Wikipedia:Dispute resolution
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Avoidance
The best way to resolve a dispute is to avoid it in the first place.
Be respectful to others and their points of view. This means primarily: Do not simply revert changes in a dispute. When someone makes an edit you consider biased or inaccurate, improve the edit, rather than reverting it. Provide a good edit summary when making significant changes that other users might object to. The Three Revert Rule forbids the use of reverts in repetitive succession. If you encounter rude or inappropriate behavior, resist the temptation to respond in kind, and do not make personal attacks.
Writing according to the "perfect article guidelines" and following the NPOV policy can help you write "defensively", and limit your own bias in your writing. For some guidelines, see Wikipedia:Wikiquette.
First step: talk to the other parties involved
The first resort in resolving almost any conflict is to discuss the issue on a talk page. Either contact the other party on that user's talk page, or use the talk page associated with the article in question. Never carry on a dispute on the article page itself. When discussing an issue, stay cool and don't mount personal attacks. Take the other person's perspective into account and try to reach a compromise. Assume that the other person is acting in good faith unless you have clear evidence to the contrary.
Both at this stage and throughout the dispute resolution process, talking to other parties is not simply a formality to be satisfied before moving on to the next forum. Failure to pursue discussion in good faith shows that you are trying to escalate the dispute instead of resolving it. This will make people less sympathetic to your position and may prevent you from effectively using later stages in dispute resolution. In contrast, sustained discussion and serious negotiation between the parties, even if not immediately successful, shows that you are interested in finding a solution that fits within Wikipedia policies.
Further dispute resolution
If talking to the other parties involved fails, you should try one of these four methods to resolve the dispute. Which ones you choose and in what order will depend on the nature of the dispute, and the preferences of people involved.
Informal mediation
If things are getting a bit tricky, it might be useful to ask some cool heads to look in and help out; this might turn out to be sufficient to do the trick. See the Mediation Cabal for one example of informal mediators whom you can just pass by and ask for help; just add your problem to the end of the page.
Esperanza is an editing association that might lend you a helping hand as well, but it does not resolve user conflicts or POV issues, and will not accept requests to do so.
Discuss with third parties
- Wikipedia works by building consensus. To develop a consensus on a disputed topic, you may need to expose the issue to a larger audience. Options for doing this include Wikipedia:Third opinion (for disputes involving only two editors), Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts, and Wikipedia:Requests for comment.
For disputes over the content of an article, if you have not agreed to a truce before this point, you should do so now. This allows others to fairly consider the issue without the confusion of ongoing edits, which are likely to aggravate the dispute. If an edit war persists and a truce is not feasible, request that the page be protected to allow the process to move forward.
Conduct a survey
- If consensus is difficult to gauge from discussion alone, or if some users seem to be ignoring the consensus, consider conducting a publicized opinion survey. Use the criteria at Wikipedia:Straw polls to develop the survey. (Some parties may dispute the validity of the survey if this is not done properly.) The survey should be carefully designed to present all sides of the dispute fairly. When the survey questions have been drafted, announce the survey by listing it at Wikipedia:Current surveys. Note that informal straw polls can be held at any time if there are enough participants in the discussion, but publicizing the survey can get more of the community involved and increase the weight given to the results.
Mediation
- Request mediation of the dispute. Mediation is a voluntary process in which a neutral person works with the parties to a dispute. The mediator helps guide the parties into reaching an agreement that can be acceptable to everyone. When requesting formal mediation, be prepared to show that you tried to resolve the dispute using the steps listed above, and that all parties to the dispute are in agreement to mediate. Mediation cannot take place if all parties are not willing to take part.
Requesting an advocate
If you would like assistance with the process, the Association of Members' Advocates (AMA) is a group of users who have offered to help you to resolve your dispute or to understand the process of resolving disputes. You may request assistance from an advocate at any stage of the process of resolving disputes or even when the dispute has just begun. You may seek help directly from any of the members that are listed on the AMA pages or through the AMA Coordinator directly or through the Requests for Assistance page.
While you can request the assistance of an advocate at any stage, please seriously consider use of a member advocate in the later stages of dispute resolution. Typically, advocates advise and/or represent one party to a dispute. If you want the services of an advocate, you may contact any advocate directly, or post a request for assistance. You can request an advocate at any stage of the process.
Disengage for a while
If you have a dispute, and discussion has ground to a standstill, and attempts to gain new participants have failed, the next step in the dispute resolution process is to stop. Put a note on your user page mentioning the article you have a dispute about, and a short explanation of the dispute (so you, and anyone who happens across your user page will be aware) and go away and work on something else on Wikipedia.
Stay away from that dispute for a while. Respond to questions about it on your user talk page with a polite pointer to this section of the dispute resolution process, and a request that the questioner take their issues to the article talk page. Most importantly, do not force the matter on the article or discussion page. Allow the dispute to calm down. In the interval, new editors may become interested in the article and, if the issue comes up again, participants in the discussion may have a different perspective.
Last resort: Arbitration
If you have taken all other reasonable steps to resolve the dispute, request Arbitration. Be prepared to show that you tried to resolve the dispute by other means. Arbitration differs from Mediation in that the Arbitration Committee will consider the case and issue a decision, instead of merely assisting the parties in reaching an agreement. If the issue is decided by Arbitration, you will be expected to abide by the result. If the case involves serious user misconduct, Arbitration may result in a number of serious consequences up to totally banning someone from editing, as laid out in the Arbitration policy.