Wikipedia:Administrators' guide/Dealing with disputes: Difference between revisions

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Ultimately, try to remind everyone that the goal is not to promote the interests of a group or a religion or a nation, but to ''have a positive effect on Wikipedia'', and create an article that is in adherence with Wikipedia policies.

==Be a Disputedispute Resolutionresolution teacher==

Often the best way that an administrator can intervene, is by educating the participants about how Wikipedia dispute resolution processes work. Yes, we have a page at [[WP:DR]], but often these systems are daunting for editors that haven't tried them before. So an admin may wish to "walk the participants through" things that they can try.

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==Dealing with entrenched views==

[[Image:Esel auf Santorin.jpg|right|thumb|Some editors may have stubbornly held views]]Sometimes no matter how much advice you give, how much you persuade or cajole or threaten, some editors are just going to be entrenched in their positions. They may still be civil, they may review sources in good faith, they may be established editors with thousands of good contributions to their name, but on some certain topic, they may just be completely inflexible, to the point where they are actively blocking consensus, and/or causing additions to articles that are a violation of Wikipedia's policies on [[WP:NPOV|neutrality]]. This problem might be from one editor on an article, or multiple editors, or there may be an off-wiki [[Wikipedia:Tag team|Tagtag team]] that is sweeping through multiple articles, pushing their particular agenda.

These situations are often noticed in topics of nationalism or religious belief, though can be found in other areas such as those of pseudoscience, supernatural phenomena, or anywhere that works of popular fiction may have imposed a false idea of reality onto some field. Internal disputes, such as areas of the [[WP:MOS|manual of style]] or [[WP:INFOBOX|infoboxes]] can also see editors with entrenched views.

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If it becomes necessary to [[WP:PROTECT|protect]] the page in question in order to stop an edit war over living persons issues, '''always''' protect the page on a version '''without''' the contentious material. This is not a final judgment on the material; rather, it is a temporary measure to prevent potentially harmful edits from remaining publicly visible while their suitability is determined.

Instruct involved editors to discuss the contentious material on the article's Talktalk page. Request outside opinions through the [[WP:BLPN|biographies of living persons noticeboard]], which is monitored by many editors and admins who are familiar with BLP issues.

It is important to remember that article subjects who are aggrieved by potential BLP violations on their biographies are generally not experienced Wikipedia editors, and they may be unfamiliar with our general conduct policies. They are often extremely angry at the fact that material they believe to be defamatory or privacy-invading is posted on the world's 10th-most-popular Webweb site. Exercise patience and restraint with them, and do not block them for minor violations (such as threatening a libel lawsuit over potentially defamatory material.) Instead, refer them to the [[m:OTRS|OTRS system]] by giving them this e-mail address: '''{{NoSpamEmail|info-en-q|wikimedia.org}}'''.

===Other kinds of content disputes===

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Beyond that, what works for one administrator and their personality style, may not work for another. The following are suggestions only:

====Option: Refer them to Disputedispute resolution====

In many cases, the best route in complex content disputes, is to just refer the editors to some other stage of [[WP:DR|Disputedispute Resolutionresolution]], especially [[WP:SEEKHELP|a relevant noticeboard]] or mediation. A Requestrequest for Commentcomment may also be useful, on either the article, or on one or more of the editors involved. In many cases, the best antidote to POV-pushing is the involvement of numerous experienced outside editors.

====Option: Restrict certain editors from participating====