User talk:Dr Adam Abdelnoor

Managing a conflict of interest
Hello, Dr Adam Abdelnoor. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:


 * avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization or competitors;
 * propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the request edit template);
 * disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Conflict of interest);
 * avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:Spam);
 * do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. MrOllie (talk) 15:38, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

I do not have any conflict of interest in regard to this article and it is a mystery why you think I do have. I did spend some time researching at the organisation IIRP some 20 years ago and have taken a continuing professional interest in their work. I am not related to anyone who is involved with the author or their organisation. I received no direct benefit. It is true that I am the author of the citation used to support my very short amendment to the article. If this amounts to advertising then I can replace it with another, although I am sure I can find numerous examples where the author has citated their own work across wikipedia.

What you have actually sent me is a list of six possible reasons why you have removed my edit, but not substantiated any of them. Please will you be specific about what the problem is for you? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr_Adam_Abdelnoor (talk • contribs)


 * Citing your self published book on Wikipedia is a conflict of interest. Even aside from that, we do not use self published books as sources. - MrOllie (talk) 12:23, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I see your point, and at this time I haven't time to address it fully. I would like to make two points.

1. You and your colleagues should use the term 'potential conflict of interest' rather than 'conflict of interest'. In citing my own article, there is a potential conflict of interest, but no necessarily a conflict of interest. If my own article is the best possible source to support that particular piece of content then there is no actual conflict of interest, even if using the source happens to be in my best interests, because it would also be in the best interests of your readers as well - it's the best source for them to read and any benefits to me are incidental.

Having said that, I understand that there needs to be a general policy not to use self-published books as sources, so I accept this. I realise you cannot read and review every source to decide whether the potential COI is an actual COI or not. Nevertheless, my point stands - unless you do read and review the source, all that you can fairly say is that there is a 'potential' COI.

2. My second point is tangential. If contributors may not use their own work as sources because they have not been independently tested and may be unreliable, then surely sources which lie behind a paywall (eg reference 4 on this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Bryce-Smith) should also not be permitted since it isn't possible for readers to review the source itself (without subscribing)?

Best wishes Adam