Wikipedia:Third opinion

The Third Opinion is a guide for the use of third-party mediators in a dispute. Sometimes editors cannot come to a compromise, and require a tiebreaker—a third opinion.

In the context of disagreements—related to policy or content—sometimes these disputes involve only two editors. This frequently happens on obscure pages, which not many people watch.

Reasoning

Some things can only be done one way or another. Despite good will on both sides, some disagreements cannot be solved without outside help. When only two people are involved, this may lead to a deadlock. This page is meant to provide a streamlined process for solving disagreements involving only two editors.

Guidelines

Listing

• Any editor may list any controversy involving only two editors. If you are not one of the participants in the disagreement, however, you are encouraged to provide a third opinion yourself.
• This page is meant only for disagreements involving precisely two people. If more are involved, try convincing—or coming to a compromise with—the other people. If that fails, try other Wikipedia dispute-solving procedures.
• If a third opinion has been provided in a disagreement, please remove it from the list below (regardless of whether you listed it in the first place). If you provide a third opinion in any disagreement below, please remove it from the list.

Providing Third Opinions

• Only provide third opinions on the relevant talk pages, not on this page.
• While this page is meant to provide a swift procedure, do not provide third opinions recklessly. Remember that in most cases listed on this page, you alone get to decide either way. Read the arguments of the disputants thoroughly.
• Consider watching pages on which you state your opinion for a week or so, to ensure your opinion is not ignored. Articles listed on this page are frequently watched by very few people.
• You are, of course, entirely free to provide a third option—that is, to disagree with both disputants. If you do this, as in all cases in which a third opinion has been provided, remove the article from the list below.

Active disagreements

Add new conflicts at the bottom. Use short (one line), neutral descriptions, and provide links to locations where more information is available. Do not sign your name, but add a date (using "~~~~~" - five tildes). Please do not discuss the disagreement on this page.

It will help if everyone who lists something here weighs in on another disagreement.

Listings that do not follow instructions may be removed.

• Pheasant User:4.227.251.249, (apparently also uses 4.227.249.130) keeps Americanising this article. I'll copy the story so far to my talk page, since he blanks his. jimfbleak 05:34, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

• Bektashi first editor added a new section to discuss the legacy of Bektashi as a humor character in Turkish culture, including two sample jokes. The second editor deleted the jokes with the accusation of racism. The first editor insists on including the jokes arguing that it is an important aspect of Bektashi culture, while the second editor claims there is no place for a joke in an article about religion. First editor believes culture is an important aspect of religion, being indispensable for Bektashi tradition. 22:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

• Independent State of Croatia This article is part of "History of Croatia" series and first editor argues that it should be removed from the series and that new article "Croatia during WWII" should be created, which would equaly treat both Independent State of Croatia and Federal State of Croatia, a state proclaimed by anti-fascists and which envolved to todays Croatia. The second disagrees and denies any state other than Independent State of Croatia existed at the time on Croatian soil. See Talk:Independent_State_of_Croatia#Splitting_of_this_article 16:42, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

• RealPlayer There is a dispute in the Criticism section. 18:21, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

• Traditional Catholic There is a dispute over the meaning of the term, with a group reverting the page back to one like the 2003 version over a dispute. Caused two page protections over reverts and several 3rr and sockpuppet allegations. 15:12, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

• Taiwan (disambiguation) We are currently in a dispute as to whether "Taiwan, Province of China" should be listed at the disambiguation page or not, and whether Taiwan's international name that the People's Republic of China prefers, Chinese Taipei should also be listed on the Taiwan disambiguation page. 132.205.45.110 18:36, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• Pseudoreligion Dispute over basic definition. 05:31, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

• Arvanites intense edit war over phrasing and whether certain facts should be included or omitted. The parties cannot communicate. See how attempt of one of the parties (ie me) was responded to by the other party here. REX 10:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

• Steve Ballmer - whether or not to include a section on Ballmer's personality, with cited examples. -- 04:37, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

• Neuro-linguistic programming (talk) - this page is currently engaged in mediation, it has been suggested that we move to arbitration, the editors would appreciate a third opinion on the best way forward from here. ie. Page protection, arbitration, section protection.

• Discovery Channel is currently the article of the week at the Article Improvement Drive. One user wishes there to be large paragraphs of information on a documentary that was scheduled to air on the Discoveryt Channel but didn't called Conspiracy of Silence. A couple or few other users (myself included) don't believe the information fits in the Discovery Channel article itself, though Conspiracy of Silence is currently listed as a see-also. Jacqui ^★ 00:18, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• Quebec Citadelles is an article I wrote quite some time ago about several defunct minor-league Canadian hockey teams that had used that name over the years. After many contributions and improvements, one user has limited the article to one of these historical teams, and has also included factually inaccurate information regarding the last team's dismantlement. I've attempted to include this user's information, while correcting his errors and returning the deleted information back to the article, but he's reverted to the truncated version, providing either bogus or non-supportive references. I don't want to keep doing rv's, so I'd appreciate some neutral third-parties (perhaps ones with an interest in sports or Canadian history) to add their commentary. 19:23, 3 November 2005 (UTC)~

Yes, please, someone come over. Nice neutral description, BTW. ccwaters 20:00, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

• User:Cantthinkofagoodname seems to have difficulties maintaining a NPOV in football articles, turning a blind eye to bias against teams other than that which they support and altering objective articles so that they conform with their own partisan views. 172.212.29.215 11:31, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

• Gabrielle Reilly Debate over use of text that is/isn't Verifiable, Neutral, Notable/Important. Use of legal threats and harassment to try and stop the editing process. User also going by "Investigator" to try and influence the process. 23:52, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

• Anglican Church Grammar School. Possible revert war evolving. Only one party discussing issue. No response from other party. 22:50, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

• (Dispute is summed up here: Several inappropriate Coldplay article reverts) — User:Madchester believes that while WikiProject Albums and the Manual of Style are guidelines, my edits removing unnecessary/duplicate internal links and fixing presentation are somehow out of line, since guidelines aren't meant to be inflexible and we're "technically" not required to follow any rules/guides. I don't want to get into an editing war with anyone, let alone an actual Wiki admin like him, but this listing stems from a batch of reverts of presentation/formatting edits made to several Coldplay album & song pages that were, in my belief, in accordance with consensus at both WikiProject Albums and the Manual of Style. I believe he is improperly reverting/editing against consensus for his own individual preference, especially since he created the majority of these articles, and I'd appreciate other assessments of the situation. - 09:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

• David Bautista - dispute over whether he was born in 1966 or 1969, and which years(s) the article should include.Fallout boy 06:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• Digital organism simulators - User Zelos has repeatedly attempted to add his own ALife simulator to the list. Problem is that his simulator IMO is not noteworthy (being neither done nor demonstrating an interest beyond himself), and its inclusion on this list amounts to little more than vanity (again, IMO). He wrote a wiki article on it which was deleted, so I'm assuming I'm not alone in thinking this. I've posted some guidelines for inclusion I think are appropriate on the talk page, I'd just appreciate someone else telling me if I'm way off base or not. --Numsgil 17:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

• Wizet - A couple of reverts over what is and what isn't an encyclopedic article, primarily bouncing along between this and this version. Note that another user was tempted to change this page into a simple redirect. — 01:55, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

• Circumcision advocacy The article has been locked because of a slow edit war between two editors. The two editors have not been able to agree and the dispute has widened to a dispute on the legitimacy of the article itself. 22:13, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

• Panavision Featured article had content from a persistent anonymous IP (who I think is now registered as Bullandgoose) which included very wild speculative accusations about the company's financial future, as well as other original research and POV. Attempts have been made both to NPOV the content and to discuss on the Talk page, but the user seems to have little interest in obeying policy, and furthermore has tried to delete comments from the Talk page. 09:59, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

• Right-wing politics is down to a two-versions issue. One side says the old version was "a piece of trash… begging the question…" The other says the new version is "an uncited POV near-stub". Among the differences between the two are: the old version talked at length about the relation between fascism and right-wing politics (which the new one dismisses in two sentences) and (both sides seem to agree) at too much length about the Right and the War on Terror. The question at this point is which of these versions makes a better starting point to move forward. -- 19:32, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

• Paris page proposed improvements have fallen into a "stall and revert" deadlock. Improvements proposed are for page coherency, content accessibility, removal of redundant info (appearing on other pages) and factual context (veracity), yet none have made it permanently online to date. Would much appreciate some unbiased critique. 17:42, 25 November 2005 (UTC)