- Third opinions must be neutral. If you have had dealings with the article or with the editors involved in the dispute that 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 in the relevant section of the disputed article talk pages following the discussion of the dispute. Sign your comments with four tildes, like so: ~~~~.
- The {{ 3OR}} template is handy for inserting a third opinion on the talk page. For a shorter alternative, {{ 3ORshort}} can also be used. Usage: {{subst:3OR | <your response> }} or {{subst:3ORshort | <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 before you provide your third opinion. Doing so prevents other volunteers from duplicating your effort. Mention in the summary which dispute you have removed and how many remain.
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 respondent's third opinion was especially helpful or wise, you might want to consider awarding {{ The Third Opinion Award}} on their user talk page.
If you support this project you may wish to add the {{ User Third opinion}} userbox to your user page.
Active contributors who watchlist the page, review disputes, and update the list of active disagreements with informative edit summaries, are welcome to add themselves to the Category:Wikipedians willing to provide third opinions.
If you remove a dispute from the list for any reason, it is good practice to also leave a message on the dispute talk page explaining what you have done. The message should:
- Be civil and assume the request was made in good faith.
- Explain why the request was declined (e.g. "There are too many people involved already.")
- Suggest alternatives (e.g. "Perhaps you should try WP:Requests for Comment, the dispute resolution noticeboard, the talk page of a Wikiproject or one of the other WP:Dispute resolution options.")
- Third opinions must be neutral. If you have had dealings with the article or with the editors involved in the dispute that 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 in the relevant section of the disputed article talk pages following the discussion of the dispute. Sign your comments with four tildes, like so: ~~~~.
- The {{ 3OR}} template is handy for inserting a third opinion on the talk page. For a shorter alternative, {{ 3ORshort}} can also be used. Usage: {{subst:3OR | <your response> }} or {{subst:3ORshort | <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 before you provide your third opinion. Doing so prevents other volunteers from duplicating your effort. Mention in the summary which dispute you have removed and how many remain.
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 respondent's third opinion was especially helpful or wise, you might want to consider awarding {{ The Third Opinion Award}} on their user talk page.
If you support this project you may wish to add the {{ User Third opinion}} userbox to your user page.
Active contributors who watchlist the page, review disputes, and update the list of active disagreements with informative edit summaries, are welcome to add themselves to the Category:Wikipedians willing to provide third opinions.
If you remove a dispute from the list for any reason, it is good practice to also leave a message on the dispute talk page explaining what you have done. The message should:
- Be civil and assume the request was made in good faith.
- Explain why the request was declined (e.g. "There are too many people involved already.")
- Suggest alternatives (e.g. "Perhaps you should try WP:Requests for Comment, the dispute resolution noticeboard, the talk page of a Wikiproject or one of the other WP:Dispute resolution options.")