Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/Archive 7

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Edits by Arthur Rubin and Ansell

The chauvinist bias should be removed from this page, as Ansell indicates. Also, it is not a "clear grammatical error" as Arthur Robin indicates, as "they" is becoming more acceptable as a way of avoiding bias. Style manuals usually suggest rewording "he or she" out of it. So, it should probably be reworded. My vote, however, would be to remove the entire sentence, including the bolding, because I think this sentence weakens the guideline.

But if this sentence must be kept, will someone please change it to:

Editors who forego advancing the aims of Wikipedia in order to advance outside interests stand in a conflict of interest.

And about the bolding, please, someone, anyone, get rid of the bolding. This guideline looks like a tract for a pyramid scheme or a Ponzi scheme, rather than a professional behavioral guideline for an encyclopedia.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style clearly states, "Italics are used sparingly to emphasize words in sentences (bolding is normally not used at all for this purpose). Generally, the more highlighting in an article, the less the effect of each instance."

In a nutshell: GET RID OF MOST OF THE BOLDING ON THIS PAGE!!!

Wikipedia's policy is to be bold. Wikipedia's policy is not to USE BOLD. Fredsmith2 (talk) 21:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I actually don't mind the bolding on this page so much. WP:MOS applies to edits in article space, so far as I know. But while I'm here, there is a persistent problem where a mere COI and editing in violation of the COI guideline are not carefully distinguished. Somebody can have a technical COI and it is harmless, so long as they behave correctly in matters where they have a conflict. A COI violation happens when you edit in a case where the guideline says you shouldn't. In my view, the current guideline doesn't make this point clear enough. The sentence you are criticizing I think is attempting to define a COI violation but not doing it very clearly:
Editors who forego advancing the aims of Wikipedia in order to advance outside interests stand in a conflict of interest.
I'd prefer a different wording, since I think it's possible to 'stand in a conflict of interest' without violating the guideline, so long as you abstain from editing where required. EdJohnston (talk) 22:28, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree. It is very unclear. ...plus all that other stuff you said. What's this really trying to say, anyway? Is it saying that advancing outside interests is always a conflict of interest, or is it saying that you can advance outside interests as long as you keep the aims of Wikipedia in mind? And, exactly which aims of Wikipedia must you keep in mind to successfully advance an outside interest? If there aren't answers to these questions, then this line should probably be deleted.
I would also tend to think that the policy pages and behavioral guideline pages should be pillars of style, and excellent models of well-written pages, to serve as examples to people writing articles, rather than having a very non-professional sytle. But maybe I'm wrong. Do the policy pages have a much looser requirement for style, similar to how talk pages do? Fredsmith2 (talk) 00:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, "violation of the COI guideline" is a relatively new concept, within the last year. That's probably why it's not really talked about on here, is that it's still creeping its way into this guideline. A year ago, the COI guideline only seemed to indicate that editors with a conflict of interest had no right to control content of pages they've come up with, and that was the only way to literally violate the guideline, is if you got mad about someone else editing a page you had a COI with. "Violations" of COI were handled by other policies and guidelines, and in my opinion, still are adequately handled there. I agree that we should do something about all of the cases you have to deal with as an admin, but I think that adding a bunch of bolded warnings to this guideline may not be the most effective way to do it. Fredsmith2 (talk) 00:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry my edit caused someone a hassle. I thought that "they" had been an accepted singular self-reference for quite a few years now. I certainly have never had any academic assessments/articles commented on for my usage of it. Sorry if there are traditionalists who prefer a chauvinist grammar but the world is changing. Feel free to use a changed version, but reverting me won't bring back the old boys culture! Ansell 05:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Exposing COI versus outing the editor

Let's say I know of an editor who is working here under numerous sockpuppets, and given the subjects, his edits present a conflict of interest. His edit history, while incriminating, only tells part of the story. He has added external links, all with the same owner, to the articles that he edits. It's already obvious to me that the guy's efforts here have more to do with self-promotion. Later on, two people contact me off-wiki and confirm my suspicions. How can I act on this information without outing the editor, and violating some rule myself? I know some admins have already gotten in trouble for dealing with this sort of thing off-wiki, yet at the same time I could see the need for a non-public (but official) channel to deal with this. Is this an OTRS issue or should I bother them with something like this? Thanks, -- Leo DeVeaux (talk) 13:35, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

If the case is truly this blatant, why not just file a regular complaint at WP:COIN? It should be possible for people who see the report to read between the lines without the need for you to expose any information you shouldn't. EdJohnston (talk) 14:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes. We often spot COI by the tone of the edits, which are non-NPOV and unencyclopedic. COI can be imputed from editing patterns without needing to expose the editor's identity. We would only discuss the editor's identity if they have self-disclosed, as is fairly common. Jehochman Talk 14:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps, but it also seems relevant if an editor is employed by an interested party -- for example, the publisher of a book -- and is using articles to market the book. Knowledge of such employment strengthens the case in ambiguous patterns of editing. Furthermore, "exposing" the editor's employment in such cases does not seem to violate the spirit of WP:OUTING, which appears as part of a more general article on harassment. Perhaps some clarification of the WP:OUTING section in the harassment article to reflect the Conflict of Interest policy would be appropriate. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:41, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Steve here. We need to contemplate the reasoning behind WP:OUTING--what is the point of it?--and determine if that reasoning is applicable to people who are self-promoting. If our rules and guidelines only serve to thwart more important project principles, such as NPOV, then it is time to re-examine them. Outing is verboten because it "places the other person at unjustified and uninvited risk of harm in "the real world" or other media." The question is: if another person is publicly saying things they are also saying on Wikipedia, and it becomes a COI problem, then does the "protection" reasoning behind WP:OUTING still apply? --David Shankbone 15:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Well in this case, it would be self-employment. The problem is that these edits have occurred across different sock accounts over a long period of time, too old for WP:SSP or WP:RFCU. If I made an accusation against the currently-active user name, I could only offer WP:COIN my word that he's a sock, and hope they accept that. But this person is so volatile, I am certain it will lead to a really huge dust-up (in fact that seems to be his strategy around here, grinding down opponents through intimidation or sheer exhaustion). The guy has actually posted his own (ostensibly notable) full name in some articles (but from an IP - when I called him out on this, he outed me, and Oversight-L had to take care of it). He has really built his own trail of evidence, as anyone can do a WHOIS lookup on a web address, but I wasn't sure whether pointing this out might be considered "outing" (it's not as though I've dug up anything private). And finally, a well-established and respected Wikipedian approached me off-Wiki about the matter, but after I told him what I knew, I didn't hear any more about it (perhaps something else hapened behind-the-scenes). Thanks, -- Leo DeVeaux (talk) 16:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

If an employee who is a newcomer to Wikipedia makes the mistake of editing an article about there employer in a biased way, we can revert. We can warn the person about COI. If they are highly persistent, they can be blocked. Outing the person could cause negative publicity for the company and cause the editor to lose their job. That result is too strong for the offense. Jehochman Talk 16:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Let me suggest that rather than blindly reverting when there's an obvious conflict of interest and they're an obvious newbie, that we try one of the following first:
  • Reworking the newbie's edit to remove the COI
  • Initially try an educational approach, rather than a "warning" approach
And, I'm talking about real, genuine, sincere newbies here, rather than bots or professional marketers. A lot of people have their first wikipedia experience because their employer tells them to edit wikipedia. The newbie can't change that. Instead of trying to make these folks' experience difficult for them, and ostracizing them, we should be trying to befriend them and make them wikipedians. Our initial approach to a newbie should be, "How can we make this person a valuable wikipedian?" rather than, "We might need to block this person!"Fredsmith2 (talk) 18:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Our warning template is mellow, see below, and we have Wikipedia:Business' FAQ to provide helpful advice. These can be used as appropriate. Jehochman Talk 18:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

{{uw-coi}}

If you have a close connection to some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

  1. editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
  2. participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors;
  3. linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam);
    and you must always:
  4. avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially neutral point of view, verifiability, and autobiography.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have conflict of interest, please see Wikipedia:Business' FAQ. For more details about what constitutes a conflict of interest, please see Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest. Thank you.

As I suggested above, I've proposed an exemption to the harrassment guidelines to allow posting of limited employment information to demonstrate Conflict of Interest. The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Harassment#Is Revealing Conflict of Interest Harrassment? --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


Issues for those of us accused of COI (& Suffering Off-Wiki Harassment for It!) Reading this section has been helpful (including especially link to harassment) and putting something on the main page would help a lot. Couple points.

  • First, perhaps WP:Privacy could be merge into Wikipedia:OUTING#Posting_of_personal_information which I discovered in this discussion, to avoid confusion or for people with various outing issues, who don’t happen to find the outing article. (I suggested that on that articles talk page too.)
  • I’ve read COI a few times, though this is first time I’ve looked at the talk page. I’ve done so because of my many interests, associations and writings and because a) I’ve done 20-30 hours of web site work over a year period for an individual’s not-for-profit group A, and as a friend I cleaned up and added purely factual material to his wiki page, and b) I do an unpaid weekly blog for associates of not-for-profit group B group whose wiki article was being turned into an attack article. I worked with other anonymous editors to make it more NPOV.
  • Having here discovered Wikipedia:Harassment#Off-wiki_harassment on this page I now realize that the person who has been attacking me viciously off-wiki for (what I believe are NPOV edits) to the group B article probably has been editing the article on group B. A lot of anonymous IPs have worked on it. (Someone who threatened me on COI just started an account name - but complained about a change I made to “his” edit that was not made by him but an anon IP.) I wouldn’t be surprised if this person also has been editing group C article which was turning into another attack article filled with libelous unsourced info til I and other anonymous editors dealt with it. I was smeared off-wiki for those edits too. So guess will have to figure out how one discovers who is doing this stuff to stop them if then continue the harassment, on or off-wiki.
  • Anyway, it would be nice if on Help:Contents the listing of Policy and Guidelines could be expanded a bit. It looks like it’s just one more issue, but it’s got some of the most important issues, including these.

Just my thoughts! Carol Moore 23:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk

The phrase 'conflict of interest' doesn't appear on your talk page, so it does not seem that any Wikipedia editors have raised this officially with you. Is the 'harrassment due to COI' you speak of in your edit summary something that happens to you in your off-wiki activities? EdJohnston (talk)
I do not think WP:PRIVACY should be merged into WP:OUTING (which is actually just a section of WP:Harassment.) They deal with two different, though somewhat related, subjects. PRIVACY is a page of advice to users about protecting their own privacy. All of it, except the last sentence, is about what you might want to post (or not post) about yourself. The last sentence mentions that you should not post personal information about others, but that is really there more as a point of comparison than anything else. It is kind of a "See also", and it does have a link to WP:Harassment (which answers your concern about people not finding it; in fact, I will edit it now to make the reference more explicit). WP:PRIVACY really would not work as a section of WP:Harassment; among other things, PRIVACY is not a guideline at the present time (it has a "proposed" tag, but it is probably more of an essay), while Harassment is tagged as a guideline but, in my opinion, is really more of a policy. 6SJ7 (talk) 04:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

TO: EdJohnston. First, sorry if not clear. The editor I'm having a problem with threatened to report me to an adminstrator for COI on Group A talk page. But after I told him that his sharing info on me he'd drudged up might get him banned ala WP:Privacy, hopefully he backed down. Of course THIS COI/Outing discussion evidently means I might have been wrong. And then once I realized he might be the same person doing the off-wiki harassment of me, I certainly can see the need to be able to report somewhere such personal info, should it be evidence he or some other wiki-editor is the person harassing me offline about my online wiki edits.

TO: 6SJ7 Great addition! Too much to read and understand for it all to sink in! Your additions I think will help others, including those like me who who end up there because "WP:privacy" is the first thing they think of to type in when faced with the problem! :-) Carol Moore 05:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc /talk

Register article

The Register [1] recently reported that past changes to this policy may have been done with ulterior motives by the editor named in said article. I'll leave it up to interested parties to determine if this is the case, but I wanted to make everyone aware of it. Cla68 (talk) 03:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, this is no a policy page but a guideline. Secondly, my last edit to this guideline was around June 2007, that was minor. Thirdly, my contributions to this guideline where discussed thoroughly around October 2006 here. Lastly, I do not think that doing forum shopping helps at all, Cla68, and simply creates drama. You already started a discussion about this at Wikipedia:COI/N#User:Jossi_and_Prem_Rawat. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:24, 7 February 2008

Proposal change: assume good faith, esp. in dispute resolution

I propose a change to the policy that is inappropriate to fail to assume good faith when having a COI and that it is completely inappropriate to try to stop dispute resolution. SeeWikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#User:Jossi_and_Prem_Rawat_2 Andries (talk) 13:56, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

There is already wording about this in the guideline, Andries. Conflict of interest in point of view disputes: Another case is within disputes relating to non-neutral points of view, where underlying conflicts of interest may aggravate editorial disagreements. In this scenario, it may be easy to make claims about conflict of interest. Do not use conflict of interest as an excuse to gain the upper hand in a content dispute. When conflicts exist, invite the conflicted editor to contribute to the article talk page, and give their views fair consideration. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I do not see it. I think you misunderstood my proposal. Andries (talk) 16:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
What I meant to say it is that it is inappropriate to assume bad faith of an editor with an opposing view when having a COI. Andries (talk) 16:05, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
No, we do not legislate common sense. It is already not acceptable to assume bad faith, except when there is evidence of bad faith. This proposal is superfluous instruction creep. Jehochman Talk 16:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
It's worse than that; it appears to be an attempt to get some ambiguous language into a policy/guideline such that it can subsequently be used as ammunition for wikilawyering in some strange personal vendetta. –Henning Makholm 04:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
No, it is to prevent happening a serious problem to Wikipedia again that gave Wikipedia a lot of well-deserved bad publicity in the media. Andries (talk) 04:37, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
But having a COI on a subject and assuming bad faith of editors on the subject with opposing view is I think quite bad behavior. Andries (talk) 16:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
  • However you guys decide to slice it, I would strongly prefer Jossi's opinion on this matter to not be considered, nor the opinion of any of his proteges. --Pax Arcane 17:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Editing and/or creating articles about people you have known or met in real life in a non-promotional way

Would this still be a conflict of interest? I'm curious. Personally I think it would not be if you felt that the person in question was genuinely notable and could reference it to reliable sources, and kept it objective. I believe that it has to be taken on a case-by-case basis, but in cases where an experienced editor feels someone notable that they have met or known in real life is missing or in need of improvement on Wikipedia to write an NPOV, sourced, quality article, that is not "an incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia, and the aims of an individual editor".--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 17:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Experienced editors can write an NPOV treatment of any subject, including those they are close to and including BLP. All COI concerns should be treated on a case by case basis. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)