User:KDS4444/COI

The expression conflict of interest (COI) editing means creating or editing Wikipedia articles about yourself, your family, your friends, your clients (past and present), employers (current or otherwise), financial interests, your team, your school, your band, or any other substantive relationship you may have. Any external relationship can theoretically trigger a conflict of interest.

Conflict of interest is not about actual bias in editing, it is about an editor's roles and relationships and the tendency to bias that naturally arises when roles come into conflict. That someone has a conflict of interest is a description of a situation, not a judgment about that person's state of mind or integrity nor is disclosing a conflict of interest to be viewed as a badge of shame. In fact, given its voluntary nature, the forthright act of declaring one's conflict of interest should be viewed as a gesture of honesty.

Let us be clear: COI editing is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. Somewhat ironically, this means that some of the best qualified people to write on a topic are also strongly discouraged from doing just that! This does not mean, however, that you cannot contribute to such articles if you have a COI: when an editor comes to realize that he or she has a conflict of interest with regard to an article that he or she has been editing, or if an editor comes to an article or subject matter knowing beforehand that he/ she has a conflict of interest, that editor is expected by the community to adhere to a specific set of steps as outlined below. This is to prevent the undermining of public confidence and to forestall possible public embarrassment to the individual being discussed. The failure to properly disclose a conflict of interest after having visited this page does not constitute a formal policy violation, but it does demonstrate a disappointing lack of character and may lead to accusations of underhandedness. If your undisclosed COI editing becomes disruptive, an administrator may at some point decide to block your account.

If you are an editor looking into the possible COI editing of others, it will be important that you at no point inadvertently disclose the identity of an editors against his or her wishes. Wikipedia's policy against harassment, in particular the prohibition against disclosing personal information, takes precedence over this or any other guideline.

Keep in mind that not every relationship you may have will be met with an expectation for disclosure— conflict of interest editing needs to be real or immanent for it to matter. If you have no intention of editing the current article on your great grandmother, you don't need to declare your conflict of interest with regard to her. You just need to leave the article alone, or else follow the steps below.

And yet, you may ask yourself, Why should I bother to admit publicly that I have a COI if it just means my work will be treated as suspect and my proposed edits might not even get "approved" by other editors if/ when they ever get around to noticing them? [I have no answer for this question, though the question seems pretty fair.]

The following sections of this page are divided into themes. The first gives specific, technical steps an editor should take to properly disclose a COI, including steps for paid COI editing (which are somewhat more extensive than those for volunteer conflict of interest editing). Next comes an overview of concepts and definitions like the meaning of bias and the difference between different types of COI editing, as well as a more detailed explanation of why undisclosed COI editing is problematic. Then there is a brief portion on how to respond to another editor's COI edit request, followed by is an expansion of COI editing into the political and sales marketing arenas and some associated laws to be aware of. Last of all comes the miscellany that seemed relevant but did not fit into any of the other sections yet were too small to warrant their own section.

If you have come to this page because you have a COI that you would like to properly declare, you need only review the technical instructions on how to do this (a modest familiarity with the use of Wikipedia WP:TEMPLATES will be helpful, but no other special editing skills or knowledge are necessary). If you are unsure if some of your own edits or those of others constitute substantive conflicts of interest, the second section will be of interest. Editors considering responding to others' edit requests may go to the next section, and the following section is for those whose COI concerns are larger than personal relationships. Miscellany is for the curious.

Purpose of Wikipedia


As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia's mission is to provide the public with articles that summarize accepted knowledge, written neutrally and sourced reliably. Readers expect to find neutral articles written independently of their subject, not corporate or personal webpages, or platforms for advertising and self-promotion. Articles should contain only material that complies with Wikipedia's content policies and best practices, and Wikipedians must place the interests of the encyclopedia and its readers above personal concerns. This is an example of a nice paragraph that I think we can do without here. It creates more for readers to wade through, when wading through the stuff that matters is already going to be asking for a whole lot of patience.

Editors should not create articles with which they will immediately have a conflict of interest. If this does happen, they should take the appropriate steps to disclose their COI as outlined above.

Paid editing
Being paid to contribute to Wikipedia is one form of financial conflict of interest. Being paid to promote external interests on Wikipedia (known as "paid advocacy") includes public relations, marketing and advertising. This is the type of editing that is of most concern to the Wikipedia community, because edits by paid advocates invariably reflect the interests of the client or employer.

Requested edits are subject to the same standards as any other, and editors may decline to act on them. To find an article's talk page, click the "talk" button at the top of the article. See WP:TEAHOUSE if you have questions about these things.

Wikimedia Foundation terms of use
The Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use require that editors who are being paid for their contributions disclose their employer (the person or organization who is paying for the edits); the client (the person or organization on whose behalf the edits are made); and any other relevant affiliation. This is the policy of the English Wikipedia.

General COI

 * Example of a general COI: suggesting an edit about your family member.
 * Example of a financial COI: suggesting an edit about your own company.

If you become involved in an article where you have a COI but that does not involve you being paid to edit Wikipedia, you are expected to place the template at the top of the associated talk page and to fill it in as follows:


 *  

Filling in the "U1-otherlinks" parameter is optional. When you are done, click "Save". In addition, other editors will expect to see a forthright disclosure of your COI on your user page. You can use the template for this; edit your user page and type   , then click "Save". You should also make a statement in the edit summary of any COI contribution you do make to such articles, such as "Minor copyedit - Also, I have a COI". If you would like to propose significant or potentially controversial changes to an affected article, you should place the template at the bottom of the talk page and state your suggestion beneath it (be sure to sign it with four tildes, ~ ). Another editor will soon visit the page and assess your proposal for neutrality and verifiability. If the proposal is neutral and verifiable, it will usually be accepted without further discussion. If it is assessed as non-neutral or unverifiable, the editor declining the request will normally add an explanation below your entry stating why the edit request was declined. If you believe you can restate the requested edit from a neutral perspective, you are welcome to do so.

Paid editors
If you are being paid for your contributions to Wikipedia, you must declare who is paying you and the nature of your relationship to that entity. Place the template at the top of talk pages of affected articles, fill it in as follows, and click "Save":
 * Example of a paid COI: the subject of an article (a person or an organization) has paid you to generate or influence its content.


 *  

The employer parameter is for whoever is paying you to be involved in the article (such as a PR company). The client parameter is on whose behalf the payment was made (usually the subject of the article). If the employer and client are the same entity—if Acme Corporation is paying you to write about Acme Corporation—the client parameter may be left empty. See for more information.

In addition, you are expected to make a disclosure on your user page (again, can help you do this) in a clearly visible list of your paid contributions; on article drafts in user space or elsewhere; and during any discussion about the topic elsewhere. You should also make a statement in the edit summary of any paid contribution. If you propose changes to an affected article, post the template on the talk page and make your suggestion underneath it. Paid editors must respect the volunteer nature of the project and keep discussions concise; see WP:PAYTALK.

External roles and relationships
While editing Wikipedia, an editor's primary role is to further the interests of the encyclopedia. When an external role or relationship could reasonably be said to undermine that primary role, the editor has a conflict of interest. (Similarly, a judge's primary role as an impartial adjudicator is undermined if she is married to the defendant.)

Any external relationship – personal, religious, political, academic, financial, or legal – can trigger a COI. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense. For example, an article about a band should not be written by the band's manager, and a biography should not be an autobiography, or written by the subject's spouse.

Subject-matter experts are welcome to contribute within their areas of expertise, subject to the guidance on financial conflict of interest, while making sure that their external roles and relationships in that field do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia.

COI is not simply bias
Determining that someone has a COI is a description of a situation. It is not a judgment about that person's state of mind or integrity. A COI can exist in the absence of bias, and bias regularly exists in the absence of a COI. Beliefs and desires may lead to biased editing, but they do not constitute a COI. COI emerges from an editor's roles and relationships, and the tendency to bias that we assume exists when those roles and relationships conflict. COI is like "dirt in a sensitive gauge."

Why is conflict of interest a problem?
Until the latter half of the 20th century, the professions relied on the "virtue-centric approach," in which those with a COI were simply expected to act honourably and objectively.

This is now known to have been naive. The virtue-centric approach underestimates the extent to which the judgment of individuals with a COI may be impaired. Conflicted individuals cannot know the extent to which they have been influenced; philosopher Michael Davis writes that they often "esteem too highly their own reliability." For example, a conflicted person might overcompensate in an effort to be fair, leading to decisions he would otherwise not have made.

The virtue-centric approach ignores the damage COI inflicts on public confidence, and the unease it causes within the affected community. If a judge is involved with a defendant, that judge's role as an impartial adjudicator will be undermined in the view of her colleagues and the public, no matter how convinced she is that she can remain impartial. The appearance of impropriety means she would have to recuse herself.

Actual, potential and apparent conflict of interest
An actual conflict of interest exists when an editor has a COI with respect to a certain judgment, and he is in a position where the judgment must be exercised.
 * Example: A company owner has an actual COI if he edits articles and engages in discussions about that company.

A potential conflict of interest exists when an editor has a COI with respect to a certain judgment, but she is not in a position where the judgment must be exercised.
 * Example: A company owner has a potential COI with respect to articles and discussions about her company, but she has no actual COI if she stays away from those pages.

An apparent conflict of interest exists when there is reason to believe that an editor has a COI.
 * Example: An editor has an apparent COI if he edits an article about a company and for some reason appears to be the company owner. In fact he may have no such connection. Apparent COI causes bad feeling within the community and should be resolved through discussion whenever possible.

Financial relationships
If you have a close financial relationship with a topic you wish to write about – including as an owner, employee, contractor or other stakeholder – you are advised to refrain from editing affected articles. You may suggest changes on the talk page of those articles, where you should disclose your COI. You can use the template to suggest changes.

Wikipedians in residence
There are forms of paid editing that the Wikimedia community regards as benign. These include Wikipedians in residence (WiRs) – Wikipedians who are paid to collaborate with mission-aligned organizations, such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. WiRs must not engage in on-Wikipedia public relations or marketing for their organization, and they should operate within the bounds defined by Core characteristics of a Wikipedian in Residence at Wikimedia Outreach. They must work closely with a Wikipedia project or the general Wikipedia community, and are expected to identify their WiR status on their user page and on talk pages related to their organization when they post there.

Reward board
Another benign example of paid editing is the reward board, where editors can post incentives, usually to raise articles to featured-article or good-article status. If you participate in this kind of paid editing, transparency and neutrality are key.

Responding to requests
Editors responding to edit requests from paid editors are expected to do so carefully, particularly when commercial interests are involved. When large amounts of text are added by or on behalf of the article subject, the article has, in effect, been ghostwritten by the subject without the reader's knowledge. Responding volunteers should therefore carefully check the proposed text and sources. That an article has been expanded does not necessarily mean that it is better.

Make sure the proposed version of the article complies with WP:WEIGHT. Be on the lookout for unnecessary detail that may have been added to overwhelm something negative, and check whether anything important has gone missing. Look for non-neutral language and unsourced or poorly sourced content. Be cautious about accepting content based on WP:SPS, such as a personal website, or primary sources such as a company website or press release. Responding editors should do their own search for independent sources. If the proposed new text is added to the article, the edit summary should include full attribution; see WP:COIATTRIBUTE below.

Paid editors on talk pages
Paid editors must respect the volunteer nature of the project and keep discussions concise. When proposing changes to an article, they should describe the suggested modifications and explain why the changes should be made. Any changes that may be contentious, such as removal of negative text, should be highlighted.

Before being drawn into long exchanges with paid editors, volunteers should be aware that paid editors may be submitting evidence of their talk-page posts to justify their salaries or fees. No editor should be expected to engage in long or repetitive discussions with someone who is being paid to argue with them. Editors who refuse to accept a consensus by arguing ad nauseam may find themselves in violation of the disruptive-editing guideline.

Copyright of paid contributions
Editors are reminded that any text they contribute to Wikipedia, assuming they own the copyright, is irrevocably licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Content on Wikipedia, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied and modified by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that it be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.

Paid editors must ensure that they own the copyright of text they have been paid to add to Wikipedia. If the text is a work for hire, the copyright resides with the person or organization that paid for it ("the employer"). Otherwise the text's author is assumed to be the copyright holder. It is important not to assume that the paid editor is the author, because companies may provide paid editors with approved texts.

Paid editors, the employer, or the author should forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation. The release must include the name(s) of the author and copyright holder, and that the copyright holder has released the text under a free licence. See WP:PERMISSION for how to do this.

Attribution in edit summaries
If editors choose to add material to an article on behalf of a COI or paid editor, they must provide attribution for the text in the edit summary. The edit summary should include the name of the COI or paid editor, a link to the draft or edit request, and that the edit contains a COI or paid contribution. For example: "Text inserted on behalf of paid editor User:X; copied from Draft:Paid draft." In addition to complying with copyright requirements, this transparency allows editors and readers to determine the extent of COI input into the article.

United States Federal Trade Commission
All editors are expected to follow United States law on undisclosed advertising, which is described by the Federal Trade Commission at Endorsement Guidelines and Dot Com Disclosures.

European fair-trading law


In 2012 the Munich Oberlandesgericht court ruled that if a company or its agents edit Wikipedia with the aim of influencing customers, the edits constitute covert advertising, and as such are a violation of European fair-trading law. The ruling stated that readers cannot be expected to seek out user and talk pages to find editors' disclosures about their corporate affiliation.

UK Advertising Standards Authority
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK found in 2012 that the content of tweets from two footballers had been "agreed with the help of a member of the Nike marketing team." The tweets were not clearly identified as Nike marketing communications and were therefore in breach of the ASA's code.

Legal and other disputes
The biographies of living persons policy says: "[A]n editor who is involved in a significant controversy or dispute with another individual – whether on- or off-wiki – or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person, given the potential conflict of interest."

Similarly, editors should not write about court cases in which they or those close to them have been involved, nor about parties or law firms associated with the cases.

Campaigning, political
Activities regarded by insiders as simply "getting the word out" may appear promotional or propagandistic to the outside world. If you edit articles while involved with campaigns in the same area, you may have a conflict of interest. Political candidates and their staff should not edit articles about themselves, their supporters, or their opponents. Government employees should not edit articles about their agencies, government, political party, political opponents, or controversial political topics.

Writing about yourself, family, friends
You should not create or edit articles about yourself, your family, friends, or foes. If you have a personal connection to a topic or person, you are advised to refrain from editing those articles directly and to provide full disclosure of the connection if you comment about the article on talk pages or in other discussions.

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

Citing yourself
Using material you have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant, conforms to the content policies, including WP:SELFPUB, and is not excessive. Citations should be in the third person and should not place undue emphasis on your work. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion: propose the edit on the article's talk page and allow others to review it.

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

No shared accounts, no company accounts
Do not create a shared organizational account, or use the name of an organization as the account name. The account is yours, not your employer's.

Making uncontroversial edits
Editors who have a general conflict of interest may make unambiguously uncontroversial edits (but see WP:FINANCIALCOI). They may:


 * 1) remove spam and unambiguous vandalism,
 * 2) remove unambiguous violations of the biography of living persons policy,
 * 3) fix spelling and grammatical errors,
 * 4) repair broken links,
 * 5) remove their own COI edits, and
 * 6) add independent reliable sources when another editor has requested them, although it is better to supply them on the talk page for others to add.

If another editor objects for any reason, it is not an uncontroversial edit. Edits not covered by the above should be discussed on the article's talk page. If an article has few involved editors, ask at the talk page of a related Wikiproject or at WP:COIN. Also see WP:COITALK.

Supplying photographs and media files
Editors with a COI are encouraged to upload high-quality media files that are appropriately licensed for Wikipedia and that improve our coverage of a subject. For more information, follow the instructions at Commons. In some cases, the addition of media files to an article may be an uncontroversial edit that editors with a COI can make directly, but editors should exercise discretion and rely on talk pages when images may be controversial or promotional. If the addition of an image is challenged by another editor, it is not uncontroversial.

How to handle conflicts of interest
If an editor has disclosed that s/he is editing with a COI, or edits in a way that leads you to believe they might have a COI, raise the issue in a civil manner on the editor's talk page, citing this guideline, or open a thread on WP:COIN. Avoid making disparaging comments about the subject of the article, its author, or the author's motives.

If there has been no COI disclosure, consider first whether the issue may be simple advocacy. The appropriate forum for concerns about advocacy is WP:NPOVN. The appropriate forum for concerns about sources is WP:RSN. If there are concerns about sockpuppets or meatpuppets, please bring that concern to WP:SPI.

Avoid outing
When investigating COI editing, the policy against harassment takes precedence. It requires that Wikipedians not reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Instead, examine editors' behavior and refer if necessary to Checkuser. If revealing private information is needed to resolve COI editing, and if the issue is serious enough to warrant it, editors can seek the advice of functionaries or the arbitration committee by email.

Dealing with single-purpose accounts
Accounts that appear to be single-purpose, existing for the sole or primary purpose of promotion or denigration of a person, company, product, service, website, organization, etc., and whose postings are in apparent violation of this guideline, should be made aware of this guideline and warned not to continue their problematic editing. If the same pattern of editing continues after the warning, the account may be blocked.

Templates
Relevant article talk pages may be tagged with or. The article itself may be tagged with. A section of an article can be tagged with

Other templates include:
 * (to be placed on user Talk pages to warn editors that they may have a conflict of interest)
 * (another Talk page warning, this one for editors whose username appears to violate the WP:Usernames policy)
 * (this template goes on article talk pages and gives instructions to COI editors on how to submit edit requests to the article)
 * (for users to self-declare on their own Userpages those articles with which they have a conflict of interest, one such template per article)