Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/Archive 11

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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COI in translations

Does anyone know if there's any consensus about COI individuals translating (or funding translations of) articles onto other language wikipedias? - Mgcsinc (talk) 04:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Consensus regarding this would depend on the Wikipedia that content is being added to. If a COI editor is adding articles to the English Wikipedia that are translated from other Wikipedias, the conflict of interest noticeboard would be a great place to talk it over. If a COI editor is translating an english article into a foreign language article you would need to see what the consensus is about this at the foreign language Wikipedia. Them From Space 04:55, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Citing oneself - section removed from WP:NOR

Following an RfC, I just removed the "citing oneself" section from the WP:NOR policy page, since it was decided that the topic should be addressed just on this page (as it is) and not there. The policy text read:

If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality and conflict of interest policies. If you are able to discover something new, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere such a discovery. This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia. In fact, expert input is encouraged and experts often have specific knowledge of the relevant literature. However, as with all editors, this policy does prohibit experts from drawing on their personal knowledge without being able to cite reliable sources.

We may wish to incorporate some of that text into the guideline here.--Kotniski (talk) 09:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Student - college, conflict of interest

Is a student studying in a college, who keeps adding promotional material about that college, considered in conflict of interest? The material in question is a typical Indian college promotion - a list of major recruiters (placements). --Muhandes (talk) 12:25, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest (medicine)

I was hoping to ask for some broader input into Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest (medicine). Specifically, it has a tabular format that I'm concerned implies that Wikipedia policies apply unequally, that a caste system is present. For example, that pharmaceutical company employees don't need to cite sources while patients should focus on busying themselves reverting vandalism. Using three lists would eliminate the risk of this misinterpretation and make the content more readable on small screens. The change to a list format was quickly reverted along with other changes, with a change description suggesting that the caste implication was intentional. Sorry if this isn't the best forum for this note. BitterGrey (talk) 15:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

COI and Representation of Academic Research on Wikipedia

I have been thinking about the issues of COI in relation to the academic research. This started because I have unwittingly got involved in a COI issue. My questions and curiosities regarding the COI issues are as follows:

Is the bias in the current content of page important or does what happened historically on a page matter even if it has no impact on the current content?

Related to this is the question of how important is the Wikipedia user's interests in evaluating the page's content. If the information on the page is considered forever "tainted" just because of its history, should the page not be deleted. No amount of editing would rid it of its history and the page is doomed. Conversely, if that is not the case, shouldn't the current content of the page evaluated according to the principles of NPOV, V and NOR and any traces of bias be removed.

There is widespread conflict of interest on pages related to Academic Research or the profiles of the Academics on Wikipedia. Yet, in the hundreds of pages that I have gone through, the information added by people with conflict of interest seemed entirely accurate with almost no bias. It may have something to do with the fact that academics have to struggle with conflict of interest all the time in conducting research and consequences of being biased could be disastrous in the long run. Or may be not.

My curiosity is whether the issues governing the content and related COI issues are different for obvious public knowledge/celebrities and may not lead to the optimal outcome (from the perspective of Wikipedia users) if applied to academics and academic research. The issue that complicates the matter is that specialised knowledge of a body of research or deep insights associated with such knowledge is often held by a person who has a conflict of interest. Consequently, Wikipedia seems to have basic textbook knowledge on its pages but at least in Economics and other Social Sciences, articles on deep issues with deep and complicated insights are missing. One of many examples is the Wikipedia page on Susan Athey, the John Bates Clark Medal winner in 2007. Her contributions are phenomenal, yet complicated to understand. Yet, they are not mentioned on the page because the 100 odd people in the world who understand her research in its entirety and could explain it to the world would be connected to her through the wider Economics Network and would have a conflict of interest. Whenever you come across the an article that goes beyond the obvious, there is often a hidden conflict of interest somewhere in that page without fail that may not be obvious to someone from outside. I think this deserves a thought and discussion and I hope I am not wrong in thinking that. 128.232.132.146 (talk) 22:20, 2 March 2011 (UTC)kaniket

Short answer, it's all about current content. I've often removed COI tags after a major edit by someone without COI. --Muhandes (talk) 06:08, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Quote

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

I don't usually stuff quotes into policy, but this one always makes me think of WP:COI. Maybe it has a place. I also like the fact that it implies COI editors may not be able to see the errors in their reasoning, as opposed to intentionally violating neutrality. Ocaasi^c 14:10, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I think quotes such as this are very appropriate with a citation. The citations are necessary, because in researching alleged quotes, I've too often been unable to verify them and sometimes even concluded that the indicated person probably did not say that. For example, years ago, I heard a comment that "I apologize for writing such a long letter, but I don't have time to write a shorter one" -- attributed to Abraham Lincoln. I tried in vain to find a solid source. After an exchange with someone who maintains a web site devoted to Lincoln, I concluded that Lincoln probably did NOT write this. Indeed, in one case, he wrote exactly the opposite, apologizing for writing such a short letter, because he didn't have time to write a longer one. DavidMCEddy (talk) 13:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

why shouldn't a company help find sources in a deletion discussion?

It currently states you should avoid or exercise great caution when Participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors. What does "exercise great caution" mean specifically? As long as the person identifies themselves, why would they not be in the AFD helping to list reliable sources they have been reviewed in? This came up at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/MyBB. Consensus is that there is no problem with this. AFD shouldn't be on that list. Perhaps rewording it saying that participating in AFDs is fine as long as you don't vote and you identify yourself straight away. Dream Focus 01:01, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

That makes sense. Will Beback talk 01:46, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that clarification is needed. There is plenty of information as to how an editor should conduct themselves in editing an article where they have a COI, and we encourage talk page participation and don't recommend any restrictions there (aside from the same guidelines any other editor should follow) but there's little to nothing about how to act in a deletion discussion where you have a COI. Frankly, I don't remember that information being there before (I've been gone for 6 months so it might have been added in the interim). I'm not sure if we should discourage "voting" in an AfD, in fact I'd encourage someone to argue the case to keep or delete an article if they have a sound reason for doing so, regardless of who they are. -- Atama頭 19:32, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Dream Focus deleted the line entirely, which I don't think is what's been agreed to. They shouldn't participate in AFDs without explicitly divulging their COI. The general admonition to "avoid, or exercise great caution" is often translated to mean "go ahead so long as you don't think you're doing anything wrong". Will Beback talk 00:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that's a very good guideline, that any AfD participation should include divulging their COI, and not divulging the COI will only weaken their argument. -- Atama頭 00:57, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with COI in this instance as long as it is divulged - that evens the playing field (so to speak). After that I don't have a problem with full participation. The COI participant can present arguments that appear to have merit, or not, just like any other editor. As stated above, it might be a good idea to have someone strongly advocating for keep or delete (as an interested party). ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 01:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course if six people show up from the same company or organization then the closing admin may legitimately discount their votes. With full disclosure that becomes possible, making their participation less of a problem. Will Beback talk 02:09, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Will, very good point. I agree. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 02:52, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

We don't require disclosure because there is absolutely no way to enforce it. Furthermore, when one person with a connection to the subject—say, the owner of a business—plays it straight and discloses the connection, and the next—say, his competitor—doesn't, then we've tilted the playing field in favor of the secretive and dishonest. With zero plausible mechanism for enforcement, it is unreasonable of us to assume that everyone is equally honest.

Also: Who cares who names the independent sources at AFD? Either the editor is coughing up independent sources that demonstrate notability, or they're not, and nothing else really matters for notability. The production of sources by your bitterest competitor is just as good as the production of sources by yourself—and the failure to supply such sources, whether by yourself or your competitor, is just as bad.

It's also important to remember the complexity of the project. It's all very well and good to say that business owners should announce that they own the business (but see "Who cares?" above), but AFD isn't all about businesses. Should Casliber (talk · contribs) have to announce his profession every time he !votes at AFD on a medicine-related subject? We've encountered folks with serious mental conditions who say that they should be perfectly free to work on articles about their personal mental health problems, but that board-certified psychiatrists should never be allowed to touch the pages, because all physicians "have a conflict of interest" because they're in the pay of the nasty pharmaceutical companies. Are you ready to tell SlimVirgin (talk · contribs) to be sure to disclose her conflict of interest every time she !votes at an AfD related to animal rights? Do you think the quality of sources she provides is somehow worse because of her connection to that subject? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed this while looking for something else. For the record, I have no connection to animal rights except that I've studied it. I don't belong to any group or anything similar if that's what was meant. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:38, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Based on this discussion, I have softened the recommendation from "don't participate in any AFD" to "don't try to delete your articles about your competitors". I also added explanations behind the reasoning, largely inspired by Qwyrxian's comment on 13 June (currently at the very bottom of the page). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Disclosure dangers

Sometimes, it might be unsafe for an editor to disclose COI because disclosing his or her identity is unsafe. I'm thinking here of the footnote at WP:How not to get outed that says "Note that if there is a chance that someone else knowing your real name can expose you to situations you're not comfortable with, don't use this method." Wikipedia has a lot of editors, and that means that we've got a lot of editors who have been real-world victims of stalking. Sometimes disclosing a possible COI means disclosing your real name, e.g., "I'm the author of that book".

Should we add something like "Do not disclose personal information that could put you at risk in the real world" to the existing "how to disclose" section, or add text from WP:REALNAME? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, though we should also make it clear an undisclosable conflict of interest is a good reason to avoid editing the topic. Will Beback talk 07:35, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

With no objections, I've

Done this partly. I wasn't sure where or how to say "don't edit if it's unsafe to disclose". I'm not sure that's exactly the right balance, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:36, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Political affiliation and COI

Perhaps WP:COI should address the question of whether an editor's affiliation to a political party — or the fact of his/her having donated money to a political campaign — does or does not place that editor in a potential conflict of interest with respect to articles about that party, its candidates, or its elected officials. Comments? Richwales (talk · contribs) 04:37, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I know the case that gave rise to this question, but it's not really relevant. As with many of these issues, I think it all depends (and that's why procedures rarely attempt to precisely define exactly when they apply). If an editor were a staffer for a political party, and most of their edits were concerned with boosting their party and highlighting problems with the opposition, then they would have a clear COI. I would draw the same conclusion if the editor were a very enthusiastic supporter and if the boosting and problem-highlighting were over the top, although the principle is that a believer does not have a COI. If an editor were known to have donated to a political party, their edits might be subjected to scrutiny to ensure that WP:NPOV was being followed, but making donations or generally supporting something is not a COI. Someone repeatedly violating NPOV to support their favored party (or to denigrate the opposition) would have an NPOV problem, and would be regarded as disruptive if they were incapable of fixing their edits, however, it would not be a COI issue. I don't think the guideline needs to mention this issue. Johnuniq (talk) 06:44, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

We already have a section on "campaigning", yet it doesn't mention politics. It's be logical and fitting to add a few words or a sentence on political supporters and workers. I know of two congressional articles where the staffers keep adding all their bosses' little achievements. When I complain they just reply that everyone does it.

The section on "close relationship" could be a bit clearer too, as it's kind of the catchall for other non-monetary interests. Will Beback talk 07:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

And what about "corporate" financial interests? If I'm a shareholder in Amazon stock, should I disclose that before editing the Amazon article? What about if I have a mutual fund that invests in Amazon? In that situation I may not know my interests, so that's probably in the clear (or is it?), but what if I invest in a fund that explicitly states it invests in green technologies? Is that a COI for all related articles? --Icerat (talk) 10:28, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

It would certainly be a conflict of interest if an editor had a lot of money in a small-cap stock and then came to Wikipedia to promote that stock. OTOH, it probably isn't a conflict if an editor has a retirement account that includes a mutual fund which owns shares of ExxonMobil and then comes to write about that company. Like many situations in life, the answer depends on the specifics. Will Beback talk 21:09, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

To be honest our COI guideline only really works in obvious situations. Someone editing his dad's article, or a PR rep editing on behalf of their employer. For more subtle situations where it's not obvious that there's a COI, we can't deal with what we can't see. Maybe my girlfriend left me for a Dallas Cowboys quarterback and I've been trashing their articles ever since. How would anyone know? They wouldn't. So we have to go by what policies like WP:NPOV or WP:BLP suggest. Unless someone decides to mention that they have shares in Amazon, which is unlikely, how would we know what's motivating their efforts to remove negative material from the Amazon article? -- Atama頭 21:30, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

The guideline has to be self-enforced in most cases. That doesn't mean it's non-existent. If an editor is planning to alter a company article in which they have shares with the thought of increasing their wealth, then that's a clear conflict of interest. This guideline should make it clear that such behavior is wrong even if no one else knows the reason for their editing. Will Beback talk 21:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. My employer has an article on Wikipedia and I've never edited it. If I did, I doubt anyone would know there was a COI, but it still wouldn't feel right to me. You have a good point. -- Atama頭 22:42, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

A very large number of wikipedians have this kind of "COI"; because we have articles about most big employers in the anglosphere, and creation of articles in particular areas tends to reflect the demographics of wikipedians. Similarly, those wikipedians who are students (or postgrads or whatever) are very likely to find that there's an article about their institution. However, business articles in particular seem more prone to draw accusations of COI on the talkpage (in my very limited experience) - if one editor wants a negative statement in the article and finds it's been removed by another person, words like "shill" often follow... bobrayner (talk) 23:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I would like to suggest a proposal for an essay relating to the above conversation. In a conversation I had relating to an RFAR, I stated the following:

When involved or politically invested in a candidate or race, I find it best, for WP:COI issues to avoid editing article spaces during that period related to that aforementioned. One can always suggest edits in the talk page, during that period, but anything else IMHO brings up COI and NPOV issues.
— Myself

Such an editing practice suggestion I think would go along way in removing any COI or NPOV issue that may arise. Providing an essay for guidance of actions of fellow editors, IMHO would be very helpful.

That being said, rather than a personal user essay, I was thinking that perhaps such an essay could be under the auspice of a larger community body, as to give it more weight, but without going into guideline or policy level. More of a friendly suggestion.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:04, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:CANVASS#Appropriate I have placed a pls see template at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) and Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). If there are other places where the community suggest I invite other potential interested editors, please let me know. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

As a result of the discussion above, the guideline was amended to include political campaigns. [1] It's not clear to me what else is being proposed here. Will Beback talk 07:04, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Being biased to an article isn't the same as having a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest only occurs when that "interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia". You can prefer one political party over another while being sure that you are fairly handling the topic in order to improve Wikipedia. You cannot be so certain you are acting fairly if it is an article directly about you or family, or if you are financially tied to said article. Considering that editing with a COI is strongly discouraged, and that most editors of political articles have political affiliations it seems it would be inappropriate to add a mention in WP:COI. Editors already know to follow WP:NPOV, and the potential abuse of such an addition to WP:COI to suggest that other editors shouldn't edit articles they have a political affiliation with or an interest in appears to outweigh what would amount to reminding people to be neutral.AerobicFox (talk) 07:20, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Granted those who edit articles about political individuals or elections tend to be politically minded, and those individuals tend to be politically affiliated in some way shape or form. That being said, editing articles where someone is directly (as in involved in campaigning), or indirectly (as in contributing time, effort (like possibly editing Wikipedia), funds towards), makes it more difficult for an editor to remain neutral in POV, or not to have some form of COI. Although, all editors should AGF that other editors are editing in a neutral manor, or have no conflict of interest in editing a political individual's article and/or related election article, as an essay of guidance, perhaps it could be suggested that those who maybe directly or indirectly involved in a campaign should not edit the article space, and take edit proposals to those articles talk page, as to avoid the possibility of violating NPOV or COI. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 12:16, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Isn't that what the guideline already says? Will Beback talk 21:37, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

In a way it does, but perhaps further articulation regarding political individuals and their related races maybe helpful for those who might otherwise violate both COIN & NPOV unknowingly. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 03:53, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Could you explain the concept you wrote about above? "editing articles where someone is ... indirectly (as in contributing ... effort (like possibly editing Wikipedia)...), makes it more difficult for an editor to remain neutral in POV, or not to have some form of COI." It sounds like you're saying that the act of editing an article related to a campaign makes an editor biased about that campaign. While I understand the general idea that being involved in a campaign naturally indicates a bias, just editing an article probably does not. Otherwise it'll be hard to maintain those articles. Will Beback talk 05:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe that someone who is involved in a political campaign directly, as in being a part of a campaign, whether staff, or volunteer towards, have a definite COI issue.

Furthermore, those editors who are indirectly involved in a political campaign, as in contributing funds, acting to advance a candidate or a position in referendum, or some form of time that does any of the former, would possibly mean that the editor may have a COI issue.

Therefore, it is best for the editor to not directly edit the article space, but to propose edits in the talk space of the article. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 07:34, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

You just have to be sure that your first edit is perfect, and that the subject never changes. In seriousness, I would reject the idea that contributing (economically) to a campaign necessarily makes one COI, or even that it makes one any more or less likely to edit non-neutrally, compared to a person who doesn't contribute but holds equally as strong views on the subject. If there is a line to be drawn here, it should be somewhere closer to volunteering. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:21, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

No editor can be perfect, we are fallible after all. That being said, if someone contributes (economically) towards a campaign, someone has invested a monetary interest in a side in an election and/or referendum. In doing so some has created the interest, and therefore is a not a non-involved party, and thus may have a COI when editing articles that relate to the aforementioned campaign.

Those who do not contribute financially, and not directly involved in the campaign, may be partisan, and may violate WP:NPOV, but there is no vested interest that comes along with volunteering, being part of campaign staff, and/or contributing. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 07:34, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree completely. Contribution to a campaign financially is essentially "voting with your wallet". I don't see it as being any more of a COI than someone who voted for or plans to vote for a candidate. If spending money on something is a COI, then anyone who buys a product has a COI at that product's page. I just don't see that being a reasonable assumption. On the other hand, I'd say a person who volunteers their time to a campaign may have a COI, because it is far too easy to see Wikipedia as an extension of the campaign you're working for (whether for pay or otherwise). -- Atama頭 19:10, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Would the above user agree that funding a campaign is contributing in a meaningful way towards it, and provide some connection to it?

At what point does an editors contribution to a campaign alter the individual from being one of hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of possibly effected population, to being a significant financial supporter of a campaign? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:37, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

If someone was a major donor who donated millions then sure, but something like a $5 donation is not a conflict of interest unless you put $5 above the quality of Wikipedia. There is already a "financial motivation" of that sort for most articles. I have invested money on Nintendo consoles and Nintendo games then do I have a conflict of interest on Nintendo related articles? I think I have potential bias, which this is not the article to discuss that on.AerobicFox (talk) 00:11, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Would the above editor not agree that there is a difference between owning a product, and investing in a company that produces said product? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:50, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't agree that the analogies are relevant at all. Donating money to a political campaign entails that you want said person to win the campaign. It does not entail that you gain a personal, direct benefit from that person winning. In fact, if it did, that wouldn't be donating, it would be bribery. So, I would say that someone who has bribed a politician has a COI. Someone who has donated money does not. Again, it's not so much that donating money cause or doesn't cause a COI--it's that it causes no more of a COI than simply being a vocal/staunch believer in a particular campaigners. In fact, I would argue that donating to a political campaign is not fundamentally different than paying money to join a celebrity's fan club. Such a person may well be unable to edit neutrally ("True Fans" are some of the worst offenders in POV editing), but they certainly have no "interest" which causes them "conflict". Qwyrxian (talk) 01:14, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Cannot an individual, group of individuals, or organization not donate towards a campaign, thus supporting it, with the goal of gaining influence/interest within said campaign without bribing a campaign?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:34, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Why is interest seen as donation in millions? Why not hundreds or thousands? Not all races are million or billion dollar races. Most are in the tens or hundreds of thousands, for more local or small regional races. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:42, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that you can make a set rule. One person might see a $100 campaign donation as a routine, even forgettable action, that's merely part of doing business. Another might see a $100 donation as an incredibly significant connection. Similarly, volunteering for a campaign could mean that you're a wholly dedicated, completely biased person looking for any opportunity to exploit the slightest advantage for your candidate—but it could also mean that you're a student looking for "community service volunteer hours" to burnish your college application or meet a school-imposed graduation requirement, or a teen tagging along with his partisan parents, but who personally couldn't care less about it either way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

My initial proposal was not for a rule, in the form of Policy or Guideline, more of an essay, a suggestion, but not a personal essay, but one with some community backing/input/weight. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:44, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I've given money to campaigns I knew or cared little about because a friend asked or because I wanted to get rid of a solicitor at the door, and other trivial reasons. I was once involved in an organization that endorsed a politician and we were asked to phone bank on his behalf. I gave him a little time for the sake of the organization, though I wasn't a very good proselytizer because I didn't know much about him and didn't I particularly support him either. On the other hand, I've done nothing to help some candidates or causes that I've felt more strongly about because they were in another state or district. So it's hard to correlate degree of interest with small contributions of time or money.

We've had people come here saying that they have no conflicts of interest when writing about their employers, their friends and colleagues, or their spiritual leaders. I think they were probably wrong in most of those cases. (Atama may disagree). But it's hard to say that those are very different from supporting a political candidate. I think we should take a stricter line on COI, but it's essentially impossible to do given anonymous editing. Instead we have to appeal to the individual editors sense of fairness and judge them by their edits, not their motivations. Will Beback talk 00:32, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the first line of defense against COI or NPOV edits are on the editors themselves; that being said, perhaps such an essay as I am proposing, possibly linked on the top of the talk page with links to other relevant essays and guidelines that might be of concern/interest to those articles that are related to a political candidate or political campaign, might be helpful towards stopping such possible negative edits in the first place.

More or less, it's like any other signage, it's meant to deter, or possibly delay such actions. It cannot detect or deny such actions if the editors decide to carry out the actions regardless of the notice. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:06, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree that someone writing about an employer, friend or colleague, or spiritual leader has a COI, I think those are very clear cases of a COI. I wouldn't want to ban or revert people solely due to that COI, but any of those situations are definitely a COI. But donating to a campaign? That's a fairly routine thing, at least in the United States (I have no idea about other countries). I'd definitely disagree with an essay suggesting that a campaign donation constitutes a COI. -- Atama頭 18:10, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Even figuring out exactly what constitutes a "campaign" might be complicated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

May I suggest that a campaign would be any group or candidate that would have to file with the Federal Election Commission, State Election Division (Like the Sec of State here in California), or its other global equivalents.

I was not thinking of banning individuals from editing articles based on COI; however as I suggest above, perhaps we should suggest that individuals who have a COI in a campaign, be given notice within the talk page through a template with linked relevant guidelines and essays (such as the one I am proposing), that editing articles that they may have a COI in or where POV editing may occur, is not suggested, and that suggesting edits via the talk page maybe a better alternative.

Also, perhaps donating at a sufficient level which requires a campaign to publicly disclose the donation, such as in the United States, would be large enough that it is not "routine". --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:12, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

At a federal level, that's $200. I know that some states and municipalities have lower thresholds. I'm not sure if lots of millionaires edit Wikipedia, but for many people even $200 is not a significant expense.

What would be the point of setting a definite level of involvement? We don't have an effective enforcement mechanism and this is just a guideline anyway. Better to address editor's motives, which only they can know. An essay that says, "if you came to Wikipedia primarily to promote or attack a candidate or campaign then you probably have a COI" might make more sense than one that says, "You have a COI if you gave $200 or more to a federal candidate, $50 to a state candidate, or if you contributed more than two hours to a campaign." Also, rather than focusing on COI alone, an essay on best practices regarding political candidates and campaigns might do well to address issues of NPOV, sourcing, and other relevant guidelines and policies as they apply to that type of article. In the next 18 months there will be a crop of new editors who come to Wikipedia in part due to their interest in campaigns. How best can we help them while protecting the project? Will Beback talk 22:03, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with what Will Beback has stated regarding the NPOV issues of editors who are primarily here to edit in a positive way for a candidate/campaign, and negatively towards anything related to the opposing candidate(s)/campaign; which as mentioned will become an increasing concern. Perhaps a Task Force under WikiProject Politics or elsewhere should be formed for major races, in order to watch articles related to those races for POV editing. If drawn from a wide range (left, center, right) of editors, it should be able to develop a fair and NPOV team of editors to ensure the issue is squashed before it becomes a major concern.

However, at what point does editing in such a manor not only involve POV issues, but COI as well?

I had mentioned the FEC threshold only because it is an established bar of financial commitment. Staff (voluntary or paid) of a campaign brings obvious COI issues; but most campaigns are largely made up of those not listed in such directories, and often some of the most zealous supporters are not connected to the campaigns at all in an official connection. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:22, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

What happens when a member of a certain political organization hides from arbitrators and administrators (especially during a conflict) the fact that he is a member of this organization so that he can pose as an "unrelated, but sympathetic" wikipedian? Do we have WP:COI there? In such cases, I think there is also the risk that such a member might also try to violate WP:GAME. Moderatelyaverage (talk) 12:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest within Wiki's rules itself

I would like to address the conflict of interest within Wiki's rules in and of itself. I propose the rules favour status quo. The rules are framed as to omit self serving interest but that is really just a summery that special interest groups historical information is not welcome, and that the only welcome information is that which supports the current establishment. this is in and of itself a special interest and self serving. Of course you could easily dismiss this as a circular argument but it is worth addressing as a completely non-nuetral point of view. For instance it may be accepted that the US won the war of 1812. Now as a Canadian it serves my interest to say that the war of 1812 was won by the Canadian's thus excluding me from the argument. A simple example but shows favour to the US and status quo perspective and excludes all argument. Deathmolor (talk) 19:45, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I also want to propose the obvious, that COI section is a cautionary note to conceal your interest. I propose it is impossible to have no interest at all. If your editing then you have interest. The shear act of editing is an act of interest. Deathmolor (talk) 15:48, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Not really.

Yes: The English Wikipedia's rules are set up to enforce the status quo in articles. "No consensus = no change" is the order of the day. We do this to stop edit warring, not to promote some sort of global hegemony. The rule is the same no matter what the content of the page is. If the page says that Canada was the sole victor of the War of 1812, then the page will keep saying that unless and until there is a consensus to say something else.

On the second point, this is often true with occasional editors, but not always. Very few people fix spelling and punctuation errors because they are deeply committed to the subject. I fairly often edit pages despite having zero interest in or prior knowledge of the subject. I've edited more than twenty thousand different pages on Wikipedia. It would be difficult to support a case that I'm significantly interested in one thousand subjects, much less every page that I've ever edited. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:22, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

GOYES - Green Organization of Youth for Environment and Society

Good day,

I'm Jerome Batasin-in, founder of GOYES, and I would like to make a page in Wikipedia for my organization, but i don't know how...would anyone here guide me? th

Thank you for the time, and God bless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ctisoyz (talk • contribs) 03:04, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

So basically, "do nothing"?

Resolved

– – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 08:28, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I read through the page and didn't really find anything regarding my situation. I believe I have found a Hollywood personage (not necessarily a celebrity) editing their own article. None of the additions are sourced, some of the edits are allowed, and some are neutral, in a sense, but still possibly puff up the article a little bit. I could tag the article with a template at the top, but out of privacy of the person, I wouldn't be able to add the user warning on their talk page, because suddenly their privacy no longer exists (anyone could make the connection through my edit history). Their edits are very few and far between, I suppose, in comparison to other potential COI editors. However, the edits are 90% on their article. Finally, what little proof I may have of the COI is from a minor edit made on an image description located in Commons. I'm not sure how to proceed, or if I should simply do nothing. It would be so much easier to just spill the beans, I guess, but WP:COI asks us not to. :D – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 06:08, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

It's easy to skip over the boxes at the top, but the last of those is what to do: visit WP:COIN to discuss issues (and such a discussion should be as vague as you suggest above). Create a new section where the article title is the new section name, and include a link to the article, and a brief description much as what you have done above. Johnuniq (talk) 07:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Wonderful, thank you. And that info is mentioned in one of the paragraphs below. It's a long page, I didn't read it word for word, and apparently I missed the two times I was told what to do! I appreciate your help. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 08:28, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Prohibit telling editors that COI is prohibited

I frequently see occasions in which editors, especially newcomers, are told that COI editing is prohibited. This policy and its attendant discussion make it very clear that while COI editing may be discouraged, it is not prohibited. While I'm no friend to COI editing, I'm also no friend to deception, even if it is for a good purpose. I'd like to propose changing the last sentence of the opening paragraph of the "Editors who may have a conflict of interest" section to read as follows:

While significantly ~~Significantly~~ biased edits in mainspace are forbidden, telling an editor that they are prohibited from creating an article or making a particular edit because of a conflict of interest is also forbidden.

Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:28, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I think your proposal is going a bit too far. It almost sounds as if intended to outlaw topic bans for problematic COI editors. But I like the general direction, as I am seeing this problem all the time. Hans Adler 15:34, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

No, if anything we should do more to discourage COI editing, as its one of the greatest threats to our integrity. We should crack down harder on this with topic bans, etc, where appropriate. Note that having an interest in a subject is not the same as having a conflict of interest (where one's interest comes into conflict with ones ability to write a neutral, factual article on the subject). Them From Space 15:41, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I, frankly, concur with your first sentence, Them, but until we do that, it is dishonest and bitey to discourage COI editors by lying to them. As for it interfering with topic bans, Hans, it must be remembered that those bans do not result from the COI or the POV, per se, but from those editors' persistent use of WP for promotion. It's not at all improper to tell an editor that using WP for promotion is forbidden, but to tell them that they can't make a COI edit is a lie and to allow them to say the second to mean the first merely confuses the issue. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:54, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

It's a fine line really. I concur with both TransporterMan and Hans, to a degree. I've actually seen administrators block editors citing COI, that's how far it has gotten at times. But we need to also make it clear that we don't ignore COIs either. What should be clear is this... A COI on its own is okay. Disruption is not good. A COI + disruption is really not good.

We have a COI noticeboard for two reasons. First, for editors who have problems with someone who has or may have a COI, they can come there for advice and possibly action (a block, a ban, at least a stern warning). Secondly, editors who have a COI and want to edit without causing trouble come there for advice too. We don't want to drive away those kinds of people. I remember a case where a person who worked for a railroad museum actually took his museum's article from a stub to Good Article status, and then went to the noticeboard to ask if they should continue to edit the article, because they had just found the COI guideline. Of course I told him he should, and if anyone gave him grief to personally let me know. -- Atama頭 16:37, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

What kills Wikipedia's credibility is biased editing (whether "pro" or "con"), not having the "wrong" person editing. IMO we—meaning the community, and also meaning as written on this page—aren't doing a very good job of communicating what we want. This might be because we want several different things:

We have small number of people who really shouldn't make any changes to pages at all (simple example: if someone actually tried to murder you, then you should never edit the perpetrator's bio, full stop). In these "massive COI" cases, we're not necessarily willing to wait for proof that the individual isn't unusually high-minded—so high-minded that he can spend his real life trying to put someone in jail, and his wikilife laying out nothing but purely unbiased facts.
We have many more people who have a conflict of interest, but aren't abusing the conflict of interest. We actually want the sales guy at some company to read the article, realize that there are serious factual errors (e.g., we say that it runs on batteries, and it doesn't), and to fix those errors. This is obviously helpful, and should be encouraged.
We have an unfortunate number of people who abuse their conflict of interest. This takes many forms, from adding never-published information to "accidentally-on-purpose forgetting" to mention the sources that they disagree with, to seriously promotional (or borderline libelous) editing. Some of them are aware of what they're doing, and others honestly, in good faith, thought that Wikipedia was a great place to promote their business (or trash the politician they hate, or whatever). These people have earned their topic bans and should live with the consequences. NB, though, that it's the bias editing motivated by the COI, not the COI by itself, that earned that topic ban.

I'm not sure how we could explain this easily. We don't want to empower the COI-abusers, any more than we want to discourage the helpful COI-holders. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the honourable Hans Adler; I like the direction this proposal is going in, but I think the initial wording is slightly too unwieldy & strict.

The best kind of new editor - the editor who actually wants to improve articles rather than vandalising, or spamming, or correcting a hundred articles to fit some national/ethnic/religious Truth - is quite likely to start working on subjects with which they're very closely familiar. These above all are the editors whom we should avoid biting, so overly assertive messages about COI being prohibited are quite harmful. Apart from the effect on newbies, there are sometimes editors who don't work well with others, and feel that the best way to get their way with article content is to say "You are obviously close to this subject because you undo my edits. Too close. You should therefore be disqualified from editing..." bobrayner (talk) 00:08, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

As I am not sure that everybody in this discussion is aware of it: If you are the subject of a (BLP) article, there are situations in which it is perfectly fine to edit the article, and they arise quite often. This is policy. See WP:BLPEDIT. To quote:

[...] Although Wikipedia discourages people from writing about themselves, removal of unsourced or poorly sourced material is acceptable. When an anonymous editor blanks all or part of a BLP, this might be the subject attempting to remove problematic material. Edits like this by subjects should not be treated as vandalism; instead, the subject should be invited to explain their concerns. [Later on in advice to subjects:] Very obvious errors can be fixed quickly, including by yourself.

It is extremely unlikely that these rules will be changed in favour of completely outlawing editing of BLP articles by the subjects themselves. The reason is that avoiding BLP violations is more important than uniformity of our internal processes, and since we don't ask subjects whether we may write about them, we cannot expect that they are familiar with our culture. They see a problem, they try to fix it in whatever way seems to make sense to them, and while correcting them and helping them understand our policies if they make a mistake, they should never be met with hostility for this. And we can't require them to go through OTRS for every little removal of undue or improperly sourced incorrect information. OTRS has enough to do as it is.

And even for things that are not related to BLP: Doing minor or common sense changes to an article to which you are very close only becomes a problem for one of these two reasons:

You misjudge the situation. It's actually not a minor or common sense change.
Someone else believes that all COI editing is evil and must be rooted out, and overreacts. Hans Adler 06:34, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I also think that some people over-represent our COI policies, trying to push out people with COI. In fact, I've even seen a number of times where one editor tells another "You have a COI, you shouldn't even be discussing this on the article's talk page" despite the fact that this policy specifically tells them to do just that. I do agree with Hans and others that the proposed wording is too strong, but that something should be said to clarify that the policy does not prohibit people from editing things they have a COI with; rather, it's more of a warning that, if you have a COI, you're more likely to fall victim to POV or OR editing, even when you don't intend to. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:40, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Suggested path forward:

Why don't we figure out how to update {{Uw-coi}}? I suspect that more people will read that than will read this whole page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I've updated {{Uw-coi}}. The change is here. I tried to avoid wikijargon. Also, I found what may be part of our ongoing educational problem: in the username-switched text, it actually claimed a complete "proscription" against editors with a COI editing articles on subjects connected to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Like That's a great change. -- Atama頭 22:38, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Any exception for BLPs?

Inspired by this situation [2]

Here's a situation where an editor with a conflict of interest was removing some dubious material from the standpoint of WP:BLPNAME - our article on a living economist was giving the real names of his ex-wife and children, who are not notable for any reason other than their relation to the subject. A user claiming to be the ex-wife was removing the real names, and another user who happened upon it was reverting the changes, citing WP:COI. Ultimately, it was decided that the content should be removed.

Since we tend to assign BLP a heavy weight when there is an appearance of a contradiction between it and another policy, is it worth it to mention that we're going to be lenient when the subject of an article (or someone close to them) is removing defamatory or private information per WP:BLP? --causa sui (talk) 20:14, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

No exceptions for BLPs, but no, COI doesn't "prohibit" anything. It's just a guideline with advice for people who have conflicts of interest and others who come across people who have a COI. I don't think it's ever appropriate to revert someone solely citing COI. -- Atama頭 20:22, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the problems stemmed from two issues: (1) the reverting editor was reverting just because it was a COI and (2) the reverting editor didn't think it was a clear BLP violation. So to make it slightly less sympathetic for this policy, suppose the contested content is unambiguously defamatory and poorly cited, and someone is reverting for no better reason than that the person removing it has a conflict of interest. Is your answer still "no"? --causa sui (talk) 20:29, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd still say no. Policies like WP:BLP, WP:HARASS, WP:COPYVIO, WP:NLT, WP:3RR, and so on, clearly trump a guideline like COI. BLP isn't special in that regard. WP:OUTING is a probably the policy (well, portion of a policy) that comes into conflict with our COI guideline the most, to the extent that we have to remind editors at every turn (in this guideline, at WP:COIN, etc.). BLP violations are serious and should be given priority over COI concerns, but again so do many other things. -- Atama頭 22:16, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, what I'm saying is that I wouldn't be in favor of altering the text of our guideline to be specific about BLPs. That's all that I'm objecting to. I'm not saying that your concerns are unfounded, obviously the situation you describe was just wrong, and for both reasons that you cited. Just look at the section right above this, where we discussed how some people are overzealous in their attempts to "enforce" our COI guideline. Recently I saw another administrator block someone simply for having a COI, and no other reason; of course, that block was controversial, and was later overturned, but it shows how far this problem can get. -- Atama頭 22:23, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough - we wouldn't want to introduce instruction creep, and in the original situation, everyone seemed to grok intuitively that the BLP problems were more important than COI. So I may have a solution looking for a problem here. Thanks. --causa sui (talk) 23:07, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Case study/example

I submit User:Mdrozdowski and Talk:Overture Networks as a case-example of the ideal way to handle editing when in a conflict of interest. This case could be used to further improve improve WP:COI or other related pages by linking readers to it as a real-world example. It would be wise to ask the user first though, if they mind being used as an example. -- œ ^™ 15:13, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Behavioral guideline or Content guideline?

This page says Conflict of Interest is a "behavioral guideline" but the Template:Wikipedia_policies_and_guidelines lists it as a "content guideline." Which should change? I've actually been considering this a problem for around a month, so I think I'll follow WP:SOFIXIT. Feel free to discuss/revert. Pdebonte (talk) 13:33, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

It's a behavioral guideline. It defines what a conflict of interest is (or does its best to), gives advice on how to avoid difficulty editing with a COI, and how to handle an editor with a COI. That's all behavioral. Nowhere in the guideline does it discuss what sort of content should and should not go into an article, or what kind of articles should or should not be included in Wikipedia, only suggestions on who should and shouldn't be editing the content. -- Atama頭 16:17, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Endorsement from WMF

Wikimedia Foundation head Sue Gardner recently addressed the American Library Association. Afterwards she took questions:

Asked by an audience member if Wikipedia had problems with people contributing self-serving material, Gardner said, “They are vigilant in their defense of editorial integrity,” so they are the look-out for self-promotion, bias, and puffery. There are lots of safeguards, she noted.[3]

I take that as an endorsement from the top official of the governing body for the strong enforcement of this guideline. Will Beback talk 20:14, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

It would perhaps be more appropriate to read it as an endorsement of current practice, which many people do not believe is accurately described with the words "strong enforcement". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't equate "vigilant" with a lack of strong enforcement. However, it's possible that Gardner is not familiar with the details of the issue. Perhaps we should inquire directly? Will Beback talk 22:30, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe. She might also have been referring to our enforcement of things like WP:SPAM, WP:BLP, WP:OR, and WP:NPOV. COI problems usually involve one or more of those other issues anyway, and I think we are vigilant about them. But either way, I'm a bit concerned here, I wonder if the WMF has a stronger stance against COI than the community does? -- Atama頭 23:12, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I've posted a note to the foundation-l mailing list asking if the WMF has any position on the issue. Will Beback talk 23:33, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

No response (it might have never been posted), and no reply when I wrote directly to her. Will Beback talk 00:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

This guideline is misquoted about 80% of the time, so it needs tweaking to reduce that

About 80% of the time I see this guideline referred to, is misquoted. Specifically, they refer to all situaitons where there is an interest which is a potential wp:coi as a "conflict of interest". I see this most frequently in the context of biting newcomers. The bolded definition in the lead of this guideline says it well: "Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.", but other parts of the guideline sort of conflict with that and IMHO should be tweaked. North8000 (talk) 13:37, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

What parts of the guideline conflict with the definition, and how could the guideline be changed to make the definition clearer to readers? -- Atama頭 00:05, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd recommend:

adding one sentence after the main one. "So, a relationship with the subject becomes a conflict of interest if it causes this to occur.
Each place the wording refers to such a relationship as a conflict of interest I'd change it to refer to it as a potential conflict of interest.

The latter might be easier if I just put them in with an invite to not hesitate to revert me if someone does not agree, I.E. semi-BRD. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree at all. Your first suggestion is redundant, and your second suggestion is incorrect. This guideline doesn't apply to "potential" conflicts of interest, it applies to confirmed conflicts of interest. It sounds to me like you've run into people who aren't following this guideline properly, and that's always going to happen. I deal with it constantly at WP:COIN and elsewhere. Changing this guideline won't help, no more than changing WP:BLP is going to prevent people from violating it. -- Atama頭 02:34, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

You are correct on all counts, which means you are in the 10% of people who will properly understand and quote this policy as it is currently writen. North8000 (talk) 02:58, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Have you seen "Proposal: Prohibit telling editors that COI is prohibited" above, by chance? There was a discussion here very similar to what you are talking about now. There were changes made then that tried to make it clearer that this guideline isn't a bludgeon to use against people. Maybe you can extrapolate something from that discussion. -- Atama頭 03:43, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. That deals with more complex issues. I'm thinking about a more basic misreading, which usually goes like this:

Newbie: talking about the XYZ Museum article: I work at the the XYZ Musuem, and was thinking about editing the article......,
Mis-Quoter: Thanks for disclosing that you have a Conflict of interest, please follow wp:coi accordingly

Sincerely North8000 (talk) 14:19, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Eh, well, that's not really a misquote. It's not very helpful, but if someone is an employee at a museum, then they would have a COI at the museum's article. My employer has an article on Wikipedia, and I believe I could edit the article neutrally, however I stay away just in case. I certainly consider myself to have a COI at the article. Even under our guideline, I could edit the article if I wanted (with caution) but I'd rather just avoid the issue, there are millions of other articles I could work on. But really, what is the mis-quote, and aside from not being very encouraging, what is the problem with the exchange you showed above? -- Atama頭 18:05, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Because, under the excellent definition given in this article ("Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.") being an employee is not per se a COI, it's a COI ONLY IF if advancing that museum's interests is more important to them than advancing the aims of Wikipedia. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

That's the basis for the COI guideline. It's not a "test" we use to determine whether or not a person has a COI. We don't ask people if they care more about their employer, or relative, or friend, or themselves, than Wikipedia. That would be pointless to ask. We assume it, because any reasonable person is going to care more about a subject they are close to than Wikipedia. So yes, being employed by a subject is considered a conflict of interest. Your strict interpretation, if accepted by the community, would render this guideline useless. How could we enforce it? I see now, though, why you think there are contradictions, if you are using that interpretation.

So to clarify, we assume a conflict of interest when an editor is closely related to the subject. Our reaction to that conflict of interest depends entirely on the editor's actions. If an editor changes their employer's article to remove all negative material, then that editor would likely be warned and could face either a block or topic ban. If, instead, that editor adds useful information to the article, and uses sources for anything that might be challenged, then that editor's contributions are welcome despite the COI. A COI isn't intended to be a red letter, we don't block or ban solely based on a COI, and we don't forbid editors from editing where they have a COI. All that a determination of a COI does is alert people to a potential problem, and help explain an editor's motives when they are editing disruptively. -- Atama頭 20:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it's complicated to explain.

Most of the people who misunderstand this are operating from a notion of the "statutory" conflict of interest: for example, Atama absolutely, unavoidably, by definition, has a "conflict of interest" with respect to his employer's article—even if there is no actual "conflict" between Wikipedia's best interest and the employer's best interest.

In practice, Wikipedia doesn't care if someone has a conflict of interest of this sort—if, for example, Atama decides to improve something at the article about his employer. Wikipedia cares very much if someone abuses a conflict of interest—if, for example, Atama decides to turn the article into a paean about his wonderful boss. We care about conflicts of interest only when there is an actual conflict in the interests—when what is in Wikipedia's best interest is not what is in Atama's best interest.

I have found it useful to differentiate between "close connection to the subject" and a "conflict of interest". This captures some of the "potential COI" nuance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I generally differentiate between having a COI, and having a COI problem. But it's all semantics. -- Atama頭 21:40, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I guess there are situations which present a high likelihood of a COI. I think that #2 - #8 of the examples given cover the ones where there is a high likelihood of a COI. (#1 is a whole 'nother discussion). (incidentally I don't think that my museum employee example is one of those) This is getting complicated, maybe I should withdraw my suggestion. But keep in mind that in the real world, COI is a very negative, accusatory term, often applying to misconduct rather than than the situation. So, in the real world, COI IS usually a scarlet letter, (same for a COI per the main sentence here, which is allowing those interests to override proper editing) but the above says that people can be branded with that term merely for a relationship that exists. North8000 (talk) 21:57, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the problem is just the term "conflict of interest" altogether. In the real world, a conflict of interest goes hand-in-hand with such things as corruption, cronyism, etc. Maybe a better term would be "editing with a close connection" or "ECC". It means the same thing (as Wikipedia defines it) but it's less pejorative in a real-world sense. Unfortunately COI is such a common term on Wikipedia, I think a new one would be hard for people to accept or get used to. -- Atama頭 22:09, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Or maybe the terminology could be refined, implementing that main sentence. Using that as a definition, the 7 example situations (#2-#8) are probable conflicts of interest, and other milder situations (like #1) are possible COI's. North8000 (talk) 00:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

On #1, I often thought what if Einstein edited Wikipedia on Relativity. If he didn't cite his books (or books of his lesser competitors) he'd be violating wp:v, if he did, he'd get the COI moniker. We'd have to kick him out! :-) North8000 (talk) 00:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I wish that was more joke than truth, see WP:EXPERT which never got past the essay stage. It's a constant complaint that Wikipedia isn't friendly to subject matter experts, and it has a lot to do with our policy of letting people edit anonymously either as an IP or online handle (anyone can claim to be an expert in this or that regardless of actual qualifications) and the attempt to be egalitarian (imagine how far Einstein would get if he needed to gain consensus with skeptical physicist colleagues before being able to publish his theories). Citizendium was set up specifically to address this problem, but it would be difficult to call it successful. -- Atama頭 00:53, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Einstein should cite his papers under WP:CITESELF.

But it is unfortunately common for published experts to get blocked or harassed by people who don't know (or care) what the actual guideline says. I've certainly seen people try to run off bona fide experts, in some cases apparently because they find the presence of an expert to be terribly inconvenient for their POV pushing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:31, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I wish that editing by Einsteins was the problem. From my experience, almost no one on Wikipedia has an actual conflict of interest. No matter how close editors are to the subject's they're writing about, they still tend to deny having any conflict. In the rare case that they acknowledge a COI, they will probably say they are following the guideline closely and editing neutrally (and if looks any different that's just because the article was non-neutral before so the apparent bias in their editing is just part of bringing the article back to NPOV). Will Beback talk 07:39, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Well then I would think that giving shabby treatment to people who are up-front and declare a relationship that is a potential COI would tend to make that problem worse. North8000 (talk) 10:30, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

And unfortunately, many of them do get shabby treatment. But many still disclose a COI; there's someone at COIN right now who is declaring a professional connection to Bloomberg. As he's clearly trying to do the right thing, I hope that we respond with fairness and friendliness. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:05, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

We should treat those who voluntarily disclose and follow the guideline with all due respect. They are a rare breed. Will Beback talk 19:12, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I try to go out of my way to thank people who disclose their conflict of interest, even when they are otherwise being disruptive. We definitely should encourage it. -- Atama頭 20:54, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure which is quoting vs. misquoting the policy, but I usually say that it's a potential COI, rather than a COI, and recommend following the guidelines applicable to a COI just to be safe and avoid concerns etc. I usually say the same where it appears that such a relationship exists but the editor has not admitted it. North8000 (talk) 21:17, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

(thread continued below: #Possible rewordings)

Delicate issue

Imagine I was the PhD student of a professor. A colleague had told me about our boss having our student assistants making edits at wikipedia. As I had been an editor here for many years I found this information alarming, told my colleague, but he didn't know much about wikipedia rules and we both didn't exactly know what the edits were about. Some days later I checked and found my boss, using his own IP address, had entered information here regarding his own research, adding a reference to an article that was only published in a working paper series managed by himself, so no peer-review, no real scientific source that should be mentioned here, especially not by the author himself. The student assistants had added significant amounts of text to articles related to one of his research topics. All with single purpose IP accounts. All but one: An account that was also used to alter an article of one of his colleagues. That article looked like his own website: written like by a PR agency, including a long list of co-authors "from all continents", including amazon links in the main text to his books (thus in a wikipedia list of articles that include spam), even including his linkedin page. As my boss was away and I was on vacation I couldn't talk to him, which obviously would have been the best way to deal with such things. I wanted to set up wikis for my research and felt very alarmed by all this and really didn't want to be related to anything like this. So I wrote to my boss about wikipedia rules regarding conflict of interest, showed him where to find them, listed the edits that were inappropriate and why and showed him how easily it could be found out that it was him and our student assistants who did the changes. I also wrote to him that I found this entirely unnecessary and that I did not want to work for someone who did things like that. And I wrote to that colleague, stressing I did not want to harrass him but to stop him from bringing harm on himself. Reply from my boss was nothing he had done was wrong, and I didn't have to work for him because under such circumstances he wouldn't renew my contract. When I asked another professor to be my new supervisor and I told him about all this he told me I had shown backbone. But when we arranged a meeting with both of them to sort out how to arrange the transition my first supervisor said he had just changed his own address in an article, obviously nothing he had done was wrong and the new supervisor to be seemed to have forgotten about backbone and stuff. I then found another supervisor, only finance was still unclear. As I had my own conflict of interest now I did not alter any text related to my former boss, just welcomed the single purpose accounts and pointed them to the conflict of interest policy. The article of the colleague I altered several weeks later according to the policies and it remained like that until now. What else should I do? COI-issue (talk) 22:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little confused from the last few sentences regarding the state of the article. From a Wikipedia standpoint, the end goal is that the article quality get to the point where it has not been degraded by a COI. North8000 (talk) 15:50, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The one professor's article is now clear of obvious violations of policy but would probably benefit from neutrailty check by someone else. With the other professor it's not his own article but ones related to his research. I don't want to delete the inappropriate source myself and others will not note that the author and the publisher are identical and it's thus not a peer-reviewed notable scientific source but just self-praise. And if you don't check who wrote the article paragraphs you might think the edits are neutral instead of self-praise. On the other hand, I don't particularly like the idea of exposing the conflict of interest. COI-issue (talk) 16:15, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I want to be totally honest and straight with you here. There's Wikipedia and then there's real life. I have spent years trying to help with the site, trying to help people and make things better overall. But I would never prioritize Wikipedia over the real world. If I had to risk my academic or financial career over concerns that a Wikipedia page might be too promotional, I wouldn't bother. I believe in this site but there are things far more important in life. That's one reason why we have the COI guideline in the first place. The line that says, "Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest" should not be interpreted as an implication that advancing the aims of Wikipedia is always more important than your own interests. It simply means that if outside interests are more important, that you might be in conflict with other editors here at Wikipedia. That conflict could lead to you getting blocked or banned, in extreme circumstances. But really, while I admire the conviction you have to stand up for your ethics, don't antagonize your professors over it. I love Wikipedia but it's not worth that. If you think you could get away with anonymously warning people that COI violations are occurring, go for it, but I would advise against confronting people in the real world about it. -- Atama頭 16:25, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your advice. As you may imagine, other stuff had happened before about which I had not been happy, so I was not entirely unhappy about the break. Plus, as I wrote that I plan to set up wikis for my research, I saw absolutely no way to continue with an supervisor who everyone could easily find out to abuse the one wiki that everyone knows for self-praise. What would people think about me then?

But this is not the issue here anyway. My question is how should I proceed with the remaining inappropriate edits? COI-issue (talk) 18:26, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

You can report the info to the COI noticeboard for assistance, that's what it's there for. A number of people watch that page and love to help out with COI problems. You can link back to this page to save the trouble of retyping all of that stuff again. -- Atama頭 18:48, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Problem is, if I reveal the edits, I also reveal the identity of the editor, which should usually not be done. COI-issue (talk) 19:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:OUTING certainly trumps WP:COI, yes. In which case it's too late to really do anything. If other policies or guidelines like WP:SPAM or WP:NPOV or WP:BLP were being broken, those could have been reported without risking an outing of the editor, but now you're kind of stuck. If you report it now, it would easy to put 2 and 2 together by looking at your request here. If I were to (hypothetically) say in one venue that I know that an editor is editing their own biographical article by whitewashing it, then in another venue I complain that a specific editor was whitewashing a specific biographical article, and those were my only contributions to Wikipedia, then people would quickly see that I've revealed that the editor is the subject of the biography. You could possibly skirt the issue by emailing the info instead, keeping it off-wiki, which is often done to address sensitive issues, but in doing so you have to rely on the assistance of that particular person rather than the community at large. -- Atama頭 20:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The mere fact that he cited his own paper isn't hugely important: WP:CITESELF actually permits people to cite their own paper (within limits). What matters is that the working paper probably oughtn't have been cited in the first place, by anyone. I'd suggest that it be tagged ({{Better source}}, maybe?) or a note left for a relevant WikiProject or at a content WP:noticeboard (WP:NPOVN, for example, if the tendency is to overemphasize his work). Such a note need only identify the content that concerns you. The story about how the edits apparently came to be made is not critical: either the changes made Wikipedia worse, in which case they need fixing (no matter who made them or why), or they didn't, in which case they don't need fixing (again, no matter who made them or why). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. @Atama: I set up this second account only in order to clarify this issue here and won't use it any further. As I think you can guess from what I wrote the two professors are entirely uncooperative and unwilling to admit any wrongdoing. @WhatamIdoing: a tag like "better source" is a good idea, even though I think as long as it's not properly published and no one else has properly published the information it should not be part of an encyclopedia at all.

Making one's student assistants edit wikipedia is a sneaky kind of sock-puppeteering but that again cannot be revealed without revealing identities. NPOV in my eyes has been broken by overemphasizing their work, I guess I can point this out and point to the inappropriate working paper at a content noticeboard. I don't think I should do any content changes myself with my normal account. COI-issue (talk) 22:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

If you felt like emailing me the article name I could take a look at it. Or, if that is still too direct, somebody else who is willing to take a look at it email me and I'll pass the article name along to them. North8000 (talk) 00:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Just a bit of wikijargon semantic nitpicking (or possibly a bit of FYI) but when one person asks another person to come to Wikipedia on their behalf, that's called meatpuppetry, and in many cases is treated the same as sockpuppetry. I'm just pointing this out, so you know that this "sneaky kind of sock-puppeteering" is well-known to the extent that it has its own term. -- Atama頭 00:29, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I would consider it to be clearly on behalf of the article/Wikipedia, not on behalf of the person. I think that it's a simple case of "we need more eyes on that article" except where the request is confidential. I was just offering; if folks think that it is improper, I'll withdraw the offer. North8000 (talk) 01:25, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I meant that for COI-issue, sorry, I should have been clear about that. There's nothing wrong with what you said, I was just referring to COI-issue talking about the "sneaky kind of sock-puppeteering" from the student assistants. -- Atama頭 02:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. The indentation under mine threw me. I un-indented it by one click for clarity, if that's OK. North8000 (talk) 02:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

When profession trumps wikipolicies

I'm having a problem with an editor now who keeps yapping about being a legal aide and therefore he can define what is and is not defamation and what Wikipolicies say are not important. I've got it at BLP board now, hoping his usual avalanche of commentary won't confuse the issue. But it would be nice if I also could leave him a COI notice, but not sure how to categorize it. I guess I'll just quote: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a vanity press or a forum for advertising and promoting yourself or your ideas. 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. But a category called "professional interest/reputation" or something would help. Thanks. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:28, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

LOL, that's really out of scope of the guideline, but it'd be nice if it wasn't. :) Basically what you're saying is, stop being so full of yourself. Which is perfectly valid. We don't really need something in the guideline that says you can't try to bully people with RL credentials, that should be a given. Also be sure that they are aware of WP:NLT, Wikipedia is really sensitive about legal matters so a person claiming to have some legal clout in the real world should have a bit of caution about how assertive they are. It's too easy to interpret a statement like "this is defamation" to mean "I'm going to see that Wikipedia is sued". -- Atama頭 19:32, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Will remember that! :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:40, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

First paragraph

I'm thinking that our first paragraph is probably more confusing than necessary. It says:

“

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. Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

”

Does anyone else think it's worth trying to improve it? I'm thinking that a simpler formulation would say something like:

“

On Wikipedia, an editor has a conflict of interest (COI) when what is best for the editor is different from, or in conflict with, what is best for Wikipedia.

”

What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:43, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I think at least the wording in bold should definitely stay. -- œ ^™ 06:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually I don't know about the new proposed statement. It might technically be true, but still I prefer the existing statement because it's talking about a person's motivations causing the conflict rather than the person's self-interests ("advancing outside interests" versus "what is best for the editor"). It's a fine line but I think an important one. -- Atama頭 19:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I also prefer the existing wording. The distinction Atama mentioned is important to maintain and the previous wording is more precise. Them From Space 15:47, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

COI = POV pushing + close connection?

I frequent WP:COIN and notice that there are reports often made regarding another editor who has an obvious or alleged close connection and they think that this warrants action (blocks, warnings, etc.). I feel that WP:COI is clear that this is not a problem but grounds for caution from the editor with a close connection and other involved editors (which is what WP:COIN generally provides) but the problem still presents itself.

I don't think that the reports at WP:COIN requesting action solely because of a close connection are a problem (we just make the guideline clear to them or tell them to go to WP:NPOVN and/or WP:BLPN) but I think it underlines a larger problem; that many editors think that simply having a close connection is cause for action. The WP:COIN reports are just a symptom of the problem.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with the way the guideline is written or if its more of an issue with the assumptions that editors make based on their own feelings (that you can't be unbiased when editing an article whose subject you're close to). Perhaps defining the difference between a close connection and a problematic conflict of interest would help (defining the two separately in two guidelines).

Perhaps a new guidelines such as WP:CC (Close connection) could outline that having a close connection can be problematic and outline the steps currently found in WP:COI. It could also define the difference between a close connection and having a strong off-wiki opinion. We've seen people show strong support for a cause and the definition of a "close connection" is very muddy although the base of the problem is POV editing. WP:COI would then be the guideline that defines the actions around having a "Close connection" and making POV edits.

I don't know the best answer. Just looking to start a discussion. OlYeller21^Talktome 14:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I see that WP:CC is taken. I think you get the point, though. OlYeller21^Talktome 14:44, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the fundamental problem is poor education of our userbase. I think we've made good progress on clarifying the issues in this guideline during the last year or two, but we've got a ways to go—and WP:Nobody reads the directions, so most users are basing their complaints on what they remember hearing once upon a time. I think the ultimate solution is for people like us to keep repeating the mantra: Merely having a close connection is not a blockable offense. You have to be actually harming Wikipedia because of that connection to have an actionable COI. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you think an essay might help? Maybe an essay that says that (close connection isn't bad) and includes some common scenarios where users who don't understand WP:COI run into problems. I'm not sure if pointing at it would make things more confusion or not. Ultimately, I think that users who, for whatever reason, don't understand WP:COI can at least have an easy jumping off point with WP:COI and WP:CloseConnection. With that, it's visually obvious that the two are different. It may just make things more confusing though. OlYeller21^Talktome 21:46, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There's always some new permutation on this topic. Now it's an editor who constantly puts in negative information about a BLP; in researching for the article I discovered someone with the same user name actively posts negative info about the person on a list populated by people who organize protests against this person, as well as a number of other web sites, some highly partisan and high profile. So is this a case where POV crosses over into COI?? If not, is it just something to bring up on the BLP talk page - or edit war discussions? The mind boggles. CarolMooreDC 18:59, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

That could be any or all of the above. For COI, the question is how this promotes the editor's own interests. Merely dedicating your life to letting the world know that ___ is a bad person isn't necessarily something that is in your own interest. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

To clarify: Should this person's persistent efforts to disparage a living person be stopped? Probably yes. Should the label "COI" be used as our official reason when we stop him? I don't know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:52, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

The core statement of the policy is excellent: " Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.". Someday we'll need to bring the actual use of the policy in line with that. IMO somebody whose interest (for any reason) to attack the subject of the article is more important to them than the aims of wikipedia has a wp:COI. Conversely somebody who works for a company which is the subject of the article but puts the aims of Wikipedia first when editing the article IMHO does not have a wp:coi. North8000 (talk) 13:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Good point! In one article I can think of a couple editors who don't like the subject and protest only a small number of violations, but overall their edits on all articles are in the interest of Wikipedia and they are civil. Others are clearly just pushing their agenda in all the articles they edit in a way that's uncivil, against policy and harms wikipedia. It should not be as difficult as it seems to be to have them removed from articles where they cause trouble. CarolMooreDC 13:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Resume?

I'm not certain what the best way is to handle what looks in part like a resume, but thought some denizen of this page may have a better idea ... see T. V. S. R. Appa Rao.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:06, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Tagging the issues seems like the good start. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 04:53, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. But I say it has been tagged for the problem since June 2008.--Epeefleche (talk) 18:15, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe the correct course of action is set out on the tag "Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page." Woz2 (talk) 12:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Eyes

I'm not keeping up with my watchlist. Remember those long discussions we had months ago about how {{Uw-coi}} was spreading errors (e.g., if you have a close connection to a subject, you shouldn't provide useful information about sources at AFDs, because providing a list of independent sources clearly damages the encyclopedia)?

We fixed it when we fixed the guideline, but then the template got reverted because an editor didn't think to look here (i.e., in the obvious place) for discussions about what to say about this guideline. So I've fixed it again, but it would be good if several other people put it on their watchlists so that if we see another round of this, it will get noticed sooner. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I was that editor, and I've just found this thread for the first time, after noticing that the COI template had changed again. Sorry that neither I nor the second-opinion editor thought to check this page for a rationale in September, although I'd note that your edit summary at the time was simply "Update and correct".

To clarify the concerns I raised about the new wording (and it's mostly just grammar and tone):-

The second sentence contains the circular assertion that "if you are affiliated with [the subject] you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a [...] close connection to the subject".
The new template loses "where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred", which seemed useful (that even if the warned editor could give a big spiel about how he isn't actually connected to the particular product he's promoting and it just looks like it to everyone else, he should save his energy and still exercise caution).
Telling the editor that they were probably expressing "a distorted view" in their recent edits seems unnecessarily aggressive.
Describing the COI problem as an editor "inadvertently edit[ing] in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging" plays down the other COI problem of adding unsourceable insider information. I don't think the editor should walk away thinking "right, got it, all I need to do is avoid flattering my employer".
"following the reliable sources" should maybe be "following reliable sources" or "quoting reliable sources"?
"Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies." is an odd standalone request, with no inline links for guidance - was it meant to join onto the sentence below the bulleted list?
The link to "our frequently asked questions for organizations" might be better without "for organizations", since the page it links to also covers personal biography pages, and we wouldn't want a non-organization COI editor to skip over it as irrelevant.

That's all. --McGeddon (talk) 12:39, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

So no response from me raising these problems in "the obvious place", seven months later? "Following the reliable sources" has been fixed, but the rest remains - I know it's mostly nitpicking, but at least some of it (the circular "affiliated people may have a connection to the thing they are affiliated to", the focus on flattery and the unclear link in the last point) seems worth fixing. --McGeddon (talk) 19:43, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I fixed the circular bit; I'm not sure exactly what to do about the other points, perhaps you could have a go yourself. On the whole the template seems pretty good (much more clearly expressed than the guideline itself). Victor Yus (talk) 07:48, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

COI-related proposal at BLP

FYI, there is a proposal to make a binding policy concerning the editing of biographies of living people by people with conflicts of interest. See Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Editing the biography of someone you have been in a real-life dispute with. Will Beback talk 00:16, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

People should look at it because first there was a proposal to explicitly ban people from talk pages on defacto COI grounds; now it's being worded so that they are only advised to go elsewhere if they have issues. See particularly the end of "Adapting the proposal" section. CarolMooreDC 00:04, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Policy

As presently listed, COI is a "behavioral guideline" and not a "policy" - yet it's enforced as if it were a policy. Should we take steps to elevate this to policy level? Rklawton (talk) 02:23, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

How about adding a COI-related clause to Wikipedia:Banning policy. It is surprisingly difficult to get any kind of a topic ban approved at WP:ANI. This has the paradoxical effect that admins are on safer ground when issuing a block than a ban. With careful wording, there might be conditions under which individual admins might be allowed to *ban* a user who has an obvious COI from editing the related article. Such bans would be reviewable at noticeboards. Banning a user from a single article would be a less drastic remedy than a block. In actual practice, when a user's actions have been reviewed at WP:COIN and they have continued to make inappropriate edits to a specific article, the only option that an admin can consider is a block for disruptive editing. EdJohnston (talk) 02:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

People who enforce COI as a policy are in the wrong. I have seen editors blocked solely for violating COI, and each time the block was overturned and the admin was reprimanded for it. Now, we do ban people from pages and topics due to COI, that's not unusual, but the community can technically ban anyone for anything they want to. To my knowledge there is no blanket discretionary sanction to allow administrators to unilaterally ban any editor due to a perceived COI.

The reason why COI isn't a policy is pretty simple. It's not always a problem. We have policies that say not to write controversial unsourced BLP information, policies that say not to harass people, policies that say not to vandalize. Those policies work because that is behavior that the community does not ever want to see. But many times we have editors with conflicts of interest who never cause a problem, and sometimes that conflict of interest is applied to a subject matter expert who has a lot to offer Wikipedia and restricting that person ends up hurting Wikipedia. So we write up COI as a guideline, and it should probably never be anything stronger than a guideline. It gives advice, both to editors who have a COI, and to other editors who encounter a person with a COI. When an editor with a COI is disruptive, we have policies that already govern whatever disruption is being caused by the editor, and sanctions can be given based on those policies. When an editor with a COI is not being disruptive, and not violating anything outside of the COI guideline, then there shouldn't be a concern anyway. -- Atama頭 18:13, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

IMHO the wp:coi situation is so often mixed up and so often jumps the tracks that it would be inconceivable to make it a policy. It starts with an EXCELLENT definition: "Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest." And then in practice, everybody violates that definition and brands any type of a interest that is a potential COI as an actual coi. So, in order to disclose an interest that is a potential COI an editor has to partially out themselves and then gets a "COI" scarlet letter immediately MIS-placed on them. The whole process is counterproductive, encouraging people to not disclose. North8000 (talk) 11:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

We've got too much of a problem already with Talk page space being used up by people complaining about another editor's Talk page contributions even though the complained about editor identifies his relationship. The Talk pages should be used for discussing changes to the articles, not attacking other editors. It would help if this guideline included something about the value of keeping one's critical eye on Wikipedia as opposed upon Wikipedians.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:36, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I think of COI as a guideline, because it deals with a lot of nuance, exceptions and common sense. The guideline tag at the top seems to define guidelines as having these characteristics. Content and behavioral policies like NPOV/AGF should apply equally to COI. But I don't see any downside to more prolific use of main-page editing bans on problematic POV editors (with or without a COI), rather than banning potential experts from an entire topic. Even previously disruptive bias editors could be valuable on the Talk page. King4057 (talk) 13:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

RfC

ArbCom directed RfC on this guideline is here. Cla68 (talk) 01:22, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Ambiguous statement in Guideline (I)

Coming here from WP:RFC/COI: The guideline currently reads in Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Close_relationships:

If editors on a talk page suggest in good faith that you may have a conflict of interest, try to identify and minimize your biases, and consider withdrawing from editing the article.

(my bolding)

IMHO, the bolded statement is meant to be read as ' try to (identify and minimize) your biases' (so, meaning that you have to see what could be interpreted as being your biases, and try to minimize that), but could possibly be read as '(try to identify) and (minimize your biases)' (so, being read as that you have to try to identify yourself, ánd that you have to minimize your biases). I would suggest:

If editors on a talkpage suggest in good faith that you may have a conflict of interest, try to minimize your biases, or consider withdrawing from editing the article.

Further suggestions? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:38, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I think this is actually still too strong.

If editors on a talkpage suggest in good faith that you may have a conflict of interest, engage in discussion, and try to adhere to a neutral point of view on those articles where you have a conflict of interest.

Maybe better? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:41, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Ambiguous statement in Guideline (II)

Coming here from WP:RFC/COI: The guideline currently reads in Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#How_to_handle_conflicts_of_interest - Dealing with suspected conflicted users:

In case the editor does not identify themself or their affiliation, reference to the neutral point of view policy may help counteract biased editing.

This statement was challenged as being encouraging editors to harass editors in order to get them to out themselves. Although I have difficulties reading this sentence (section) in that way, we may consider a different wording to make it more clear that that is not what is meant, and it is certainly not the way forward. For this, I don't really have suggestions, as I find it already difficult to read that section in this way. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:48, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:COI

The {{COI}} tag is nominated for deletion, see the discussion. CharlieEchoTango (contact) 08:39, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

FYI, result of discussion was to keep (with a recommendation of clearing up the backlog of COI tags first.)--S. Rich (talk) 02:06, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Appropriate content?

Hi- I'm absolutely new to this and I've been asked to post the following but I am unsure if this would constitute a conflict of interest or not. Looking for advice.

Agency Cash Management

Agency Cash Management (ACM) is an electronic trading platform that enables wholesale financial investors such as fund managers, corporates, treasurers and other buy-side institutions direct electronic access to the tri-party repo market through an auction facility.

ACM allows cash-rich investors to enter into secured money market investments via the tri-party repo mechanism as an alternative to the traditional suite of unsecured money market products. The use of a tri-party agent further enhances the offering by providing a robust settlement engine that includes segregation of assets and daily margining.

The ACM platform provides a new level of transparency and risk-management to an investor base that has become increasingly averse to the risks associated with the unsecured money markets and general counterparty exposure in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. ACM allows competition for cash and best execution which is increasingly important to fund managers.

By bringing a new pool of cash providers to the market, the ACM platform also benefits banks facing continued pressure to diversify their sources of funding in the face of Basel III.

The platform has been built on the same robust technology that facilitates MTS’s regulated fixed income markets, combining secure investment opportunities with the high levels of transparency offered by electronic trading.

ACM was successfully launched in January 2012 as a joint effort by Newedge, a global multi-asset brokerage and clearing entity, and MTS Group, the premier facilitator for the electronic fixed income markets. ACM has secured very high profile mandates from both the buy-side and the banking community. ACM-Newedge (talk) 17:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Looks like a press release. Even if you don't work for them, it's no good. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello ACM-Newedge. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, and in order to maintain the level of quality, factual accuracy, writing style and other standards fitting an encyclopedia, the community here does have a set of policies and guidelines that specify what can and can not be included in Wikipedia. As Arthur Rubin noted, the content you've suggested above does not meet Wikipedia's requirements. As productive next steps, I recommend beginning with the following:

1. The username you have chosen does not meet Wikipedia's username policy, which prohibits using the name of your company (or any company) in your username. You should request a username change by clicking here to place a request.

2. Next, read the Plain and simple conflict of interest guide. This will explain what you should do--as well as what you should refrain from doing--as an editor who has a conflict of interest.

Cheers, Jeff Bedford (talk) 19:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

No mention of WP:EDITREQ on WP:COIC

The WP:COIC section directs an editor with a COI to the article's talk page. The "Making requests" section of WP:EDITREQ says that the {{request edit}} template should be used in the case of a COI. I think these should be brought to a state of mutual consistency by explaining the use of the {{request edit}} template in WP:COIC. Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:06, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

As no concerns have been raised, I added a sentence to the WP:COIC section. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Professional COI

Disclosure: I often but not always contribute with a financial COI

Context: Many PR professionals claim the COI guideline is confusing.

Rationale:

From their perspective, marketing and communications professionals don't fit in any clear COI category, because Financial COI is baffling to career professionals who have no direct financial gain. (argue as you will, it is confusing to the intended readers of the guideline)
The language offers too many opportunities for un-productive interpretations, where a clear COI can justify to themselves that they don't have one.
Often direct editing occurs because no one responds on the Talk page and it benefits us to educate COIs on other options to find a volunteer editor to work with
Many are claiming that PR pros are prohibited from even correcting spelling. We might as well clarify.

Some possible edits:

suggestions

Financial or Professional

Shortcuts

You are very strongly discouraged from directly editing Wikipedia article-space in areas where there is a potential, actual or perceived conflict of interest ~~that may make your edits non-neutral (biased)~~ if you fit ~~either~~any of these descriptions:

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);~~
you expect to derive monetary or other benefits or considerations from editing Wikipedia; for example, by being an owner, officer, or other stakeholder of a company or other organization about which you are writing; or
you are a marketing, SEO, lobbyist or public relations professional working on behalf of an article subject or an organization or individual with a vested interest in the article subject

Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy states that all articles must represent views fairly and without bias, and conflicts of interest may significantly and negatively affect Wikipedia's ability to fulfill this requirement. ~~If your financially motivated edits would be non-neutral, do not post them.~~

If you have a financial or professional interest in a topic (either as an employee, owner or other stakeholder) it is advised you to provide full disclosure of your connection, and use the "discussion" pages to suggest changes ~~(using the {{Request edit}} template to request edits)~~ rather than editing articles directly. Requested edits will be subject to the same editorial standards by neutral editors (which means they are not guaranteed to be carried out) and will help avoid situations of advocacy and related problems. Editors with a financial or professional COI may also ask for help on the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard, on Wikiprojects an article is associated with or use the {{Request edit}} template to put the edit request in a queue. Generally speaking, the Reward Board and non-controversial edits(such as grammar and spelling) are exceptions to the above cautions. There, you may derive monetary gain from editing Wikipedia, as these are usually rewards for featured or good article status which should not introduce bias. However, be wary of editors asking you to make specific edits that challenge your sense of neutral perspective, or to clean up a "hatchet job", as you may unwarily become their meatpuppet.

User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 05:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

The King asked me to comment, perhaps as a member of his "loyal opposition." On the surface most of these edits make sense. If the people you want to reach don't understand the rule, then rewrite it in their own language. #3 is the key addition - it might be a bit confusing to non-PR types - but I trust King that most PR folks will understand it (perhaps with a little rewriting). My only concerns are that it can contribute to instruction creep, and, heaven forbid, some people might just not want to understand it. (Yes I know about WP:AGF - but I'm just talking theoretically that some people might exist ...)

And I would prefer something quite direct about the road to banishment, e.g. ignore this advice and you are likely to be viewed as disruptive, as well as violating WP:NPOV, and therefore will likely to be banned. Folks do understand that type of direct advice. Yes, I know that the same advice is more or less distributed through the guideline, but the more direct the better as far as I'm concerned. Smallbones (talk) 20:04, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Small. What about adding "Ignoring this guideline may have consequences. See Consequences of ignoring this guideline

User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 00:39, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Your suggestions would fully contradict WP:COS. We don't discriminate if a person has a professional interest in something, on the contrary we encourage it. For example, I'm an IT network administrator so with computer-related subjects I would be considered to have a professional interest in the field (though for some reason I rarely edit those articles, go figure). But there is no COI there, unless I'm editing an article related to my employer (which I've never done). I have trouble believing that a PR person who is paid by a client doesn't feel that they are financially compensated for improving their client's image. That's delusional. They could weaselly argue that they aren't directly compensated (the client didn't explicitly tell me that I had to edit the article to be paid) but they darn well know that they're being paid to do what they're doing. I suppose we could clarify that indirect compensation could be a financial COI but that might just be making things even more confusing. -- Atama頭 17:21, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Your "delusional" comment hits the mark. PR folks should be able to figure out that by being paid to write PR they have a financial interest. On the other hand, it's not surprising that this proposal for change contradicts WP:COS. This is a subsection of COS and King's just trying to change it.

I've just read that the UK PR organization's code of ethics prohibits anonymous communications of PR material, which would include anonymous editing of Wikipedia. I believe the US PR organizations all have the same type of rule. Since the PR folks say that anonymous editing here is unethical, I think that we can just directly say something like "Since a broad range of professional Public Relations organizations consider anonymous editing by PR professionals on Wikipedia to be unethical, all PR professionals writing editing a client's article must declare a conflict of interest on their user page and on the article's talk page" - to replace point 3. The "must" might be controversial, and I'd make it a policy rather than just part of a guideline, but we might as well start here. Smallbones (talk) 18:58, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Smallbones, it's not really the English Wikipedia's job to tell PR folks that they have to follow their own rules. We could turn this in to a comprehensive book on how to live an ethical and legal life, including things like "if you're paid to edit Wikipedia, then don't cheat on your income taxes" and more, but it's not really our purpose. We need to include our rules, i.e., those things that they don't already know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually this section and WP:COS are both subsections of "Examples" - sorry. I suggest that we have a new sub-section between these two titled "Professional"

Suggested text: Since all major professional Public Relations organizations consider anonymous editing by PR professionals on Wikipedia to be unethical, all PR professionals editing a client's article must declare a conflict of interest on their user page and on the article's talk page. Many other professional organizations have codes of ethics or conflict of interest guidelines. If you are a member of one of these organizations you should follow both Wikipedia's COI guidelines and the professional organization's codes or guidelines, i.e. the stricter of the two sets of rules. Smallbones (talk) 19:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea, but aren't we now talking about changing the policy, rather than just making it more clear? If a "professional COI" is = "financial COI" then we are merely using terms the reader understands. However if we say "must" disclose, we just changed the policy. Also, we can't actually enforce "must," we can merely create consequences. So it seems like the real discussion there is if non-disclosure should be a bannable offense - which is a whole new conversation that there will likely never be consensus on.

In any case, a couple changes below to address other points. Lets keep this string going.

Revised

Financial or Professional

Shortcuts

You are very strongly discouraged from directly editing Wikipedia article-space in areas where there is a potential, actual or perceived conflict of interest if you fit any of these descriptions:

you are receiving monetary or other benefits to edit Wikipedia as a representative of an organization
you expect to derive monetary or other benefits or considerations from editing Wikipedia; for example, by being an owner, officer, or other stakeholder of a company or other organization about which you are writing; or
you are a marketing, SEO, lobbyist or public relations professional working on behalf of an article subject or an organization or individual with a vested interest in the article subject

Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy states that all articles must represent views fairly and without bias, and conflicts of interest may significantly and negatively affect Wikipedia's ability to fulfill this requirement.

If you have a financial or professional conflict of interest in a topic (either as an employee, owner or other stakeholder) it is advised you provide full disclosure of your connection, and use the "discussion" pages to suggest changes rather than editing articles directly. Requested edits will be subject to the same editorial standards by neutral editors (which means they are not guaranteed to be carried out) and will help avoid situations of advocacy and related problems. Editors with a financial or professional COI may also ask for help on the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard, on Wikiprojects an article is associated with or use the {{Request edit}} template to put the edit request in a queue. Generally speaking, the Reward Board and non-controversial edits(such as grammar and spelling) are exceptions to the above cautions. Ignoring this guideline may have consequences. See Consequences of ignoring this guideline

User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 19:35, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I think one confusing thing that's being missed in these clarifications is the status of the COI guidelines as rules. We on the one hand say that COI editing is "strongly discouraged", and not to do it, and on the other we offer a path to ethical engagement under a strict subset of what's reasonable for them to do. I think we need to clarify the "don't do this" and "do do that" bits so that it's more obvious that what we're saying is more along the lines of "You can edit freely with a COI, but it's risky because our side has strict editorial rules and you might see PR backlash from the public—but if you follow this special set of voluntary extra rules, everybody should be safe." That is the key point we want to get across. The "safe zone" seems to be being understood as more of an "official" rule that must be followed, and that leads people down the wrong path even before they start considering how to follow the rules, because the "safe zone" is in many cases too restrictive to be practical. If a professional communicator of any sort is seeing this page, it's a sign that we want them to move into the "safe zone" so that they can learn how things work with less risk of either side getting burned—rather than because we want them to only ever edit indirectly. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 21:37, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Nihiltres. I'm a little confused, but I see where you're going. PR people think Wikipedia contradicts itself, because there is policy, then guideline, then best practice and these each give different advice. How about something like this:

"COI editors are required to follow community policies such as NPOV. They are strongly encouraged to abide by this guideline to uphold those policies, however Wikipedia has also documented numerous COI best practices that are recommended.

User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 03:01, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

That sounds good, though it's a little vague on what the rules each mean. This guideline is mostly an extension of other policies—it says, don't violate NPOV, use good, independent sources, and don't try to do something that doesn't fit in an encyclopedia. The policies are non-negociable. I re-read the guideline, and realized it's fuzzier than I thought. The guideline discourages people editing with a COI, reiterates the need to follow policy, implicitly sets out a lower threshold for blocking COI editors, establishes that COI in and of itself is not offensive, and sets out some of the "best practices" rules (not in that order). The "best practices" page(s) then set these out more directly.

My suggestion is that we try to more clearly delineate the guideline from the best practices, or more clearly integrate them directly. By delineating them, we could make the "outline of the rules" nature of the guideline more clear, and by integrating them it might be more clear that they're the paths expected by the community for good-faith COI editing to happen. The latter seems friendlier, but insofar as it results in a change of the scope of the guideline might need us to ensure a wider consensus for those changes. In either case working on the broad structure of the guideline, as a document, is probably desirable. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 15:32, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh my. Incredibly good points. I too thought it was a farse people think the COI guideline is confusing, but I'm seeing questions from PR people where I can reasonably understand their confusion - acknowledging they have no prior understanding of how Wikipedia works. Even a basic question like "can I edit my own article?" is confusing. ArbCom's suggestion for an RFC seems to indicate as much and they would have experience working with confused COIs.

How do you suggest we go about such a project to improve the clarify and readability of the current guideline? I don't know if any major structural changes are in order, but I also see a need to improve other sections, such as consequences and "how to handle." I started on an essay, then realized there was already a section in the guideline for how to work with COIs.

Working on a project that involves broader community consensus is beyond my skillset/know-how at the moment. But I'm in a unique position to help and am willing and able. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 17:37, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

In any case, revised below. I also made it a new example for "professional COI" per smallbones' suggestion - creating a new example doesn't seem to require a policy change.

revised

Professional COI

Shortcuts

You are very strongly discouraged from directly editing Wikipedia article-space in areas where there is a potential, actual or perceived conflict of interest if you are a marketing, SEO, lobbyist or public relations professional working on behalf of an organization with a vested interest in the subject. Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy states that all articles must represent views fairly and without bias, and conflicts of interest may significantly and negatively affect Wikipedia's ability to fulfill this requirement.

If you have a professional conflict of interest in a topic (either as an employee, owner or other stakeholder) it is advised you provide full disclosure of your connection, and use the "discussion" pages to suggest changes rather than editing articles directly. Requested edits will be subject to the same editorial standards by neutral editors (which means they are not guaranteed to be carried out) and will help avoid situations of advocacy and related problems. Editors with a professional COI may also ask for help on the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard, on Wikiprojects an article is associated with or use the {{Request edit}} template to put the edit request in a queue. COI editors are required to follow community policies such as NPOV. They are strongly encouraged to abide by this guideline to uphold those policies, however Wikipedia has also documented numerous COI best practices that are recommended. Generally speaking, the Reward Board and non-controversial edits(such as grammar and spelling) are exceptions to the above cautions. Ignoring this guideline may have consequences. See Consequences of ignoring this guideline

User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 16:34, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Rather than talking about this here, I suggest that you have these conversations at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/COI, which is where the current big discussion on paid editors and related COI points is being held. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I did a copy/paste over to the COI RFC here. This discussion does seem more aligned with the RFC's original intent to make the guideline less confusing. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 20:39, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Criticism

This "guideline" looks like a collection of numerous vague aspirations that sum up to absolutely nothing. If it is meant to be saying something, then can it be made clear what it is, by throwing out all of the parts that are devoid of meaningful content? (i.e. almost all of the page)? Victor Yus (talk) 14:26, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Why don't we go through it section by section and improve it? We can just start at the top and work our way down... User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 16:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry you have trouble reading it. It boils down to this...

A) Sometimes a person's personal and/or professional connections can compromise their neutrality when editing certain topics.

B) We don't forbid a person from editing when there may be a COI but we caution people against it.

C) Advice is given to people who encounter another editor who may have a COI.

D) Advice is given to people who might have a COI, and how they might avoid getting into conflicts.

That's it. It's immensely useful, though not perfect. If you have suggestions for specific improvements then that might be helpful. If you just don't like it and want it deleted, that's not going to happen. -- Atama頭 23:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

So why not write it like you've just written it? Instead of the indecipherable mumbo we can see on the page currently? --Victor Yus (talk) 06:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Improved version!

Following the thread above and inspired by Atama's outline, I put my money where my mouth was and have written an improved version of this page. See my sandbox: User:Victor Yus/sandbox. It's half the size of the current page, but I think it contains all the same information, without duplication, prevarication, inaccurate definitions, topical mish-mash, and occasional forays into the surreal. I invite comments, and propose that this version be put here in place of this page. Victor Yus (talk) 14:02, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh and I should have said I'm happy if others want to edit the version in my sandbox to make improvements. Victor Yus (talk) 14:14, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Your version is distinctly inferior. It lacks the richness of detail the existing version has. The situation is inherently ambiguous and our guidelines should reflect that. For example, it is made clear, as it is in the existing version, that it is external media that has the field day and causes the public relations damage when a company or a politician editing their own article is discovered? It is much clearer though and might be useful to more people than the current, "here there be grave dangers" version is. User:Fred Bauder Talk 14:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Fred.

Victor, you seem to misunderstand what we mean with a COI. On Wikipedia, you don't have a COI problem unless what you want is actually in conflict with what Wikipedia wants.

Consider the case of a business owner. The article has a serious error in it. What action is in the best interests of the business owner? To have the error removed. What action is in the best interests of Wikipedia? To have the error removed. Is there a conflict in what these two entities want? No—so there is no conflict of interest here. You have defined the business owner as always having a conflict of interest; we define him as only having a conflict of interest when there is actually some conflict between his and our best interests. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:34, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you've raised this point, since it seems quite fundamental, but I think the error is rather in the current version than in mine. What do we mean by "conflict of interest"? Is it that you actually want something different than what Wikipedia wants? Or is it when you have a personal situation that would make people suspect that this is the case? In the current version of the guideline, the initial definition seems to put us in the first case, but the whole rest of the page uses the term as if we were in the second case. This is for me the most obvious problem (apart from the total overall lack of organization) that the current version has. And I think the "right" definition is the second one. It corresponds to what most people in the outside world think of as a "conflict of interest", and it gives the guideline some purpose. (What would be the point of telling people what we want them to do, if they already accept they want something different from us? In that situation they are not going to listen to our advice anyway, and probably will not even be reading this page.) Victor Yus (talk) 10:08, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

And I don't really understand Fred's criticism (you first say it's inferior, but then say it's clearer and more useful??) On the point you mention, I think my version makes that point just as clearly as the existing version does, or possibly even more, since nothing is clear on the page as it now reads. Victor Yus (talk) 10:13, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

That's the problem. I think that way, seeing both the grave problems your revised version presents as it systematically throws a whole nursery of babies out with the bathwater and the obvious improvement a more simplified iteration accomplishes. I don't think there is a "right" definition, however difficult that makes to understand our policy. An over-simplified "policy" still results in misunderstanding; subtleties and ambiguities are not explored overtly. However, they remain part of our customary practice. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:37, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not fully sure what you are saying. This isn't a policy, it's supposed to be a guideline. Which presumably means it's supposed to guide, instruct and help people. Not to present them with the intellectual challenge of resolving subtleties and ambiguities that result from our deliberately opting to present the subject unclearly. Any babes that have been inadvertently left in the bathwater can be retrieved, obviously, but you'll need to say specifically what they are. What I think I've left out is mostly repetition, well-meant but illogical reasoning, repetition, and occasional bursts of overflowery rhetoric. And repetition. Victor Yus (talk) 14:40, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

A bramble bush sure to hurt and confuse should look like one. It says, take great care... User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:46, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

But this page isn't the bramble bush, this is the sign next to the bramble bush. It's surely best for everyone if that sign conveys its message as in as clear a fashion as we know how. Victor Yus (talk) 05:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I think this language: "Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest" seems to suggest a COI is defined by the priority of the editor rather than quality of the edits. If an editor only had a COI if they wanted to make edits that weren't good for Wikipedia, that suggests any COI that makes good edits doesn't have a COI. Still, the COI guideline is such a landmark document, it's probably better to take it one section at a time. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 15:30, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Landmark document? Please explain. Victor Yus (talk) 06:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Clarification requested

The guideline says Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest. My question is "is the reverse also true? i.e is it the case that:

Where advancing outside interests is less important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor does not stands in a conflict of interest.

...or is it the case that:

Where advancing outside interests is less important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor does not necessarily stand in a conflict of interest. (supplementary question: if so, what other factors come into play?)

...or that:

Where advancing outside interests is at all important to an editor, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

If this has been asked before, pointers appreciated. If not, I'm watching here for your clarification. Thanks! Woz2 (talk) 13:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

My view of the matter (see thread above) is that this definition is deeply flawed to begin with. What we mean in practice by "conflict of interest" has nothing to do with what is actually important to an editor, but what might reasonably be expected to be important to him/her given certain connections that he/she has with the topic being considered.

The more I think about this, the more I think that "conflict of interest" is not a term we should be using a great deal on Wikipedia. There are two issues in play in fact: (1) biased editing, and (2) editing while personally involved. Often they coincide, but you can certainly have either one without the other. Ideally we should have two separate guidelines for these two things, and move away from the "conflict of interest" meme, which is something that applies to judges and politicians, but not so naturally to volunteer contributors to a project like ours. Victor Yus (talk) 19:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. But what I was looking for was clarification about the present guideline, not opinion about what some future guideline should look like. No thread hijacking, please :-) Woz2 (talk) 20:30, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The present guideline seems to be wrong on this point, so unless your desire is to be misled with greater clarity, the only way of achieving worthwhile clarification is to change the guideline. Or just to ignore it and carry on as you would otherwise, which is what I've learned to do with Wikipedia's large body of (anti-)instructions. Victor Yus (talk) 07:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Take a look at the Requests for Comment on Conflict of Interest going on now, where the Wikipedia community is invited to discuss the topics you've brought up. -- Eclipsed (talk) (COI Declaration) 10:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

To get back to clarification of the statement:

Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

The most valid presuppositions are most likely:

Where advancing outside interests is of no importance to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor does not stand in a conflict of interest.
Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

And then the resulting variations, of uncertain validity:

Where advancing outside interests is less important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor does not stand in a conflict of interest.
Where advancing outside interests is of equal importance to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor does not stand in a conflict of interest.
Where advancing outside interests is of equal importance to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

Cheers. -- Eclipsed (talk) (COI Declaration) 09:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

The #1 presupposition that you say is "most likely valid" is not even well-formed (it contains a than without a comparative). But I still say this is all going in wrong direction. What we mean by a conflict of interest is dependent on an editor's personal connections, not what's important to him/her. If I'm editing an article about myself then I have a conflict of interest, even though I'm sure in my own mind, and even though I give no-one else any reason to claim otherwise, that I just want to advance the aims of Wikipedia. If I'm writing about a politician whose views I strongly agree with, then it might be more important to me to advance his interests than those of Wikipedia, even though I have no personal connection with him - in that case I don't think I have what we would call a conflict of interest, though my biased editing might well be a problem anyway. Or if we want to redefine COI to mean biased editing rather than involved editing, then we would have to rewrite this page again (in a different way than I attempted to - see above). In either case, since our use of this term is clearly causing misunderstandings, it would be better to drop it and to separate the two issues, and write (1) a guideline about dealing with biased editing (which is a huge problem in itself); and (2) a guideline about personally involved editors (which is not necessarily a problem, but needs various clearly expressed cautions). Victor Yus (talk) 10:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Victor, Eclipsed probably had copy-paste typo for:

Where advancing outside interests is of no importance to an editor, that editor does not stand in a conflict of interest.

...I made the same error (now corrected below) hth Woz2 (talk) 18:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Great, Scott! That's a long RfC. I really don't have time to plough through all that. Let's stick with the present guideline for now. Clearly it's not perfect, but it is the case in hand. I think it unlikely that the presupposition in the mind of the collective author was:

Where advancing outside interests is of no importance to an editor, that editor does not stand in a conflict of interest.

...because than the guideline would contain the more restrictive:

Where advancing outside interests is at all important to an editor, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

And it seems to me that this one is too loose:

Where advancing outside interests is less important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor does not stands in a conflict of interest.

It doesn't seem reasonable that having a bit less outside interest would form an absolute guarantee of no CoI.

There might be others but right now I'm left with:

Where advancing outside interests is less important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor does not necessarily stand in a conflict of interest. Other factors must be considered.

And then my question reduces to:

Where advancing outside interests is less important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, what other factors determine conflict of interest or no?

If you have been, thanks for listening.

Woz2 (talk) 11:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a specific case in mind? If so, people could probably be more helpful if you could describe the circumstances. Asking abstract questions about whether there is or is not a COI is a fairly unproductive intellectual exercise. As you can see, the concept is not well-defined; nor would the answer (assuming there was one) necessarily have any practical consequences. (I looked at the RfC too, that was what motivated me to come to this page in fact; the RfC seems even more of a huge unproductive muddle than this guideline already is.) Victor Yus (talk) 12:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm planning to give a talk about my experience editing Wikipedia at Boston ProductCamp and want to give my audience clear advice on the present guidelines (with a caveat of course that the guidelines are evolving all the time). The more I read the present guideline the more I realize I'm confused by it and that I'm not in a good position to advise others.

By the way, just now I came across WP:PSCOI which seems crisper the WP:COI to my way of thinking. Maybe my advice will be to follow that and skip WP:COI Woz2 (talk) 13:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's quite likely the case. Don't think that being confused by the guidelines is any reflection on your abilities; it's just a reflection on the guidelines. Everyone is confused by them, because they are inherently confusing - I think mainly just because they're the work of many different people without much coordination, but (as the thread above this one shows) apparently also because there are in fact people who positively desire confusion. I would advise anyone coming to Wikipedia to read as little of the instructions as possible, and to take them with the same pinch of salt as they would take with any factual information that they've "read on Wikipedia". Victor Yus (talk) 13:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! By the way my abstract is posted on a domain that is blacklisted here so I can't give you the full URL. However without the http:// it's pcampboston.uservoice.com/forums/154767-session-ideas-for-productcamp-boston-june-2012/suggestions/2743400-why-and-how-to-create-and-edit-articles-for-wikipe and my notes (very much a work in progress) are at User:Woz2/ProductCamp_Boston_notes. Comments welcome atUser_talk:Woz2/ProductCamp_Boston_notes Woz2 (talk) 14:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Victor, the guidelines aren't intentionally confusing. They're intentionally vague. You might be confused by how vague they are, and that's regrettable. But it's necessary. It seems to me that you're looking for hard, clear, concise rules. But Wikipedia rarely has rules like that, and I don't think any guidelines are that precise, and only a few parts of our policies are. It's imprecise because just about everything on Wikipedia is decided by consensus and hard rules can hinder that process. Guidelines and policies are themselves decided through consensus, which you've alluded to above. When you say, "the work of many different people without much coordination", you're not describing just this guideline, you're describing Wikipedia.

The COI guideline in particular is going to be even more vague than other guidelines, not so much by design, but because it has to be. The entire concept of a COI is situational and subjective. It's a difficult subject and this guideline tries to help. To be honest it's more helpful to people experienced with Wikipedia than for newcomers. For those who struggle with this guideline I usually suggest WP:PSCOI which I think already accomplishes most of what you've been looking for on this discussion page. -- Atama頭 16:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

No, there is much more wrong here than just necessary vagueness. (I'm certainly not looking to impose hard rules, and my proposed version does no such thing either.) As to the page as it is now: the nutshell is a very poor summary for a start, then the fundamental definition is substantially incorrect, the topical organization of the page is all over the place, stuff is continually repeated, other fairly basic stuff is left out. It's awful, whether for experienced users or beginners or whoever (except that experienced users know it so they don't really have to read it). And that's no one's fault, just a result of the thing about the work of many different people - UNTIL, that is, someone like me comes along and shows how it can all be tidied and made better, but instead of being grateful that someone's made the effort, the "regulars" - out of pride or whatever, I don't know - conspire to prevent such clear improvements from taking place. Victor Yus (talk) 17:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

About PSCOI - yes, it's much more helpful than this page. Though it tries to be a summary of almost everything about Wikipedia at the same time, which makes it perhaps too long. But we would certainly do well to make sure that when we want to give advice to an editor who seems to be in a COI situation, they get sent to that page rather than this one. Perhaps make such shortcuts as WP:COI point to that page, and move the "guideline" label from this page to that one. We all seem agreed that it offers better guidance. Victor Yus (talk) 17:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I would retire WP:COI and go with WP:PSCOI. WP:COI makes my brain hurt. Woz2 (talk) 17:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. But I've just noticed that one thing that's missing from that page is the question of what to do when you encounter an editor with a COI, so a brief section on that should be added if it's to take the place of this one. --Victor Yus (talk) 17:21, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I suggest a big red panic button :-) Woz2 (talk) 17:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Ocaasi is the original author and primary contributor of PSCOI so their input might be helpful with this discussion, as you can see they did a great job writing up that page even if it isn't perfect. -- Atama頭 22:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar to Ocaasi!!! Woz2 (talk) 23:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the Kind feedback Woz!

Atama, if you have any suggestions for that page, I've been continually trying to improve it. Can you make some tips, or point out some flaws? Ocaasi^{t | c} 03:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Personally I don't have many issues with it, I've referred people to it repeatedly since you wrote it (rather than to this guideline). But Victor pointed out that it could use advice on how to approach other editors who might have a COI, and might have other suggestions for it. -- Atama頭 03:59, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, good work on that page, Ocaasi! My suggestion for including advice on how to approach other editors... was mainly in the context of the suggestion that your page should become "the guideline" in place of this one (which probably was never your intention, but since you've done such a good job...) We all apparently agree that your page offers superior guidance, but there are a few valuable bits and pieces in the present guideline that would be "lost" if it were simply overwritten. Victor Yus (talk) 09:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

OK. Let's close this thread. I'm adding some suggestions on the talk page at PSCOI. Over and out! Woz2 (talk) 10:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Ack! One last thought (promise) is that I think the answer to my original question is that what WP:COI's

Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

...is really saying is WP:PSCOI's:

Write without bias, as if you don't work for the company or personally know the subject.

Woz2 (talk) 15:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Not, I think, entirely. The first sentence is defining (IMO incorrectly) the phrase "conflict of interest"; the second is giving a piece of advice to the sort of people whom we might describe as having a conflict of interest. The second is a more useful piece of guidance, but it can hardly be reasoned that the two sentences are in any meaningful way "saying the same thing" (or even attempting to). Just acknowledge the possibility that the first sentence is plain wrong - if so, it doesn't matter what it "really means", any more than if you saw "Obama is a Martian" in Wikipedia you wouldn't be asking yourself what it really means. The fact that a Wikipedia page has a "Guideline" message at the top does not make its contents magically reliable or authoritative. Victor Yus (talk) 17:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't being clear. What I meant to say was "The guidance I was looking for (but not finding) in 'Where advancing...', I found in 'Write without...' " Woz2 (talk) 17:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Woz, I would also consider looking at WP:BESTCOI and WP:BRIGHTLINE. In my opinion marketing communities shouldn't be looking at the bare minimum policy requirements, but in best practices. According to policy, I could have edited the Hubspot article myself if my edits are NPOV, but it was far more respectful of me to follow best practices.

Ultimately you have to decide on the advice you want to give that you feel will keep these guys out of trouble and improve Wikipedia. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 16:03, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Do you think that, because a page is called Best practices..., it must therefore genuinely contain best practices? My impression is that there are lots of pages here flying around that only represent different individual editors' individual thoughts. We should try to fix on just one page and try to make it genuinely useful for people. Victor Yus (talk) 06:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Uptown Boyz

Uptown Boyz Aka Dee Swggerboi Swaggerboi Real Name Deshawn Smith Aj Joseph — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.213.200.193 (talk) 16:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Buying bios

An article in a Village Voice blog, notes that My Wiki Pro is offering to write bios and related articles for a fee:

If you want to be part of the Internet encyclopedia, you need to be on Wikipedia, and you need the article written by an unbiased professional, so that it isn’t removed or flagged for lacking references.
What we need: a description of you / your band / your newspaper / your whatever. A related photograph. As long as it’s been covered in a few reputable outlets, we’ll be able to get it onto Wikipedia.

This may have come up before, but I thought it's worth adding this new link. This is obviously a COI issue, and seems to undermine the core philosophy of NPOV. Thoughts? --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 19:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

That's pretty interesting. Technically it's correct. If the biography is well-written, unbiased, and they can show coverage in reliable sources, then it would be an acceptable article for us. If they were able to actually do this, there would be no real NPOV violation and it would be good for Wikipedia also. That's a pretty big "if" though. ;) -- Atama頭 18:55, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Indeed, it might still be good for Wikipedia even without that "big if", provided the subjects are genuinely notable. No article starts off perfect, and no editor is entirely unbiased (even if one lacks bias in one's opinions, it is still very unlikely that one would be aware of all the existing sources on a subject). Beginning to think that this whole "conflict of interest" topic is almost unnecessary. Just give some practical words of advice on the subject of writing about subjects you have a personal connection with, and that - in combination with all the advice we give for anyone writing about a subject - would just about do. Victor Yus (talk) 06:20, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Ocaasi started a discussion on this instance on the COIN board here. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 00:42, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Help desk template problem

I tried to correct a problem on the Help Desk when someone used a template and this was the result. Take a look at what had happened before I attempted a manual fix.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:49, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Presumably that template is designed for use on users' own pages, not on general help pages, and that's why it failed to say "hello" to the right user. I must say I find this kind of standardized message a little rude, particularly if used in reply to a human question, so I'd be in favour of discouraging its use especially in such situations. Victor Yus (talk) 06:20, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Dubious

For this page to make any sense, we must determine quite simply what we mean by a COI. Does it mean bias, does it mean involvement, or does it mean simultaneous involvement and bias? My first preference is not to use the term at all; my second preference is for it to mean involvement (which might lead to an expectation of bias). So if I write about myself I have a COI whether or not I write in a biased way, but if I write about Adolf Hitler in a biased way I don't have a COI. Any other positions? Victor Yus (talk) 15:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

(The second sentence I marked dubious says "COI editing is strongly discouraged". Whether or not this is true will largely depend, I suppose, on what answer we reach to the first question. But I don't see any great consensus for strongly discouraging all COI editing, whether it means involved or biased or both or one or the other.) Victor Yus (talk) 16:28, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

You may wish to participate in the current RfC on conflicts of interest if you haven't already. There you'll see that the community is divided on the questions that you ask above. Narrowing the definition of conflict of interest from the broad "imcompatibility to edit neutrally" definition that we currently use will take a lot of discussion and consensus-building. Them From Space 16:35, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

So you say "incompatibility to edit neutrally" is the current definition? (That's all I'm interested in; I'm not interested in changing any rules or norms, as the RfC seems to be about.) Can you explain this then? The "incompatibility" must be a personal connection, or can it just be some strong personal bias (like I really despise Hitler)? And what about a situation where you'd expect a bias but in fact there's no evidence of one (like if I write a genuinely neutral article about myself) - does that come under your definition of COI? Victor Yus (talk) 16:44, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

COI editing can either be a personal relationship or a personal bias (or both at once). Each of your examples may or may not be a case of COI editing, depending on who you ask. Some say that its impossible to edit neutrally about a subject that you are "too close" with while others don't have a problem with it as long as what you write is policy-complicit. Them From Space 17:12, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

So if there is such total disagreement about what constitutes a COI, and such total disagreement about what the consequences are if you have one, is there really any justification for having a guideline under that title? (Or if we do have one, then we should enunciate clearly that there are different views, not write a confused mess of words that does nothing to guide anyone.) Victor Yus (talk) 17:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, everyone who was so keen to revert yesterday's changes has gone very quiet... So assuming we agree with what Themfromspace says, what about starting with A conflict of interest on Wikipedia may refer broadly to any situation where an editor's aims or interests appear to conflict, or might reasonably be expected to conflict, with Wikipedia's aim of producing... The term is often used specifically to refer to a situation where an editor has personal or professional connections that could reasonably be expected to compromise his or her neutrality on a subject that he or she is writing about. And then Many members of the Wikipedia community consider that editing in a conflict of interest situation should be strongly discouraged. Don't have time to polish the phraseology right now, but generally speaking is this a fair representation of reality? Victor Yus (talk) 07:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, Victor, I "went quiet" because I'm getting a little bored with re-re-re-explaining this to you, since it doesn't seem to have done any good so far. So once again, from the top, here's what this guideline is all about:

On the English Wikipedia, a COI problem absolutely requires (so far, subject to change via the RFC mentioned above):

a close connection to the subject and
problematic editing (including, but not limited, promotional editing).

To put it another way, if editing that is in your best interest is "in conflict with" what's in Wikipedia's best interest, then we have a COI problem. If editing that is in your best interest is exactly the same as what's in Wikipedia's best interest, then we have no COI problem. No conflict between your and our best interests=no COI problem.

Note the following two important points:

A close connection is not enough. You must actually be harming Wikipedia because of your close connection to have a COI problem.
Bias is not enough. You must also have a close connection to have a COI problem. If you have bias, but no close connection to the subject, then you are a WP:POV pusher, not a COI problem.

Do you understand this now? Alternatively, can you agree to quit changing a guideline that you don't understand? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:00, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Side note to SV: "Where" is such ugly style for a statement like this. The answer to "Where are you advancing outside interests?" should be something like "in the third section of the page."

Either if or when would be a much more suitable word choice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:03, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

WhatAID, there really is no need for this patronizing tone. Different people have different views of what this guideline is supposed to mean, as is clear; no-one has the right to lay down one interpretation and imply that anyone who doesn't agree with that interpretation is intellectually inadequate or something.

I don't understand the "side note". Is SV SlimVirgin? What does it refer to?

Back to the topic, you are talking about the concept of a "COI problem". You explain this very well and I have no quarrel with it. But so far we've been discussing the concept of just a COI (not a COI problem). For you, are these two things the same? That is, if I'm writing an article about myself but doing it very neutrally and verifiably and so on, would you say that I don't have a COI? Or that I have a COI but not a COI problem? Victor Yus (talk) 11:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, SV is SlimVirgin, a highly experienced editor with a excellent language skills. She recently reverted your changes, restoring the "Where" phrase.

As far as this guideline is concerned, a COI and a COI problem are the same thing. For people unfamiliar with the English Wikipedia's quirks on this point, it is sometimes helpful to specify "COI problem".

If you write an article about yourself, and you edit problematically, then you violate this guideline. If you write an article about yourself, and you don't edit problematically, the you do not violate this guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:24, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Good, thanks... but I don't think that can be exactly and literally what you mean, since this guideline explicitly does not outlaw (what it calls) COI editing, it even gives advice on how to do it properly. So it cannot be true that this guideline is being "violated" whenever someone is editing with a COI. Victor Yus (talk) 19:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. It gives advice on how to edit with a close connection. The phrase COI editing is consistently used to mean "problematic editing due to a close connection" (which is "strongly discouraged" rather than outright prohibited largely because of the futility of prohibiting it). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

So would you agree with adding something about close connections to the opening definition(s)? That seems to be something that's gone missing, probably due to an oversight. And also a clear pointer that COI does not mean what people from the real world might expect it to mean? Victor Yus (talk) 06:26, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Break

Copying this discussion over from my talk page here in case it's helpful. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Slim. I've been working COIN and continue to see posts there and defenses there that try to assess the state of mind of an editor to determine whether they have a COI. Mostly, the defense is that "I am trying to improve Wikipedia by getting rid of that bad info in the article" and the accusations is that the editor has a bad motive. We'll never figure out a persons state of mind and how can we establish that one thing is "more important" that another to an editor. Regarding Conflicts of Interest, we only can judge their COI connections and actions. (Bias without a declared COI is better handled at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard.) I tried to change the COI page in this regard,[4] which was changed by someone else,[5] and then you stepped in to change that.[6] My efforts were not reviewed by others, but I think they are consistent with the remainder of the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest page. I'd like to get rid of the intent/motive element in the bolded Conflict of interest description on the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest page lead. I know we need a consensus to do this, but I would like your input (per [7] and your recent edits there) first before pursuing this. Has Wikipedia COI page traveled down this road before (removing the intent element from the COI description?) and do you think it is a good idea? -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 08:48, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Bystander butting in: as stated in the "COI" thread not far above this one, I started a thread about the meaning of COI at the COI guideline talk page, and have even suggested a concrete alternative. So far neither of you have contributed there, you might consider doing... It seems to me clear that, whatever the definition ought to be, the current one (or rather the current two or three conflicting ones) is completely unsupportable, and that its being "long-standing" is no defence. Victor Yus (talk) 12:06, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Uzma and Victor, I don't disagree that the COI page needs a rewrite. The question is in which direction. As the community seems to be in flux about this at the moment, it's best to wait until consensus becomes clearer (assuming there is a new consensus) before changing the direction of the guideline.

In the meantime, the best thing would be for interested editors to start educating themselves about the academic literature on COI, so that we know whereof we speak. I've started that process by reading Michael Davis and Andrew Stark (eds). Conflict of Interest in the Professions. Oxford University Press, 2001. There's some interesting stuff in it, and the authors address your point about intention.

They write that COI arises when a person's judgment and performance as an X (e.g. a judge, a journalist) is affected by relationships that lie outside their responsibilities as an X. So on Wikipedia, an editor's primary interest in being a Wikipedian may be affected by relationships (secondary interests) he has outside Wikipedia. The key issue for us is when those secondary interests are such that we can reasonably assume that the editor's performance and judgment qua Wikipedian has been affected by the other relationships.

The key is that COI is judged in terms of relationships, not in terms of likes and dislikes. A person who loves the colour blue isn't prevented from writing about it on WP. But a person who is being paid by a third party to promote the colour blue is prevented (at least according to current best practice, which is now being ignored, so who knows). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, what you say is absolutely what I would expect. But people at the COI page tell me that on Wikipedia, the term is used differently than in the rest of the world. I'm not sure I really believe them - all the practical examples I've seen of the term being used are in the sense of relationships rather than biases. And the way it's used on the COI page implies that what's being talked about is situations with relationships rather than biases. However the definitions (three alternative ones, apparently mutually contradictory) right at the start of the page imply it's about fundamentally about biases and not relationships. It seems fairly obvious that this needs changing in some way - and I don't think doing so would "change the direction of the guideline" at all, it would rather clarify the current direction of the guideline (which I assume relects practice as it currently is). That seems quite an independent matter from the question of any flux in the community's attitudes (which would need to be documented by a change of the guideline's substance, if and when it happened). Victor Yus (talk) 17:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I've never seen evidence that we use the term on WP differently from the way it's used in the real world. If anyone says that in future, ask them for examples. The lead used to say: "Where an editor must forgo advancing the aims of Wikipedia in order to advance outside interests, he stands in a conflict of interest." That to me was better than "more important," which implies we're discussing a subjective mental state.

What the guideline needs is a thorough rewrite and tightening to lose all the unnecessary words. And it needs to begin with a strong and simple definition that is based on the academic sources. But that would involve a lot of work. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:39, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree absolutely with that objective (and don't even think it would be too much work). I don't agree that "must forgo" is better though - there are relatively few situations when someone must do something like that. SV, is there a reason why you want this discussion to be on your page and not at the COI talk page? Do you mind if I put a link to this thread on the COI talk page? Victor Yus (talk) 11:06, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't mind where the discussion takes place. I'll copy this over there, though if you or Uzma disagree, free free to remove it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, we do have a different definition. This should illustrate it: Does Jimmy Wales have a conflict of interest with respect to editing the Wikia article?

Real-world answer: Yes, without a question, even if he behaves perfectly. (If he doesn't behave perfectly, he might even have a self-dealing problem.) A real-world conflict of interest is all about the possibility of harm.

Wikipedia answer: It depends entirely on what kind of edits he wants to make. Reverting vandalism? No COI. Touting the company's many benefits? Yes, a COI. The Wikipedia:COI is all about the reality of harm to the project. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

So what would be your favored course of action? Try to change the Wikipedia definition to match the real-world one (we could then perhaps use your phrase "COI problem" to refer to what Wikipedia currently calls a "COI")? Or to just accept that the Wikipedia definition is different and try to explain that fact in the guideline? Victor Yus (talk) 18:59, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

My favored course of action is to wait until the major RFC has been closed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

That plan might not be a bad one, but it does appear that the subject of the RFC is different from what we're discussing here. I may be wrong since I haven't read the whole RFC page in detail, but I think what those people are addressing is the matter of what should be allowed and what shouldn't. They want (or don't want, accordingly) to change the behavioral norms. What we're talking about here is just terminology, presentation, and clear and accurate explanation - how best to communicate the existing norms to people. This page as it reads now is of little value in doing that, and the problems it has are not even of the same type as the problems being discussed at the RfC. Victor Yus (talk) 06:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Based on the above discussion, it could go something like: "A COI arises when a person's judgment and performance as an editor may be effected by relationships that lie outside the interests of producing a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia. When editing with a COI causes disruption... Editing with a COI isn't necessarily problematic, such as when reverting overt vandalism..."

This suggests COIs result from real world relationships that may impair judgement, which is much clearer than the current section, which creates confusion among those who feel they only have a COI if they are adding advert.

There are other real-world comparisons that could be used (for better or worse). Conflict of interest happens to be the term Wikipedia uses. In public relations, lobbying or sales someone with a bias works collaboratively with theoretically neutral parties (journalists, politicians, purchasing) who are entrusted to meet the needs of their stakeholders with impartial decisions (readers, constituents, the company). In all these cases the PR pro, lobbyist or sales person has a similar conflict of interest, but they may not call it that.

Lobbyists can't just write things into law, sales people can't sign their own contracts and PR people can't write their own feature stories. All of these involve bias parties working through impartial decision-makers. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 04:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Academic self-citation

Hi all.

I'm currently drafting some notes on editing Wikipedia for academics, and one of the points I've been asked to include (twice in the past few days!) is the thorny issue of self-citation - when it is appropriate for an editor to refer to their own work as a source. The policy currently guardedly allows this:

Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself 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. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion. In any case, citations should be in the third person and should not place undue emphasis on your work, giving proper due to the work of others as in a review article.

- which seems fairly sensible. "Be reasonable; stay relevant; don't be self-promotional." It's not an issue I've run into much, though, and I just want to gather some feedback - is this still a widely-held view, or is it a bit contentious in some subject areas? Are there topics where self-citation (assuming it's a reasonable and legitimate source) is routinely challenged? I don't recall encountering any problems around it, but it could be that they all happen in articles I don't go near :-). Advice welcomed... -- Andrew Gray (talk) 14:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

It's complicated, but overall the advice is true. Citing your own secondary sources is less likely to be a problem than citing your WP:RECENT primary sources. And experts should be prepared to encounter WP:Randy in Boise as well as dedicated WP:POV pushers. "How dare you cite your own paper" sometimes means "How dare you cite the mainstream academic consensus!", especially in controversial areas, like psychiatry, sexuality, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Have you seen Wikipedia:Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Mmm; IME the problems with self-citation often boil down to credentialism ("I am an authoritative source! Go away!") which I guess is the inverse Randy :-). Thanks for the pointer to ten simple rules - I had seen it and then entirely forgotten about it, but it's pretty much perfect. I may just end up handing out copies of it! Andrew Gray (talk) 21:18, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

"Are there topics where self-citation is routinely challenged?", All I have ever seen is some stuff related to homosexuality. In general though it's not a problem, and some editors(myself included) actively support academics citing their own papers.AerobicFox (talk) 23:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. This had been my general experience, though it's interesting to see the corroboration relating to sexuality. I guess academics wishing to edit in these areas are more likely to go in expecting them to be contentious anyway, COI or not... Andrew Gray (talk) 09:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

You might also find WP:MEDCOI helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:04, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

As a (rather jaded and cynical) academic I think one should never cite their own paper on WP; it's just asking for trouble. If you really think your work is essential to an article, suggest it on the talk page and let someone else take it up. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Which is all very good and nice, up until the moment that you discover that nobody reads the talk page. I've recommended that to editors before, and unless it's a major article, they usually come back later and ask me why nobody ever responds either way to their suggestions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:06, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I think that Academic self-citation would be more of a bias problem (e.g. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view) than a COI problem. The COI problem comes in when the Academic wants to promote their name with a topic and uses their self-citation in a footnotes as a way of getting name recognition within that topic outside of Wikipedia. The bias issue is raised when the Academic wants to promote their idea about a topic and use Wikipedia as a way to promote their idea. If their idea first and foremost is a representative survey of the relevant literature (see Wikipedia:Featured article criteria 1 (c), then there generally may not be a problem if they secondarily get recognition via self-citation, except in a rare instance where someone might replace that self-citation with a higher quality source. I don't think I've come across name promotion efforts in dealing with academics. Usually, it's when they want to promote their less main stream idea and then it's along the lines of Wikipedia:Fringe theories. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 09:13, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

On thinking about it, an academic promoting their idea to get others to accept it may raise bias issues. However, academic promoting their idea to improve their recognition and standing among others may raise COI issues. If the benefit of the edit would flow to the person (financial, standing, name recognition), that's COI territory for COIN. If the benefit of the edit would flow to the idea, then that's bias territory for NPOVN. To add to the overlap, the benefit of the edit could flow to both the person and the idea. In your notes on editing Wikipedia for academics, you might want to indicate that the academic should ask themselves whether the first and foremost benefit of their edit will flow to (i) the Wikipedia article (how it's supposed to work), (ii) their idea (potential bias), or (iii) themselves (potential COI). -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 09:32, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Does an editor promoting his created Wikipedia page have a COI?

Forgive me if this has been asked before (this archive is huge), but if an editor creates an article listing and summarizing things that already have well established articles, then campaigns to have all standalone articles merged/redirected to his list article and/or deleted, does he have a specifically prohibited conflict of interest?

I've left the names, articles and contribution logs out of this, but if identifying details would help clarify this example, let me know. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:07, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Based on what you said, I don't think so. I view conflicts of interest to be external. In fact, I think that Wikipedia takes a fairly narrowly defined view of conflict of interest. If I edit an article on anything that I am passionate about, I have a conflict of interest. (It also makes editing more difficult so I tend to stay away-but that is just an aside) Wikipedia tends to label editors as having a conflict of interest, if they are using Wikipedia to promote something off of the site. That being said, I do not condone the fact that this is occurring, assuming that the articles are in fact well written and merging would be unnecessary. It appears to me like an example of ownership and perhaps the best thing to do would be to remind the other editor about summary style. Ryan Vesey Review me! 05:15, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Furry emblem RfC

hello. Green Reaper advised me to mention the ongoing RfC about the emblem used on this wikiproject, which is identical to the wikifur logo, and promotes wikifur imo. wikipedia is supposed to be neutral and not promotional and denying that this logo plastered all over one of the most visited sites in the world promotes wikifur is to deny reality. since GR owns/runs wikifur, this will also be brought up at WP:COI per Conti. the ongoing RfC is here. -badmachine 16:44, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Essays

I've been contributing to this new COI essay, which made me realize there's almost a half-dozen essays for COI editors, but none to provide guidance for volunteer editors on how to work with disclosed COIs. The language in this guideline under "dealing with suspected..." seems to assume the COI is not disclosed or is exposed through COIN. I wonder if folks feel we need to provide advice to editors on how to work with disclosed COIs. User:King4057 11:03, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

RfC on user names

No responses so far on a username RfC I started (concerning usernames containing orgnames), so perhaps I should advertise it a bit. It's at WT:Username policy#RfC: user names containing organization names. Victor Yus (talk) 11:58, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

PR editing

Wikipedia data structure
v
t
e
Namespaces
Subject namespaces		Talk namespaces
0	(Main/Article)	Talk	1
2	User	User talk	3
4	Wikipedia	Wikipedia talk	5
6	File	File talk	7
8	MediaWiki	MediaWiki talk	9
10	Template	Template talk	11
12	Help	Help talk	13
14	Category	Category talk	15
100	Portal	Portal talk	101
118	Draft	Draft talk	119
126	MOS	MOS talk	127
710	TimedText	TimedText talk	711
828	Module	Module talk	829
Former namespaces
108	Book	Book talk	109
442	Course	Course talk	443
444	Institution	Institution talk	445
446	Education Program	Education Program talk	447
2300	Gadget	Gadget talk	2301
2302	Gadget definition	Gadget definition talk	2303
2600	Topic		2601
Virtual namespaces
-1	Special
-2	Media
Current list

Given the context of CIPR's guidelines, would it be more appropriate to change

"Editing in the interests of public relations (other than obvious corrections) is particularly frowned upon."

to

"Directly editing article-space in the interests of public relations (other than obvious corrections) is particularly frowned upon.

?? User:King4057 17:58, 1 July 2012 (UTC) (EthicalWiki)

Conflict of interest applies each time you click the save page button and is not limited to article space. It applies to any Wikipedia:Namespace. Take a look at the table to the right (which I just added to this discussion). Why would you exclude the above COI from, say Portal name space? Portal name space is kind of like article namespace. I don't think you intended to exclude all those other namespaces. I'm guessing that you don't know enough about Wikipedia to have realized the scope of your request. Also, if a non COI editor making an article space in reply to a COI editor's talk page request to make an article space edit in the interests of public relations, that doesn't absolve the edit from problems. It's the edit in the interests of public relations that is the problem, not person pushing the save page button. The CIPR's guidelines don't provide much support either. It's in the UK Wikimedia, not wikimediafoundation.org. It's in a Wikimedia, not Wikipedia, or even particularly en.wikipedia.org. PR people coming together outside of UK Wikimedia to develop a consensus on how approach something within UK Wikimedia doesn't help. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 08:44, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I didn't mean to suggest it wasn't a COI, just that it wasn't "particularly frowned upon." It seems like the COI guideline encourages COIs to use Talk pages, then says they will be frowned upon for doing so. Then it recommends the plain and simple guideline, which says to go ahead and edit the page and explains how. What do you think might be the best way to make it more clear and address the contradiction? User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 12:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

COI applies mostly to article space. I think it would be fair to implement the change you proposed. It's not that we don't care about COI in non-article space, but it's usually less of a concern. We do want to encourage people with COI to use the talk pages of articles to avoid controversy and shouldn't imply that they can't even edit there.

But there are times when we don't want people to edit in non-article space. Here are some examples:

An article talk page where the person with the COI is being disruptive (spamming, harassing people, etc.) though that applies to non-COI folks too.
An AfD discussion where a person has an undisclosed COI and is arguing to keep their company's article.
A noticeboard discussion where a person with a COI is standing up for a relative or coworker.

In general, though, it's article space where we run into the most problems, so I think it's fair to emphasize that kind of editing as particularly discouraged. -- Atama頭 16:24, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Excellent examples. I think we can fix that. How about:

"Directly editing articles or contributing in a manner that is covert, disruptive or misleading in the interests of reputation management (other than obvious corrections) is particularly frowned upon.

It's worth brainstorming PR versus Reputation Management. Wikipedia defines PR as "managing the flow of information between an individual or an organization and the public." This is technically not that bad from the perspective of its academic definition. (disclosure, I wrote that text on the public relations article)

On the other hand, Online reputation management firms have "review suppression services"[8] and the Wikipedia article says they have the goal of "suppressing negative mentions" using Wikipedia as an example.[9] PR and reputation management are not mutually exclusive, but reputation management also touches on SEO folks. Reputation management may be more broad, but simultaneously more targeted. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 19:22, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, ORM can encompass a lot of things, but removing negative mentions is one of the tools in the toolbox. Be wary of tarring everything with the same brush. My former employer's policy insisted that negative feedback should never be removed - instead, people were supposed to turn the other cheek, learn from criticism, build positive dialogue, &c. bobrayner (talk) 21:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Good point - I came off a little anti-ORM there. Are you suggesting a change or do you think the proposed text is ok? I'm not married to it. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 22:10, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Either version of the text looks reasonable from that perspective. Industry-specific terminology can shift (and it can mean different things to different people) but the current text has a good solid anchor in plain english. I like the proposal's focus on article-space (and that's where all the eyeballs are) but maybe we still need to accommodate a smaller possibility of COI edits being problematic in other namespaces. bobrayner (talk) 23:12, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I think the whole guideline has a little too much "frowned upon" and "often" and "encouraged/discouraged", "no firm criteria" &c. Of course the boundary is slightly blurred (it's not a clear red line like 3RR) but we should be more direct, instead of having a dozen different vaguely-worded attempts at "COI is kinda bad, mmmmkay" which only serve to create uncertainty on all sides. bobrayner (talk) 23:15, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

It's a good point. On one hand much of the guideline constitutes "advice" rather than policy. On the other, the guideline already cites possible exceptions and good judgement at the top. What do you suggest? User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 23:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually much of the second half of that paragraph seems redundant. For example:

COI editing is routinely exposed and can be reported adversely in the media.
While Wikipedians generally avoid naming editors and their paymasters, other media routinely do.
This has led at times to extreme media embarrassment for the company or organization
Wikipedia is a very public forum, and news of attempts to improperly influence Wikipedia are frequently reported in the media.

Is it just me? User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 23:51, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposal

Change "Editing in the interests of public relations (other than obvious corrections) is particularly frowned upon."

to

"Directly editing articles or contributing in a manner that is covert, disruptive or misleading in the interests of public relations or SEO (with some other exceptions) may have serious consequences.

Rational: "serious consequences" is a stronger deterrent than "frowned upon." The new language is not exclusive to PR (SEO guys are heavy in this too). And it doesn't make the blanket statement the previous version does that would seem to indicate honest talk page collaboration (even just answering questions and offering sources) was discouraged.

Comment: I consider myself to have a COI with the topic, so won't vote or edit, but hope I can be helpful anyway. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 15:51, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree the present statement should be changed (if being "frowned upon" matters a jot to someone, then they almost certainly won't be in the PR business), but I'm not happy with the proposed version either - the "consequences of ignoring this guideline" section is pretty vague and really says nothing about such consequences, particularly serious ones. Victor Yus (talk) 12:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

What do you say we look at the consequences section next? We probably need to stay laser focused on one thing at a time, or we'll never get anything done ;-) User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 15:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Definition of a COI

Well, in that case, I think we should start with the most fundamental (terminological) issue - what do we mean by a "conflict of interest"? At the moment the guideline begins with three competing definitions, none of which corresponds to what any of the experienced editors on this talk page say is the actual working definition, nor again with the expected meaning of the term as it is used in the outside world. Understanding (I hope) that for the moment this is only about terminology, what do people think the most useful definition of the term will be? Or can we do without it altogether (and express the same thoughts in different terms, like "involved editors" and "biased editing")? Victor Yus (talk) 15:41, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I think we can make a list: "A conflict of interest exists when any one of the following is true: " 1. "An editor is paid to or required by an employer to edit Wikipedia on their employer's behalf." Rklawton (talk) 17:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment - this covers editors ranging from public relations professionals to church secretaries. Rklawton (talk) 17:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

2. "An editor edits with a personal agenda to promote his or her own beliefs." Rklawton (talk) 17:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment - this covers editors pushing anything from religion to politics. It does not include people promoting their interests, hobbies, sports, etc. Rklawton (talk) 17:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
"impaired judgement or giving the appearance of impropriety." There is a great discussion on this under "Break" above in the Talk page. Our current definition technically exempts people who obviously have a COI, but rationalize that they don't since they (in their mind) are not adding promotional content. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 22:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Current: "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."

Maybe I would propose something like: "A conflict of interest (COI) exists on Wikipedia when an interest besides producing a neutral, reliably sources encyclopedia may (or may appear to) impair the judgement or performance of an editor. COI editing may involve contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Editors with a COI include those that represent the subject of the article, have a vested interest in the article subject, or have something to gain from a particular outcome in the content."

Rational: I think the most important thing here is adjusting some of the language that allows COIs to rationalize that they don't have one. There is a great discussion on this higher on the Talk page under "Break" that is where I'm coming from. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 22:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not wild about the existing introduction, which I think makes total sense only to the people who wrote it. But we're trying to communicate a strange idea under the label of "COI" here: there is only a "conflict of interest" if your interest and Wikipedia's interests are in conflict.

So imagine that you're the PR professional for Joe Bloggs, and you see the article on poor old Joe has been filled with unambiguous vandalism. You revert the vandalism. In wiki-speak, we say that there is no COI here. None. Why? Your interest (making your client happy) and our interest (having a non-vandalized page) are absolutely identical with this edit.

The definitions proposed above say that if you're paid, you automatically and always have a COI, even if you're reverting obvious vandalism. They say that if you "may" have impaired judgment, you have a COI, even if your work is actually excellent. We haven't taken that "statutory" route. It's not like the real world. We only care about "COI" when there is a real risk of Wikipedia being harmed, not when there's some sort of outside interest in the outcome.

As a result, our COI concept is narrower than the real world's (you can revert vandalism all day for pay without being considered to have a COI) and broader (you can have a COI if you create biased articles for free, because [for example] you want the whole world to know how awful your medical condition is because you think it will make your family more sympathetic to you [yes, a real example]).

I think our existing approach (but not our existing explanation of it) is a good one. We don't want the professional science writers paid through the Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Google project to be declared to have a "COI" for being paid to help us improve our articles. But we do want to keep in mind that unpaid, volunteer activists and people trying to manipulate friends, employers, etc. really do harm Wikipedia to promote their own real-world interests. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

. I think that's a really good way of framing it. bobrayner (talk) 22:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I actually think that a paid editor who reverts blatant vandalism wouldn't be considered to have "impaired judgement." We can also identify an editor as having a COI, but still allow them to make non-COI edits like reverting vandalism. But I'm all for making the changes as minor as possible, so your suggestions are more in-keeping with clarifying rather than changing the guideline. What copy would you suggest to improve clarity? User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 01:22, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

As I understand WhatamIdoing's rough definition, we say someone has a COI if BOTH they edit in a biased way AND they have some kind of specific personal motivation (other than simply holding biased views on the subject) for editing in that way. Are people happy about using this as the basis for a definition? If so, can we tighten it up into a clear and meaningful first sentence for the guideline? Victor Yus (talk) 04:42, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually thinking about this, I'm not sure if this kind of definition is the right approach, partly because it's misleading to take a term from the real world and redefine it when we don't have to, but also because it doesn't properly correspond to the scope of this page. As far as this kind of COI is concerned, we have very little to say except that we don't like it (almost a tautology) and that you can report suspected instances to the COI noticeboard (with little indication of what might happen as a result of doing this). The good advice on this page seems to be addressed more to people who do have a personal involvement with a topic, but don't necessarily have (or wouldn't like to acknowledge that they have) consequent problematic tendences in their editing, and thus wouldn't be said to have a COI under the proposed definition. If we were to take this as the definition of COI, we might want to rename the whole page (to something like "Editing on subjects you have personal connections with"), to indicate that the scope of the page is not limited to cases of (what we are going to call) COI. Victor Yus (talk) 11:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

From my perspective, edits are subject to NPOV, people may or may not have a COI. COI edits are merely NPOV violations written by a COI. COI has to do with real-life getting in the way of being neutral. On the other hand, since there is rhetoric out there under a CREWE banner that PR people have the same objective as Wikipedia. If you follow that logic, they're claiming that they have no COI. Others say they don't have a COI, because (from their perspective) they are not being promotional or don't have motives to be promotional (they just want to improve the 'pedia like everyone else).

I think we need to make it clear that people have a COI, but that doesn't necessarily ban them from NPOV edits. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 16:44, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

King, consider the case of a person reverting vandalism as part of a paid job. Is there a COI there in your opinion? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm... maybe I am self-rationalizing, because when we define COI based on intent or content standards, these are things that allow COIs to convince themselves they don't have one. For example, it says "when advancing outside interests is more important." I contribute to articles where I have a COI, but I also care about producing a neutral encyclopedia. Is the COI guideline going to force me to figure out which one I care about more? Or push me to explore my intentions? I will of course come up with favorable interpretations of my motives. Maybe there is some other way to address this problem. What do you think? User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 06:02, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

For me, the simplest way to make things clearer (if we have to use the term at all) would be to start using "conflict of interest" to mean more or less what most outsiders would expect it to mean (I think; I may be wrong) - namely a situation where someone has a specific personal connection with the topic that could reasonably be expected to lead to bias. This also seems to correspond pretty much to the actual scope of this guideline. We can then go from there, giving advice for people who find themselves in such a situation (and to other editors who encounter such people). Note that a COI would then not necessarily imply any bad intentions or any bad actions; nor (of course) would bad intentions or bad actions necessarily result from a COI. A COI would just be a factual situation which all parties would be encouraged to handle in appropriate ways. Victor Yus (talk) 07:35, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

"An editor has a conflict of interest on Wikipedia, when they have a personal connection with the subject of the article that may (or may appear to) influence their editing behavior." Of course, their COI doesn't influence their editing behavior for vandalism, so they would therefor not have a COI in those instances. Just kicking it around. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 15:25, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Though to be literal-minded, it probably does nonetheless still "influence" their editing behavior (since they wouldn't necessarily be fighting Wikipedia vandalism, and certainly not on that particular article, if it weren't for their personal connection). Victor Yus (talk) 20:04, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Victor is right: people who are (for example) paid to keep an article in decent shape tend to be influenced by the fact that if they don't revert blatant vandalism, they might not be paid any longer. It's always an influence. The question is whether that influence promotes the same goal/same interest as the community has.

So this guideline has long maintained that if your best interest and Wikipedia's best interests are compatible—you want to get paid, which you can achieve by reverting vandalism, and the English Wikipedia community wants to have vandalism reverted—then there's no conflict in the interests and therefore no "conflict of interests". The paid editor therefore has no COI for the vandalism reversion, but does have a COI for WP:PEACOCKing, deleting criticism, or puffing up a minority viewpoint. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:50, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we are straying too far still from the current definition. WhatamIdoing, how would you suggest we maintain the same definition, but improve the explanation? User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 21:55, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm still thinking about the scope of the guideline, and feel that most of it lies in an area that isn't necessarily covered by the current definition (whether by that you mean the confused mass of words purporting to be a definition at the top of the guideline, or the more coherent explanation given here by WhatamIdoing). Regarding peacocking, deleting criticism, etc., it appears that all we have to say (apart from a bit of finger wagging) is "report it to the COI noticeboard". But regarding editors who have a personal connection, regardless of whether they are actually peacocking etc., the page does have quite a bit of positive advice. So it seems to me that either the definition of COI needs changing, or the title of the page needs changing, or we need to develop a bit more guidance about "actual" COI situations and then split the page in two. Victor Yus (talk) 06:12, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Any reaction to the above? If we want this page to make sense, we have to sort out this rather fundamental question (and it seems to be generally agreed by almost everyone who's thought about it that the present definitions are wide of the mark). Victor Yus (talk) 15:08, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Another tack

Perhaps it's simpler to define a COI as "being in a significantly bidirectional relationship with the subject". This covers financial interest, employee-employer, artist-manager, close family members, etc. while helpfully excluding geography-resident, profession-practitioner (for "normal" cases of professions; thus not excluding topic experts). Thoughts? — Coren ^(talk) 16:51, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I like that tack (though not necessarily the phrase "significantly bidirectional") - defining a COI in terms of the existence of this kind of relationship, not someone's actions or motivations. As I said before, I believe this is what most people think or would expect a Wikipedia "conflict of interest" to mean. We can then use this page (as we already essentially do, in fact) to explain how such "COI" situations ought to be handled. Victor Yus (talk) 17:18, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

This is a tough nut to crack. I met a Wikipedian who was involved in environmental conservation groups editing controversial material related to environmental conservation. This veteran editor could be considered to have a COI due to real-life connections, but he was really just editing in an area where he had an interest solely to improve the 'pedia. He had the real-life connections, but did not have a COI due to the purity of his motivations. Here's an idea I'm going to throw out, lets keep the definition exactly how it is, and just make some tweaks to avoid the self-rationalizing loopholes that allow COIs to convince themselves they don't have one (and reasonably so based on the language):

~~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 (or may appear more important to a reasonable observer) to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

Just as a general direction anyway. Most PR people for example would say that they are not here to promote their clients' interest, but just want a neutral article. I think that sentence is too narrow, too open to interpretation, etc., while the idea of motivations is good, as long as we qualify it as what a reasonable observer would think of your motivations, rather than looking deep within yourself. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 18:27, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

When you say "may appear more important..." do you mean based on actions, or based on the editor's connections? I.e. is the reasonable observer supposed to be just observing what the editor is doing, or are they supposed to be aware of what that editor's real-life connections are? Or both? Or either? This seems to be the fundamental terminological question that we ought to have a clear answer to if we are to make any sense out of these guidelines. Victor Yus (talk) 04:25, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

COI is only about, and has always been about a person's connections. Behavior is a separate issue. Let's give an example, say you have a biography and two editors, Bob and Sue. Bob goes through the article removing everything negative about the subject (despite all of it being reliably sourced), while Sue reverts those edits to make the article neutral again. Bob has no direct connection to the subject, but believed that he "knew" the subject had never done anything wrong. Sue is a conscientious editor, but happens to be the subject's daughter. Despite their actions, Sue is the only one with a COI (Bob is in violation of WP:NPOV but that's a different issue). Bob can complain about Sue and claim that she hates her father and that her COI is causing her to turn the article negative, and it would be up to other editors to tell Bob to knock off his whitewashing. -- Atama頭 16:38, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's the kind of definition I would expect, but some of the editors with experience in this area say that on Wikipedia the term "conflict of interest" has up to now been used to mean something different (and would not include Sue's situation in your example). However so many people seem confused by this, that I don't think we can really assert that any one definition has held sway up to now, and it would be better (as is being suggested in this thread) to adopt unambiguously the kind of definition that you are presenting here, as it seems most intuitive to most people (and is something we can meaningfully write a guideline about). Victor Yus (talk) 17:03, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

It's the only real definition we can have, as far as I'm concerned. Other definitions that focus on behavior would be redundant, as we cover neutrality and disruptive behavior in policies separate from this guideline. If the community decides that it no longer cares what a person's connections are and decides that behavior is all that matters, then we can deprecate this guideline and dispose of COIN. I don't see that happening any time soon, if ever. -- Atama頭 17:12, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

My read of the current text is that COI is defined by the aims ("aims of an individual editor") and priorities ("when... is more important") of an editor being altered by "outside interests." As Charles Matthews said here "Take a piece of paper and write down your intentions in editing Wikipedia. Prioritize them. If the top priority reads "to improve Wikipedia as a reference site", you are not conflicted. Anything else, and you are." So we have this dichotomy between choosing if COI is about an editor's motivations, or about their personal connection. Maybe we compromise somehow between these two concepts. For example, by discussing how a real-life personal connection may influence your motivations on Wikipedia. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 18:20, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The difficulty with that concept is that it's difficult for other editors to establish someone's intentions. We can establish connections, and we can observe their behavior, and between the two we can guess at a person's motives. Someone working for Microsoft who starts adding criticism to all of the company's competitors can be judged to have an interest contrary to Wikipedia's goals. As far as "discussing how a real-life personal connection may influence your motivations on Wikipedia", that's exactly what this guideline does, and always has done, or at least tried to do. -- Atama頭 20:21, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I would also agree with that assessment. What do you think of this direction for further polishing? This ties in both the personal connection and motives.

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. When a close personal connection to the subject may put advancing outside interests before advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 21:46, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

An improvement, certainly, since it mentions the personal connection, which everyone seems to agree is an essential element. Though still we have two sentences, each apparently defining a conflict of interest, but not quite consistent with each other. I would keep only the second sentence, and try to be more precise about what we mean by "may". Do we mean "is such as may reasonably be expected to" (i.e. to include Sue in Atama's example) or do we mean "may reasonably be asserted to have already"? Victor Yus (talk) 07:12, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

COI+ certification proposal

Several editors are currently working on a proposal to 'certify' paid COI/PR editors by giving them a set of agreements and reasonable expectations to which they can commit and aspire. Feedback would be very much welcome at the project page: WP:COICERT. Cheers, Ocaasi^{t | c} 14:05, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Next paragraph

If we're taking it top-to-bottom, the next paragraph with quick suggestions below:

~~COI editing is strongly discouraged.~~ When COI editing causes disruption to the encyclopedia by violating policies, such as neutral point of view, what Wikipedia is not, and copyright compliance, accounts may be blocked. Improper COI editing also risks causing public embarrassment for the individuals and groups being promoted.[1]

Rational: "COI editing is discouraged" is way too broad. It's better to merely state that there are consequences. The sentence on causing public embarrassment needs further clarification, but that can be done later in the guideline, since this is just a summary.

Probably yes. But first we need to decide how we intend to define COI editing, since that's going to make a very substantial difference to anything we then decide to say about it. Victor Yus (talk) 12:05, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Running proposals

PR editing

Change:"Editing in the interests of public relations (other than obvious corrections) is particularly frowned upon."

to

"Directly editing articles or contributing in a manner that is covert, disruptive or misleading in the interests of public relations or SEO (with some other exceptions) may have serious consequences.

Rational: "serious consequences" is a stronger deterrent than "frowned upon." The new language is not exclusive to PR (SEO guys are heavy in this too). And it doesn't make the blanket statement the previous version does that would seem to indicate honest talk page collaboration (even just answering questions and offering sources) was discouraged.

Discussion

Agree that it's an improvement (though maybe we should spell out the serious consequences, since the section you link to doesn't do so very articulately). ...may lead to editing access to Wikipedia being removed, as well as possible real-world embarrassment. Victor Yus (talk) 07:01, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Definition of COI

Change: 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.

to

When a close personal connection to the subject may put advancing outside interests before advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

Rational: A COI does not occur based on the motivations of an editor exclusively - a close personal connection that alters those motivations is a crucial element. Suggesting an intent for promotionalism is required to have a COI is confusing, allowing COIs to think they don't have one if they rationalize they just want a neutral article. This is also much shorter, which is needed throughout the guideline.

Discussion

Yes, very good, but as I noted above, there's a large ambiguity being introduced by the word may. Needs to be tightened slightly, depending on what exactly you want it to mean. Victor Yus (talk) 12:07, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
My main problem with this is that it isn't what a conflict of interest is. Advancing outside interests over advancing Wikipedia's interests may lead to a conflict of interest, but only if the two sets of interest are, in fact, in conflict. :) The definition misses the main aspect of a conflict of interest, in that it occurs when there are competing interests, rather than interests of differing strengths. We can propose situations where advancing outside interests is more important than advancing Wikipedia's interests, but the two don't clash. - Bilby (talk) 10:55, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
What about just this minor change? Editors with a COI often contend they do not have one, because their objective is not to promote.

COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia, when ~~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.~~

I suggest if there is no consensus, we just leave it how it is. There are other areas that have a more overt need for changes and where consensus would be more likely. User:King4057 04:33, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Reconsider alternative version?

Seeing the direction we seem to be going in, perhaps I could resuggest for consideration my alternative version of this guideline, which I wrote some time ago in response to the general unintelligibility of the page as it stands. The main objection before was that it introduced a different definition of COI, but since the discussion above indicates that we almost certainly want to do that anyway, perhaps we could reconsider? Other than that the intention is not to change practice in any way, just to describe it more clearly and accessibly. I've restored the proposed text to my sandbox; as before, if anyone wants to make improvements, please do. Victor Yus (talk) 10:14, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

This shows what it would look like here. Victor Yus (talk) 09:50, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

COI commercial vs. governmental.

Are there any differences between COI interpretations between on the one hand companies like Exxon-Mobil and on the other government agencies or government run universities? A director of External Affairs for Exxon-Mobil would be held to a *very* high standard in edits on the Exxon-Mobil page, would the same standard be held for Director of External Affairs for the United States Army War College? It seems like there would be less concern about "selling" the organization...Naraht (talk) 15:55, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

You don't see the possibility of someone in charge of Army recruiting trying to make their branch of the military sound more appealing to potential enlistees to be a problem? Or a university making itself sound more appealing to potential applicants? VernoWhitney (talk) 16:23, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

This isn't Army recruiting. In the case of the United States Army war college, from the article... "The Army handpicks most of the students who participate in the residential program, but the student body always includes officers from the other military branches, civilians (from the Pentagon, State Department, and the National Security Agency), and several dozen senior officers from foreign countries." and most of the students selected by the Army are Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels. There certainly would still be COI concerns, just they don't appear to me to be at the same level.Naraht (talk) 17:02, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Your original question was about companies versus government agencies, to which I don't see a difference in possible abuses by editors with a COI. As far as your specific examples go: If an Exxon Mobil exec restricts their editing to "non-controversial edits" on ExxonMobil then there's no real difference between that and the same sort of edits on the United States Army War College by someone involved with the USAWC. This guideline is in place to attempt to ensure that policies such as WP:NPOV and WP:NOT aren't violated even inadvertently. Now granted that someone running a business (or running for election) likely has more incentive to fluff up their related articles than a member of the uniformed or civil services does, but so long as the type of edits they make are the same there should be no difference in how they are handled or viewed under this guideline. VernoWhitney (talk) 17:37, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Then the difference becomes that a higher percentage of the information in the ExxonMobil article is likely to be controversial and because of that, primary sources would be viewed with more skepticism than they would on the United States Army War College. (The article that I actually have in mind is Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and I've been talking to the Director of External affairs of USUHS and asked her to put the proposed changes to the Talk page. I just wanted to know if I was being paranoid, apparently not.)Naraht (talk) 17:47, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the same COI principles apply to all types of organisations. Focussing only on for-profit businesses is missing the point; the problematic editing results from the motivation of the editor, not from the precise wording of their employer's charter or articles of incorporation. One of the articles I've created was on a quite benign government agency which had previously been through a death spiral of CSDs because an SPA would add spammy promotional text from their website, article gets deleted, SPA comes back and recreates, &c. I've even seen voluntary/charitable organisations which had articles looking highly promotional and apparently written by an editor connected to the organisation. bobrayner (talk) 19:39, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Not only that, but the same principles apply to individuals versus organizations, charities versus profit-makers, etc. Someone affiliated with the March of Dimes is given the same treatment as an employee of Exxon or the daughter of a biography subject. We don't usually discriminate based on what a person has a COI with, but only on the COI itself. -- Atama頭 16:37, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Is COI retrospective...

Hi all,

Quick query, If I get for a job with a company whose article I have previously edited I would I have to declare a retrospective COI if I didn't look at the article again? I'm particularly interested with how this work work with respect to outing (small company, few new employees) Fayedizard (talk) 23:41, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

It is not required. Even for current editing it is not required; the wording is "Editors with such interests are strongly encouraged—but not actually required". I think that yous (where it would be somewhat outing yourself) is one of the reasons it is not required. North8000 (talk) 00:03, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Blush* - apparently I forgot to say thank you - so *belated thank you*! Fayedizard (talk) 18:22, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

user page spam

The project pages Conflict of interest, Wikipedia:Spam, and Wikipedia:User pages provide unclear, contradicting, or no info about what to do with spam on a user page. One of them says to be brutal:

Blatant examples of advertising masquerading as articles can be speedily deleted by tagging the articles with {{db-spam}}. The same applies to pages in userspace.

The second one says nothing, and the third one says to be careful except in the case of apparently someone like User:Claston rose, who has done nothing except make a self-promoting user page and vandalize a project page twice:

A user's contributions that consist solely of a lone edit to their user page should not normally be speedy deleted unless it consists solely of spam or other speedy deletable material. They may have simply created their page as their first edit, and could return at any time. Such pages should be sent to Miscellany for deletion and the user notified as normal.

Then again, even Claston rose may be more lost than destructive, so we should probably change the policy to something like this:

A user's contribution that consists solely of a lone edit to their user page should not be speedy deleted even if that page consists solely of self-promotion or even spam or other speedy deletable material. The speedy deletable material should be removed and the user should be given a firm but friendly warning.

Many people, especially young people, learn by trying. They do not know about the sandbox and first test the edit process and the response of the community by removing a single letter, for example, so this should not be considered proof they will only engage in vandalism later.

Many people are not aware that their user page is not for self-promotion. In fact, it should be assumed that this is what they think it is for, considering that especially most young people come to Wikipedia after having used social media extensively. Wikipedia needs an automatic greeting generated when a user creates their user page that explains what a user page is and is not. --Espoo (talk) 18:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

It would be good to have more clarity on how to handle the growing instances of user page spam, but an automated greeting is not a good idea—every case is different, and there is no generic wording that would be helpful when applied to an obvious spammer and to a good-faith overly promotional user page. What might be desirable would be a new template with very simple language (no blizzard of links), and which could be used to replace the contents of a spam user page or user talk page (spammers often put the same content on both). Johnuniq (talk) 22:56, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

preferred process for proposing articles

So, my employer still doesn't have an article. The industry it's in is not particularly well-documented on Wikipedia for some reason, although there's absolutely no problem us meeting WP:ORG. We can provide impeccably referenced and neutrally written copy. Bearing in mind the recent controversies, I obviously don't want to stick my foot onto a mine. What is the preferred way of doing this these days? Should I just stick it in WP:AFC with the rest of the backlog? Is it entirely bad to even think about this and we should just wait? Morwen - Talk 13:36, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

If what you say is true, my personal advice would be just go ahead and write the article, preferably disclosing your connection somehow when doing so. Victor Yus (talk) 14:08, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I suggest WP:AFC. The backlog ebs and flows, but it is never so backed up (months) that the wait is unbearable. Corporate 21:33, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps create the article in userspace and the find a neutral reviewer to move to article space. Jehochman ^Talk 04:32, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

If you'd like to create it in userspace, I'd be happy to review. (And if COI makes you uncomfortable taking it live, I'd happily do that too, presuming it's notable and neutral etc etc). bobrayner (talk) 17:30, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Editor Review - Fayedizard

Hi guys,

I've been doing a bit of work on the COI noticeboard for a little while. I'm aware that I'm very much at the low end of editor experience and so it would be great to get some feedback on how the I've handed various COI things from people who know their way around the guideline. The review is here Thanks, Fayedizard (talk) 09:45, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Possible rewordings

(moved from thread above: #This guideline is misquoted about 80% of the time, so it needs tweaking to reduce that

Accepting/using the excellent definition at the beginning of the policy, the items called a "COI" later are not necessarily that, they are basically situations which present a higher risk of a COI. I'm going to try a few edits on a BRD basis to start to make that distinction. If they are accepted, I'd do a little more along that line later. North8000 (talk) 18:58, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I certainly favour any efforts to make this guideline internally consistent, but as I think we keep noting, the "definition at the beginning of the policy" (whichever of the three alternative ones you mean) is far from "excellent". For a start there are three of them, all slightly different; then there's the problem that none of them seem to correspond to what anyone thinks COI means or ought to mean - no matter whether they think we should say someone has a COI if they simply have a certain type of connection with the subject, or that we should reserve the term "COI" for people whose connection is causing them to edit problematically. I think any effort to tidy up this guideline ought to begin with pinning down the definition in a satisfactory way. Victor Yus (talk) 07:54, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Good thoughts. When I said excellent definition I meant " When advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest." When you really get down to it, a definition along those lines is about the only one that can hold water. And it leads to a system that is may be hard to interpret/implement but is otherwise elegant and universally consistent. Any definitions based on just the interests run into immediate and unsolvable quandaries.North8000 (talk) 11:50, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain what quandaries you mean? I think (and others have expressed similar thoughts) that the present definition leads to quite serious quandaries - in that we can never really tell what's actually motivating people and what's important to someone (hell, I don't even know what motivates me to spend my time here, let alone people I've never met). All we can realistically try to address is (a) the personal connections people have (which they, at least, know about) and (b) the actions people perform on Wikipedia. This guideline and all the internal wiki-dialog on Conflicts of Interest seems to be entirely about people with personal connections to the topics they wish to write about, so any meaningful definition must include at least some reference to such connections (and not just "outside interests", which might be anything the editor has feelings about). Victor Yus (talk) 20:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that all of the things that you are discussing should be addressed. The quandaries come when you try to DEFINE COI just from those relationships. Regarding quandaries I would point to the fact that even the one that looks like a no-brainer slam-dunk (paid editing) after an immense discussion was found to not be so....where some instances of even paid editing would not be defined as a COI. Then we move down through less and less clear ones and the quandaries get bigger and more unsolvable if you try to define the interest as a per-se COI. Employees of the company or organization that the article is on, fans, advocates or supporters or opponents of the subject of the article. Now down into some article about improving things for children, that persons who have children having a COI on that topic because they have children. While it would be fine to define these4 as high-risk-of-COI situations, it would not be right to flatly call them COI's because there are common exceptions on each one of these. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:32, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree it's not easy to draw any exact line, but that's going to be an issue with any definition, including (especially) the present one. At least if we use personal connections as the basis for the definition, giving a list of typical situations as I did in my proposed rewrite, it makes it clear broadly what kind of editors this guideline is for/about. It should then be clear that it is about paid editors and is not about people who have children. We must then also decide whether we want to use "COI" to refer to all the people the guideline is about (my preference), or only to those of such people whose editing has become problematic (which means we would have to find a different way to refer to the larger set of people - which might not be a bad idea anyway). Victor Yus (talk) 07:16, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that this policy has an unusually high proportion of folks sincerely look to it for guidance. That is further added to by the fact that, unlike other policies, it is about things that we can't see, and so is on the honor system. Self-disclosure and/or self policing. And so I think it is particularly important to give a guide like the main definition "when advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest". So that sentence it is both a guide and a definition. North8000 (talk) 10:35, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

But because people are using it for practical guidance, we need to give practical definitions. No-one can say for sure which of particular "interests" is relatively more "important" to them, even if they are able to be scrupulously honest with themselves. But they can say for sure whether the subject of the article is their nephew or boss or paymaster; and it's people with that kind of relationship with the topic that this guideline is clearly for and about. Victor Yus (talk) 10:46, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I am increasingly convinced that the basic definition North is supporting may be "as good as it gets." One possible exception to this definition (for example) is that many of the COI edits that plague Wikipedia are done by a guy in the mailroom, who genuinely thought he was improving the article. Wikipedians tend to assume these are official acts by the organization's PR team, when they are often by pure-intentioned employees. I also contest this definition is problematic, because it asks COIs - who by definition have impaired judgement on the matter - to look deeply into their soul and motivations. However, despite these objections, I wonder if there is any possible definition that would be immune to criticisms and exceptions or if our time wouldn't be better spent on other areas where we are more likely to make substantial progress.

There will always be grey areas (too many for us to address in this guideline), but I am of the opinion that we can do better addressing obvious cases and make the guideline more succinct, clear and consistent. Obviously I won't make any edits to the actual page, but I can offer a bit of inside scoop and perspective from the PR circle side of things. User:King4057 05:10, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to see a bit more about the conflict side of things in the definition. Prioritising outside interests may lead to problems, but the problems only arise when those interests run counter to those of Wikipedia. - Bilby (talk) 06:14, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The definition I've proposed before is simply to say that someone has a "conflict of interest" simply if they have a personal or professional connection with the subject, of the type...(list examples). That seems clearly to be the situation that this guideline is supposed to be about. We're not saying that being in that situation is necessarily bad, but we are giving advice to people who find themselves in it. The present definition is bad not only because it's fairly incomprehensible and unusable, but also because it fails to give a proper indication of who this page is for and about. If we don't want to use the term "conflict of interest" for people in that situation, then the best thing to do would be to invent another term for them ("connected editors", "involved editors",...) and rename this page accordingly. We don't have to use the term "COI" to talk about these matters. Victor Yus (talk) 07:08, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The definition in the lead may be hard to interpret specifically, but at least it is sound. I think that the thought of providing a situation-based definition is so immensely complex that it is impossible. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:09, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

What about my attempt in my attempted rewrite (see the intro and the "Definition" section). You don't have to give a full exhaustive list of every possible situation, just indicate the sort of situations we're talking about. I can't agree that the present definition is "sound", for the reasons that have already been expounded; it is utterly unusable, and fails to give a proper clear indication of what this page is about and who it is addressed to.Victor Yus (talk) 08:20, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we need to hang our hats on letting 1-2 sentences define conflict of interest. The examples section should serve to clarify various common circumstances. User:King4057 02:18, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

But the examples are all worded in such a fudgy way that we still don't know anything after reading them (in particular, we don't know if they really constitute examples of what we call COI). Victor Yus (talk) 11:51, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that the situation-based definitions are of situations where there is a high risk of a COI, not a COI per se, and if we word them as such everything can be made consistent.

As an example of the complexities, on even the simplest one (paid editing) the odds are only about 95% that it is a COI situation. And in another common case (an employee of a company editing the article of that company) those odds drop to about 50%. So attempted situation-based definitions are quite a quagmire. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:15, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what I'm proposing. If we define COI to mean what most people already seem to think it means, namely the existence of a real-world connection (like the two cases you mention), then the "quagmire" disappears altogether (or almost so), since we have an objective definition and the "odds" are 100%. We then move on to guide people as to what they should do if they have a COI (i.e. if they have a connection of that type with a topic they wish to write about), which is what this page attempts to do anyway. Or do the same, but use some different string of words instead of "conflict of interest". Using a definition like the present one(s) (I've said this already) is doubly bad, (a) because it creates unnecessary quagmire-ish ambiguity and (b) because it isn't really the topic of this page. Victor Yus (talk) 16:52, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break

We have been debating about whether an editor has a COI versus making COI edits and how COI implies they are making harmful edits. I think it's a worthwhile clarification that we only define that editors have a potential COI and give advice on that basis. Makes things a little clearer. Corporate 17:21, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree, and that is an important point. North8000 (talk) 12:26, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

That is the exact sort of thing I want to clarify in my draft rewrite of this guideline. See the section below for a link. Gigs (talk) 21:50, 20 October 2012 (UTC)