Wikipedia:Third opinion
 | This process is neither official nor mandatory. Rather, it is a non-binding, informal mechanism through which two editors currently in dispute can request an opinion from an unbiased third party. |
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 primarily for informally resolving disputes involving only two editors. If any more complex dispute cannot be resolved through talk page discussion, you can follow the other steps in the dispute resolution process. The informal nature of the third opinion process is its chief advantage over more formal methods of resolving disputes.
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 and this helps 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 discussion, 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.
Follow these instructions to make your post:
- Begin a new entry with a # symbol below earlier entries to preserve the numbering and chronological order of the list.
- Provide a section link to the specific talk page section followed by a brief neutral description of the dispute.
- 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
- Talk:Garland, Texas#Issues with the GP&L paragraph. Disagreement over neutrality and validity of points made in paragraph on regulation. Currently deleted by me, but would like a third opinion. 18:22, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
- Talk:Major League Soccer#MLS is a United States league with a Canadian team. Disagreement over the factual basis vs bias of the opening sentence. The editor i'm disagree with seem's to feel he owns the article as item 5 on the talk page is dedicated to that topic. hoping a third party can offer a valuable resolution to the reverts.
Providing third opinions
- Third opinions must be neutral. If you have previously 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 third 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 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: ~~~~.
- 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}} in a new section 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.