edit conflicts. It is absolutely not acceptable for Alice to overwrite Bob out of laziness. We encourage contributors to double-check their merges by using the diff feature.

## Logical edit conflicts

(This is a conflict between editors that is undetectable by the mechanism that decides whether to give the "edit conflict" message.)

Some people edit by copying the source text into a text editor, making lots of changes (reorganising, adding new content, etc.), and then, when they're done, pasting the whole thing back onto Wikipedia as a single (new) edit. If someone else has made changes in the meantime these changes would get lost in the paste back. People who edit in this manner should either:

* paste only into the same edit box that was originally copied from, or
* check the page history for such edits, and merge the changes before pasting back.

If third-party software that assists a user to edit a page in an external editor does not follow the first bullet point above (or the equivalent measure, if any, for the method it is using to access Wikipedia) and causes a logical edit conflict, then that is a software bug which should be reported to the software developers of the third-party software being used.

## Mistakes

Sometimes mistakes will be made in the merging process, because Alice is human, and this may cause some of Bob's changes to be accidentally reversed. Logical edit conflicts aren't always immediately visible. Sometimes Alice may have good reasons for thinking that Bob's improvements aren't useful. In this case, Bob and Alice are expected to resolve their differences amicably.

If Bob made a small change which Alice accidentally replaced, Bob must not revert to his version. It is absolutely not acceptable for Bob to reverse Alice's major improvements to the page out of a desire to protect his minor improvements, or to punish Alice for her carelessness. This is particularly important if the page has subsequently been edited by other editors.

The best approach for Bob in this circumstance is to edit Alice's version, reinstate his minor improvements, and leave Alice's major improvements intact. He may also add something to the edit summary to indicate that he had to do this – for example: "Reinstating link which Alice accidentally removed". Alice should then apologize to Bob for her mistake, and thank him for preserving her improvements.

If Alice repeats her error, then the best approach is for Bob to have a friendly word on her talk page, point her to this page, and ask her if she could take a little more care in the future. This is particularly important for newcomers, who may not understand the correct way to resolve edit conflicts, though even experienced users may need the occasional friendly **reminder**.

## Reverting

When saving a previous version (i.e., when reverting) or a new version based on that (a modified reversion) the edit conflict warning and prevention system is not triggered and a possible new edit made in the meantime is unintentionally reverted also, see Reverting a page to an earlier version. To avoid this problem one can copy the text from the edit box of the old version into the edit box of the latest version. In some sense, this can cause *hidden edit conflicts*: you may overwrite someone else's changes without realizing that you are doing so. It's always wise to check the diff after performing a revert, just as you would after posting via edit conflict. Preferably, one can simply try to avoid reversion wars.

## Prevention

Edit conflicts are irritating and can be time-consuming, but there are ways to make them less frequent or easier to recover from.

Saving your work frequently reduces the risk of your experiencing an edit conflict, and when you do they should be easier to resolve.

When practical, edit one Section at a time. This reduces edit conflicts because the system can cope if different editors are editing different sections at the same time. The system uses CVS-style edit-conflict merging, based on the diff3 utility. This feature triggers an edit conflict only if users attempt to edit the same few lines.

Start new articles in sandboxes and move them to mainspace only when you are ready to stop editing them for an hour or so and instead watch what others do to them.

Wikipedia has an "In Use" notice in its Template namespace that people may use when editing a page over a long period of time. This may discourage other editors from editing while you are editing. Simply put {{inuse}} on an article before proceeding with a major edit, and remove the template when the editing is complete.