Wikipedia talk:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide

Simplifying the sentence about law
Why does this say "U.S. federal law applies to editing contributions made to Wikipedia. State laws and the laws of other countries may apply as well."?

Isn't it obvious that if you make an edit the law of the country you were in when you made the edit applies to you? What is special about US law? As someone with no connection with the US what would happen if I made an edit against US law? What has it got to do with "conflict of interest" anyway? Is that something to do with the Foundation being a US organization so there might be some conflict of interest with the US government? Can't we just remove some of this stuff? Chidgk1 (talk) 10:45, 6 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Good point. Removed. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:20, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Misleading claim in lede
This page claims to be "an explanatory supplement to the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest page". It then says, in its lede:

"you are bound by some restrictions. The short version: [...] Do not edit articles about yourself, your family or friends, your organization, your clients, or your competitors."

Nobody is bound by such a restriction; and that is not what Conflict of interest says. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:49, 14 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Do you consider it bad *as an initial guide*? It seems to me that it's more or less true, because what the COI page *does* say ends up (correctly and fairly) placing so many restrictions on the activities of such editors that they're likely to feel as though they might as well not bother.


 * If you're going to expect this page to be strictly true in all respects with no simplifications, then IMO you might as well propose that this page be deleted. TooManyFingers (talk) 23:16, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

"What to do when something goes wrong"
The author of a deleted article is asked: "Did it fail to assert the subject's importance?"

Shouldn't the word "assert" be changed to "establish" or "demonstrate" or some other word? Merely asserting importance requires nothing but the statement "This is important." TooManyFingers (talk) 22:54, 21 August 2021 (UTC)