Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

For practical advice for editors who might have a conflict of interest, see Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide.

This page documents an English Wikipedia behavioral guideline.

Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

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This page in a nutshell: Do not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests, or those of other individuals or of organizations, including employers. Do not write about these things unless you are certain that a neutral editor would agree that your edits improve Wikipedia.

A Wikipedia conflict of interest (COI) is an incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia, and the aims of an individual editor. COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. When advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

COI editing is strongly discouraged. It risks causing public embarrassment to the individuals and groups being promoted (see Wikipedia is in the real world), and if it causes disruption to the encyclopedia, accounts may be blocked.

Paid advocacy is any contribution or edit to Wikipedia content that advocates for your employer's point of view. It includes, but is not limited to, edits made by public relations firms, companies and nonprofit organizations, and editors paid to edit Wikipedia to improve an individual's or organization's image. Advocacy of any sort within articles is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not, and paid advocacy is considered to be an especially egregious form of advocacy. Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question.

When investigating COI editing, be careful not to reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Wikipedia's policy against harassment takes precedence over this guideline.

Wikipedia's position

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a vanity press, or forum for advertising or self-promotion. 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. Adding material that appears to advance the interests or promote the visibility of an article's author, the author's family, employer, clients, associates or business, places the author in a conflict of interest.

COI editing is strongly discouraged. COI editors causing disruption may be blocked. Editors with COIs who wish to edit responsibly are strongly encouraged to follow Wikipedia policies and best practices scrupulously. They are also encouraged to disclose their interest on their user pages and on the talk page of the article in question, and to request the views of other editors. If you have a conflict of interest, any changes you would like to propose that might be seen as non-neutral should be suggested on the relevant talk page or noticeboard.

Paid advocacy is a subset of COI editing (see WP:NOPAY below). Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing, and should instead propose changes on the talk page of the article in question, or on a noticeboard such as WP:COIN. These changes may or may not be acted upon. Paid advocates are also advised to disclose their conflict of interest.

Note that you do not control articles and others may delete them, keep them, or add information that would have remained little-known. While Wikipedians generally avoid naming editors and their paymasters, other media routinely do. This has led at times to embarrassment for the organization concerned.

What is conflict of interest?

External relationships, and primary and secondary roles

While editing Wikipedia, an editor's primary role is to be a Wikipedian. Any external relationship (any secondary role) may undermine that primary role, and when it does undermine it, or could reasonably be said to undermine it, that person has a conflict of interest. A judge's primary role as an impartial adjudicator would be undermined by her secondary role as the defendant's wife. A journalist's primary role as a disinterested investigator would be undermined by his secondary role as business partner of the subject of his investigation.

Any external relationship – personal, religious, political, academic, financial, and legal – can trigger a conflict of interest. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern is governed by common sense. An article about a band should not be written by the band's manager, and a biography should not be written by the subject's spouse. But subject-matter experts are welcome to contribute to articles in their areas of expertise, while being careful to make sure that their external relationships in that field do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia.

Biased editing

Beliefs and desires alone do not constitute a conflict of interest. They may lead to biased editing, but biased editing can occur in the absence of a conflict of interest.

Categories of COI

Paid editing

Overview

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Paid editing is the practice of accepting money to edit Wikipedia. Paid advocacy, that is, being paid to promote something or someone on Wikipedia, is a subset of paid editing. If you intend to participate in paid editing, transparency and neutrality are key. Editing in a way that biases the coverage of Wikipedia or that violates our core policies is not acceptable.

The act of accepting money or rewards for editing Wikipedia is not always problematic. There may be benign examples of editors being paid – for example, a university asking you to write up its warts-and-all history. The reward board, a place where editors can post incentives, financial or otherwise, is another benign example. This is a transparent process, and the goal is usually to raise articles to featured or good article status. But be wary of editors there asking you to make edits that challenge your sense of neutrality.

Paid advocacy, public relations, and marketing

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If either of the following applies to you:

you are receiving monetary or other benefits or considerations to edit Wikipedia as a representative of an organization (whether directly as an employee or contractor of that organization, or indirectly as an employee or contractor of a firm hired by that organization for public relations purposes), or
you expect to derive monetary or other benefits or considerations from editing Wikipedia (for example, by being an owner, officer, or other stakeholder of an organization; or by having some other form of close financial relationship with a topic you wish to write about),

then you are very strongly discouraged from editing Wikipedia in areas where those external relationships could reasonably be said to undermine your ability to remain neutral.

If you have a financial connection to a topic (as an employee, owner or other stakeholder), you are advised to refrain from editing articles directly, and to provide full disclosure of the connection. You may use the article talk pages to suggest changes, or the {{request edit}} template to request edits. Requested edits are subject to the same editorial standards as any other, and may not be acted upon.

The writing of "puff pieces" and advertisements is strictly prohibited.

Covert advertising: 2012 German court ruling

In May 2012 the Munich Oberlandesgericht ruled that if a company or its agents edit Wikipedia with the aim of influencing customers, the edits constitute covert advertising, and as such are a violation of European fair trading law (see the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive). The ruling stated that readers cannot be expected to seek out user and talk pages to find editors' disclosures about their corporate affiliation. The case arose out of a claim against a company by a competitor over edits made to the article Weihrauchpräparat on the German Wikipedia. The judgment can be read here.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK reached a similar decision in June 2012 in relation to material about Nike on Twitter. The ASA found that the content of certain tweets from two footballers had been "agreed with the help of a member of the Nike marketing team." The tweets were not clearly identified as Nike marketing communications, and were therefore in breach of the ASA's code.^[1]

Legal antagonists

If you are involved in a court case, or you are close to one of the litigants, you should not write about the case, or about a party or law firm associated with the case. Even a minor breach of neutrality in an article that is before the court could cause real-world harm.

Writing about yourself and people you know

You should not create or edit articles about yourself, your family or your close friends. If you or they are notable enough, someone else will create the article. You should also not write about people with whom you could reasonably be said to have an antagonistic relationship in real life.

An exception to editing an article about yourself or someone you know is made if the article contains defamation or a serious error that needs to be fixed quickly. If you do make such an edit, follow it up with an email to WP:OTRS, Wikipedia's volunteer response team, or ask for help on WP:BLPN, our noticeboard for articles about living persons.

Citing yourself

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Using material you have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies, particularly WP:SELFPUB. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged. Citations should be in the third person and should not place undue emphasis on your work. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion.

Campaigning

Activities regarded by insiders as simply "getting the word out" may appear promotional or propagandistic to the outside world. If you edit articles while involved with campaigns that engage in advocacy in the same area, you may have a conflict of interest.

Self-promotion

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WP:SELFPROMOTE

Conflict of interest often presents itself in the form of self-promotion, including advertising links, personal website links, personal or semi-personal photos. Examples include links that point to commercial sites and to personal websites, and biographical material that does not significantly add to the clarity or quality of the article.

Advice for editors who may have a conflict of interest

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WP:LUC

Wikipedia's Law of Unintended Consequences
If you write about yourself, your group or your company, once the article is created, you have no right to control its content, or to delete it outside the normal channels. Content is irrevocably added with every edit. If there is anything publicly available on a topic that you would not want to have included in an article, note that it will probably find its way there eventually.

Non-controversial edits

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WP:COIU

Editors who may have a general conflict of interest are allowed to make certain kinds of non-controversial edits (but note WP:NOPAY above). They may:

remove spam and revert unambiguous vandalism.
remove content that clearly violates the biography of living persons policy
fix spelling and grammatical errors
revert or remove their own COI edits
make edits where there is clear consensus on the talk page, though it is better to let someone else do it.
add reliable sources, especially when another editor has requested them (but note the advice above about the importance of using independent sources).

If another editor objects for any reason, then it's a controversial edit. Such edits should be discussed on the article's talk page.

Photographs and media files

Those with a potential conflict of interest are encouraged to upload good-quality digital media files that are appropriately licensed for Wikipedia and that improve our coverage of a subject. For more information, follow the instructions at Commons. In some cases, the addition of digital media files to an article may be a non-controversial edit that editors with a conflict of interest can make directly; however editors should exercise discretion and rely on Talk pages when images may be controversial or promotional. If the addition of an image is challenged by another editor, it was not uncontroversial.

Cultural-sector professionals

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WP:CURATOR

Museum curators, librarians, archivists, and similar are encouraged to help improve Wikipedia, or to share their information in the form of links to their resources. If a link cannot be used as a reliable source, it may be placed under further reading or external links if it complies with the external links guideline. Bear in mind that Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files. For more information, see Wikipedia:Advice for the cultural sector.

Shared accounts

Do not create a shared organizational account or use the name of the organization as the account name. The account is yours, not your employer's. It is recommended that such editors to declare their affiliation on their user pages.

Declaring an interest

Some editors declare an interest in a particular topic area. The benefits of this are that most editors will appreciate your honesty and may try to help you; you lay the basis for requesting help from others to post material for you, or to review material you wish to post yourself, and professional public relations firms may be required to abide by code of ethics, such as the GA code of ethics or PRSA code of ethics. The disadvantage of declaring your interest is that people outside Wikipedia, such as reporters, may identify you and generate negative publicity for you or your company. Some COI declarations have the effect of announcing your real name (see WP:REALNAME). Do not publicly declare an interest if this could put you at harm in the real world, e.g., from stalkers.

See this example of a disclosure.

How to handle conflicts of interest

Noticeboards and templates

The first approach should be direct discussion of the issue with the editor, referring to this guideline. If persuasion fails, incidents may be reported on the conflict of interest noticeboard (WP:COIN), and users may be warned with the {{uw-coi}} user warning template. Conflict of interest is not in itself a reason to delete an article, though other problems with the article arising from a conflict of interest may be valid (see criteria for deletion).

If you are sure that an editor is violating this guideline, relevant article talk pages may be tagged with {{Connected contributor}}, and the article itself may be tagged with {{COI}}. COI allegations should not be used as a "trump card" in disputes over article content.

Avoid outing

Wikipedia places importance on the ability of editors to edit pseudonymously. When investigating COI editing, the policy against harassment takes precedence and requires that Wikipedians must take care not to reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Instead, examine editors' behavior and refer to Wikipedia:Checkuser.

Importance of civility

During debates on articles' talk pages and at articles for deletion, disparaging comments may fly about the subject of the article/author and the author's motives. These may border on forbidden personal attacks, and may discourage the article's creator from making future valuable contributions.

Blocks

Accounts that appear to be single-purpose accounts that 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.

Notes

^ Sweney, Mike. "Nike becomes first UK company to have Twitter campaign banned", The Guardian, 20 June 2012.

Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

Wikipedia's position

What is conflict of interest?

External relationships, and primary and secondary roles

Biased editing

Categories of COI

Paid editing

Overview

Paid advocacy, public relations, and marketing

Covert advertising: 2012 German court ruling

Legal antagonists

Writing about yourself and people you know

Citing yourself

Campaigning

Self-promotion

Advice for editors who may have a conflict of interest

Non-controversial edits

Photographs and media files

Cultural-sector professionals

Shared accounts

Declaring an interest

How to handle conflicts of interest

Noticeboards and templates

Avoid outing

Importance of civility

Blocks

See also

Notes

Further reading