This is my first Wikipedia essay. Feel free to comment about it on my talk page or on this essay's talk page.
Music is a field with vast variety and diversity. The Wikipedia coverage of music is pretty extensive as well. Concerning the vastness of music, there are particular bands and musicians that stay what they know, and they may exemplify this by sticking to one or two genres for the duration of their musical existence. On the other hand, there are bands and musicians who like pushing the envelope and explore any type of genre they want to in terms of performance. The latter type of music that is produced as a result may be more musically ambiguous and understably harder to categorize. When bands are harder to categorize, like "Band A" for instance, one party, which will be referred to as Party 1, may think that Band A belongs to a/b/c genre. Another party, Party 2, may think that Band A belongs to d/e/f genres; even after that, a separate party, Party 3, will proclaim that the band belongs to a/c/d/f genres. These parties can quarrel all they want and think themselves as entirely correct concerning which genres belong to Band A, or any other band for that matter, but does such genre classification of bands truly matter? Do these opinions about Band A's genre carry enough matter to be relevant?
No.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with thinking that a certain band belongs to a certain genre (as long as that notion is not blatantly and indesputably incorrect), it is very wrong to force such thoughts onto others recklessly. People who do that are known by titles such as genre warriors, genre fiddlers (usually applied to people who do it to a lesser extent), genre manipulators, genre feuders, and pompous, narcissistic idiots who don't care about anyone's opinions or knowledge except their own. Genre warriors, as they will be called henceforth in this essay, may add or subtract genres listed in articles of bands, albums, and/or musicians, oftentimes giving no sources or reasoning for such input. Some of these genre warriors may also refuse to discuss their changes with others, even if given a mind-numbing amount of opportunities to do so. These people, as mentioned before, may not give any creedence to the knowledge and opinions of others, favoring their own point of view as what is right, as opposed to what their viewpoint truly is: subjective and of little significance.
Genre warring is a serious problem on Wikipedia, as well as other websites. These genre warriors take it upon themselves to jump to conclusions about the genres of other people's musical works, potentially without summoning outside information backing themselves. About the lack of consultation of outside information, a lot of them do not source their assertions or supply an edit summary, thus submitting an unexplained toying with the genre. Such edits, if backed up by sources that are already there or on relevant pages, deserve to be reverted without a second thought, regardless of the thruthful or untruthful value they possess. People who continue to engage in genre warring should be respectively warned; if warning(s) are ignored, they can hopefully be blocked for an appropriate amount of time. But what about the sockpuppets or multiple IP users?
The type of genre warriors who use multiple accounts and/or IPs have enhancements via these multiple accounts that push the envelope moreso, which is especially true with people who only use IPs. It is in itself a questionable practice to use multiple accounts, and people who use multiple accounts AND wage genre wars are a grand disturbance, to speak in the terms of an understatement. If necessary, these wrongdoers should have their accounts blocked at least temporarily; if that's not a realistic option, though, such as when dealing with an individual who hops IPs all the time and only uses most IPs once, then my course of action is to revert away and possibly post on the user talk pages about why that is wrong, or maybe make another failed attempt at inviting cooperation with the offender.
Seriously, though, there is absolutely no point to genre warring and unmitigated genre changing in the first place. Genre classification exists in order to give the interested party a clue as to how the music sounds. What should take place is that the music is described, that description is read, and the interested parties move on with their loves, possibly reading further on their band of interest. But no, that's not what happens when whiners are present. Some people change the genres or do other, similar useless crap. Not only is genre warring bad if it is a constant issue, but it is also bad because certain individuals don't have in mind that genre categorizing doesn't matter nearly as much as it is hyped. Genre classification is present to give a basic idea of what the musi sounds like, not for idiots to argue olr whine about.