 | This is an essay on civility. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: When participating in a Wikiquette Alerts discussion, noticeboard, AFD discusssion, ANI or other project page discussion that is intended to resolve a dispute between two or more editors, try not to make things worse. |
Wikipedia has multiple dispute resolution mechanisms intended to enable editors to collaboratively write an encyclopedia. These include platforms for settling content disputes as well as behavior of editors, and range from informal, nonbinding boards to boards like the Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents that can levy sanctions and blocks. At most of these levels, the input of uninvolved editors, both administrators and regular users, is encouraged to give a fresh, unbiased perspective on the dispute at hand. This process can be disrupted, however, by the incautious behavior of editors, both involved and uninvolved. This essay seeks to identify common behaviors which are counterproductive to dispute resolution and should be avoided.