Refers to a repetitive series of hot-headed and destructive actions whereby two or more people seethingly format a computer-disk or other media-storage device over and over to erase the previous user's files because each person either dislikes/disapproves of the content that the other users are storing on it, or each person selfishly/arrogantly feels that his own files are more important/necessary/virtuous than those of any of the device's other users.
I always bring extra floppy disks and/or flash-drives with me --- and clearly label them with my name --- to store my own files when I use the office computer, to hopefully avoid any format wars.
by QuacksO January 8, 2019