minor edit → major consequence
Section
Revert wars, spelling crusades, and single letters that consumed thousands of hours of human life.
7 stories on record
Star Trek Into Darkness vs. Star Trek into Darkness: how one letter's capitalization swallowed Wikipedia whole.
Every week, one editor logs on and removes the same two-word phrase from Wikipedia. He has been doing this since 2007.
Congressional staffers quietly polished their bosses' bios — until Wikipedia traced the IP addresses back to the House.
Yogurt vs. yoghurt — the page-move debate that outlasted two US presidents.
Rome had nothing to do with it — but try telling that to Wikipedia.
Gdańsk or Danzig? Wikipedia's bloodiest naming war ended the only way it could: with an actual election.
Two spellings, one metal, and an edit war so persistent it needed arbitration-grade diplomacy.