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 uninvolved opinion regarding a content discussion involving two editors. When two editors do not agree, either editor may list a discussion here to seek a third opinion. The third opinion process requires observance of good faith and civility from both editors in the discussion.
This page is for resolving conflicting viewpoints involving only two editors. The less formal nature of the third opinion process is a major advantage over other methods of resolving disputes. For more complex disputes that involve more than two editors, or that cannot be resolved through talk page discussion, editors should 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. If a respondant's third opinion was especially helpful or wise, you might want to consider awarding {{The Third Opinion Award}} on their user talk page.
How to list a dispute
Before making a request here, be sure that the issue has been thoroughly discussed on the article talk page. 3O is only for assistance in resolving disagreements that have come to a standstill. If no agreement can been reached on the talk page and only two editors are involved, follow the directions below to list the dispute.
If more than two editors are involved, 3O is not appropriate. 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:
- Go to the section on the article talk page where the discussion of the issue has occurred, and place the template {{3O}} there. Place the template at the top of the section, or wherever it seems appropriate to best help the Third Opinion editor understand the issue.
- Begin a new entry in the Active Disagreements section. Your entry should be at the end of the list if there are other entries, and the first character should be a # symbol to to create a numbered list. This preserves the numbering and chronological order of the list.
- Your entry should contain the following:
- a section link to a section on the article's talk page dedicated to the 3O discussion
- a brief neutral description of the dispute - no more than a line or two, and without trying to argue for or against either side
- A five tilde signature (~~~~~) to add the date without your name.
- Take care (as much as possible) to make it seem as though the request is being added by both participants.
No discussion of the issue should take place here - this page is only for listing the dispute. Please confine discussion to the talk page where the dispute is taking place.
Active disagreements
- Talk:Assyrians/Syriacs in Sweden#Article naming and stupid edit war. Disagreement about naming of article. 06:10, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
- Talk:Dili#Flag and CoA. Disagreement about the current use and official status of flag and CoA. 11:11, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
- Talk:Battle of Chawinda#decisive victory. Disagreement about the result of the battle. 14:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
- User_talk:Walklooker. Disagreement arising from a reversion of the Trusted Computing page. It appears that the reverting editor won't engage. 14:01, 22 March 2010 (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's talk page for a {{3O}} tag. Be sure to remove this tag from the talk page.
- Check the list of tagged talk pages occasionally for disputes which have been tagged but not listed here.
- If you're going to ask for an opinion, also consider giving one; this reciprocation is called good wiki-karma.
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.