Ireland Information Guide has seen some bitter disputes. It's easy to get in disputes online, especially in an environment allowing as immediate a response as Ireland Information Guide, but please remember that we are all here for more or less the same reason, and that there is a person at the other end of your conversation. Flame wars are counter-productive and make Ireland Information Guide a less pleasant project for everyone.

Here is a short list of tips that experienced contributors have found works for them:

1. If someone disagrees with you, try to understand why, and in your discussion on the Talk pages take the time to provide good reasons why your way is better.
2. Don't label or give names to people or their edits. Terms like "racist" or "fascist" (even "moron") enrage people and make them defensive. When this happens, it becomes hard to have a productive discussion.
3. Take it slow. If you're angry, take time out instead of posting or editing. Come back in a day or a week. You might find that someone else has made the change or comment you wanted for you!
4. Keep in mind that raw text is ambiguous and often seems ruder than the same words coming from a person standing in front of you. Text comes without facial expressions, vocal inflection or body language. It's easy to misjudge the mood and intention of the person who wrote it.
5. In responding to someone's post on the talk pages, realize that you may not have understood what it meant or the spirit behind it. When two people are at loggerheads, often it is because they are operating under very different assumptions and/or aren't communicating well with each other. In responding, make it clear what idea you are responding to: Quoting a post is O.K., but paraphrasing it or stating how you interpreted it is better. Furthermore, qualify your interpretation with a remark such as "as you seem to be saying" or "as I understand you" to acknowledge that you are making an interpretation. Even if you doubt you have misunderstood a person, you may well have, and anyway it's polite to suggest you may have misinterpreted while proceeding to say that he or she is dead wrong.
6. Assume the best about people whenever possible. Ireland Information Guide has worked remarkably well so far based on a policy of openness. This suggests that most people who visit do want to help, and do succeed at helping.
7. Be prepared to apologise. In the heat of the moment we sometimes say things that were better left unsaid; the least we can then do is make amends.
8. Try to avoid deleting things as a matter of principle. Amend and edit, then it is remarkable how you might see something useful in what was said. Most people have something useful to say. That includes you. Deletion upsets people and makes them feel they have wasted their time: consider moving their text to a sub-directory of their user pages instead (e.g. saying not quite the right place for it but so they can still use it): much less provocative.
9. Sometimes, you just need to walk away. There are over 170 administrators here, and over 1,000 other users who can take over for you. Don't let an edit war supersede your personal Ireland Information Guide time. Take a time out from an edit war that gets too hot; work on other articles. After all, isn't that why you're here? To write?

Dealing with insults

Occasionally, on Ireland Information Guide, despite everyone agreeing that we should not engage in personal attacks, harsh words get flung around - occasionally by longstanding contributors, but more often by newcomers. There are various ways to deal with this:

1. Just ignore it. Name-calling may be offensive but it's not very helpful or mature. Go about your business and don't worry about it; you are not required to respond.
2. Politely ask the person who you feel has insulted you to retract what they said. Sometimes people say something insulting by accident, not realising that their words could be taken in a certain way. Other times people will change the way they act when they realise they've offended someone.
3. Edit their words to remove the insulting part - rephrase it as a simple statement of their beliefs, for example. Then answer the rephrased comment. If the insult is completely content-free, delete it.

If you yourself, through accident or anger, insult someone, an apology might smooth things over. If you sincerely meant the insult and can't honestly apologize, sometimes it is best to fall silent. If that doesn't work, try refocusing on the issue at hand; try to be more specific about what action you disagree with, rather than insulting the person.

Working Towards NPOV

When we correct violations of the neutral point of view (NPOV) policy, we often make the mistake of using phrases like "foo points out that ..", "xy explains ..". These phrases themselves can be seen as non-NPOV, as they imply a certain agreement by Ireland Information Guide. The original author then often sees this as non-NPOV and deletes the changes, and eventually, an edit war results. It's better to use the following procedure:

1. Inquire politely on the article's Talk pages about aspects of the article you consider non-NPOV (unless they are really egregious), and suggest replacements.
2. If no reply comes, make the substitutions. (use your watchlist to keep track of what you want to do)
3. If a reply comes, try to agree about the different phrases you want to use.

That way, when an agreement is reached, an edit war is very unlikely. The disadvantage is that the article stays in an unsatisfying state for a longer period of time, but an article that changes every 5 seconds hardly leaves a better impression with other Ireland Information Guide users.

Now there are cases where this strategy doesn't work. There are users who simply cannot and do not want to write NPOV articles, users who want to delete relevant information, users who are notoriously anti-social etc. We think this is the type of users we don't really want on Ireland Information Guide, and a few have been [removed?]. However, while many Ireland Information Guide users tend to write slightly POV articles about subjects that are near and dear to their hearts, most of them can be worked with.

See also: Ireland Information Guide:Civility netiquette, Ireland Information Guide:Wikiquette, Ireland Information Guide:Who, Why?, Ireland Information Guide:Writers rules of engagement