User:Novellasyes/sandbox/Collapsing box

Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_159#Does_membership_require_disclosure?

If you are a member of the Knights of Columbus, do you have a COI with respect to editing this article?

November 2020:

Several times over the years, detailed conversations have occurred on this talk page about whether an editor has a WP:COI with respect to editing this page if the editor is a member of the Knights. This is a summary of the points made. This section was developed in order to avoid a certain Groundhog Day-ish aura surrounding the question of whether a Knight has a COI. The (always defeasible) consensus as of November 2020 is that being a member of the Knights is not a COI for editing this page.

Here are the three main points.

Policy about when a WP:COI exists is a well-understood and long-standing policy. It is set by those who work on it at WP:COI who have considered it over the years in many different situations. The best thing to do if you disagree with how it is being interpreted in the specific situation of a Knight is to take it up over there, which you would do on WP:COIN.
Editors who say that members of the Knights do have a WP:COI largely base this on three different ideas:
1. The second sentence of WP:COI says "Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest." Since "being a member" of an organization is an external relationship, they think that being a Knight should be considered as the type of external relationship that does trigger a COI.
2. In response to those who say that being a member of a large organization should not be considered as having the type of relationship that constitutes a COI, the argument has been made that while this might be true for many large membership organizations, there is a unique factor when it comes to the Knights, which is that it has certain values or principles and/or a history about what the point of the organization is that should be interpreted to mean that being a member of the Knights means that the individual has signed onto those values/history and therefore has a COI.
3. One editor who is a member of the Knights says on his user page that he is a member of the Knights and therefore believes he does have a COI with respect to editing this page.
Editors who say that members of the Knights do not have a COI largely base this conclusion on these arguments:
1. WP:COI policy does not list "being a member" of an organization as one of the things that triggers a COI. WP:COI is a very well-considered and hashed-out policy and if the editors who have hashed it out over the years considering many different situations wanted the policy to define "being a member of an organization" as a characteristic of an editor that triggers a COI, they would have said so. But they didn't, presumably because they don't think that being a member of an organization is the type of thing that triggers a COI.
2. The Knights is a large membership organization. It has around two million members in the United States and more across the globe. Many of these people are members of the Knights because it sells attractive insurance policies and you have to be a member of the Knights to qualify to buy that insurance. It is also a pervasive social club in many Catholic parishes, with the Knights sponsoring a variety of parish-oriented events. Belonging to the local Knights allows a person to participate in those activities. But beyond those considerations, being a member of the Knights doesn't imply a COI anymore than living in Nebraska implies a COI with respect to editing Wikipedia's article about Nebraska.

Does membership in the Knights constitute a WP:COI? (open to read the talk conversation on this topic that occurred from November 9-26, 2020)

This is the talk page conversation that occurred on this topic between November 9-26, 2020.

Avatar317 believes that membership in the Knights constitutes a COI. In a 2-million-member organization, there are likely past and future editors of this page besides myself who are members of the Knights, so it seems worthwhile to discuss and resolve this question in a general way and not about me in particular. Also, Avatar317, WP:BRD. You made a bold edit in labeling me a COI editor; I reverted it; now let's discuss rather than engaging in an edit war.

Here's my perspective on this COI question: WP:COI and Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide heavily emphasize situations like business owners, employees, paid editors, and family members of WP:BLPs in their examples of COIs, and say that beyond that, "how close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense." I don't see that membership in an organization passes the "common sense test" for a COI any more than being a customer of a business, or a donor to a nonprofit, or a citizen of a country gives rise to a COI for articles about that business, that nonprofit, or that country. Catholic things (talk) 18:31, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes it does, as it would constitute an "other relationship".Slatersteven (talk) 18:36, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Literal reading says yes. Practical reading says maybe. Only you can declare whether your involvement is beyond checked the box and it's something I do once a month. For whatever reason, fanatical opinions of the Knights seems to exist on Wikipedia and tendentious editors will seek to banish anyone remotely connected to them from editing the page.

So, while the community can impose a COI on you, I do believe this is a bad faith challenge which serves no purpose other than to discourage your involvement in this page. Your name serves as more than enough notice of your possible "biases" and everyone involved is aware of your membership. So if the wiki-lawyers want to keep beating a dead horse, it's their right but it serves little purpose Slywriter (talk) 01:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

They can still ask for edits to be made here, and I suggest reading wp:agf.Slatersteven (talk) 09:45, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree that this should be clarified. Thanks for opening up this section of the article for discussion purposes, Catholic things. I gather that Avatar317's strong instinct was that if someone is a member of the Knights, then clearly they obviously have a COI. But can that interpretation be sustained by reading WP:COI? The first sentence says you have a COI if you are contributing to a WP article about "yourself, family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial and other relationships." Being a member of the Knights and then editing this article is not the same as editing an article about "yourself, family...clients, employers, or your financial and other relationships." It conceivably could be said that if you are a member of the Knights and you edit this article, that is like editing an article about a friend. But that would be an interpretation and a stretch and not the literal meaning of friend. Notably, the sentence on WP:COI that defines the relationships that constitute a COI does not say "organizations you are or were a member of" or "organizations you volunteer for". The WP:COI policy has been hashed out very extensively over years and is a very well-established policy. If those policy-makers wanted to define "being a member of an organization" as constituting a COI, they easily could have done so. But, they didn't. Novellasyes (talk) 13:54, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

1) Note that User:Elizium23 states that his membership in the Knights constitues a COI on his user page.

2) From WP:COI, second and third sentences: "Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest. That someone has a conflict of interest is a description of a situation, not a judgement about that person's opinions, integrity, or good faith."

Nowhere does it say that an editor can choose for themselves whether a conflict of interest EXISTS. COI is not about whether someone believes they have a COI; COI is a situation.

The policies do not ban someone from suggesting edits on the talk pages and participating in discussions, it just means that their connection with the organization will be transparent/visible because it can/will be posted on all relevant pages. This way others will be aware of a potential bias. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 23:34, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Interestingly nowhere in the policy does it say an Editor shall declare another editor's conflict of interest on an article's talk page. Which is what was done here.

Every single procedure says "should" or "may". No where does it say 'must". Which goes back to only the editor KNOWS if he has a COI, though the community may impose disclosure.

Finally, no where in the policy does it say mere membership is a COI.Slywriter (talk) 00:20, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

@SarekOfVulcan: says mere members have no COI and @TonyBallioni: agrees that mere members have no COI and anyone who disagrees with these admins is maliciously misrepresenting Wikipedia policy Elizium23 (talk) 03:53, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Elizium23. Thanks for this information. What I get from this is that the conversation about whether members of the Knights have a COI has already taken place on this talk page, but apparently that content was archived. This isn't on you, but I hope that going forward, a "Do I have a COI if I am a member" section stays on the non-archived version of the page. Otherwise as the years roll on, there's going to be a Groundhog Day situation that could so easily be avoided. Novellasyes (talk) 20:54, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Or they may have made a mistake, or they just have a more ridged interpretation that would apply to themselves as well. wp:agf.Slatersteven (talk) 09:50, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Regardless of anything to do with Catholic things, to me, the main point of this conversation should be to guide future potential editors of this page who are members of the Knights. When there is a very well-established policy like WP:COI, and there is a dispute about whether it applies in a particular situation, the first responsibility of those who are not agreeing is to carefully read the policy and then try to apply it in a reasonable way to the facts. What happened here to spark off this conversation is that one user ( Avatar317 ) believed that his or her interpretation of WP:COI is indubitably correct and wants others to see things the very same way. To see it the same way requires believing that WP:COI indisputably applies to a member of an organization. It is said that this is the case because being a "member of an organization" constitutes having "an external relationship" with the organization, and WP:COI says that "Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest". However, WP:COI certainly does not say that having an external relationship does trigger a conflict of interest and thank goodness for that. If WP:COI did, counterfactually, say that, then anyone who votes for Democratic candidates would have to declare a COI if they edit an article about a Democratic candidate (or vice versa for Republicans). If you purchase an insurance policy from Allstate, boom. That's an external relationship so you have a COI. Did you run in a Susan G. Komem race for the cure? COI, because you have an external relationship with them. The idea that any kind of an external relationship leads to a COI quickly leads into a reductio ad absurdum. This, I infer, is why the WP:COI policy as written doesn't say that having an external relationship does trigger a COI but only that it might. This leaves us with the question of whether being a member of an organization triggers a COI. As we can see from the discussion above, some people think it does. Other people think it does not. The WP:COI policy doesn't list membership in an organization as something that clearly triggers COI. At a minimum, the arguments put forth so far in this conversation establish that there is significant, reasonable, dispute around the idea that membership in an organization triggers COI. Novellasyes (talk) 16:24, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

(pinging @SarekOfVulcan: and @TonyBallioni: because their views on this subject as expressed here (link that Elizuim provided earlier) are different than mine; maybe they can give their response to my view below:

My view: there is a difference between owning an iPhone (NOT a COI for editing Apple-related articles) and working in an Apple store (yes COI), or registering/voting Democrat (NOT a COI for editing Democrat-party related articles) and volunteering for your local Democrats' office (yes COI); the latter cases both involve promotion of a product or ideology; those institutions exist SOLELY for that purpose. The Knights' founding purpose and reason for existence is to improve acceptance/reduce discrimination against/"evangelize for" Irish Catholic immigrants/Catholics in America. This (in my view) makes all members in the organization participants in and biased toward that goal. This is distinctly different from Scouting whose goal is to build "character" in young adults. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 23:08, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Whatever is the result of this ongoing conversation I just want to say that if a nice long dialogue occurs and something resembling a consensus is eventually reached, let's memorialize that on this talk page. I am saying this because apparently this very issue has been previously discussed at length on this talk page but that was all archived. It wouldn't have occurred to me (and did not occur to me) to hunt through the archives of this talk page for such a conversation. I am supposing that in the future, other members of the Knights will come into the orbit of this page. So, we would want them to have some guidance. Here's another thought: In the absence of the relatively small number of us talking about this reaching a consensus (although that could happen!), perhaps we could alternatively agree on the wording of a note on the talk page to future Knights saying that the issue of whether members of the Knights have a declarable COI or not has been broached from time-to-time and we're not telling you what to do, but here are the arguments that have been put forth saying "it is not a declarable COI" and here are the arguments that have been put forward saying "it is a declarable COI". (They could just read this, but in the nature of these beasts, it's a mess to read if you're not part of it. Novellasyes (talk) 18:03, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree; a small FAQ type statement at the top pointing to this discussion-whether resolved or not-with arguments presented as you state would be a good addition to this talk page.---Avatar317 ^(talk) 04:57, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh great. Depending on how things evolve here, I would volunteer to work on that in a couple of weeks. Novellasyes (talk) 18:57, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Avatar317, thanks for your comment and for pinging SarekOfVulcan and TonyBallioni. I hope they're able to weigh in here. In the meantime, I'd like to ask for two points of clarification on your last comment. First, I'm just unclear on your phrasing; are you saying that in your view owning an iPhone or working at an Apple store does not constitute a COI for editing articles related to Apple, but that registering, voting, or volunteering as a Democrat does constitute a COI for editing articles about politics and politicians? Second, do you have a source for the Knight's founding purpose? I've never heard it described in any of the three ways you listed—improving acceptance, reducing discrimination, or evangelizing. Here's what I could find about the founding purpose on their website: "[Fr. McGivney] proposed establishing a lay organization to prevent Catholic men from entering secret societies antithetical to Church teaching, uniting Catholic men and helping families of deceased members." Further, on the KofC article here, the founding purpose is just referred to as "a mutual benefit society" for Catholic immigrants, i.e., the "helping families of deceased members" or insurance aspect. Catholic things (talk) 21:07, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Membership in the KofC does not constitute a COI. Membership in the Freemasons does not constitute a COI. Membership in the Catholic Church does not constitute a COI. This has been hashed out at length on quite a few pages - I see no reason to do it again at this point. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:58, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

And if you're going to quote WP:EXTERNALREL, don't cut off the quote just before it stops supporting your point of view. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense. For example, an article about a band should not be written by the band's manager, and a biography should not be an autobiography or written by the subject's spouse. If you want to redefine the COI policy, do it over there -- NOT HERE. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:08, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Being one of 2 million random members of a group gives you approximately the same COI as a Nebraskan editing the article on Nebraska. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:11, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, SarekOfVulcan. A conversation has occurred more than once on this page about this topic. Previous attempts to resolve this were archived and the current disputants weren't aware of them. I've written this to summarize the situation. For the sake of future Knights who might edit this page, and future editors who might have a problem with that (and other editors who might have a problem with them having a problem), I'm proposing to install this toward the top of the page. I would also archive this long section (but would link to it). Several editors here have argued that being a member of the Knights is a COI. If any of you disagree with how I have summarized that

argument, please drop me a line about that on this sandbox page. I would want to fairly characterize your arguments. Novellasyes (talk) 13:50, 25 November 2020 (UTC)