Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest

Category of COI not directly addressed?

I've been watching a couple of conversations with a "new" kind of COI as the common thread. You might describe them as "purpose in life" COIs: people that aren't paid (money), but believe that it's their "unpaid job" to promote a particular POV. It's not "awareness" per se; it's really just POV-pushing -- but POV-pushing based on the idea that the editor's unpaid position requires representing the POV on Wikipedia. Some examples might illustrate the concept better than I can describe it right now:

Dispute	We say "Financial COI"	We say "Some other COI"
Vaccines	Employee of pharmaceutical company adds favorable information about the flu jab	Owner of a zero-revenue anti-vaccination website adds unfavorable information
Antibiotics	Seller adds information about benefits	Unpaid founder of an anti-antibiotics organization emphasizes adverse effects
Autism	Vaccine seller adds (accurate) information that the (discontinued) preservatives in childhood vaccines don't cause autism	Parent of a young autistic child that was never exposed to this preservative promotes this disproven 'cause' anyway, to the off-wiki cheers of his support group
Transportation	Employee of road construction firm adds information supporting highway expansion	Volunteer for an anti-highway group says that driving kills people
Water conservation	Employee of water agency adds information about program benefits	Unpaid anti-tax advocate adds unfavorable estimates of costs
Scandals	Lay employee of religious organization adds favorable information	Unpaid clergy for the same religious organization adds favorable information

We've done a good job of identifying "getting paid money to push a POV", but we don't currently seem to have directly addressed "getting non-monetary compensation for pushing a POV".

Non-monetary/psycho-social compensation can include personal fame, compliments from people you admire, a feeling of satisfaction at promoting your beliefs, or other nontangible -- but still visible, measurable, and real -- benefits. IMO, developing a identity as being "the wonderful person that makes sure Wikipedia reflects our community's point of view" is every bit as real a conflict of interest as getting paid to do the same thing. I've seen several editors that are "experts" at internet-based support groups and that have appeared at Wikipedia solely to "correct" medical articles to reflect the beliefs of their members. They seem to want to retain their social status in the other group by wikilawyering around Wikipedia's rules, even if it means thwarting this community's standards. Getting praised and honored by your support group for POV pushing here is "payment" that keeps people motivated to persist in POV pushing.

I think we should consider adding another section, perhaps titled something like "Unpaid positions", to briefly address this conflict of interest. I'm interested in other people's experiences of this phenomenon, and any ideas about how to express this in a couple of short sentences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:NPOV WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

WAS' comment is a bit cryptic, but if I understand him correctly I agree: WhatamIdoing, your examples are outside the scope of COI and must be handled simply with NPOV. And we shouldn't change that. It doesn't really matter why someone has a strong, ossified POV. The purpose of WP:COI is merely to cover some of the most common and most obvious cases. If we make it too widely applicable it will be abused. Hans Adler 20:53, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

So you think that if you run an organization dedicated to promoting a particular piece of information, and you make an effort to be quoted in the newspaper for its purpose, and the major goal of your life is to be seen promoting the Truth™ -- but that you don't get paid in money for doing it -- then you don't have a conflict of interest?

Let me give you an entirely hypothetical (I hope) example: Imagine an unemployed Orthodox rabbi who removes information about child sex abuse from Yeshiva Torah Temimah#Sexual_abuse_case. You are saying that he has no conflict of interest -- even though, in his mind, being a rabbi is far more fundamental and important than whatever he might do to keep food on his table -- but the school's janitor, who might be paid minimum wage and might have no particular interest in the school except as it puts food on his table, has an automatic conflict of interest? Is money so important to you that you can't imagine it not being equally important to everyone? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

A COI is not about money. It can be, but doesn't have to be. A COI occurs when a person is too close to what they are writing about. The COI comes about because of who that person is, not what they think. If that Orthodox rabbi were a friend or relative of Yeshiva Torah Temimah, for example, there would be a COI even though obviously there's nothing financial involved. If we exclude people from articles because they have strong feelings about those subjects, we'd kill the encyclopedia. Many, perhaps even most articles are edited by people who are either fans of the subject, or at least have a strong interest in it. That's what drew them to the article in the first place. As to the first comment, the person running an organization dedicated to promoting something, if you don't edit an article about the organization or try to promote the organization by mentioning it in related articles or linking to its web site, then no, there is no COI. -- Atama頭 18:21, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

In your opinion, would the founder of or major volunteer at a "Parents Against Deadly Vaccinations" or "People Harmed by Antidepressants" group generally be too close to the subject to edit articles about different vaccinations or antidepressants? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:02, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

No, as long as they don't act to promote their particular organizations in the article mainspace. On the other hand, if they were an advocate/activist and edited in that manner they would probably get blocked for reasons unrelated to COI. -- Atama頭 18:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

You say above that COI is about "who that person is", but you don't believe that "who I am is a person that has dedicated my life to getting vaccines banned" (or whatever) is a COI. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

That's right. I'm a big fan of Star Wars. Should I be considered to have a COI in editing Star Wars articles? I can't stand the taste of mushrooms, should I not be allowed to edit articles about them? Even very strong opinions don't equate to a COI. It's when you are directly connected to what you are editing about that the COI would apply. If I were to link to a Star Wars fan web site I created then I'd be in violation of a COI. If I got mad in a restaurant because they served me mushrooms, and I caused a ruckus and ended up in the newspaper, I'd have a COI if I added that info to the mushroom article. (Not that I would do that of course.) The COI has to be something obvious and clear, not something intangible and indirect, otherwise it would be too restrictive. -- Atama頭 18:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

And, in your opinion, owning or running an organization whose sole purpose is to ban vaccines (or whatever) is not "obvious and clear" -- up until the moment that the owner/operator gets paid to do exactly what he's doing now for free (since the COI page does include getting paid to push a POV). Correct? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure, but being paid is a slightly different subject. If that same person is paid to say vaccines are good, that would be a violation of COI even though they are editing in a manner different from their own personal views. Editing with a bias is allowed, in fact our NPOV policy assumes that every editor has a bias on one topic or another, it's human nature. The point is to keep that bias out of your edits. -- Atama頭 21:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

For an exhaustive and sometimes heated discussion about a real situation similar to the scenario you described, please see this archived discussion where an editor who runs a circumcision web site was editing the circumcision article. Because he didn't try to promote his web site or organization, it was the opinion of myself (and others) that there was no COI despite the editor's personal beliefs. -- Atama頭 21:30, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The solution is easy. On the article talk page, all editors with any COI must disclose these, however remote. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 14:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Restoring the COI exemption #7

I think I am going to restore #7, perhaps with a bit of explanation as to what it's function is, unless there is serious objection. Keith Henson (talk) 05:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I do. I still would suggest them to proceed with care. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Why is exemption #7 needed now that WP:MLA exists? Before declaring COI exemptions, I think you would need to provide some real examples that show that good edits have been lost – edits that probably would not be lost if #7 existed. Also, any form of restored #7 would need to define the terms more precisely because a link spammer would have no hesitation to declare that they have "useful primary sources" or "digitized or digital primary sources". Johnuniq (talk) 08:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Why is exemption #7 needed now that WP:MLA exists?"

Because WP:MLA is 45,000 bytes of dense prose. You can't expect archive employees to read it, much less understand it. The same is true of run of the mill editors, they will just automatically revert on COI or other grounds what archive employees put in.

Re "link spam" take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_steinbeck#External_links. Because his papers are in several locations, that article may be a high mark for links. The most important links are the top ones to the Stanford Special collections. They were added by the intern and partly deleted by Orangemike if you want an example of edits lost becaues there was no #7 in those days. Keith Henson (talk) 21:37, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Seen the discussions we have here, I really don't think that #7 belongs in a section 'non-controversial edits' .. depending on the situation, some GLAMs' edits will certainly be controversial. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

See what I wrote on my talk page. Also, "If another editor objects for any reason, then it's a controversial edit. Such edits should be discussed on the article's talk page." The point being the other editor has to object on some grounds, not just blindly revert all the work an archive intern or employee has put in. Keith Henson (talk) 21:37, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

An example showing good edits that have been lost (edits that #7 would have saved) is really needed. Also, if someone wants 100 links to their own institution, they need to have sufficient time and motivation to at least skim the WP:MLA page (they are here to help the encyclopedia?). The MLA page makes clear that any questions or problems should be posed at the MLA talk page, and the editors monitoring that page would be extremely helpful to the archivist. Johnuniq (talk) 23:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I mentioned the one by Orangemike http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Steinbeck&action=historysubmit&diff=226499213&oldid=226489331

Here are three more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Seema_Aissen_Weatherwax&action=historysubmit&diff=226499791&oldid=226312785

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arthur_Torres&action=historysubmit&diff=227086796&oldid=226312231

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tillie_Olsen&action=historysubmit&diff=227086812&oldid=226280683

The fact that Stanford special collections has 60 feet of her papers is not in the article.

You might want to fix it.

I don't think the reality of archives adding links has sunk in. The people who do this will be interns or library staff who have been assigned to add a list of pointers or links to articles. They are making an *extremely* limited contact with Wikipedia at the request of manager librarians/archivists who are motivated by their function of letting the world know what they have. These people are not going to get involved in the rough and tumble of Wikipedia politics.

They get bitten, their one or two line pointer contributions reverted, and they are gone. Managers are not going to waste precious resources where their efforts get deleted. If accommodating them is not acceptable to Wikipedia culiture we should just tell them to stay away.

If that's the consensus of what you want, it's an acceptable resolution far as I am concerned. Keith Henson (talk) 02:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The treatment of User:Sulair.speccoll is shameful. Here is someone who just wanted to add relevant information to Wikipedia articles, given a 'Final Warning' for his/her hard work. I don't think COI exemption #7 is the way to go, as it's too long and complicated a situation to fit there. But we definitely need something on this page, with a link to WP:MLA. I suggest either a paragraph in the examples section, or a section following the 'Non-controversial edits' section. --LK (talk) 05:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but note that a section has been added to the page (see WP:Conflict of interest#Subject professionals). It finishes with "For more information, see Advice for the cultural sector" which is the WP:MLA page. Johnuniq (talk) 06:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Oops missed that. Good point. LK (talk) 18:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

We seem to agree that Stanford University had something to contribute to Wikipedia. However, I do not think that they were prevented by the COI guideline – it was the actions of the single-purpose account who continued adding links that had a misguided style after the intial warning on the user's talk page. It was only when faced with a "final warning" that the user responded. COI was raised with the user, but that is fully correct: university staff adding links to their collection do have a COI regardless of what our guideline says (that's just a common usage meaning of "COI"). Regardless of any COI, the link formatting was misguided because each item contained three external links to Stanford University, and a lot of superfluous text (one third of a typical entry describes the item, and two thirds describes the institution).

At User talk:Sulair.speccoll, Orange Mike said "I am reverting your edits because they do not conform to our standards and practices", and also issued the standard COI template. Gadget850 said that the links do not add any information, and referred to WP:EL and WP:SPAM. Ryan Postlethwaite issued a final warning referencing the addition of spam links, and later mentioned COI. Jehochman explained that shared accounts are not allowed and blocked the user after it was apparent that at least two people were sharing the account. This could have been handled better, but it was the link spamming that got attention; the COI was a side issue. Wikipedia needs something like WP:MLA to handle this kind of situation because it is not acceptable to have outside parties (with no demonstrated interest in improving Wikipedia) deciding for themselves whether their external links deserve special exemption from the normal guidelines. Johnuniq (talk) 06:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how many times I have to say it but archivists are NOT "Subject professionals." They know what the archive has without knowing much about the subjects. If they did, they would be the most awesome polymaths on the planet.

I know for a fact, having talked to the person at Special Collections, that the COI issue was what kept them from coming back. My email is on my user page. If you want direct contact with the person at Special Collections to get their view of the situation, I will be happy to forward your thoughts or send you their contact information.

If it is the consensus here that the only thing archives can offer is considered spam, then we should not only drop this discussion, but go into hundreds to thousands of articles and delete the "Research resources" pointers and links to archives.

If we do want what they can offer than #7 or something as short and clear needs to be part of the policy. Keith Henson (talk) 19:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

See my last comment at the bottom of Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#What_we_want_and_what_they_want above. We seem to have several sections discussing this at once. For heaven's sake don't let's open any more. Johnbod (talk) 19:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Depending on the content of said section, "Research resources" may be a violation of WP:NOTLINKS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

"Research resources" are not even links, just a note that an archive has original materials on the subject of the article. Re links, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Disaster and click on the links. I think the article is much improved to have the links handy, but if you don't, you can delete them. Keith Henson (talk) 01:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps some of tiny number of them don't amount to a separate section of external links, but they sure look like external links to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

And in some cases, actually a whole set of them. In case the original concern did not get through, this line should look like:

• Tillie Olsen Papers, 1930-1990(call number M0667; ca. 62 linear ft.) are housed in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University Libraries

No need for the excessive linking. Only the first one is directly related to the subject, the rest not.

As a side remark, I wonder if Wikipedia and the New York Times are wrong, if Stanford is wrong, or if this is another accidental overlap in name, but actually a different person? Linking is fine, Keith, but we can gain so much more from these archives, and vice versa. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Why do you think there is a conflict between the Stanford materials and the NYT?

What do want to gain from archives beyond links or pointers to original materials? Keith Henson (talk) 22:48, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

(I answered this also on my talkpage) Well, the gain in this specific example might be the other way around, birthday is wrong on Stanford, and there are more discrepancies (hmm, linking to factually incorrect material ..?). But the next time it could be the other way, where Wikipedia does not have a date of birth, or something similar, or got some dates wrong. Why do you think that there is never anything to gain on either side. It could have been so much better (and it can be so much better ... if only we would have taught them to be considerate in their edits early on. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:25, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

How is consensus achieved on this Project?

Hi I am new here, so please forgive me if I am treading on some toes/ bringing up a topic that has already been discussed to death. However, the associated Project page says that any substantive edits to the page should reflect consensus. I therefore wonder if consensus was achieved before the recent addition by Sebwite? Ottawahitech (talk) 20:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

It's just a "See also" to an essay he wrote. It's not a change to the guideline itself. If someone objects to the essay they'll propose it for deletion, make changes, or discuss concerns on the talk page of the essay. If someone objects to its inclusion in the "See also" section of this guideline they'll remove it. I read it and thought it was okay or I would have removed the link myself. For the most part, Wikipedia works on the BRD principle; Bold, Revert, Discuss. Make a "bold" edit, if someone objects to the edit they "revert" it, and then editors "discuss" the attempted edit on the talk page. Editors are discouraged from being too bold with policies and guidelines, as you've pointed out already, but adding a related essay to "See also" isn't that controversial.

If you don't like its inclusion, though, make your concerns known and we can get right to discussing it. :) -- Atama頭 20:28, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining to someone who is relatively new at Wikipedia. I don't see how [[Wikipedia:An article about yourself is nothing to be proud of]] relates to Conflict of Interest so I reverted its addition by Sebwite.Ottawahitech (talk) 13:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:COI application to discussion pages?

Hi.

I saw this: Talk:Homeopathy/Archive_40#Rephrase_please:

"It seems this user has a pretty strong personal WP:COI regarding this discussion, and should probably bow out of the discussion (feel free to provide RS or contribute in other areas). The Ennis email is not a WP:RS. Please don't bring your personal disputes to wikipedia. I agree with Scott, there is no issue with the text in the article. Verbal chat 17:57, 21 July 2009 (UTC) "

This suggests that WP:COI also applies to talk, which would then make it seem like then there's no way for anyone with COI to resolve the problem. Or is this only for certain special cases (like possibly this one)? If so, shouldn't the guideline specify how and when it applies to talk as well? mike4ty4 (talk) 20:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

That was a very, very special situation. The COI user had just been back from a 1 year(!) site ban related to endless and fruitless discussions in his field. (I felt it was a bit harsh, but he seriously got on my nerves as well.) And Verbal is often very brisk. COI was technically not a good argument in this context.

I think it's just right that the guideline doesn't specify any restrictions on talk pages. COI editors often have valuable knowledge; we want them to be active on talk pages, although obviously they shouldn't normally dominate the discourse. Hans Adler 21:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Does that last bit mean there is a deliberate effort applied in such cases to ensure they don't do that "dominating" (an effort that would not be undertaken were it a "normal" poster)? If so, then shouldn't that be mentioned in some policy or guideline somewhere, even if not the COI one (in which case, then maybe it should be mentioned that COI is not the right one to use for those cases, or at least the poster informed of that)? Also, there is something called "Refusal to get the point" at WP:DISRUPT, does this sound similar to the type of "discussions" that were being done? mike4ty4 (talk) 22:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

No. It has nothing to do with a conflict of interest. Certain "personalities" sometimes try to take over discussion on a topic, using their expertise (real or not) as a bludgeon to squelch disagreement. That's already taken care of with WP:CIVIL. Refusing to get the point can sometimes come into play, but for the most part this "dominating" is reflected best with 1(d) of WP:CIVIL#Identifying incivility, "belittling a fellow editor". -- Atama頭 22:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

So invoking COI as a justification, like was done, would not have been appropriate then? mike4ty4 (talk) 07:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Definitely not. Article talk pages are one of the few places where a COI editor is encouraged to participate. Dana has had a few COI problems with homeopathy-related articles (and his own biography) but saying that a person shouldn't edit a talk page because of a COI is just incorrect. -- Atama頭 22:55, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion for a change in the lead

The third paragraph of the lead states the following:

"When editing causes disruption to the encyclopedia through violation of policies such as neutral point of view, what Wikipedia is not, and notability, accounts may be blocked."

I have some problems with the the inclusion of notability in this statement. The first is a matter of semantics; there is no notability policy, it's a guideline. Another problem is that "violating" the notability guideline would never lead to a block; you might be blocked for creating articles about non-notable subjects but only if you are also causing some other infraction, such as creating an attack page or unambiguous advertising. The last problem I have is that the rest of the article doesn't support this assertion, the only other mention of notability is in the autobiography section, and that section actually runs contrary to the assertion, it says that even if you do follow the notability guideline you still shouldn't create an autobiography because if you are notable an independent editor should create an article about you eventually.

My suggestion is to either remove the example entirely, or replace it with an appropriate policy, such as WP:OR or WP:COPYVIO, which in my experience are both common problems with COI editors and which are discussed later in the article. I would have made this change already, but it is a pretty big change as it affects how the COI guideline is supposed to be enforced and I would rather get some agreement that this change is okay before implementing it. What I'd like to do is replace notability with both OR and COPYVIO. -- Atama頭 23:11, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

What you say makes sense. However, the sentence would be quite cumbersome with both OR and COPYVIO mentioned, and it doesn't have to spell out every blockable disruptive behavior, so some simplification might be desirable. I'm guessing that notability is mentioned because a COI editor may be inclined to create several articles with variations on a non-notable theme. I don't see how to succinctly explain that. I wonder how often COI editing involves WP:OR – is it enough to warrant mentioning as blockable? Johnuniq (talk) 03:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Original research is a very common problem with COI editors, but you make a good point, I don't think that OR leads to a block that often. Copyright violations can quickly lead to a block of an editor continually does them so maybe that alone would be worth mentioning. -- Atama頭 04:53, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Special consideration for lawyers

I was recently involved in a AfD and COIN that involved a series of articles which covered certain sports attorneys and their athlete clients. The result was that the three attorney biographies were deleted. The SPAs which created and edited these articles appeared to have ties to the attorneys' firm. (One SPA was the name of one lawyer with all lowercase characters.)

There are special ethical rules that govern attorney advertising, and some state ethic panels have ruled that online websites are covered by such rules. Some states require the use of disclaimer language in advertisements. Some others require a pre-approval process for any lawyer advertisement.

Most states have adopted some version of ABA Model Rule 7.4, which states that a lawyer cannot call himself an expert unless he has been “certified as a specialist by an organization that has been approved by an appropriate state authority or that has been accredited by the [ABA].”

Would it be appropriate to add something to the WP:COI page noting that attorneys who seek to add content (directly or through representatives) may be subject to special eithic rules in addition to the WP:COI policy? Perhaps such a statement may discourage COI self-promotion by attorneys. Racepacket (talk) 02:13, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

That's difficult, because we'd need some law experts to be sure that the information is accurate, as well as someone to keep it up-to-date in case that changes. And as you've said, this varies from state-to-state in the US, and what about editors from all the other countries in the world? I'm not against anything that discourages COI editing similar to what you had pointed out, but it seems like this would be messy to implement and keep track of, and probably not worth it. -- Atama頭 01:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

COI Editing "Forbbiden" not just "Discouraged" issue again, and definition of COI editing

Hi.

One time here, I mentioned that this page seems to pretty much imply that COI editing would be forbidden, not just "discouraged", due to the interaction with policy. The definition given on the page seems to be:

"COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Where advancing outside interests are more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest."

"['What is a conflict of interest?' subsection] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a forum for advertising or self-promotion, or a vanity press. As such, it should contain only material that complies with its content policies, and Wikipedians must place the interests of the encyclopedia first. Any editor who gives priority to outside interests may be subject to a conflict of interest." (emphases all mine)

Such edits would be "forbidden", because they would violate policy: by definition, promoting interests outside of Wikipedia goes against certain policies. For example, take WP:NPOV. A viewpoint that promotes the interests is not a neutral view. As this is part of COI editing, said policy prohibits such edits.

When I brought this up earlier, one poster said:

Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest/Archive_5#COI_Edits_are_Forbidden.2C_not_just_.22discouraged.22.21 "No. COI edits may conflict with NPOV, and even then, they may be in good faith. Would we welcome Prof. Stephen Hawkins contributing to the article on his theory of the Big Bang? I think that as long as other editors get a veto, and a potential COI is declared, there is no problem."

Though perhaps the wording was different then, the way it is written here now makes it seem like COI edits would indeed be prohibited: because the definition includes an active intentional effort to promote interests outside of Wikipedia, and such a thing would not seem to be "in good faith" per the Wikipedia definition (excepting, possibly, the case of a newbie who does not know or understand Wikipedia policies and so doesn't know Wikipedia isn't for such things). If it is prohibited, then I think this should be mentioned on the guideline page, saying something like "COI edits violate Wikipedia policies including XXX", for example, as opposed to just saying such things are "discouraged" or even "strongly discouraged".

Also, Hawkings, etc. writing articles about a Big Bang theory would not seem to be "COI Editing" under the above definition unless he is intent on promoting his theories there to the detriment of other ones, given the definition just quoted from the page. He may, however, have unconscious biases that could seep in even if he did not have such intention, but that does not seem so much like a conflict of interests as "intrinsic bias" or something like that. If however, COI is supposed to include the latter too, then I'd suggest the definitions given be altered to make it clear, though I'm not sure what a good formulation would be, and also the term "conflict of interest" seems a little misleading as it would also cover cases even when conscious "interests" don't conflict (a WP editor may come and honestly believe and intend sincerely to help the Wikipedia and put its interest at the fore, yet may still unconsciously or inadvertantly slip in bias). If the definition of COI currently present (that I just quoted) is, however, "correct" or "what it's supposed to be", then if the "unconscious/unintentional bias" issue needs coverage somewhere, perhaps it could be done with a separate page or maybe a section in this one, that discusses that issue, its relationships to, and also its differences from, COI as so defined, and the two concepts differentiated when appropriate in the text instead of just mashed together. mike4ty4 (talk) 22:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

COI edits are not expressly forbidden. Articles are not deleted because they were created and/or edited by someone with a COI, people are not blocked for having a COI. Generally what you're proposing is already here. It already states in the lead that disruption can get you blocked. The "unintentional bias" portion is mentioned in WP:COI#Close relationships, where it states, "Closeness to a subject does not mean you're incapable of being neutral, but it may incline you towards some bias." For example, someone writing an article about his father almost can't help but make it promotional even when he's not trying to, this is where the conflict of interest guidelines suggest he take a step back from editing. But if his father is notable, and he can expand the article positively (let's say he has clipping of newspaper articles about his dad going back 30 years he can reference) then it's definitely to Wikipedia's benefit that he at least help expand the article if he avoids disruption while doing so. You can't really segregate the unintentional bias from the conscious promotion, they're both born of the same issue (COI) and both have a potential to cause problems in articles, so that is why both are addressed in this guideline. -- Atama頭 22:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I recall this page, once upon a time, making a distinction between having and abusing a conflict of interest (or some such wording). That is, a person who is employed by Microsoft, Inc.'s publicity department has a conflict of interest with respect to the article Microsoft, but if their editing is obviously beneficial to the encyclopedia (e.g., correcting typos or updating financial results with the most recent results), then it was welcomed with open arms. If, on the other hand, the editing was harmful (e.g., deleting well-sourced criticism of the company), then it was not acceptable.

This was 'back in the day', before COI firmly adopted the sensible idea that a subject matter expert did not really have any more of a conflict of interest than an ignorant person, so perhaps it isn't needed -- or perhaps it was a promptly reverted change that happened to appear at the moment I was looking for it -- but I think that the distinction between "having" and "abusing" a COI is a simpler way of explaining this issue than "COI editing", which is ambiguous (is that "editing that promotes my interest" or "any and all editing done by me"?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I assume you are talking specifically about the section called "How to avoid COI edits". You are correct, because "COI edits" themselves are not necessarily a problem, and it's not even a correct title. It should be either called "How to avoid COI disruption" or "How to avoid COI violations"; or maybe "How to avoid creating COI problems". -- Atama頭 00:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

So then so-called conflict of "interest" does not require conflict of conscious, intentional interests, but can refer to both such things and at the same time, the unconscious/unintentional bias as well. Hence why I'm not sure of whether or not conflict of "interest" is a good term (though it could refer to the 1st case of promotions done intentionally and consciously). But that doesn't seem to jive with the definitions given -- editing "in order to promote", incompatibility between the "aims" of the editor and Wilipedia, etc., as they all seem to paint a picture of "COI" being something deliberate, as opposed to a type of situation. They seem to focus only on the deliberate promotion half and ignore the unconscious/unintentional bias half, and so also couldn't capture the "root" from which both are born out of. Which suggests those definitions should be reformulated, as I mentioned in the opener post, but I am not entirely sure as to a better formulation. I think it should capture the following, however: 1) "COI" is a situation, not a specific action or intention, 2) deliberate promotion or imposition of outside interest (COI editing could also involve adding undue criticisms as well, not just promotions, like if they're some sort of disgruntled employee or they want to "out" some wrong they perceive to exist) in a way conflicting with Wikipedia policy is prohibited, 3) due to reasons of unconscious biases it is advised not to edit or exercise caution when editing in such a situation even when no promotional intent exists. What do you think? mike4ty4 (talk) 07:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

You can say that a conflict of interest is a "situation", sure. The initial sentence of the guideline implies as much. A conflict of interest can result in either negative or positive POV editing, the article correctly says that the problem is a lack of neutrality, not simply being too positive. The article already talks about bias from a close connection as I mentioned before. I'm not sure what needs to be changed to reflect what you want, it seems to already be there. Just a note, if your goal is a more narrowly-defined definition of COI, I don't think it's going to happen; it's a very difficult thing to define and getting too specific would either make the guideline too complicated or cause it to exclude certain types of behavior that are COI because they don't fit some rigid set of criteria. -- Atama頭 23:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem is the phrases "COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Where advancing outside interests are more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest" and "and Wikipedians must place the interests of the encyclopedia first. Any editor who gives priority to outside interests may be subject to a conflict of interest". The problem with these phrases is that they seem to imply that an intentional and deliberate "interest" is required that conflicts with that of WP, when that may not be the case with a so-called "COI" situation. My "goal" is not to advocate a restricted definition or "demotion" of the concept this is trying to get at, but rather that perhaps a different name should be used (with "COI" referring specifically to the special case of clash of deliberate intents/interests -- note the general concept would still exist and still be covered, merely under a different name), or the definitions given leave out something very important, namely that "situational" nature -- which is very important because it implies "COI" can arise without specific intents. Failure to make this clear may mislead people into thinking that this may not apply as long as they have no conflicting conscious/intentional interests, when it still could if they have the close relationship. That's what this is about: make the rules crisp enough so people don't get misled and they don't sound somewhat contradictory or confused, and so they are more difficult to lawyer and game, but not so rigid that it excludes certain cases that should be otherwise covered, either. mike4ty4 (talk) 03:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea, it's implementing it properly in the guideline that might be tough. But I think it would help. -- Atama頭 06:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I know. But if you want, I'll give the following jab. You can do whatever you want with this, toss it out, tweak it around, critique it like crazy (I want critiques, actually) it's just to get some sort of "base" to work on something better:

"On Wikipedia, the phrase 'conflict of interest' refers to a type of situation in which the editor of an article possesses a close relationship with the article's subject in such a way that it may hamper their ability to contribute to that article in a manner which is compliant with Wikipedia content policy, especially neutral point-of-view, verifiability, and no original research. This includes both unconscious or inadvertent biases, and much more seriously, editors who deliberately intend to advance interests related to the subject in a way that conflicts with such policy. For example, an editor who edits a page to remove well-sourced and acknowledged criticism of their business to make it look better would fall under the second category, while an editor who writes about an affair in which they are personally involved yet have no conscious intent of violating policy would fall under the first." mike4ty4 (talk) 20:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

The box on top (in a nut shell) says don't do it (COI). The text is unclear. I've made it more clear, which is don't do it unless it is one of the exceptions (for which there are many). Petty theft is still theft. So allowing some COI is still wrong except for the many exceptions, like vandalism fixing, BLP violations. Article talk page comments are also allowed for any COI person. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 14:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

What direction to take?

Perhaps someone can proved direction to me as to how to address a situation. An editor has indicated that he does not like the views of the subject of an article. I believe the article fairly reflects the RSs, a point he hasn't disagreed with. Nor, IMHO, could he in good faith. Still, he doesn't like the reflection of the RSs in the article.

He has now added a COI template to the article. I removed it writing there's simply no basis for it. Nor has any been suggested, despite many requests by me that he provide one. He has told me, however, that I am not allowed to remove his COI template.

He also affixed a neutrality template. But hasn't provided a basis for it, despite requests (and IMHO none exists). He has cautioned me not to remove his neutrality template.

What course to address this? I don't seem to be able to discuss it with him and reach a reasoned resolution. Many thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 00:37, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe I know the article you are referring to, which is currently at AfD. So far it looks to be surviving the AfD.

In that article, and in any similar situation, the tag is inappropriate. Not so inappropriate that the editor should be warned, but it's just incorrect. There is quite often a confusion between WP:COI and WP:NPOV, as they are very much related, but they aren't the same. The argument made on the talk page is that there is such a strong POV that it implies a COI, but that's just incorrect. A conflict of interest doesn't just mean a strong POV, it means an actual connection. I've commented there. By the way, this is not the place to discuss such matters, this talk page is for discussion about the COI policy page and whether or not the policy should be changed, for questions about specific COI incidents please use the conflict of interest noticeboard. Thanks! -- Atama頭 00:54, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

New question

Everytime a new page comes up with the "Tag: possible autobiography or conflict of interest". Should we move it to the user page of that user? Minimac94 (talk) 06:36, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

That might encourage the user to edit it further (extensively), which is the opposite of the goal of the template! -- Quiddity (talk) 20:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Non sequitur about assuming good faith

"Assuming good faith, start from the idea that the contributor was genuinely trying to help increase Wikipedia's coverage." That's a non sequitur. A person could in perfectly good faith not understand that Wikipedia isn't a vehicle for self-promotion, and could in perfectly good faith post an advertisement (or anything else unsuitable for Wikipedia), without having the slightest care about increasing Wikipedia's coverage. Therefore, if I immediately deduce that someone with a COI is writing for his own benefit, that his article is a vanity piece, that doesn't mean I'm not assuming good faith on his part. —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

"Assume good faith" doesn't mean "assume the editor is a good person". If you look at the beginning of WP:AGF, it states:

Assuming good faith is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia: it is the assumption that editors' edits and comments are made in good faith. Most people try to help the project, not hurt it. If this were false, a project like Wikipedia would be doomed from the beginning.

The key part is "most people try to help the project". If someone is coming to Wikipedia for promotional purposes, their goal is not to help the project, but rather to help themselves and/or their organization. You don't have to assume the person adding such promotional material is cackling madly and proclaiming aloud what fools these Wikipedians are to allow free advertising, but if that person isn't here to improve the encyclopedia then they're not acting in good faith. Wikipedia gives random people the privilege to edit articles with the trust that they are doing so to make the encyclopedia better, and if they betray that trust then it's a stretch to declare that what they do is in good faith. -- Atama頭 17:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If what you say is valid, then I await Wikipedia's attempt to redefine day as night and night as day. "Good faith" means what it means, and any kind of action that someone makes is not made in bad faith if the person taking the action is unaware that it is contrary to the rules of the venue. If someone writes a vanity piece about himself on MySpace, it's done in good faith. If the same person doesn't know that it isn't permitted to use Wikipedia for that purpose, and does the same thing here, then he's still doing it in good faith, and by calling the article, which would be an obvious vanity piece, a vanity piece, then unless there were clear evidence that he did know the piece wasn't appropriate, I would not be accusing him of bad faith, and therefore my observation should not be considered a violation of the Assume Good Faith principle. —Largo Plazo (talk) 18:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

To-may-to, to-mah-to. Wikipedia defines all sorts of words in its own way, such as "notability", "vandalism", even "conflict of interest" means something particular on Wikipedia. Generally, though, we do assume "good faith" in the way you mean, to an extent; if someone is new and let's say they are spamming, and are given a warning that their links aren't appropriate, that warning should be a gentle one letting them know that what they're doing is wrong. We do have different levels of templates for that very reason.

But I'll give you a real situation that often comes up; somebody comes to Wikipedia to "spread the word" about a charity, one trying to raise money for a cure for cancer (very common). They create an article about their non-notable organization, they start adding external links to articles to promote it, and they also mention it in the bodies of various articles related to finding a cure for cancer. By Wikipedia's standards, that person is being disruptive. They're given a gentle warning, and continue behavior; they are warned that they can be blocked, and yet continue. They are acting in total "good faith" by most people's standards, because their goal is to help cure cancer. What could be a better goal? Yet, we cease to assume good faith, by Wikipedia's standards, because we know this person is willfully misusing their editing privileges. Eventually that person would be blocked, indefinitely, because their goals (as wonderful as they may be) are incompatible with the project. Another common example is the person who sincerely believes that by trying to present "the truth" on Wikipedia and the rest of the internet, they are saving the world from some calamity or righting some wrong. Again, that person's intentions are not malicious, but by Wikipedia's perspective that person's intentions are still destructive. -- Atama頭 19:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

1. Nothing about your scenario is consistent with what I said. When the person starts his activities, he is acting in good faith, and we treat him as such when addressing him. The instant he continues his activities after he has been warned that they are inappropriate, he is no longer acting in good faith.
2. None of this is relevant to the point I was originally making. I was commenting on the false proposition that calling a vanity piece a vanity piece is a breach of Assume Good Faith. There is no inherent inconsistency between posting a vanity piece and acting in good faith. Therefore, describing an article as a vanity piece isn't, by itself, an accusation of bad faith.

To be clear about it: I am not confusing "good faith" with either "good person" or "admirable motivations". —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I can see where you're coming from, but when you label something as a vanity piece, you are casting doubt on a person's intentions and that isn't assuming good faith. See WP:VSCA which covers the topic well (and calls creating such pages one of the "cardinal sins" of Wikipedia). I think that the COI guideline is only saying that if you approach a new editor and label their creations in such a way, that you're going to put them off. It's advice on how to settle something peacefully while placing the foundation for being able to guide an editor into being productive, not some rule that you can breach and get in trouble for. And it's situational, if someone is obviously aware of our guidelines and policies and is flaunting them, I have no problem with calling a spade a spade, and I do it myself. I doubt many others would have a problem with you doing so either. -- Atama頭 20:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

NPOV vs COI

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but WP:NPOV is a policy while WP:COI is a guideline. If someone is complying with NPOV, then what does it matter if they have a COI? Since Wikipedia stresses anonymity, why should we be trying find out if someone has a COI? If they aren't editing in a neutral manner, shouldn't that be reason enough for corrective action? Cla68 (talk) 06:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

It's a valid question, and one I've brought up before (see this discussion); I've said that if there is no clear distinction between COI and NPOV, then we might as well delete the COI guideline as redundant. I do think that there's a distinction, however. And I do think that the COI guideline is very useful. I believe that there are 3 purposes to the COI guideline, as I see it used in practice.

• The COI guideline helps us identify editors with a potential conflict of interest, which helps bring greater scrutiny toward their actions as they may be working with either a conscious or unconscious bias, which is something to keep in mind when evaluating their actions.
• The guideline gives editors who may have a COI some advice in how to avoid inspiring bad faith from other editors, advice like staying away from controversial edits, openly declaring the COI, and trying to use article talk pages to communicate with other editors.
• The last helpful bit of the COI involves what to do with problematic COI editors, which involves restricting their article edits and encouraging them to suggest changes on article talk pages rather than changing articles directly.

It's a guideline and therefore has less "teeth" than WP:NPOV, but it can be useful. And yes, you're right that with a person who is complying with NPOV (and all other policies and guidelines) that the COI doesn't matter. I suppose you might consider that a 4th purpose to the guideline, because the guideline points that out as well, and reminds editors not to persecute people who have conflicts of interest but still edit productively. -- Atama頭 17:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Atama. I place greater scrutiny on an article where there's evidence of a COI. When there's a COI, I'm more critical of unsourced borderline material that I might ordinarily let go, and I'm more inclined to interpret various superlatives and mentions of trivial accomplishments as gratuitous WP:PEACOCKery than I might otherwise have. —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

If someone is complying with NPOV, then what does it matter if they have a COI? - That is a general argument which would equally apply against every conflict of interest regulation outside Wikipedia, be it in politics, business, journalism or law:

• If a politician is complying with his oath of office, why bother him with campaign finance regulation?
• Why should a bank erect chinese walls between its investment bankers and analysts - isn't it enough to require the analysts to use their best, honest judgment?
• If a journalist is writing a good, neutral article, what does it matter if he complies with his newspaper's full disclosure policy?

In all these areas, for decades or even centuries, the answer has been that it is not enough to establish policies on what consists good work, it is also necessary to require a person to avoid situations where there is a great personal incentive for them to bend these rules.

Returning to Wikipedia, I think it boils down to this question: Do the general principles about human nature which necessitate COI policies in the above examples also apply to Wikipedians, or are our personalities for some reason morally superior to the groups of people mentioned above? If we are, it would be justified to reduce WP:COI to "just make sure you follow WP:NPOV and the other policies". If not, it seems clear that we will build a better encyclopedia if we state clearly that one should refrain from editing when there is a conflict of interest.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:54, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The edit summary of "the argument rests on the implicit assumption that wikipedians are morally superior to politicians, journalists, bankers, lawyers...." is just begging for a snarky agreement :P (maybe not all journalists, but the rest... (can we add realtors?)) Sorry, couldn't resist. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:48, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I think Atama makes some good points. I don't agree quite as much with HaeB. There's one big difference between your examples of the politician, bank, and journalist and Wikipedia, and that's Wikipedia's principle of anonymous editing. The three occupations that you mention are publicly attributable and accountable for their actions (at least they're supposed to be). Wikipedia editors are offered anonymity in order to promote greater participation. Therefore, we need to weigh pursuing COI allegations against an account with our commitment to WP:OUT. It seems that the first sign that an account may have a COI is that they are not editing in a NPOV manner. Cla68 (talk) 21:40, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Editing with a POV can be a first sign, but isn't always the first sign. When an article called "Sam Jones" is created by a brand-new account named "Sjones", and is written in first-person, the COI is pretty evident. Or a real estate company's article is drastically rewritten with an edit summary saying, "Management has mandated these changes per company policy." Even if the edits themselves don't show a POV, it's still worth noting that the COI exists, for future reference if nothing else. For example, dropping a note about WP:AUTO to the first editor might be of help, or letting the second editor know about WP:OWN might be helpful. I spend a lot of time (too much time?) at the COI noticeboard, and I think I spend at least as much time trying to help editors with conflicts of interest as I do trying to simply stop disruption from them.

Your average Wikipedian may start their "career" by reading articles, and making little fixes or comments as an IP. Then they'll get an account and start tentatively editing some articles that interest them, getting more involved as confidence and experience grows. Editors with a COI will often come to Wikipedia with a specific purpose in mind, and extra attention may be needed to assure that the purpose doesn't run counter to Wikipedia's best interests, and to help an editor who may be a bit more bold than your average newbie to keep themselves out of trouble. That's yet another reason why identifying conflicts of interest is helpful. -- Atama頭 22:04, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that in practice COI concerns will have to be weighed against the privacy of editors. (For example, as a checkuser I of course reject "Wikiscanner"-like requests to check an editor's IPs to find out if they are affiliated with a company whose article they are editing.) But there will always be limits to the enforceability of any policy or ethical guideline. The damage that conflicts of interest do will not go away if our policies pretend they are not happening. Besides, as Atama already said, privacy isn't even an issue in the many cases where editors self-identify, as this guideline "strongly encourages" them to do. We should assume good faith: Most subjects of biographies do want to behave ethically and respect Wikipedia's values, and - being familiar with general conflict of interest ethics as described above - would for example abhor writing a supposedly neutral newspaper article about themselves under a different name. Therefore, it makes a big difference if we tell them that the same principles apply on Wikipedia and that one shouldn't make substantial edits to one's own article, even if we can't and won't control perfectly whether they respect that.

Coming back to one of your original questions, "If they aren't editing in a neutral manner, shouldn't that be reason enough for corrective action?": The insight from all the above examples in other parts of society is that the cost of enforcing rules after the fact - after someone has already been placed in a position where their personal interest gives them a high incentive to bend the rules - is far greater than the cost of avoiding such situations in the first place. In the case of Wikipedia, "cost" means (lots of) volunteer time, drama, frustration on both sides, and articles that fail to meet Wikipedia's standards for the extended periods of time (often years) that it takes to resolve such problems.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:18, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Company seeking to correct articles related to them in transparent manner, any suggestions

I have been approached off-wiki by a friend that is involved with a company that sufficiently notable to have an article on it and other pages for its notable products on WP. They would like to do some edits to these various pages which are not edited frequently to bring them to correctness with current information. This person is well aware of COI issues and asked me the best way to approach this as transparently as possible (that this company is the one making said edits and trying to avoid COI issues with them).

I don't know if the best answer is for this person (or another company representative) to do the editing directly. I did suggest that dropping notes on talk pages to point out mistakes is less of an issue, but again, with low edit counts, I doubt these pages are well watched and would be updated. I'd offer to do these edits, but I worry that my ties to my friend would still be a COI at the end of the day.

Any suggestions for handling this? --MASEM (t) 02:39, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

One good procedure would be for you or your friend to post a list of the articles somewhere, and have a third party monitor/mentor the changes. If you like, I would be happy to take that role; if wanted, perhaps post on my talk page rather than here because it sounds pretty straight forward, and if there are any difficult edits, they can be raised here. Johnuniq (talk) 03:31, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if he has a list of pages yet made but I will relay that to him. I also suggested (he has not done so yet) that in creating an account to purposely use a name associated with the company to make it clear it is a company-based editor, furthering the transparency of such edits - is this reasonable advice? --MASEM (t) 18:12, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

No. An account is supposed to be for a single editor who at least in principle might edit articles in several different topics (possibly in the future). At WP:USERNAME, a username like "XyzEditor" (where Xyz is a company) is regarded as a "promotional" name and I have seen users indef blocked simply for having a name mentioning "Xyz" where the user puts vaguely positive statements in "Xyz" articles. What they are supposed to do (per WP:COI) is to briefly state their interest on their user page and on the talk page of any relevant articles they edit. If the person is cooperating with an independent editor (such as myself) I think they need not bother with the declaration on the talk page of articles (unless they really do spend an extended period devotedly tending the article, in which case they should put a notice on its talk). I recommend just a generic username and a brief "I have been asked by Xyz company to update its articles" on the user page. If they post on my talk I will let them know what I think about how to proceed. Johnuniq (talk) 22:49, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, that's good I checked. I will definitely pass that on to him. --MASEM (t) 15:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Requesting opinions: conflict of interest?

I work at dramonline.org, a non-profit music-streaming service for universities and libraries with an extensive catalog of contemporary art music, complete with scholarly liner notes. I am testing the waters here, to check with the community whether becoming an editor would be a conflict of interest. As yet I have not edited at all. My main concern is that our sister company, New World Records, while also non-profit, does sell CDs of some of the content we stream. I would like to contribute in a minor way -- updating composer info and adding citations and such, and wondered if the community felt I could do so under the Subject and culture sector professionals clause. Thanks. Ribbonabaca (talk) 20:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The first step for anyone who may have a conflict of interest with a subject that they are contributing to is to declare their affiliations up-front. You've done this already, which is a great first step and will go a long way toward helping other editors assume good faith in your actions.

You're not directly affiliated with any of the artists whose articles you want to edit, correct? Your company only offers a catalog of their music. In that case, you have no direct COI with any of those articles. The only potential COI that I see in your case would be if you were to link to your company's web site, or add information about your company into the articles you edit. Doing so isn't necessarily forbidden, but would at the very least raise suspicions. So here are some tips that might prevent drama in the future:

• If you want to add a link to your company's site, or mention your company in the text of an article, bring it up on the talk page of the article first to see if anyone objects. You don't have to do this but it will greatly reduce the possibility of someone reverting your edit, or even worse, accusing you of spam.

• If you do decide to add your company's links directly into articles, try not to do so at once and try to keep the volume down. If you add links to 20 articles over the course of an hour and don't make any other edits, that's classic behavior of a spammer. Even if such links are appropriate individually, doing so in bulk looks bad.

• Familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's external links guidelines, most especially links to avoid. Among the links to avoid are sites that exist primarily to sell a product, which shouldn't apply to your company's site, but probably applies to the sister company's site (New World Records).

• If you do add information about your company into an article try to abide by our neutral point of view policy. We try to not paint any subject in either a positive or negative light, although we can certainly mention what other sources think about a subject. For example, saying "Dramonline.org is a premiere music streaming service" violates our policy, but saying "New York Times has called Dramonline.org the best music streaming service in the world" and accompanying that with a citation to a NYT article saying so would be perfectly fine. It's very difficult to avoid bias with subjects you are close to, which is why our COI guideline exists, so the easiest route for you to take might just be to not mention it in any articles.

• Article talk pages are your sanctuary. You can suggest or complain about almost anything you want on an article's talk page with no fear of COI accusations (as long as you're up-front about who you are). Never forget that.

Anyway, I do encourage you to contribute and don't be afraid of being driven away because of your affiliations. You've taken a very conscientious approach already in asking for advice and I think you'll do fine, and Wikipedia can use your help. Thank you. -- Atama頭 20:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it. From what you say I doubt that anyone will find your edits objectionable. If in doubt, just step back and consider, would a person not affiliated with your organization think that the page is a better encyclopedia page after your edit? best, LK (talk) 10:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I will proceed slowly, and transparently. Best, Ribbonabaca (talk) 18:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

poorly written with loopholes

Blocks
Further information: Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Disruption-only
Accounts that appear, based on their edit history, to exist for the sole or primary purpose of promoting a person, company, product, service, or organization in apparent violation of this guideline should be warned and made aware of this guideline. If the same pattern of editing continues after the warning, the account may be blocked.

The way it's written, you can write about your own company in a COI fashion as long as you edit some other things.

In science, they disclose their conflicts of interests.

In Wikipedia, I propose that people disclose their conflicts of interests when they start to come close. For example, if you edit about the BP oil spill in Louisiana (USA), you should state if you are an employee of BP or work in the oil industry. Even that might not be enough. This is proposal #1.

Proposal #2 is more straight forward. It is to disallow COI exemptions just because they edit something else. So the new language would read:

Blocks
Further information: Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Disruption-only
Accounts that a person, company, product, service, or organization in apparent violation of this guideline should be warned and made aware of this guideline. If the same pattern of editing continues after the warning, the account may be blocked. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 14:55, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I emphatically disagree with your edit. There are loopholes in this guideline for good reason. This is not a rule, but a recommendation for editors with a COI to be careful how they handle it. Since WP has a continuing commitment to allow anonymity, editors should not be punished for choosing to disclose who they are. If their editing is a problem, there are a myriad of other policies/guidelines that will apply: WP:V, WP:DE, WP:OR WP:CIVIL, etc. I vehemently oppose any attempt to make WP:COI anything more than a strong recommendation to editors in that situation. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 15:04, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

The wrong Ella Mitchell

The information on "Ella Mitchell" isn't correct. Yes Ella Mitchell played Hattie in Big Momma's House but not Ella Pearson Mitchell. The women that did full name is Ella Mitchell Holt. She also played in the Wiz, sings with Alvin Alley Dance Company, and other numerous things. 208.54.14.110 (talk) 03:49, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

COI Policy forbids experts with genuine contribution from contributing to Wikipedia

There should be rethinking on COI fundamentalism. The COI fundamentalists forbid persons with expertise written a lot about a subject in journals/ publications from contributing to Wikipedia. If one has an expertise it is natural one may have to quote one's own reference. The COI fundamentalism lets only those who are non-contributors to a field to write/edit a wiki article. I find the policy is some what absurd. May be WIKI managers want to stop wikipedia to be used for self promotion, for that is it a solution to ban all those who significantly contributed to a field to edit and article or cite their own works? I think it is a policy of throwing baby with the bathwater!Dr.P.Madhu (talk) 10:44, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy explicitly allows published authors to cite their own work (in moderation, and neutrally, of course). See WP:SELFCITING. Jakew (talk) 12:35, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't, however, allow citations to articles that one may have published on sites such as scribd but which have not been published in any peer reviewed journal. See reliable sources for full details. - MrOllie (talk) 21:05, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

An article appeared in Scribd- does it become unreliable even after that article is cited by peer reviewed articles? An article if published at Scribd after it been published by an university- does it become 'unreliable'? A wikipedia article if it is cited by peer-reviewed articles and books- isn't that shows that article and its source is appreciated by the academic community? A source when appreciated by scholars in the respective field is it OK a wikipedia editor nothing to do with the subject dump it saying the source is unreliable? Dr.P.Madhu (talk) 15:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

As I read it, an article on Scribd- or Arxiv only moves from the area of self-published sources when it has been subjected to the kind of editorial oversight one finds in professional publication. Thus once a scholarly article is later published in a refereed journal, it can be cited using a citation to that version (with a possible convenience link to the Scribd- or Arxiv preprint).

As mentioned above, COI policy does not prevent experts from contributing, since experts are usually able to place their research in a refereed journal. The fact that an author is not able to place their research in such a journal, raises questions about their credentials as an expert. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Not convinced of this concern. Anyone with knowledge of a topic can write about it, and they can also use any reliably published sources (including their own) appropriately if they do so with due weight, neutrality, verifiability etc. What they cannot do is, having a vested interest in the topic, use Wikipedia as a promotional medium rather than an encyclopedia.

Most newcomers won't know the distinction. They are expected to learn fairly quickly and be receptive to the idea that Wikipedia isn't a promotional medium though.

It's "fundamental", but I would not agree it was "fundamentalist". FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:46, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Notable people who edit Wikipedia: 2 essays

When notable people edit Wikipedia, to add detail or fix errors in articles on themselves or their work, they often do so in unawareness of our rules, and the end result is a lot of upset to them and others. Whenever situations like this aren't resolved amicably, it potentially leads to bad press for the project.

To help mitigate the problem, I've written a pair of essays, one addressed to Wikipedians, and one addressed to notable people coming here to edit Wikipedia articles related to them. They are

• WP:Hazing (WP:HAZING, (WP:HAZ)
• WP:Notable person survival kit (WP:SURVIVALKIT, WP:NPSK)

Please link to them in cases where you feel they might be helpful, and feel free to improve them or leave feedback on their talk pages. --JN466 14:42, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Better coi warning templates

In recent months I have had the unfortunate need to warn users about a potential coi situation on multiple occassions. Unfortunately, I have found Template:Uw-coi to be a less than ideal template. While most coi editors are new accounts, not all of them are. It would be handy to have a coi warning template available that isn't essentially a welcome template. It would also be useful to have an option of coi templates that focuses in more specifically on the type of conflict. Most of my encounters have been with family members editing articles on their father, grandfather, etc. The current template is more oriented towards organizations. I am not a template guru, otherwise I would do it myself.4meter4 (talk) 13:27, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I've wondered if we might want levels for this, i.e. {{Uw-coi1}}, {{Uw-coi2}} etc. Or is it simply considered vandalism if it happens again after the first notice? -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:14, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

There's no requirement that one use a template, last I checked. How about a polite, or even friendly, warning in your own words? Then you can tailor the warning to the particular situation, with no template skills required. Personally, I think templates are already way overused for communication around WP. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 16:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not really a discussion for here, but suffice to say that templates say most or all of what a person originally wanted to say without having to spend a lot of time drafting something. They're also a good way to avoid canvassing or being accused of leaving an improper message. I'd say that I only use a template maybe 50% of the time if I'm informing someone about conflicts of interest, and even then I'll often tweak something in the template.

I also agree with the original complaint, that the Uw-COI template shouldn't be a welcome template; in fact, we already have a welcome template that shows up in Huggle at Template:Welcome-COI so the UW-COI template is redundant. -- Atama頭 17:13, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to how to avoid conflicts of interest.

I have made a suggestion to Village Pump that everyone should disclose that conflicts of interest. So far, there is widespread opposition to it.

Therefore, if this becomes a consensus, this conflict of interest section should be modified to read:

It is permissible (but not encouraged) to have a conflict of interest and not disclose it. This is the result of a discussion where there was overwhelming support not to have a section for people to disclose conflicts of interest.

This is a very troubling addition but it may reflect consensus. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Disclaimers

Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 00:09, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, such an addition would be against consensus. A couple of the opposes are citing WP:NODISCLAIMERS as their rationale for opposing, and yet what you're proposing now is adding a disclaimer (of sorts) to this guideline. It's really unnecessary, because this guideline isn't intended to say what is and isn't permissible for anyone. It's a guideline both to assist editors who have conflicts of interest and editors dealing with others who have conflicts of interest, but it's not meant to set any rules that people must or mustn't follow. -- Atama頭 18:23, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Let's close a loophole

Blocks

Accounts that appear, based on their edit history, to exist for the sole or primary purpose of promotion (e.g., of a person, company, product, service, website, or organization) in apparent violation of this guideline should be warned and made aware of this guideline. If the same pattern of editing continues after the warning, the account may be blocked.

This should be changed. Otherwise Mr. Jussi Pajunen could edit the Jussi Pajunen article and also edit a lot of botany articles. He could be disruptively editing his own article. Since his account would not be used for "sole or primary purpose of promotion", he does not qualify for block. A little modification would help, like

Accounts that appear, based on their edit history, that promote (e.g., of a person, company, product, service, website, or organization) in apparent violation of this guideline should be warned and made aware of this guideline. If the same pattern of editing continues after the warning, the account may be blocked.

Very simple and an improvement. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 00:54, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Your suggestion should read "Accounts that appear, based on their edit history, to promote..........". Moriori (talk) 00:58, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Suggest the following for grammar and wording:

"Accounts that, based on their edit history, appear to tendentiously promote (e.g. a person, company, product, service, website, or organization) in violation of this guideline, should be warned and made aware of this guideline. If the same pattern of editing continues after the warning, the account may be blocked."

LK (talk) 03:03, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Why not keep it simple? "Accounts which violate this guideline should be warned of its existence, and be blocked if persistent violation continues."Moriori (talk) 03:28, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Except promotional accounts aren't violating this guideline, they're violating WP:SPAM. Nobody has ever been blocked for violating WP:COI and I don't think there's any reason they should be. Having a conflict of interest in and of itself isn't against any "rule" on Wikipedia. Just as accounts with conflicts of interest that violate BLPs can be blocked per WP:BLP. We have plenty of perfectly productive accounts who operate without any problems on Wikipedia despite having a COI. -- Atama頭 18:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the problem is abusing a conflict of interest, not merely having a conflict of interest. It would be unfortunate indeed if well-intentioned, non-disruptive editors were blocked over merely having a conflict of interest. We'd lose most of our subject matter experts (and semi-experts).

In the example given above, we want to keep Mr Pajunen as an editor if possible. He could be topic-banned from an area that he's disrupting (as could anyone else, regardless of COI), but we don't actually want to completely lose a productive editor if we can avoid it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:23, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

But how do you "abuse" a conflict of interest? There's no disruption unique to having a COI. There's nothing to abuse. Any disruption I can think of is already covered by a different policy or guideline. Could you give an example of disruption associated with a COI that isn't already part of a different guideline or a policy that we already block for? -- Atama頭 19:45, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

While I tend to agree there's usually other issues in play when someone is violating COI, I would suggest an editor with a conflict of interest, actively pursing that interest (even if remaining formally within the bounds of other policies) would be subject to sanctions. You can call it a violation of WP:AGF, WP:GAME, WP:NPOV, or a variety of other policies, but I would suggest making this abundantly clear here as well is fine and appropriate. While we need to avoid instruction creep, we should also make things clear. --TeaDrinker (talk) 23:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Most definitely, and there's precedent for that. I participated in a discussion days ago where an editor with a clear COI was topic-banned from the main article space where he had been causing problems. The fact is, I have never heard of a case where we've blocked a person for violating the COI guideline. If we are going to decide to start blocking people for violating COI, that's a very major change to this guideline and should probably be subject to an RFC. We can't even get the community to say that paid editing is blockable (see WP:PAID), I doubt that you're going to get people to agree that having a simple COI is something that is blockable. -- Atama頭 00:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

about linking to a WP article etc.

In the section How to Avoid COI Edits, the following item, a discouragement, confuses me:

3. Linking to the Wikipedia article, your own user subspace or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam);

I think you mean one of these formulations, but I don't know which one:

3. Linking from the Wikipedia article your own user subspace or a website of your organization (see Wikipedia:Spam);

3. Linking in the Wikipedia article your own user subspace or a website of your organization (see Wikipedia:Spam);

3. Linking to the Wikipedia article, your own user subspace, or a website of your organization (see Wikipedia:Spam);

I assume linking from article A to article B couldn't be affected by COI challenges, because if both articles survived COI challenges or either or both weren't challenged for COI then linking between them couldn't be a problem. On that ground, the phrase "from other articles" can be deleted.

Linking to a Wikipedia article or to a user subspace from outside of the main namespace or outside of Wikipedia can't be wrong no matter what conflicts of interest someone has, unless you mean that a user with a COI can't link from their user subspace to an article, and I'm not clear why you'd object to that.

Based on this, I think the best is one of the first two alternatives and the best edits are these:

• After "Linking", replace the preposition "to" with "from" or "in".
• After "Wikipedia article", delete the comma.
• Before "website", add the indefinite article "a".
• Delete "in other articles".

I can do these, but would like to know if they're okay with other editors. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:21, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

"I assume linking from article A to article B couldn't be affected by COI challenges"... No, your assumption is incorrect. It is meant exactly as written. If you were the owner of a restaurant with an article on Wikipedia, and started linking to that article from a number of other articles to increase its visibility within Wikipedia as a form of self-promotion, that would be a major conflict of interest. That does happen from time to time, especially when the article being linked to is itself an advertisement posing as an article. -- Atama頭 03:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

But then the restaurant article wouldn't have survived a COI challenge. If neither article had a COI problem, how would a link create a COI problem? Nick Levinson (talk) 05:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem may just be grammatical. List items 1, 2, and 4 are clear. It's 3 that's unclear, perhaps because of the comma/s present or absent and the extra clause before the parentheses. I discovered it because I was looking for a solution for an article where I have a self-perceived COI. The action box gave me my solution, but along the way I tried to understand how item 3 would be applied and it's not clear. The intent may be clear to the writer, but I didn't write it. Thus, the suggestions. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

If it's unclear to anyone then it should be fixed, you're totally right about that. I'm curious what you meant about an article "surviving a COI challenge"; conflicts of interest are only of concern with editors, conflicts of interest aren't a concern when we work on articles. We do have a tag to place on articles where an editor with a COI may have added POV and/or promotional language due to the COI, but articles themselves aren't deleted because they were created by an editor with a COI. So I'm not sure what you meant by that. To go back to the original point, though, we might want to consider rewording that sentence, if nothing else "the Wikipedia article" is somewhat ambiguous. -- Atama頭 15:56, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I just found that out (about COI). I'm used to the idea that if you have a conflict of interest in something (other than WP) then you don't do it, because your judgment will be impaired and someone else should do it unless that option doesn't exist (if a judge has a conflict of interest they recuse themself but if all the judges do then one judges the case anyway out of necessity, but that necessity doesn't apply to most editing of WP). The rationales I had presumed for an editor with a COI not editing an article is that, one, they would promote or omit in nonobvious ways other editors wouldn't notice and, two, it would create an appearance of impropriety for which WP could be criticized for allowing such editing. That's why I declared that I perceived a COI in myself and asked if someone else would consider editing along the lines I suggested. (They did.)

Given your point, I take it the problem is that linking to an article that is the result of a COI and subsequently deemed nonnotable or otherwise deletable means the link will become a redlink that will probably stay red and therefore someone will need to edit each redlink into a nonlink or edit its text out. Thus, the discouragement of COI-susceptible linking saves other editors work and makes sense. Based on that, I suggest this clarifying edit to item 3 (leaving boldfacing and linking as in the original):

3. Linking to the Wikipedia article, your own user subspace, or a website of your organization from other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam);

This adds a comma after the "user subspace" link, adds the indefinite article "a" before "website", and changes "in" in the last clause to "from".

The phrase "from other articles" could apply to any of the three, and "the Wikipedia article" is not ambiguous and can stay.

What do you think?

Nick Levinson (talk) 05:23, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Really, really belated response; I saw the change you made to the guideline. Well done, it really does make it much clearer. Thanks for that. -- Atama頭 15:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Glad to help. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:31, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Expert issue

I think the WP:External links noticeboard would appreciate the attention of a couple of COI-savvy editors at this discussion.

The editor who started the discussion is a professional sexologist (PhD, full-time university researcher, specialized in pedophilia and related paraphilias). Two editors in a dispute at Paraphilia seem to be claiming that academic experts are not permitted to add information or external links. I think that comments at the WP:ELN discussion would be sincerely appreciated (at least by all of us regular editors at ELN, who are much better versed in the nuances of WP:EL than WP:COI). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

The latest comments there indicate that the voluntary nature of COI disclosure is not evident to some editors. Specifically, the link is opposed supposedly on the grounds that the disclosure on the editor's user page and article talk page wasn't "enough" (failed to mention absolutely every person or organization he'd ever worked for, I think). This is beyond silly for something that we "encourage", but have never absolutely required.

Do we have an essay somewhere on "What a conflict of interest is not?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

If we can get past the attempt to poison the well...

1) "that academic experts are not permitted to add information or external links"[1] isn't part of the debate. They should be permitted to do so in accordance with Wikipedia policy. The debate, now nearing eight thousand words long, is about whether the EL is in accordance with WP:EL.

2) The disclosure was not voluntary[2].

3) I find it difficult to assume good faith in a particular editor when she alters relevant guidelines[3] so soon after clearly stating her assumption of my ill: "If BitterGrey is thwarted in his desire to remove this link, then there will simply be a "new" problem tomorrow." And in the following post: "Because of your reputation, I have almost zero expectation of this noticeboard being able to resolve this dispute.". Sadly, such a prejudiced user will probably count this post as the new problem for tomorrow. BitterGrey (talk) 00:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Correct approach...

The article I submitted is not complete. It just states a bunch of facts which have already been reported and provides links to those sources but fails to outline the inspiration or intent of the event. There is no point of origin, it does not give a beginning, middle of ending that tells the reader a clear story. I have been using wikipedia for quite sometime to do research. This article for me would not be helpful in any research as is. There is nothing supporting what is going on? When did this start? Who started it? How did it take shape? Who supported it? And, what was the final outcome?

Some of the questions are left unanswered. I thought the point of reading an encyclopedia was to get all the details surrounding what occurred. There are many articles such as this one on your site 1.)The bicentennial 2.) Black Commentator is on your site, and the article is a total self promotional. I looked it up the other day because I had read an article on another website about this organization since the article was controversial. I wanted to research who they were. The links on the article page has an About Us, which links back to their website and a sign up link. 3.) The Sun Myung Moon article mentions all his businesses with links. 4.) Everything on Wikipedia is promoting somebody or something of interest. 5.)The article I wrote references the official seal (the logo from a photograph taken and the date) for the events, what was the inspiration (seeing the Emancipation Oak) for it, and, who created it (a graphic designer and their name). The seal is what added the cohesion for everyone celebrating the anniversary, the same event. It is what put everyone on the same page during this time in history. 6.) The time in history for this event is long past. There won't ever be another 140TH Anniversary Celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation. Time has moved on. 7.) Why would anyone creating articles for wikipedia be creating content for something they know absolutely nothing about?

I fail to understand some of the comments being posted to my talk page. Or the rationale of having amateurs creating factual accounts of subject matter that may be foreign to them. An encyclopedia to me should be based on notable content, factual accounts, and, tell a story. As a new content provider this is an experience I won't forget. Cwestllc (talk) 03:16, 9 October 2010 (UTC)