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My limited work at the edit warring noticeboard has led me to have two thoughts about 3RR and about edit warring in general. One is that blocks are not like limit breaks. The other is that 3RR is a rule, not the rule.
Blocks are not limit breaks edit
- Limit breaks
In the Final Fantasy series, limit breaks are special moves that a character can execute only after some sort of special meter fills up; as the player, you sit around for a while waiting to be ready to do it, but then once the meter fills up you bust out a limit break and blow all the bad guys away.
3RR blocks, though, should not work like that.
Many editors have the impression (reinforced by wording in WP:3RR) that as soon as 3RR is breached an editor must be blocked—or, to word it differently, that they are entitled to see their opponent blocked as soon as their opponent makes more than three reverts. In other words, they think that a block, like a limit break, is a flashy and decisive way to end a dispute if you just wait for the right conditions.
Really, though, blocks should only be used if there is a constructive reason for them and if they are going to benefit the encyclopedia. In some cases, such as where 3RR was breached but the editor has since stopped, and started discussing, and there is no likelihood of any more revert warring to continue, a block may not really be necessary—keeping in mind that blocks are preventative, not punitive. Every time an administrator hits the "block" button they should be thinking about how it will improve or worsen the encyclopedia... not just thinking about the block policy, the 3RR policy, and the "rules," but literally how making the user technically unable to edit pages will affect the particular issue that is going on. If blocking is "allowed" by the rules but will not do anything to improve the situation, administrators shouldn't block just because they can.
- Finishing moves
Blocks are also not finishing moves. In games such as God of War and Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, once the player has weakened an enemy enough he can execute a special finishing move that, if the player pushes all the right buttons at all the right times, will kill the bad guy and award the player with extra experience, items, or whatnot. Thus, it is always beneficial to use a finishing because it rewards the player and makes battles easier to get through.
Blocks, however, are not something a user or an admin should be hoping for by default. They are not an award unto themselves, and—unlike with finishing moves—solving a dispute without blocks or protection is always preferable to solving it with those tools. Likewise, blocks don't necessarily expedite the process, as they may cause the blocked user to believe Wikipedia is a broken project and ultimately become a long-term troll.
3RR is A rule, not THE rule edit
Sometimes, a user reports an edit war and both the reporting user and reviewing admin believe that "one user has broken the rules and one hasn't", because one user reverted more than three times and one didn't (for example, 4 reverts versus 3). This is incorrect. In many of such cases (such as 4 reverts versus 3, with no discussion), both users have broken a rule. The Edit warring policy explicitly states that edit wars are bad and should not happen; 3RR is nothing but a corollary of that basic rule, a handy heuristic for judging disputes. Regardless of whether a user broke 3RR or not, to edit war is still to break a rule.
Thus, while a user with 3 reverts and a user with 4 may be on opposite sides of 3RR, as far as general edit warring is concerned there is hardly any difference between them. It thus follows that, in many cases, both should be treated the same way: either both blocked, or both warned (translation: both not blocked). Naturally, this is not what most users want to hear—they want to hear that they are right and their opponent is blocked. But if Wikipedia wants to take its edit warring policy seriously, it needs to pay attention to this fundamental rule rather than only paying attention to the superficial 3RR rule.