Different users editing Saudi Arabia in and out of answer

Question

I noticed that there's been sort of a back and forth on this answer.

1. OP posts answer.
2. (Shortly after) OP adds Saudi Arabia to answer.
3. User A removes Saudi Arabia from answer.
4. User B re-adds Saudi Arabia to answer.
5. User A re-removes Saudi Arabia from answer.
6. Update: User C re-adds Saudi Arabia to answer
7. OP makes (possibly) unrelated edit to answer, keeping Saudi Arabia in it.

I have no opinion as to whether or not Saudi Arabia should be included in the answer or not.

But isn't that OPs business though? Shouldn't we just let OP decide on whether or not Saudi Arabia should be included?

I'm not so much interested in whether or not Saudi Arabia should be included or not. I'm interested in whether it's useful for other users to try and influence it. I'm thinking, OP is the one who will be getting the effects of the votes, etc. In the end, isn't OP the one responsible for the answer?

It doesn't seem like a big deal (actually, I found it sort of amusing), but I'm just curious.

Answer 1

OP here. I have not participated in the edit war and do not intend to, but I do stand by my opinion that Saudi Arabia is a "tinpot dictatorship" (well, perhaps more of a gold-pot one). I also understand that Saudi residents such as User A may not like this characterization, but perhaps they should go argue with the authors of the Economist Intelligence Unit, instead of engaging in an edit war or calling people who disagree "racists" (seriously?).

On a broader level, I could also swear that we've had a variant of this exact discussion before, but I can't find it for the life of me...

Update for clarity: I don't edit the content in other people's answers, I don't believe others should be editing mine, and I thus find edits like this to be completely out of line. Easy-lah. As it happens, this is Stack Exchange policy as well.

Answer 2

I'm not going to directly comment on this dispute (I'd be too biased), but I'd like to point out as background that jptokal is reasonably familiar with Saudi Arabia, just like the person he was in conflict with.

Looking at a selection of posts by jptokal mentioning Saudi Arabia, we can see:

• This answer (partially about another Gulf state): +39, -0.
• This answer, which the conflicter is in agreement with on the answer, and is more pro-Saudi than people commenting on the answer: +34, -0.
• This answer: +29, -0.
• I'll skip this answer, because it's giving Saudi Arabia as an answer to a factoids question.
• This answer about a Muslim girl wanting to visit Saudi Arabia: +17, -0.
• This answer mentioning passport issues and Saudi Arabia: +11, -0.

Answer 3

If the edit "war" ends here and nobody, (other than OP) tries to add (or remove) Saudi Arabia again, I guess it's alright. (Since, and only since, OP has said in a comment that he/she is fine with it.)

But if the back and forth continues somehow, then I think there comes a point where OP needs to take a stand and decide for himself/herself in order to end the "edit-war".

Edit: It has now continued. I therefore believe it would be better if OP took a stand. After OP has decided, I believe other users should respect OPs decision and refrain from editing that part of the answer further. If they really, really feel strongly one way or the other, they can express that by comments and/or votes

Answer 4

My opinion is that if someone is offended by an answer, for whatever reason, the right course of action is to

• flag the answer
• provide an explanation of why they find the answer offensive.

A moderator can then step in, and if necessary, work with all the interested parties to come to a compromise.

In this case, the right compromise could be something as simple as changing the word dictatorship to autocracy. I feel that dictatorship doesn't exactly apply to Saudi Arabia; whereas the word autocracy might just capture the sense of what the OP wanted to write, while being acceptable to the person who edited it. Or it might not, I don't know.

To edit the content of someone else's answer in cases such as this is really not acceptable (although I must confess, I'm guilty of doing this myself on Stack Overflow, when offended by a respondent's language).

Answer 5

The answer is wrong, calling a country "worse" because of the visa policy is way too much, US has a worse visa process yet it is not included in that answer.

Some interesting parts of the answer which shows the lack of knowledge:

not because they're particularly concerned about Norwegians stealing their jobs, but because they're afraid that they're actually disguised CIA spies/journalists

One more thing, saudi has a high HDI, the question was generally about HDI, yet jpatokal managed to insert it in the answer, imo it's 100% irrelevant.

This is totally wrong, at least in the case of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia had (has?) US military bases, and has a lot of US citizens working there. No one ever said that they think they are "spies", not Saudis, I am saying this as a local. This is a totally made up nonsense, that's why I removed "saudi arabia" from the answer. Not because it's my country, I myself wrote a few answers that looks against Saudi Arabia when the information is true. So no one can argue I am just doing that for no reason.

I still hope that jpatoka removes saudi from the answer himself. You can't just generalize a whole "country" because of the visa process. That's silly.