Wikipedia:Third opinion

"WP:3" redirects here. For You may be looking for Wikipedia:Trifecta or Wikipedia:Three-revert rule, see WP:3 (disambiguation).

Third opinion is a means to request an outside opinion in a dispute between two editors. When two editors cannot agree, either editor may list a dispute here to seek a third opinion. The third opinion process requires good faith and civility on both sides of the dispute.

This page is for informally resolving disputes involving only two editors. The informal nature of the third opinion process is its chief advantage over more formal methods of resolving disputes. For more complex disputes unable to be resolved through talk page discussion, you can follow the other steps in the dispute resolution process.

Respondents appreciate feedback about the outcome of the dispute, either on the article's talk page or on their own talk page. We want to know whether the outcome was positive or not, helping us to maintain and improve the standards of our work.

How to list a dispute

Be sure to discuss the dispute on the talk page as the first step in the process before making a request here. If, after significant discussion, no agreement has been reached and only two editors are involved, you may list the dispute below in the Active disagreements section. Otherwise, please follow other methods in the dispute resolution process. Further guidance is available in Third Opinion frequently asked questions.

Follow these instructions to make your post:

1. Begin a new entry with a # symbol below earlier entries to preserve the numbering and chronological order of the list.
2. Provide a section link to the specific talk page section followed by a brief neutral description of the dispute.
3. Sign with five tildes (~~~~~) to add the date without your name. This is important to maintain neutrality.

Do not discuss on this page: confine the discussion to the talk page where the dispute is taking place.

Example entry:

# [[Talk:List of Cuban Americans#List Clean-up]]. Disagreement about notability of names added to list. ~~~~~

Example displayed:

1. Talk:List of Cuban Americans#List Clean-up. Disagreement about notability of names added to list. 21:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

You may also consider adding {{3O}} to the top of the article. List of tagged articles.

Active disagreements

After reading the above instructions, add your dispute here. If you provide a third opinion, please remove the entry from this list.

1. Talk:Alicia Silverstone#Book content - Disagreement on quality of sources and suitability of content verified with these sources. 01:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
2. Talk:Brandon Marshall#The Beast nickname - There is a disagreement if Brandon Marshall gave himself the nickname "The Beast" or not; you can see from the history that this dispute has been ongoing since September 00:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
3. [[1]] - Disagreement on the inclusion of AGM articles/opinions on the pretext of whether the focus of the article should be on the science or the broader article perspective. Dispute includes the lede paragraph and 'criticism and dispute' section. Dispute has been ongoing since December 5th (UTC)

Providing third opinions

• Third opinions must be neutral. If you have had dealings with the article or with the editors involved in the dispute which would bias your response, do not offer a third opinion on that dispute.
• Read the arguments of the disputants.
• Do not provide opinions recklessly. Remember that Wikipedia works by consensus, not a vote. In some cases both sides may have presented valid arguments, or you may disagree with both. Provide the reasoning behind your argument.
• Provide third opinions on the disputed article talk pages, not on this page. Sign your comments on the associated talk page as normal, with four tildes, like so: ~~~~.
• The {{3OR}} template is handy for inserting a third opinion on the talk page. Usage: {{subst:3OR | <your response> }}.
• Write your opinion in a civil and nonjudgmental way.
• Consider keeping pages on which you have given a third opinion on your watchlist for a few days. Often, articles listed here are watched by very few people.
• If it's not clear what the dispute is, put {{subst:third opinion|your_username}} on the talk page of the article.
• For third opinion requests that do not follow the instructions above, it is possible to alert the requesting party to that fact by employing {{uw-3o}}.
• When providing a third opinion, please remove the listing from this page and mention in the summary which dispute you have removed and how many remain. If this is done before responding, other volunteers are less likely to duplicate your effort.
• Check the article for a {{3O}} tag. Be sure to remove this tag from the article and/or talk page.

If you support this project you may wish to add the {{User Third opinion}} userbox to your user page.

Active contributors (those who watchlist the page, review disputes, and update the list of active disagreements with informative edit summaries) may add themselves to the Category:Third opinion Wikipedians.