Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-08/In the news

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(from the image) "Establish your web presence!" → If that is not a call for spamming and blatant paid editing, I don't know what is. –MuZemike 00:10, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and no—WP:COI does not absolutely prohibit people who know about a topic (such as a particular organization) from adding information about it to Wikipedia (nor should it). On the other hand, it is easy to cross the line into distorting the truth to serve interests, and we have to police the line. The realistic middle ground is that people should disclose if they have any interest in the organization (employee of a company, shareholder, member of a nonprofit association, whatever) and that they not turn into owners of the article, so that outside voices have equal weight in shaping the article. So I agree with you that we need to be vigilant to enforce "the right way to edit on a topic you're close to". But some Wikipedians twist that into "if you're not a complete outsider to that organization, then the very act of clicking the "edit" button is inherently an ethical violation." That doesn't reflect the actual WP:COI guideline. (MuZemike, this isn't a reply only to you specifically—I'm just talking about the whole range of interpretations of WP:COI that I sometimes see on talk pages around the encyclopedia.) — ¾-10 20:07, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]