Talk:Mexican standoff/Archive 2

Among or Amongst?
According to the Oxford Dictionary, there is no difference between "among" and amongst". Personally I think "amongst" sounds better (i.e. I agree with Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory), but I think treating the change from "among" to "amongst" as vandalism is an overreaction, and the subsequent page protection is an extreme overreaction to a non-vandalism. Mexican Standoff on TBBT (talk) 22:28, 27 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Some editors are just petty. Reference to Big Bang theory ought to be in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.43.175.144 (talk) 22:34, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
 * No, I disagree. The fact that the article was mentioned in TBBT does not belong in the article, since that has nothing to do with Mexican standoff. However, this fact can certainly be mentioned as a header in the talk page, as I have done. Mexican Standoff on TBBT (talk) 22:37, 27 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Many articles have a popular culture section where references to the subject of the article are mentioned. It would certainly be appropriate for this article to have the same, and for the section to reference a TBBT episode where the term was used for a joke. As an aside, this article is likely to be viewed more than normal this week, as the episode was just re-run on CBS this evening. Etamni &#124; &#9993; &#124; ✓ 02:07, 26 April 2016 (UTC)


 * From the edit history there was already one presumably joke bad grammar edit made before protection was applied, I'm sure we'd have seen more. Protection seems like the right call. --McGeddon (talk) 22:48, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think a single case of vandalism is a justification for page protection. Mexican Standoff on TBBT (talk) 22:52, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, I take that back about it being a joke edit, that "neither" was another correction of the clumsy two-to-three July IP edit mentioned below. --McGeddon (talk) 09:16, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Question: Did this page ever say between or did Sheldon Cooper just make that up? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.183.136.104 (talk) 23:32, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
 * There is suspicious edit from July, that changed wording from "confrontation between two or more parties" to  "confrontation between at least three parties". Maybe a writer of the show prepared joke this way.Li-sung (talk) 23:51, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. Grammatically, "confrontation between two or more parties" is correct, but I'm not sure if it is the correct definition for the term Mexican Standoff. So even if it was a setup for the joke that was used on the show, the edit may have still been an improvement to the article. The IP who performed the edit is in France (per the Geolocate button) but the writer on the show may have been on vacation to France at the time. Mexican Standoff on TBBT (talk) 00:26, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * That seems too far-fetched to me... the main reason for that edit would be that three parties need to be involved instead of just two parties. Would "between three or more parties", the most likely edit, have been grammatically correct anyway? If it wouldn't, then there's no reason to think it was a prepared joke. In any case, I can't see how it would hurt the article in any way. Gabo 200 (talk) 03:06, 29 October 2015 (UTC)


 * It hurts the article if it's incorrect to say that a Mexican standoff requires three people. I haven't been able to find any strong sources that give a definition either way, but there are a few cases out there where two people pointing guns at one another is described as "Mexican standoff", and the article itself gives the example of the two-sided US-vs-USSR being a Mexican standoff, the meaning simply being "no party has a safe way to withdraw from its position".
 * If the article body defines "Mexican standoff" as both "three guys with guns like in that movie" and "two parties unable to withdraw from a confrontation", the lede should say the same. I'll go ahead and make that edit. --McGeddon (talk) 10:12, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Between or among?
Just to get this straight, as we seem to have gotten a little lost with IPs reverting each other - "between two or more parties" is grammatically correct (and preferable to "among two or more"), isn't it? The Big Bang Theory writer made their joke based on "between at least three parties" being wrong. --McGeddon (talk) 08:58, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Take note of WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:NOR
Wikipedia is not a place to debate what we each think constitutes a "Mexican Standoff" - Urban Dictionary is the place for that.

Each and every reliable dictionary I can find defines "Mexican Standoff" as a general stalemate or an unwinnable situation - whether or not firearms are involved - and various articles use it in exactly that way. See, e.g., "Mexican Standoff" referring to corporate mergers or "Mexican Standoff" referring to dispute between cable companies and content providers.

Right now, as far as I can see, this entire article is composed of original research - various editors' personal thoughts on what "Mexican Standoff" means to them. As such, one of two things needs to happen: 1) it needs to be scrapped and replaced with actual cited material; or 2) it needs to be put up for AfD and deleted.

I'd incline toward the second option, since this article, written properly, will probably never be much more than a dicdef, and Wikipedia is not a dictionary. --Hyperbole 08:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Response well, to begin with, an encyclopedic article should mention the "Nash equilibrium", a central concept of game theory. --victor falk 20:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

This is not usually a 'plot device' by the way; in fact hardly ever since by definition a Mexican standoff hardly ever advances the plot. 199.71.183.2 (talk) 23:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * And don't forget WP:BEANS.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:29, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

References & Validity of Article
Issues with this article have already been noted above. In addition, I fixed the broken Word Detective link, but note that this a reference to not much more than a blog page. I removed the reference to the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary as there is no longer any mention at that source, or anywhere else in my cursory search, for an Australian origin to the term.

This is an important and valuable article to keep in Wikipedia, and goes beyond the scope of a dictionary entry. Further references are needed. There is a colloquial understanding of "Mexican standoff" which does not pin it down to any one precise scenario. If I have time I will expand references and otherwise revisit this article. –&#32;Mark K Adams (talk) 23:19, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * They might be such a thing as a "colloquial understanding" of what a MS is. In this case, please provide a source so we can add it to the article. ATM, the article has only one source. Both the source and the article's text contradict more than one of the film examples given Cortador (talk) 01:28, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

No section on why it's called what it's called? Why is it not, say, a Russian Standoff? 124.197.26.171 (talk) 11:17, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Whatever the merit of this article, that section called "Resolution" should be deleted, because "Mexican Standoff" is a newspaper expression and/or a cinematic scenario and there is no such thing, in actuality. (the article as a whole can stay) 16:07, 15 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.80.240.44 (talk)

Line implies all Mexican Standoffs are fictional
"The Mexican standoff is a recurring trope in cinema". Many things that really happen are also in cinema. For example, a Mexican standoff between police and criminals is real. An edit (790217159) of Mutual assured destruction defining it as an unusually large Mexican standoff was undone because "Not really. It's the potential end of the world, not a tv trope writ large." 97.89.100.56 (talk) 11:16, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Image used is NOT a Mexican standoff
The image used is not a Mexican standoff. As each man has two guns a very simple strategy exists for each party to win, shoot first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.196.19 (talk) 01:39, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * You're right. I removed the picture. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia  ᐐT₳LKᐬ  02:28, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Wait; on second thought, I'm not sure you are right. I guess it depends on what definition you use re a Mexican standoff. I'll return the picture and wait for a third party weigh in. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia  ᐐT₳LKᐬ  02:32, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Well I think it is reasonable to use the definition from the first line of the article, I quote... "A Mexican standoff is a confrontation between two or amongst three or more parties in which no strategy exists that allows any party to achieve victory." With 3 participants, each with 2 guns it is simply a race to pull the trigger first. A winning strategy not only exists but is obvious. With 4 participants each with 2 guns, or 3 participants with one gun each you would have a Mexican standoff. That said the definition is not complete. A Mexican standoff occurs not so much when there is no winning strategy, but when there is no winning strategy by acting first and the second actor requires luck. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.196.19 (talk) 03:09, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

What is done?
It's not clear to me in the discussions to date what has been fixed & what hasn't. I have more to say on this, but posting from my mobile can be disastrous -- I just lost a 30-minute rant. (maybe it's better so). In any case, I will wait til I get to my desktop to expand this --D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 16:43, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

two or three or two or three
This article has gone back and forth on the minimum number of parties in the definition, but when I go through the article sources, none of them clearly specify the number; the key factor is a confrontation in which no strategy exists that allows any party to achieve victory. I suggest we delete the number of parties from the lead sentence completely, end all of this back-and-forth in edits, and just focus on the definition supported by the sources: A Mexican standoff is a confrontation in which no strategy exists that allows any party to achieve victory. Thoughts? Schazjmd  (talk)  17:27, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we also add a statement that there is no definitive etymology of the phrase that requires the number of parties to be "three or more"? Since that seems to be the common question that readers have. Schazjmd   (talk)  17:30, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Big Bang Theory
It turns out that the article did actually say it was a conflict "between" three parties, but this edit on August 17, 2012 changed it to "amongst". In season 9, episode 6 Sheldon complains the article says he can't trust the article because it uses the words "between three parties". Just a little trivia :-) - Chris.sherlock (talk) 12:19, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

We should update this image.
Instead of an unclear steampunk cosplay image of people barely pointing guns in each other's general directions, we should update this article to include either either a real image of a Mexican standoff or a famous one from film.

The existing image is overcrowded and uninformative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:19c:4080:d50:d4d0:1de2:f63:f650 (talk • contribs) 04:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Don't remove it until you have something better to replace it with. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:30, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

The most famous Mexican standoff is probably from the film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, maybe we could use an image from that film?

Circular firing squad??
Why does "Circular firing squad" redirect to this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:CB00:8ED:3200:85D0:1F45:D096:EDC8 (talk) 10:24, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Pretty Cool
To be honest this is a pretty neat article Hpnzii (talk) 19:31, 7 February 2022 (UTC)