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RfC on WP:BRIGHTLINE

I've opened an RfC on whether Wikipedia:No paid advocacy (BRIGHTLINE) should become policy. See Wikipedia talk:No paid advocacy. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:16, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Promote to policy

Sorry for the ignorance in this question (although I did just read the last couple of years of archives). Can we discuss promoting this guideline to a policy? Every organization I know has a COI policy that is easy to find and actionable. Let's have one. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 02:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

  • Oppose. I agree with others who have said this guideline ultimately amounts to creating Thoughtcrime on WP. This "cure" is worse than the disease. The guideline should be demoted to essay if not deleted, not promoted to policy! --B2C 02:59, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
I am sorry that might be some kind of short hand, but as I wrote above, COI policies are common governance policies that prevent individuals with access to goods that are not theirs (owned by the public or a corporation) from using them for private inurement. They are about what you do, not what you "think". Can you explain where you are coming from? thx Jytdog (talk) 04:43, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

WITHDRAWN. I want to concentrate the conversation at WP:NOT. Sorry I brought this up here. Jytdog (talk) 04:56, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a good idea, but it's so out of step with the (to put it bluntly) abject stupidity of the "community" on this subject that it is just DOA. Coretheapple (talk) 14:10, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes, what is all the nonsense about "thought crime"? We're talking about preventing paid advocacy, which is inherently fraught with potential NPOV issues.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 15:32, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Something that should be changed for such a discussion: Disclosure for COI policy discussions

  • Proposal: "Any User who participates in discussing changes to WP:COI or any conflict of interest policy or guideline, if the User has been compensated for participating anywhere on Wikipedia, must disclose that the User is or has been so compensated."

Discuss

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Done. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:14, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Agree. It is reasonable and intelligent, and any place but Wikipedia would go almost without saying. This being Wikipedia, which is totally lacking in integrity on such matters, I do not expect this to be adopted. Coretheapple (talk) 18:47, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I would support this change. Right now, I brought an issue to AN about someone actively refusing to do that, and it's turned into a big blowup. The editor we have here from the company thought it was essentially optional to do so. This would, in the end, help these companies know what our expectations are when they come here, and for that, the clearer the better. It would also give us something crystal clear to point to and say "If you are COI, you must disclose." Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:02, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Agree - this is just such common sense that it is implicit in every discussion of COI. Otherwise Wikipedia policy and guidelines could simply be brought by the highest bidder. It's probably already covered in our rules about meatpuppets but it bears repeating in this context. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:51, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Disagree - I couldn't care less about the reasons anyone has for presenting whatever argument they are presenting, including whether those reasons are to earn some money. I hardly pay attention to who is saying what, much less why they are saying it. What I care about about is what they are saying, and how well founded in policy, guidelines and accepted practices are the arguments. WP would be much better off if there was more emphasis on WHAT and much less on WHO and WHY. --B2C 21:29, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
We're talking about creating and changing policy, accepted practice is to reject COI. See, "putting the fox in charge of the hen house." Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Thoughtcrime? We're talking about conflict of interest disclosure not thought crime. The idea is not to be overwhelmed with paid accounts that throw out any reason to disrupt or create a consensus because they gain financially by doing so. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Has that been happening routinely? I think we've been overwhelmed by other problems of greater magnitude than this. We should not be punishing any editor for expressing a wiki-political view. Blocks and bans should never be political. Jehochman Talk 01:56, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
What block or ban? The proposal is for disclosure. That has nothing to do with politics, and why are you changing the subject? Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:02, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
This is a baby step toward improving a guideline, one that is so weak as to be meaningless. How that promotes "thoughtcrime" is beyond me. Coretheapple (talk) 16:31, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment I often contribute to Wikipedia in a marketing role. The initial proposal does not seem to prevent us from commenting, as I am doing here, only that PR reps disclose before doing so. I would consider such a proposal to be extremely obvious and am surprised there is not unambiguous support. It is valuable to have PR reps involved in the discussion to a certain extent, just like government would want to talk to private industries before passing laws that govern them. It would even be valuable to proactively seek input from CIPR, PRSA, and others as Dirk Franke has done as part of the COI project in Germany. However, I can't fathom a good-faith reason for a PR rep to get involved in policy discussions without disclosing. That is more akin to the government putting lobbyists in as members of the house of representatives, rather than making sure their input is thoughtfully considered, but with a healthy distance. I would even go so far as to say I would abstain from commenting entirely if asked. CorporateM (Talk) 14:01, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks - that is exactly it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:06, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment right now I count 7 supports (including the proposer and Corporate M) and 3 opposes, which would be a consensus. There is something missing in the proposal however - where to place the proposed words. I propose that they should go at the very end of the introduction (right before the table of contents) in a separate paragraph. We should wait 24 hours to see if the current consensus holds, and then ask an admin to close this. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:55, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
I would prefer to abstain from actually "voting" for the obvious reasons. CorporateM (Talk) 16:59, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Closing

Three points:

  1. Closing as "successful" because it's quite obvious that there's general agreement with the proposal. I myself tend to disagree with the idea, but it's obviously not "unsuccessful", and we've gotten enough discussion here and enough support for one side that it shouldn't be a "no consensus" close either.
  2. I rarely close discussions, and I can't remember what code we normally use. Anyone should feel free to replace the {{hat}} and {{hab}} templates with standard closing code.
  3. Aside from Smallbones' suggestion, I see no discussion about where to put this requirement. Someone please just put it in wherever it seems to fit; no need to discuss it unless someone disagrees with the placement. Nyttend (talk) 21:45, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm tempted to remove this little section.

  1. Articles don't go before a court, so the statement, "an article that is before the court could cause real-world harm" is inherently nonsensical; WP:PATENT applies.
  2. While it is often unwise for parties to litigation to edit articles related to the litigation, there's no law against it, and no particular reason to single out this particular COI for special mention. A guideline is not the place to give such exceedingly general advice. It's not extraordinary for parties to litigation to speak to the media.

--Elvey (talk) 01:38, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

The phrase "an article that is before the court" clearly means that the article has been brought "before the court" as evidence, not as a party. As in "Your honor, I bring before the court for this Wikipedia edit, which will demonstrate ...." Granted, there are better ways of phrasing this, such as "an article that is used in a court of law could cause real-world harm."
Regarding laws against editing articles related to litigation: In the United States, there may be professional ethics rules that have the force of law in play. There may be court orders in play. While I do not know of any non-US laws that would prohibit litigants from editing Wikipedia articles, I can't say that none exists. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:52, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
The whole section reads "If you are involved in a court case, or you are close to one of the litigants, you should not write about the case, or about a party or law firm associated with the case. Even a minor breach of neutrality in an article that is before the court could cause real-world harm." The entire last sentence should just be deleted. Adds only smoke and the first sentence is plenty clear. Jytdog (talk) 04:56, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Alone, the first sentence would leave an uninformed reader thinking "Why? What's the risk?" and for the uniformed and unimaginative (and possibly arrogant) editor, it may leave them thinking "Why should I do what you say? Who made you boss of me?" Adding an explanation of why such edits must be avoided is important. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:02, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
I've removed the second sentence because the first one alone seems clear enough. I'm not sure what the second sentence means. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:43, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. Thanks. The relative strength of the language is odd. Should not is often seen in common parlance as a polite form of must not, while "[very] strongly discouraged" somewhat implies exceptions will exist. But mostly, it's a matter of opinion as to which is stronger, isn't it? --Elvey (talk) 06:52, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

US Law

We cover German and UK law, but not US law. My reading of the law as laid down by the FTC is that undisclosed paid advocacy is illegal. The FTC issued "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising". The FTCstated (in March 2013) that the Guides

"apply to “any advertising message . . . that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experience of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser . . . .” 9 The Guides refer to advertising without limiting the media in which it is disseminated.
9 16 C.F.R. § 255.0(b)."

My reading of the Guides is that the FTC indicates that a paid editor would be considered an endorser and liable for any false statements she made on wikipedia. Furthermore, the seller is also liable for misrepresentations made through the endorsement. (See Examples 3 and 5 on page 4 at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf.)

Furthermore, per § 255.5, (page 10): The paid position of the editor must be fully disclosed, because it might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), so such CoI disclosure is a legal requirement, but e make no mention of this here! (See Examples 7, 8, and 9 on page 12 at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf.)

I'm not sure we should be adding info on the US law here, to match the UK and German info; doesn't all such info belong in a policy, not a guideline?

I strongly encourage the community to have policy lay out the legal liability issues with such editing. --Elvey (talk) 06:52, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I'l just add that US law applies to everything posted on Wikipedia, per the terms of service (link at the bottom of every page) "Please be aware that you are legally responsible for all of your contributions, edits, and re-use of Wikimedia content under the laws of the United States of America and other applicable laws (which may include the laws where you live or where you view or edit content)." I think something cool, calm and short would work here, and maybe it can be put in a policy later. I suggest:

"All editors are responsible for following U.S. law on undisclosed advertising, which is described by the Federal Trade Commission at Endorsement Guidelines and Dot Com Disclosures"

Unless you hear more here in a couple of days, you should just go ahead and add it - it is completely obvious, but a basic reminder is well-placed here. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:13, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Done. OK with the tweak I made to the beginning: s/All editors/Wikipedia editors worldwide/ ? --Elvey (talk) 19:46, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

If/when the US CoI law issue is laid out in policy, I think a reference to our ToU would be appropriate. Speaking of the ToU, I think you meant to write "(link at the bottom of every edit page)", as that is more accurate. Respect for this law is so central to NPOV & CoI that it merits summarizing the key requirements of the US law, not just referring readers to external documents. --Elvey (talk) 19:46, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Disclosure

It's not clear to me that the disclosure requirement can be met by paid advocates under the FTC's current regs unless we do something pretty radical like create and allow some sort of notification template on article pages to provide the sort of disclosure the FTC legally requires. The FTC is explicit, "If a disclosure is necessary … and it is not possible to make the disclosure clearly and conspicuously, then that ad should not be disseminated. I see past edits of paid advocates as typically meeting the FTC's definition of 'endorsements' requiring clear and conspicuous disclosure. --Elvey (talk) 19:47, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of templates - mostly they just sit there for years and uglify the page. I also don't think it would work as far as making the ads on article pages legal - e.g. in the "clear and conspicuous" part of the DCD they go on about how scrolling the page to get to a disclosure is bad (if not outright banned) and that the disclosure has to be clear and conspicuous on all platforms used, e.g. on mobile phones. Pretty hard to do on Wikipedia.
It's also very unclear how a disclosure would work on a Wikipedia page. For example, say an endorser wrote "XXX corp's products all meet industry safety standards," then a non-paid editor adds "applicable" after "meet," and then another editor writes "according to a November 2009 study." Is the disclosure still going to be accurate? FWIW, my reading of how the minimum disclosure would read would be something like this, (Advert), where the link goes to a page that lists the advertiser and the editor and explains that he's been paid. I don't think any true Wikipedian wants something like that in an article. In short, we'd have to jump through a lot of hoops to make Wikipedia safe for advertisers. I certainly don't want to do that. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:38, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Pardon me for asking this, but these seem to be significant legal questions; who actually is responsible for addressing such issues for Wikipedia?Jytdog (talk) 21:40, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I think you'll find that the WMF legal team can address this type of issue in a limited way only - they can't give advice to editors, only to the WMF (legal profession COI rules), but they can give a synopsis or introduction to what they think are the legal basics of a Wikipedia editing issue. User:Geoffbrigham's talk page might be the place to ask such a question. That said, I'm pretty sure this type of question has been asked (maybe not in the right way - I think you'll find that lawyers can be very specific and limited in the way they answer things) (see User_talk:Geoffbrigham#Your_.22official.22_comment_requested_FTC_requirements_regarding_disclosure_of_conflicts_of_interest). In any case the answer seemed very limited - that the WMF is not liable for anything, that any responsibility falls on the endorsers (paid editors) and the advertising company. But "If a company posts information about its own products or services on Wikipedia (or if an advertiser or marketing agency is being paid to post such information), the connection should be fully disclosed." Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:27, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Really smallbones while I respect your interest in this issue, I think this is a half-baked discussion and we should stay the heck away from speculating about legal issues like this. I cannot believe for a minute that editors would be liable for anything that paid editors do. Jytdog (talk) 23:12, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood, so I just put "paid" in front of "editors", where I had thought it was clearly implied. Non-paid editors would not be liable for what paid editors do, but I must add that "paid" includes receiving things as small as bags of dog food. I don't think I'm speculating on the 2 FTC publications; they are written for the general public/business owners so they are not technical documents. They are pretty long, but that comes from having lots of examples. Please do read them and you'll see what I mean. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:29, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm glad I kicked off this discussion and I think I see the solution… The points you make are valid. I also see that the Legal seems to be shying away from giving advice to paid advocates because it cannot do so; it can't advise editors, period. Despite the broad restrictions that the FTC puts on paid advocacy, I think I see an exception, AKA loophole, that allows paid non-advocacy editing of the kind for which I think there is broad support. The FTC provides examples of paid staff saying things publicly without what they say being considered an endorsement that requires disclosure or notification. (See, for starters, the first 3 examples they provide here.) In other words, paid editors can meet the disclosure requirements if they're not paid advocates, because they don't have to disclose anything, because they're not making what the FTC calls endorsements. If the edit would, OTOH, require disclosure, then it's not appropriate for wikipedia because it IS advocacy. Concisely: What we call paid advocacy and what the FTC call endorsement are the same thing. They are not allowed.--Elvey (talk) 19:04, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

They are not allowed without disclosure and I think it's clear that disclosure would not be possible on an article page without "crapping up the user experience" (to quote a PR guy). The whole document covers lots of unrelated stuff so may be a bit confusing on first reading. The important part is § 255.5 Disclosure of material connections and the best examples under it are numbers 7 and 8. So maybe we could refer directly to them and prohibit that type of activity. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:48, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Edits about a university

Why is it so important that we green-light edits on behalf of a university? Surely the nature of the edits is more important than the type of organisation? It would be better to have policy wording which reflects the general case rather than distracting readers with irrelevant detail about which sector the sponsoring organisation works in. bobrayner (talk) 00:21, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

It's just an uncontroversial example of a benign form of paid editing. A university is used to stress that the edits would be entirely educational. Being paid by a pharmaceutical company to write its history might be benign, especially if they said "go ahead, write whatever you want," but the chances are high that it would not be. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:37, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
What makes the edits "entirely educational" where a warts-and-all history of a pharma company would not be? bobrayner (talk) 04:46, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, perhaps SlimVirgin misemphasized. SV stated "benign form of paid editing", and I concur, if the range of benign-to-malign is:
  • benign: we're promoting the university a little because the football TV money just isn't enough at the moment
  • malign: we're promoting a new drug on FDA fast-track to make billions before all the suing and the recalling
It requires a deft touch to minimize the promo, and keep the attribution of sources clear. Is there a rephrasing you'd prefer, User:Bobrayner? --Lexein (talk) 06:10, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
I fear that may not get us any closer to a solution, since benign edits can come from the private sector and malign edits can come from the educational sector. (It's not hard to find an article on an obscure professor which is full of carefully-maintained praise; I mostly find those on fringe topics). We should focus on what's actually good or bad about the editing, which is why I'd rather use the word organisation, but if you can suggest better wording... bobrayner (talk) 15:22, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
Can anybody give a good reason why this policy should frame university-sponsored editing as acceptable, compared to all that unacceptable editing sponsored by other industries? bobrayner (talk) 20:11, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Clarification of WP:REWARD

I noticed the Wiki-PR fiasco in the news this morning, and it motivated me to come back to Wikipedia to check out some items in a current area of interest of mine -- the history and business of canning. Imagine my surprise when I saw that Wikipedia has an article about Silgan Holdings, but when I clicked "What links here", I saw that one of the few inbound links was from Wikipedia:Reward board? Apparently a Wikipedia administrator SGGH accepted $75 to write the article about the business. Is this acceptable under the conflict of interest policy? Certainly it is "paid editing", but is it "paid advocacy editing" (as I see Jimmy Wales naming the problem)? Some clarification of this particular case would be welcome. -- I'm not that crazy (talk) 13:08, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Very nicely, the above user linked me to the discussion. I have no issue with anyone raising it. As I've mentioned to the user who put the reward on the rewards page (admittedly this was by email), I've done this because I think the whole idea of paid editing is an interesting, but contentious, topic. I've been planning to weigh in to the discussion but I wanted to investigate more before I did so. Thus, to see if I could, I took up the challenge and tried to produce an uninteresting, non-advertisment-style article. I plan to give the funds to charity, if I can work out how to (I'm a UK citizen and it will be a UK based charity, and the "payer" is a US citizen).
I'm happy to debate the issue - and I was thinking of putting the article to a WikiProject on companies to see if they think it passes neutrality and notability policies. I am curious enough about the issue that I wanted to see what would happen. I certainly don't care one jot about the topic (never heard of them!). I think it's an interesting debate. Thoughts? --S.G.(GH) ping! 13:21, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
If the whole thing is about a reward board edit - it looks like a tempest in a teapot. 2 further notes: WP:Bounty board looks like it will be deleted (no great loss - it was more myth than reality. How's the Reward board doing?). Also, if you really wrote "an uninteresting, non-advertisment-style article", I'll bet you get stiffed! Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:45, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

"very strongly discouraged" versus "must not"

I guess Wikipedia_talk:No_paid_advocacy should have addressed that issue, but I had problems opening that page. I want to mention a difference between this page and Wikipedia:No paid advocacy

This page says:

"If either of the following applies to you:.[....]then you are very strongly discouraged from editing Wikipedia in areas where those external relationships could reasonably be said to undermine your ability to remain neutral."

While No paid advocacy says:

"Editors with a financial conflict of interest (such as business owners and public-relations professionals acting on their behalf) must not edit affected articles directly."

Well, how bad do people think editing with conflict of interest (especially financially) is? I am quite new with this issue, so please let me know more.--朝鲜的轮子 (talk) 14:21, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

"He who pays the piper calls the tune." A financial COI is very serious. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:31, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Contradiction to WP:SOAP

It tells: "Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing...". This must be changed because any advocacy and "advocates" (no matter paid or not) are forbidden, not discouraged, according to WP:SOAP. My very best wishes (talk) 17:44, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Not true actually. WP:SOAP is about content; this is about contributor. Your change bans a contributor who has a COI from making even the most perfectly well sourced and NPOV edit to a relevant page. WP:SOAP only forbids POV editing. Quite different! Jytdog (talk) 18:16, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
No, it was not simply a contributor with a COI, but a paid advocate, which is something quite different. However, I self-reverted. Actually, I can agree that they should be allowed to edit everything if they disclose that they work on behalf of someone else, and especially an external PR organization.My very best wishes (talk) 18:38, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I hear you on the difference b/n COI and paid advocate... sorry for being sloppy. Glad you see the point about the difference with SOAP. Jytdog (talk) 18:42, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Quoting Sue Gardner

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


Sue does nothing but to mention wikipedia's long established practice and this guideline (created long before her by wide wikipedia community). Hence her statement cannot be base of this very policy: it would be circular logic (and akin to Al Gore's invention of the internets).

At best the text may be rephrased somewhere in the descriptive part, explicitly saying that Sue conveyed our policy to wide piblic and not that we are doing this because Sue said it is a Good Thing. Even better, this phrase may be added to some wikipedia articles about wikipedia, its community and policies. Staszek Lem (talk) 04:44, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Following the above logic, A replaced the intto ref to WMF with:

The Wikimedia Foundation, following the consensus of the Wikipedia community, finds it extremely problematic

because:

  • (a) "black hat" is slang and name calling. "finds it extremely problematic" is factual and plain English
  • (b) Wikipedia community finds is problematic for quite some long time. WMW merely voices the consensus. I.e., it is not written it the WMF terms of use,nor WMF is the one who introduced the idea. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:56, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
No. It's not Sue speaking so much as it's the WMF speaking; Sue's statement was a Press Release from the Office of the Executive Director - and should be/have been identified as such. If "black hat" is name calling, the WMF is engaging in name calling. As a non-native speaker, English subtleties, such as the strength of "black hat" vs "extremely problematic" may be lost on you. The latter is stronger, hence the separate sentence offering it. To the extent that they differ, she spoke on behalf of the WMF, not the community. Any question as to what "We" refers to is laid to rest by the last line of the press release. Correcting citation. (edit:SlimVirgin beat me to it) --Elvey (talk) 18:16, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
This is a policy of wikipedia community, not WMF. Opinions of WMF are already duly noted in the intro. Repeating it in the the policy itself is undue weight of a small group of bureaucrats. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:59, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Staszek, I don't follow your point about circular reasoning. The executive director of the WMF made a statement that the WMF regards paid advocacy on WP as a "black hat" practice. It's appropriate to let people who read this policy know what the Foundation's position is. (And "black hat" doesn't mean "extremely problematic.) We do the same on the BLP policy and we used to do it on the NPOV policy (and may still). SlimVirgin (talk) 18:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, this is a policy created by wikipedia community for wikipedia community. In the statement of the policy it is irrelevant what Barack Obama or Sue Gardner think about it. We already saw her words at the top of the text. As I said, it is OK to have their opinions in a preamble or in post-mortem, but not in the body of the policy itself. If Barack and Sue have something to contribute for wikipedia, let them come as regular wikipedians and join the discussion right here. Only Jimbo's words were unconditionally translated into policy, and only when he was God Benevolent Dictator. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:41, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
About circular reasoning: the current policy is the expression how wikipedia community sees paid editing. This opinion of the community was succintly expressed by Sue in her press release (if it were not, we'd have had a huge outcry already, the kind what happened with visual edotor) A press release about a wikipedia guideline cannot be a component of the guideline. What's so unclear about this? Staszek Lem (talk) 22:57, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm a very well read and well educated native born 'Merican, and when I first read that quote I thought to myself, "some kind of bad guy, i reckon" The term "black hat" does not have a crystal clear common meaning in common culture. (maybe it does among web geeks.. I don't know) What does it mean, to you all who find its meaning obvious? I am curious if you even think the same thing.... Jytdog (talk) 20:05, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, it looks like I am not the only stupid person here after all. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:41, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

More about "black hat": Sorry to say, but it seems Sue does not have a clue what she was talking about. Paid editing is not about malice. Advocacy is not malice: it is everyday life: it is one of freedoms to put forth their opinions. The fact that wikipedia refuses to be a forum does not make people with opinions bad. There is no reason to vilify paid editors in order to disallow them or severely restrict them. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:41, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Terms of use is Wikipedia policy and the Foundation through its executive director is a reliable source for what they mean. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:59, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Exactly the circular reasoning I am talking about: a source which describes our policy cannot be a reference for the body of our policy: "A says the policy B declares C is bad. Policy B declares C is bad because A says so". Staszek Lem (talk) 15:59, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
No. The purpose of this guideline is to elaborate what policy means, with respect to COI. A reliable source for what relevant policy means is thus appropriate. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:23, 1 November 2013 (UTC)


Staszek Lem continues to remove the statement and ref from the body of the article, which is breaking the ref in the lead. He reverts when this is restored or fixed. The BLP policy cites the statement the Foundation made about BLP issues. I don't see what the difference is here. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:02, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
There does not appear to be any basis for removal; the User is not a reliable source. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:16, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
What a weird statement about wikipedia policy. I, as a member of wikipedia community, is equally reliable source as user:Sue Gardner for the purposes of shaping this policy. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:59, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
No. The Pedia has policy under the Foundation's auspices. The Foundation is RS for that not you or me, or Sue, if she was just speaking as a User, but here, she is speaking for the Foundation, as its properly appointed and confirmed representative, within her obligation to do so. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:05, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
No. Wikipedia policy is policy wor Wikipeida community to the extent it does not contradict WMF Terms of Use. If you think differently, I suggest you to read history about undercooked Visual Editor which WMF tried to push through our throats. If tomorrow WMF decides Section Headers Be Capitalized, do you think wikipedia community quickly changes their Manual of Style? Staszek Lem (talk) 17:29, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Visual editor is not policy. It is a technical means and if the Foundation decided it was the only technical means then everyone would have to deal with that. The COI guideline is explaining what COI means in conformance with policy, including the terms of use. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:35, 1 November 2013 (UTC)


I agree. Does anyone else have a view on this? It's about restoring the text removed in this edit. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, you should know better than pushing changes into a policy by means of revert war without reaching consensus for change in talk page. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:49, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Staszek, I've removed the header with my name in it; I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't restore it. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

It looks like I'm the 4th editor to revert S Lem's very questionable removal of text, and the removal of a reference. There looks like 1 possible editor supporting him here. I don't mind Lem discussing this further and seeing if he can get some support, but I absolutely freak out when somebody deletes a footnote. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:41, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

This not a wikipedia article. A policy of the whole wikipedia community is based on one big implicit footnote, which reads thusly: <ref>This is a consensus of wikipedia community</ref>. And the tradition of wikipedia work with policies is that is a new text is questioned, it is not inserted into a policy until the consensus is reached. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:59, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, if you insist that an opinion of a small board which far from being always right is to be singled out among the work of the whole wikipedia community, who am I to fight this when you don't respond to my arguments and just revert me? Good luck with selecting a new prophet for wikipedia. It is ironic that a policy about paid advocacy is to be based on an opinion of a paid body. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:35, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There are two terms in use with respect to which the meanings conveyed by "black hat practice" can be inferred. The first is "black ops", which relates to subversion and espionage, black hats being worn to conceal one's identity. The second is black hat hacking.
In short, it is associated with a covert activity that includes subversive aims.
A non-native speaker of English making such outlandish assertions accomplishes nothing but creating another unnecessary demand on others' time and effort. And what about the accusation

...it seems Sue does not have a clue what she was talking about. Paid editing is not about malice. Advocacy is not malice: it is everyday life: it is one of freedoms to put forth their opinions.

he makes?--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 16:20, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
This non-native speaker says that paid advocacy per se may be neither covert nor subversive. Heck, the whole American policy is about lobbying, right? Sometimes lobbying is legal, sometimes not. And if a very native English speaker thinks lobbying is always malice, then it is political opinoin, duly noted (an I think shared by much of American population). Staszek Lem (talk) 16:58, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
P.S. I would suggest the very well English speaking colleague to update the dab page Black hat with his opinion about the term (provided they have good refs to support it). Staszek Lem (talk) 17:04, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

AFAIK wikipedia is inclined to forbid paid editing because in the case of malice it will great waste of resource to fight it, not because it is always malice. I am willing to extend WP:AGF unto paid editors, but I am equally willing to severely restrict them. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:56, 1 November 2013 (UTC)


Let's start is afresh.

All the bickering above failed to address my main objection: is it true or false that the following construct is a logical fallacy?

  • A says the community considers C bad.
  • Community considers C bad because (in part) A says so.

I don't mind the presence of the opinions of Sue Gardner or Barack Obama or Al Gore in any description of our policy (e.g., in the lede), but I strongly object presenting their opinion in the definition of our policy, because I think the above reasoning is fallacious. Please prove that I am wrong.

It will be OK if WMF includes a statement about paid advocacy into their Terms of Usage and therefore the POV of WMF becomes defining for wikipedia policy. In this case the correct footnote would be to the WMF ToU.

Still, historically it will be important to note that the opinion of wikipedia community about paid editing predates the opinion of WMF by years and objections to these are of the same gist as objections to advertising in wikipedia: loss of freedom and independence. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:59, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

  • The situation is that the community says X is bad, and the body that oversees the direction of the community says X is bad; and that those views become mutually reinforcing over time. This is normal and it has nothing to do with logic; rather, it's about the evolution of an idea. The same thing happened with the development of the BLP policy. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:17, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
    • I don't see any "evolution". I see "acceptance". Wikipedia developed the policy, WMF supported it. I can see that the fact that WMF supported the policy reinforces it, but this must be said clearly: "WMF supports wikipedia community in that..." in the introduction. Otherwise it is like Al Gore invented internet. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:02, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
    • In my opinion, WMF does not oversee the wikipedia community. If it thinks so, it is usurping of power. The only power of WMF is in its Terms of Use. If I am mistaken, and WMF has a right to arbitrarily intervene into wikipedia policies by means of press releases, please cite the corresponding wikipedia rule, and I will shut up. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:02, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Since nobody else shares my opinion, I am willing to attribute it to my paranoia :-) and close this thread. Sorry for disturbance. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:14, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Getting paid by the "community"

We tend to dislike getting paid by a specific organization or individual, for relatively obvious reasons. At the same time we seem to accept and even endorse GLAM volunteers such as Wikipedians-in-Residence at museums or such, presumably because we assume that non-profits who hire them are "the good guys". For that reason I also assume that we are ok with this interesting initiative - gathering funds for Wikipedia contributions via Kickstarter ([1], [2]). If you agree, I'd like to add the Wikipedian-in-Residence example to WP:PAID. I am not sure how to write up the Kickstarter idea, but it may be worth discussing the feasibility and impact on this if this idea catches up in the long run. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:59, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

The original post was on Gamasutra - thanks for posting about it here. The images are of good quality, and the CC-BY-SA licenses are valid for all the ones I checked. Asking to be funded to buy hardware in order to photograph it (the Kickstarter proposal) is fine with me, because it has nothing directly to do with Wikipedia. He has, so far, created neutral, uniform, detailed, non-promotional, novel and explanatory photographic content, not prose. I think he might have been able to secure some funding from WMF just for expenses to fund the photography, but not for purchasing the equipment. He'll be licensing the images freely, and uploading to Commons and the Internet Archive, apparently. He specifically states in a couple of places: "Money collected only goes to building an archive of hardware" or words to that effect. For these reasons:
  1. I would support using the photos from the project in articles.
  2. I personally would not cite the prose on the photo archive pages proposed, because A) it will likely be derived from Wikipedia and B) the author is not yet a published author.
  3. I would oppose WP:OR adding descriptions of hardware based on the photos - those descriptions still have to come from WP:RS, in my opinion.
So, with the last two provisos, I think that any COI worries should be minimal. Note that some will think the photos will constitute promotion of the hardware archive, even if it's a non-profit, because it will be owned by an individual Evan-Amos; they will then campaign on that basis to remove all the photos ever done by this photographer; this would be tragic. --Lexein (talk) 07:47, 2 November 2013 (UTC)


question about citing oneself

I'm having trouble determining what to do, if anything, about an account that seems to only exist to add references to his own academic papers/books. It doesn't appear particularly egregious so asking here seems more appropriate than the noticeboard. Specifically, I noticed this diff which came up on my watchlist, Dbaronov adding a citation (presumably his own work).

Looking at his contributions, the only edits made were to add references to his work in 10 different articles (from topics like the one on positivism, linked above, to Slavery in Brazil. The sources don't appear to be self-published and seem to be at least relevant to the articles in question, but it does seem somewhere between WP:SELFCITE, and WP:SELFPROMOTE to add mere references without actually adding to the article (i.e. no inline citations, just the book listed at the end). Does that count as "excessive"? Would it be worse to add the book and cite it in context?

  • on a related note, they appear to link to pdfs of scanned copyrighted works -- but that's a topic for another page.
  • To be clear, I'm not looking for anyone to take action re: this user. I'm just realizing that I don't know quite what -- if anything -- to tell him, because the text on WP:COI doesn't seem to have anything bad to say about what he's doing.
  • if this has been covered repeatedly already, I apologize. I'll take your lack of response as a hint that I need to do a better job searching :)

--Rhododendrites (talk) 15:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps he should read Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:27, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Indeed, that too. But if someone were to respond that it's not self-promotion to add relevant sources to articles (he could even point to WP:SELFCITE for support)... --Rhododendrites (talk) 00:00, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Giving this a bump (to the extent Wikipedia works that way :) ) because the same user added another couple citations: 1 2. I started to leave him a message but stopped again, realizing once I said "read these" there was no real cause for him to do anything differently based on current wording. --Rhododendrites (talk) 17:26, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

  • Well, Mike Christie has shown that contacting the user regardless of specific rules is probably the best practice (by doing just that and promptly being thanked for it). Nonetheless, I'm still curious what people think about this practice and how it fits into WP:COI. --Rhododendrites (talk) 20:47, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

COI templating bot

From Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Conflict_of_Interest_templating_bot,

Per a VPR COI Template discussion, six weeks ago a trial of 500 insertions of the Conflict of Interest template has been made. The bot is coded up and ready to go. Now's the time to decide if the template ought to be applied more widely. I come seeking consensus: ought this bot task be undertaken more widely? Josh Parris 06:06, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Please comment at the bot request. Currently, of the 500 pages to which the bot added the tag, there have been "...at least two requested edits made by clicking on links in the bot added notice, see Special:WhatLinksHere/User:Theo's_Little_Bot/coi_tracker/bot. You can find the requested edits on the linked talkpages doing a cmd/ctrl-F for 'The above requested edit was made by clicking on a link in an automatically added'." Theopolisme (talk) 15:29, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Photographers and conflict of interest

Is it a conflict of interest for a photographer to add their photos on Wikipedia articles or specifically produce new photos for adding them on specific Wikipedia articles? Cogiati (talk) 22:36, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Only if there is an obvious promotional aspect, or if the addition violates the WP:Neutral point of view policy. Binksternet (talk) 22:50, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Which I think is a case. --Niemti (talk) 23:04, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Niemti it isn't, why do you think so? The photos have no watermark, there is not even a link to my site or even my Flickr on the photo description, and I don't even say my photographer name, I only contribute the photos using my Wikipedia name. The filenames also have no indication about who the photographer even is. The only way someone can link the photo to me is through the "own work" indication on the photo description and if they want to learn who the photographer really is they have to send me a message and ask me on Wikipedia (I don't even include my e-mail!). How on earth can it be promotional, then? Or should it not even say that User:Cogiati made the photo? I wonder whether the fact that you also make cosplay photos could explain your behavior. Cogiati (talk) 23:30, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Definitely not. We encourage professional photographers to donate their work. As long as the photographs have no watermarks and the file names are not promotional, there generally should not be a problem. Of course, the photographs should be an accurate representation of reality and relevant to the article. For example, I spent some time removing photos of "beachfront properties" from place articles a few months ago as they were obviously inserted at the behest of a real estate company. --NeilN talk to me 23:14, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
I see there is a discussion at Talk:Tira (Soulcalibur) about cosplay photos in articles about characters. I think cosplay images are not automatically relevant to character. The relevant guideline is WP:UNDUE. To get past the due weight challenge, there should be some widely known case of someone dressing up as the character, as reported in third party media. I think cosplay images should be in the cosplay article, of course; otherwise they should just be galleries in Wikimedia Commons. Binksternet (talk) 23:19, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Removing a photo because of the photo itself is cool and I *expect* other editors to make sure added photos are relevant or useful if there is a reason for them to be removed. The issue is, I don't think that the identity of the photographer or uploader should influence editors whether to remove a photo. The focus should be on the photo and its use and usefulness. But User:Niemti also reasoned that it is a conflict of interest because the photo was added by the photographer, which isn't a good reasoning I think. Cogiati (talk) 23:40, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Regarding the specific article, though, I keep believing it should contain cosplay photos of the character. I tried adding one photo taken by me, after after it was removed I added another photo taken by another photographer which was also removed. I consider it important information to show the cultural impact of a character and if people cosplay the character then apparently the character has a cultural impact. But that's an issue for the article as the discussion is about other things rather than COI. I also wonder whether it is a conflict of interest if someone removes someone else's picture when both editors have taken similar pictures. At the first time the picture was removed simply because the contributor was the photographer, I believe. Cogiati (talk) 23:48, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Your assertion that cosplay is an important element of the character must be judged case-by-case per character, using third party reliable sources. If cosplay is proved important via reliable sources then an image might be fitted into the article. Binksternet (talk) 00:23, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
I usually go with the assumption that it's better to include more information rather than not include it, because someone might find it useful somehow, and then I try to imagine if a piece of information would be useful to me. I'd surely expect from an encyclopedia to tell me whether a character is being used in cosplays and I'd find it an important omission if I couldn't find this sociological information. This info doesn't need to be in the specific article though, for example it could be in a list of characters used for cosplays and linked from the article. Regarding the UNDUE concern, I'd say it should be a question of where to include a piece of information rather than whether to include it, and I wouldn't remove something if it wasn't already in another article. I once had a paid subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica and I stopped using it because they weren't including much info, really, I remember searching for some members of the free software and open-source software movement and not finding anything while Wikipedia had articles on them (even though some were marked with the notability tag, but at least an editor had thought about adding the info), so Wikipedia won in my eyes because it covered more obscure topics with more trivia info. Cogiati (talk) 01:24, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
I believe the house is built best with good lumber rather than with questionable lumber. I think articles should be as concise as possible, with as little extraneous information as possible. The UNDUE question is about whether to have any kind of cosplay image at all. There should be a steep barrier to having a cosplay image: the importance of cosplay should be proved by third party WP:SECONDARY sources. Binksternet (talk) 06:14, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Good lumber is surely better than questionable lumber, but whether questionable lumber is better than no lumber at all depends on what one wants to create; in my view I'd prefer questionable lumber to no lumber at all as long as the questionable lumber was tagged as such. Now, regarding sources, this cosplay character was the focus of an MTV television interview, perhaps it could be used as a secondary source to show that the character has been used for cosplay, but a source supporting the importance of the cosplay use of the character would probably be better sought in statistics or lists of most-favorite or most often cosplayed characters. Finding such a source, if it exists, would probably be better left to a cosplay expert so I guess I better seek advice from a relevant wiki project like e.g. the comics or the videogames wikiprojects so I'll ask there if they know something. Cogiati (talk) 04:28, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, Cogiati, I'll tell you when "cosplay is an important element of the character", as evidenced in the article: Mai Shiranui#Cosplay and modeling (this is possibly the best example to bring right now). And I hope you understand now. --Niemti (talk) 08:13, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh and another example: Jade (Mortal Kombat)#Cosplay and criticism. Now go and compare with Tira (Soulcalibur) where the word "cosplay" isn't even mentioned. maybe it;'s an overlooked aspect or whatever, and you're free to add it if you find reliable sources, but right now there's nothing. --Niemti (talk) 08:18, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation sends cease and desist letter to WikiPR

Please see the relevant WP:AN discussion: WP:AN#WMF cease and desist against WikiPR. Thanks Ross Hill (talk) 21:09, 19 Nov 2013 (UTC) 21:09, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

For those looking for this a few weeks from now, you can find the first few comments of the WP:AN discussion in this edit and you can find the Wikimedia blog post at Wikimedia Foundation sends cease and desist letter to WikiPR. The actual cease-and-desist letter can be found here. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
What I've not found yet is the written prohibition against paid advocacy. I would be much indebted to the editor who could identify the relevant section of the Terms of Use document. Jehochman Talk 22:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
The letter specifically C&D's the actions of sockpuppetry, which is identifed in the TOS as "Attempting to impersonate another user or individual, misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity, or using the username of another user with the intent to deceive;" --MASEM (t) 23:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Good luck proving that violation in court. If WMF is sure paid advocacy is prohibited, they should come out and say so, loudly and proudly, in the terms of service. It's just stupid to beat around the bush. Jehochman Talk 01:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Read the letter. They absolutely do dance around the issue that paid advocacy is not listed at TOS, but active and purposeful sockpuppetry is. They also point out that their TOS require users to adhere to bans placed by individual projects, pointing to the resolution made here (en.wiki) on WikiPR. Thus, should they continue to engage in socking as part of their paid advocacy process, they are clearly violating TOS (hence why a C&D, as to see if they stop). --MASEM (t) 02:58, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
So then the issue is ban evasion. They can be sued for ban evasion, which is a violation of Terms of Use. The paid editing is not forbidden in Terms of Use. We should be clear. Jehochman Talk 13:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for posting that, it's good to know that WMF is proactively addressing this conundrum.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 22:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

What about political conflicts of interest?

Is it ok to edit articles about political opponents? Is it ok for government agencies to edit articles about opposition groups? Is it ok for employees of government agencies to edit articles critical of their agency or government? Is it ok to try to prevent reliably sourced but politically embarrassing or confidential material from being posted on Wikipedia? Is it ok to edit articles about critics of your policies, industry or business? Ghostofnemo (talk) 04:31, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I see editing about anything that would impact your career or reputation or that of someone close to you as coming under COI rules. The same goes for anything you hold on so tightly that it can cause you to edit with an seriously-NPOV agenda without you even being aware of it, such as a political ideology that you believe in so strongly that you are an "activist" within that ideology (e.g. you are a campaign volunteer).
That doesn't mean such edits can't be done. For example, COI-impacted editors can and should remove unsourced defamatory BLP-related material and can make certain non-content-related edits like correcting spelling. As far as edits related to their agency or government, they need to be careful. If they are editing in an area unrelated to their job and if there employment status were known it wouldn't be perceived as a conflict of interest then it's okay. For example, in most cases a US Parks Department employee can edit articles about the NASA. In some cases he may even be able to write about the US Parks Department but he needs to be careful and should declare his COI. However, he should not make significant contributions to areas related to his job or the jobs of any of his supervisors at least several levels up. Likewise, he should avoid writing about projects and people in those jobs. HOWEVER, hypothetically, the President of the United States was thought to be encouraging or rewarding employees to edit government-related articles, then in my mind that would create a perceived conflict of interest, which would mean all Government employees and possibly even contractors and employees and contractors of quasi-government agencies would be unable to edit US-government-topic-related Wikipedia pages without doing so under the COI guidelines.
As far as Is it ok to try to prevent reliably sourced but politically embarrassing ... material from being posted on Wikipedia? I would say WP:BLP, WP:Undue weight, and WP:Neutral point of view come into play, but conflicts of interests must be disclosed. In general, if it's a high-traffic page, COI editors should ask on the talk page and wait at least a few hours after unilaterally taking action. If there is dead silence for a few hours, reverting the change then stating on the talk page what you did and inviting reverting and discussion would be the next step. For lower-traffic pages, extend that from a few hours to a few days.
As far as Is it ok to try to prevent reliably sourced but ... confidential material from being posted on Wikipedia? if it hasn't been published or the publication has been retracted, it is not a reliable source your question does not apply. If it has been published in a reliable source then it is no longer confidential and your question does not apply.
davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:17, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Shouldn't this be mentioned in the policy? You could have government employees editing Wikipedia articles as part of their job duties, in order to spin articles in a certain direction or to delete material they consider to be embarrassing or politically undesirable. You could have political candidates or their staff posting dirt about their opponents in their opponents' Wikipedia articles. You could have interest groups trying to spin articles in a certain direction. If editors with political conflicts of interest made up a majority of the editors, they could control the content of articles. Ghostofnemo (talk) 01:36, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Re: Shouldn't this be mentioned in the policy?: I assume you mean the COI guideline. If you are referring to one of Wikipedia's actual policies, disregard what I'm about to say and state which policy you mean.
In any case, guidelines (and policies, for that matter) don't need to explicitly cover every possible instance, as long as their meaning is clearly understood.
If there is significant confusion over whether the above examples are covered by this guideline and there is a consensus that they are, perhaps adding the text would be appropriate. If there is no confusion, then adding the text would just be text-bloat. If there is not a consensus, then it should NOT be in the text and in fact there may be a need to add text saying that there is a dispute over whether the specific instances that I mentioned are are covered at all. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 15:10, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Here's an idea: Write a companion WP:User essay which outlines these then try to get that promoted to status and add it to the "see also" section of this guideline. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 15:30, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Well, I would simply propose that in the section "Categories of COI on Wikipedia" and additional category be added: Political - "Editors should not edit articles in which they have a political conflict of interest. Examples include 1) government employees editing articles about their agencies, government, or political party, or articles about their political opponents, opposition groups, or about controversial political topics, especially with the intent of slanting or spinning an article in a manner that is politically advantageous to their employer; 2) political candidates editing articles about their electoral opponents; 3) deleting reliably-sourced, relevant material written in a neutral point of view from articles to protect the political interests of your party or government." Ghostofnemo (talk) 08:18, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
You are going too far here. That is like saying nobody who is an American should participate in the developing of articles like Barack Obama if they belong to a political party (which is a conflict of interest) or if they voted for him or not. Heck, simply end it by saying they simply can't edit an article like that if they are American. There reaches a level of absurdity to suggestions like this. You need to be aware of conflicts of interest, but if this policy is followed to a logical conclusion of banning editors simply for participation in articles of this nature when they have a political viewpoint of any kind, it is essentially saying that nobody can edit (or only people with no political viewpoint of any kind). Let's be realistic here. We need to acknowledge that political biases can show up, but that we need to work to make the article neutral in spite of these conflicts. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:50, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't taking it to that extreme. If I work for the FBI, I shouldn't be editing the Occupy movement article. And if I'm a campaign worker for Barack Obama, I shouldn't be editing the article about Mitt Romney. I don't see how the proposal above could be construed in the manner you are suggesting. Ghostofnemo (talk) 00:28, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I was bold, and added a modified version of my proposal to the project page. Ghostofnemo (talk) 00:53, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't oppose your addition, but I can see that this page would get very long if we were to try to list every potential COI. Gigs (talk) 18:25, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Board BLP amended resolution -strengthen and re-confirmed

I was glad to see that the Board of Trustees recently strengthened and reconfirmed its "BLP resolution", the foundation of our BLP policy. See [3] In most ways this was simply an extension of BLP protection to images, and a clarification that that is what they meant all along. But I was pleased to see that in both versions they addressed paid editing in the same language.

"Many people create articles that are overly promotional in tone: about themselves, people they admire, or those they are paid to represent. These are not neutral, and have no place in our projects." Resolution:Media about living people, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, 2013

I'll suggest that we include this quote in the section on paid editing together with some strengthening language in the guideline itself, such as "Paid editors who insert material into an article that is promotional in tone may be presumed to be violating our policy on neutrality, and thus banned." I'll also suggest that this makes our paid advocacy section sound pretty wishy-washy. I'll suggest specific language in a few minutes, but something like "Any and all advocacy is prohibited by our policy WP:NOT. In particular advertising, promotion, public relations, and marketing are specifically prohibited. All prohibitions on paid editing also apply to paid advocacy."

Specifics will follow. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:23, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Moved comments to below the suggested changes

Moved to Talk:Serpentine Galleries

Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:18, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Suggested changes and bolding in the original both in bold

Financial

"Many people create articles that are overly promotional in tone: about themselves, people they admire, or those they are paid to represent. These are not neutral, and have no place in our projects." Resolution:Media about living people, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, 2013

Shortcuts

Paid editing is the practice of accepting money to edit Wikipedia. Paid editors who insert material that is promotional in tone into an article may be presumed to be violating our policy on neutrality. This may lead to the editor being blocked.

The act of accepting money or rewards for editing Wikipedia is not always problematic. There may be benign examples of editors being paid – for example, a university asking you to write up its warts-and-all history. Another benign example is the reward board, a place where editors can post financial and other incentives: it is a transparent process, the goal of which is usually to raise articles to featured- or good-article status (but be wary of editors asking you to make edits that challenge your sense of neutrality). If you intend to participate in this kind of paid editing, transparency and neutrality are key. Editing in a way that biases the coverage of Wikipedia or that violates our core policies is not acceptable.

Shortcuts

Paid advocacy – that is, being paid to promote something or someone on Wikipedia – is a subset of paid editing. All advocacy is prohibited by our policy WP:NOT. In particular advertising, promotion, public relations, and marketing are specifically prohibited. All rules on paid editing also apply to paid advocacy. Any apparent paid advocacy, apparent violation of U.S. law on covert advertising (see below) or presumed violations of WP:NPOV may result in the editor being blocked.'"

Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, wrote in October 2013 that the Foundation regards paid advocacy as a "black hat" practice that "violates the core principles that have made Wikipedia so valuable for so many people."[1]

If either of the following applies to you:

  1. 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), or
  2. you expect to derive monetary or other benefits or considerations from editing Wikipedia (for example, by being an owner, officer, or other stakeholder of an organization; or by having some other form of close financial relationship with a topic you wish to write about),

then you are very strongly discouraged from editing Wikipedia in areas where those external relationships could reasonably be said to undermine your ability to remain neutral. If you have a financial connection to a topic – including, but not limited to, as an owner, employee, contractor or other stakeholder – you are advised to refrain from editing affected articles directly. You may use the article talk pages to suggest changes, or the {{request edit}} template to request edits, and should provide full disclosure of your connection. Requested edits are subject to the same editorial standards as any other, and may not be acted upon. The writing of "puff pieces" and advertisements is prohibited.

Laws against covert advertising

Shortcuts
United States Federal Trade Commission

All editors are expected to follow United States law on undisclosed paid advocacy, which is described by the Federal Trade Commission at Endorsement Guidelines and Dot Com Disclosures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smallbones (talk • contribs)

Comments

I disagree. The "and thus banned" statement goes too far and the "also apply to paid advocacy" statement belongs elsewhere.
  • "Paid editors who insert material into an article that is promotional in tone may be presumed to be violating our policy on neutrality, and thus banned."
    This goes too far on two accounts: First, violating article-content-related policies typically don't automatically make you ban-eligible, or if they does, a ban is rarely imposed on a first offense. Second, it can blindside those who are ignorant of policy. In Wikipedia, we try not to bite new editors and except in egregious cases (e.g. vandalism-only accounts) or when certain legal issues arise (e.g. making legal threats) we give new editors at least one warning before imposing anything more serious than a short-term block.
    Better wording would be:
    "Like all editors, paid editors who insert material into an article that is obviously promotional in tone may be presumed to be violating our policy on neutrality. Editors who violate Wikipedia policies are likely to have their edits reverted and/or be warned in other ways. Those who persistently or blatantly violate Wikipedia polices may be warned or sanctioned and those who do so repeatedly after being warned or sanctioned may be banned."
  • "Any and all advocacy is prohibited by our policy WP:NOT. In particular advertising, promotion, public relations, and marketing are specifically prohibited. All prohibitions on paid editing also apply to paid advocacy."
    There is no need to explicitly single out paid advocacy as a sub-category of paid editing in a document directed at those who might be editing for pay. If anything, a small line to this effect can be added to WP:NOTPROMOTION reminding readers of that document that those who are paid to promote are not just violating WP:NOTPROMOTION but also the rules against paid editing. It may be help to add a section to any document directed specifically to paid editors that some forms of editing, such as promotional editing, are already prohibited and those who make promotional edits for pay are violating not only the rules against paid editing but also the rules against promotional editing, just as much as if they made the identical edit without compensation.
davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I obviously disagree with davidwr. A major problem has been that paid editors have said that they don't believe that this "guideline" is a "rule" and thus they can ignore it. The Board of Trustees has stated, and now restated, that promotional articles by paid editors are not neutral and have no place on Wikipedia. We need to make that perfectly clear to paid editors, simply informing them that this conduct is not allowed. As far as any banning or punishment goes, of course we do not jump in and ban on sight, but we need to inform them that the rule here is a policy WP:NPOV, for which they may be banned.

David goes on about the many procedures that we will take in the case that a paid editor breaks the policy. Of course we have procedures that apply whenever anybody breaks a policy, but we do not confuse the issue by repeating at length the procedures while we are trying to describe the policy. Those procedures (but not piling procedures on top of procedures) are a given. A clean clear explanation of the policy and the Board's resolution are needed first. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:47, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

My concern about this language is that it is far too easy for paid editors to circumvent. The typical excuse of paid editors and other COI editors falls into two categories. The first is their contributions are neutral, not promotional, and therefore laudatory and a real benefit to the project. The second is that yes, they are employed by the subject of the article but that they are not specifically tasked with editing Wikipedia. These two loopholes make these two changes really not a material change from current practices. Right now, only outwardly promotional material is explicitly banned. This change also does nothing with two persistant issues: first is abuse of the Articles for Creation process by paid editors and other COI persons. The second is use of Wikipedia governance mechanisms, such as the AfD process, by conflicted editors. Coretheapple (talk) 21:00, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm fine with the first proposal under "Financial." The second: "Paid editors who insert material that is promotional in tone ... being blocked" is problematic. First, a guideline wouldn't normally discuss blocking (though I'm writing from memory and could be wrong). More importantly, something can be promotional without being promotional in tone. Will leave more comments later.

    It's worth bearing in mind that the problem with COI is not that it does lead to promotional editing, but that it will tend to lead to it. So focusing on the actual edits at any given time is a mistake. The problem is the tendency of that editor to be unable to be loyal, if you like, to Wikipedia, because he is loyal to someone else. From the guideline, paraphrasing Davies:

First, a person P with a conflict of interest may fail to exercise good judgment; he writes that people with a conflict often "esteem too highly their own reliability," and fail to realize the extent to which the conflict has affected their judgment. Second, if the people relying on P do not know that she has a conflict of interest, P is betraying their trust by allowing them to believe that her judgment is more reliable than it is. Third, even if P does inform those who rely on her that she has a conflict of interest, thereby removing the moral problem, the technical problem will remain, namely that P will be less competent than she would otherwise be, and in addition may bring the reputation of others, including her profession, into disrepute.

It is as much about potential as about actuality. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:22, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
I totally agree with SlimVirgin's comment. Unfortunately, every time an effort is made to deal in an appropriate fashion with the person as opposed to the character of the edit, it runs into fierce opposition. I commend Smallbones for his work on this, but that's the essential problem here, and in all the policy proposals that have come up it has been the sticking point and simply insurmountable. Coretheapple (talk) 03:15, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
The idea that we ought to "comment on content, not the contributor," was intended to stop personal attacks, and it's a good rule as far as that goes. But it's being misused to stop us from doing what any other publication would do, namely acting where there are obvious signs of paid COI. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:16, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
Yes, well put. Coretheapple (talk) 15:16, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
I think there is an additional barrier here to good COI policy—the inherent bias of some in the community against commercial enterprises when it comes to COI. Despite the strong likelihood that COI exists in government, academic, scientific, “non-profit” (they make huge profits, just don’t pay taxes), and other forms of non-commercial enterprises, and that COI in those enterprises would result in the same behavior we are trying to eradicate, we chose to ignore those enterprises in our policy wording. Individuals involved in enterprise (regardless of type) will advocate for their enterprise. They get rewarded and/or motivated to do so in a myriad of ways. If such motivation and reward is considered COI and is considered bad in commercial enterprise, it should be considered bad in all types of enterprise. As such, our COI policies should apply equally and equitably across all enterprises, not just commercial enterprise. That must be clear in the language and in its application.--Mike Cline (talk) 15:40, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't that's true. Every COI and paid editing proposal I've ever seen applies equally to commercial, nonprofit and governmental organizations. I agree that editing paid for by those entities is equally dangerous, and perhaps sometimes more so. I can see a government unleashing paid editors on to Wikipedia. However, all the paid editing proposals have been quite across-the-board, and if they haven't been I can't see anyone objecting to plugging up any loopholes that may exist. Of course, all the proposals have been defeated so we are, indeed, very much an open door to paid editing by every single type of government, nonprofit or what-have-you. If you favor restrictions on such entities, you need to support and work with the paid editing proposals. Coretheapple (talk) 18:23, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
In all candor, do you really think the the way COI is addressed in this advice piece Wikipedia:Your first article isn't biased against commercial enterprise? I know this isn't a policy piece, but the way it reads, its OK to have a COI as long as you aren't promoting your "business" or its "products" narrowly interpreted to mean: for profit enterprises. The one sentence in that piece that ought to be the cornerstone of our COI policy is this: However, Wikipedia recognizes the large volume of good faith contributions by people who have some affiliation to the articles they work on. Such affiliations (good or bad) should be evaluated irrespective of the type of enterprise they come from. That's our challenge.--Mike Cline (talk) 19:32, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
No, in all candor I don't think it's biased against commercial enterprises. There is a vast tsunami of constant commercial promotion taking place among newly created articles, and I would not be surprised if a majority of the new articles on commercial enterprises are written by people associated with them. This language just recognizes reality. I don't see recognizing a problem as "bias," since the same principle applies to all enterprises, and I can't see someone saying "Oh, it OK for me to promote the Coretheapple Foundation because the language on that page refers only to commercial enterprises." Such a person would be a moron and treated as such. Since the language on that page bothers you, tell us about your efforts to fix it and any resistance you've run into. Coretheapple (talk) 20:06, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Mike Cline here.
The guideline currently has an example which frames edits on behalf of a university as a good thing, as compared to edits on behalf of other industries. This is inappropriate; COI editing can come from all sectors & industries. Last time I questioned it, nobody could come up with a good reason why that example is kept in the guideline. There's no shortage of articles on professors which read like resumes; or articles on schools, NGOs, government agencies, nonprofits &c which diligently explain how wonderful the subject is, thanks to the efforts of one or two accounts which do little else. bobrayner (talk) 19:46, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
In all candor, I think that focusing on examples of university and nonprofit editing does nothing to help us formulate a COI policy. I think it's generally accepted that all forms of promotion are bad. What's preventing a policy from being enacted is that editors don't want one, not that the ones that have been proposed have been flawed or anti-business or pro-nonprofit. Coretheapple (talk) 20:10, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Two things struck me about the Board's BLP restatement

  • That the WMF Board of Trustees stated and restated it, and
  • That it presumes that paid promotional-toned edits are violations of WP:NPOV (a policy)

Normally, Board resolutions aren't applied directly into deletion discussions, etc. unless the application is so overwhelmingly obvious that there's no point in citing a policy. Resolutions instruct or inform policy, so are just as strong or meaningful as policy; they should just be incorporated into policy or guidelines to work in everyday situations, however. But nobody has seemed to notice the paid part of this resolution yet. Therefore, I think it is important that we note this here.

Presuming a policy violation is stronger than just a guideline - maybe this should go into WP:NPOV, but it would likely reach the target audience - paid editors - better here. Maybe in both places. Maybe at WP:NOT as well. Blocking is normally not mentioned in guidelines, but I think if we are to let paid editors know what is expected of them, that a notice of the possibility of being blocked for this is appropriate.

The short version - Having the Boards statement quoted plus "Paid editors who insert material that is promotional in tone into an article may be presumed to be violating our policy on neutrality." in the financial section, is definitely needed. I think the other stuff adds to it and explains it, but is not anywhere as important.

As far as "this is not perfect" or "but it doesn't matter if nobody enforces it" or other comments I may have misunderstood from above: I sympathize, but we gotta do everything we can do, IMHO. As far as "this discriminates against businesses" I don't see it - it's about all paid editors. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:53, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I just think that if we enact a policy that doesn't really do anything, that does not make it easier to deal with COI situations but just acknowledges the status quo, the WMF has an excuse for doing nothing. If we recognize that we are at an impasse, that nothing is going to be done, then the Foundation must act. It's really their problem, as I explain in some detail on my user page. That doesn't mean that we mustn't try, but the idea is to try to do something meaningful. Agreeing to something not meaningful is worse than doing nothing, because it takes the WMF off the hook and also because it requires an expenditure of time that could be employed doing other things, such as dealing with COI situations in articles. Coretheapple (talk) 20:39, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

edit break

@ Smallbones – Taking the following statement that you quote above: "Paid editors who insert material that is promotional in tone into an article may be presumed to be violating our policy on neutrality." how would you evaluate these two situations (notionalized to protect the innocent). Both represent real-world edits in WP.
  • The content: Genus species is an endangered species threatened with extinction. Inserted by: someone paid by or a member of an environmental advocacy organization. The facts: statement is completely unsupportable by sources, is not neutral when evaluating all sources, and was clearly inserted to “promote” a biased environmental view.
    • Would that edit be considered promotional tone under the above language?
  • The content: Acme is the only U.S. company to use [product X] in it products. Inserted by a non-paid editor not associated with Acme. The facts: The statement is factual and supported with multiple reliable sources. Yet numerous editors challenged the edit as being written in a promotional tone, despite its factual accuracy.
    • Would that edit be considered promotional tone under the above language?
Where I struggle with all this COI, Paid advocacy stuff, is that is extraordinarily difficult to 1) define “paid”, 2) define “promotional”, 3) define “advocacy”, etc. in a manner that isn’t biased against a specific type of enterprise while allowing exactly the same type of behavior in another class of enterprise. I’d be interested in your thoughts on the above two edits.--Mike Cline (talk) 21:51, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

As far as the endangered species example: there are official lists for this type of thing, so it seems just a matter of reliable sources. RS say endangered - the factual content stays in. RS say "not endangered" - the non-factual content is removed. Same for Acme, with the possible addition of whether product X is relevant or overwieghted. Endangered species is obviously relevant for "genus species", but whether Grey Goose vodka or Brand X vodka is included in a certain candy is probably not relevant (Last time I checked, vodka is defined by the US customs service as "tasteless and odorless neutral grain spirits")

As far as difficulty defining "paid", I don't see it as a major difficulty. Odd cases around the edges, perhaps, but we all know when we're getting paid to do something. Advocacy is pretty simple to define for major groups, lawyers, public relations folks, marketers - by contract, ethical codes, and even criminal law in some cases - these folks must do their employer's bidding, must advocate for their employers. A criminal attorney who posted a NPOV summary of his client's case on Wikipedia would stand a good chance of going to jail and would be disbarred. PR people who did the same over periods that included good news and bad news would almost certainly be breaking the standard industry ethical codes (e.g. saying "management didn't handle that situation very well.") Defining "promotional-tone"? Writing down a fool-proof definition might be difficult (and only valuable to fools), but almost every American is trained from an early age to identify promotional material, and I think most people can identify most promotional material without any difficulty. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:50, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

@Smallbones, bad content (POV, bad sourcing, factually incorrect, etc.) is easy to fix and deal with as those examples above were dealt with above. It is a shame we can't focus on the content instead of the contributor. The examples above demonstrate that in the case of the environment group, blatant "paid advocacy" through inclusion of misleading and factually incorrect content typically gets a pass because of the class of the editor--COI? - what COI? In the Acme example, even when there was no COI involved, the contribution was automatically challenged as "promotional" as it provided a positive slant on a company's product. Despite the fact it was well sourced and factually accurate, and met every other WP content norms, the mere fact it was about a commercial enterprise made it suspect. If there had been any hint of COI on the part of the contributor, COIN clearly would have been invoked. All WP content "promotes" a certain image about what the content is dealing with. That image can be positive or negative in context. A fact about a company, well sourced and consistent with our MOS, may indeed promote a positive image of the company. Just as blatantly inaccurate and misleading information can be inserted in articles to "promote" a POV on broad cultural and societal movements, such as environmental issues. We, as a community, have to decide what type of "promotion" is tolerable. "Promotion and promotional tone" are very difficult to define. When the focus in on selected classes of contributor instead of the righteousness of the content (NPOV, RS, V, OR, etc.), promotional tone becomes very subjective and inquisitions abound. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi Mike, what difficulties do you see in defining "paid" in paid editing or advocacy? SlimVirgin (talk) 05:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Well in a sense, everyone gets paid, either in some monetary way or in kind. Sometimes that's difficult to separate. If our policy laid out reasonable boundaries, such as you are "paid" if you recieved W2 wages, salary or Form 1099 reportable funds (that would address US cases, I don't know what the deal is outside the US). The next challenge iis deving what an individual is paid for. It is evident that the staff of an environmental advocacy organization is paid to "advocate" on behalf of the mission of the organization. In the corporate world, especially in larger, complex organizations, most individuals get paid to do a job, not advocate for the organization. If the lathe operator in Acme, Inc. writes about an Acme product, is he a paid advocate? Since organizations of higher education are indeed business enterprises in the business of making money, does the professor "paid" by the university fall in the same boat as the lathe operator if they edit articles that in effect "promote" the products and services of the university? The difficulty as I see it is more in dealing with the concepts of "paid", "advocacy" and "promotion" fairly and consistently across all classes of enterprise and articles. Big challenge. Isolating one class of editor as "evil" while tolerating the same, exact behavior from more favored classes of editor is bad policy and bad for the encyclopedia. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:24, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Paid editing is when people are paid to edit Wikipedia, either directly ("here is $500; please edit that article"), or indirectly ("here is your salary as our PR rep; do whatever that involves"). Then there is broader financial COI where someone stands to benefit financially from a topic they're editing (such as a company owner editing the article about her company). A lathe operator working for Acme and editing the article on Acme would not be regarded as having a financial COI, unless someone at the company had asked him to do it, or knew that he was doing it and his job in some way depended on it. A professor paid by a university would be in the same situation. The issue is to what extent real-life financial relationships affect a person's editing. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:25, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
@Slim – Let's isolate your two classes of editor here for sake of discussion. The 2nd class, those editors with a financial (???) COI are much more problematic in definition, let alone trying to deal with them. Your 1st class is indeed fairly clear cut—when someone is paid directly or indirectly to “edit Wikipedia” they would be considered a “paid editor” and I assume accrue some burden not to edit some set of articles related to the payer. For the community to “declare” that someone is a paid editor, what evidence is (or should be) required? I use the word “declare” purposely because at present that is the language used in our WP:COIN process. Once COIN declares that an editor has a COI for a specific article. Clearly an editor could be “declared” a paid editor through direct or indirect self-declaration, but can someone be “declared” a “Paid Editor” on mere suspicion and/or circumstantial evidence? A review of a lot of different COIN investigations reveals a propensity for the following type of accusations: Circumstantially, the contribution history looks exactly like one would expect from a COI account. In your view, what evidence should the community demand to “declare” someone a paid editor? Should we allow the use of mere “suspicion” (circumstantial evidence) or do we need to require something more empirical or factual? Maybe said more succinctly: Do we want to take a Rules of evidence or Vigilante approach to "paid editing"? --Mike Cline (talk) 00:30, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Our current approach is similar to the supreme court's approach to obscenity: We know it when we see it. It's not an entirely bad approach, but it has its drawbacks. Gigs (talk) 18:44, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
If a person denies COI, whatever the evidence, there's really nothing anyone can do. The situation just arose in an article in which the evidence was overwhelming. But the editor denies it, so at the moment I'm really not sure what can be done. I'll be interested to see if "I know it when I see it" applies or does any good. Despite this, I don't see why this should be an impediment. It's still necessary to make rules, and, yes, the rules require a degree of disclosure and transparency from editors. If editors choose to evade, there's not much that can be done about it. I think that all Wiki rules are evaded quite regularly anyway, so why do paid editing rules have to be so airtight when nothing else is around here? Coretheapple (talk) 19:39, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Slim. Unfortunately, the wording above advises anyone with a "financial connection to a topic," including employees, from refraining to edit the article, regardless of whether they are in PR or any other area. And that "advice" is problematic, since the vast majority of, say, GM employees should not be prohibited from editing the GM article. Rlendog (talk) 21:50, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that the qualifiers "paid" and "promotional" (both conditions must be present) make it a well calibrated and universally valid statement. Just as with the definition of a COI at the beginning of the policy, the most universally valid statements (the true "guiding light" ones) by their very nature are short on implementation detailed and sometimes are practically unenforceable. And, as a matter of fact, this one has only a few areas where it as is is enforceable, which is to prevent blatant Wikipedia-POVing industries from becoming pervasive. These are NOT reasons to not adopt a "guiding light" statement,and so the "guiding light" statement should be adopted. We should spiffy it up, keep it as one succinct statement, and pass it. North8000 (talk) 13:13, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the word "paid" is not a trifling matter. It is not uncommon for editors to claim that, even though they are employees of the subjects of articles, they are not specifically "paid" to edit articles. We want to encompass situations in which (supposedly) an enthusiastic employee decides to get brownie points from his employer by souping up the article on his company or boss. Same for situations in which the editor is unregistered but the IP is traceable directly to the subject of the article. Coretheapple (talk) 20:07, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Also, as anyone can see by wandering into deletion discussions for businesses, there are just so many articles created by businesses about themselves that it creates a real burden for the rest of us. I believe that in many if not most instances businesses are simply ignorant of Wikipedia rules. Someone, possibly Mike, suggested that some kind of mechanism be created in which persons creating accounts sign off on a warning in which it is stated in boldface that editors are not to create articles about themselves or employers. That really needs to be implemented. Coretheapple (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to have been missing in action for a week. BTW, Merry Christmas to all.
How about the following (new material in bold) Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:04, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
Shortcuts

Paid editing is the practice of accepting money to edit Wikipedia. Paid editors who insert material that is promotional in tone into an article may be presumed to be violating our policy on neutrality.[2] Advertising, promotion, public relations, and marketing are prohibited by our policy WP:NOT.

The act of accepting money or rewards for editing Wikipedia is not always problematic. There may be benign examples of editors being paid – for example, a university asking you to write up its warts-and-all history. Another benign example is the reward board, a place where editors can post financial and other incentives: it is a transparent process, the goal of which is usually to raise articles to featured- or good-article status (but be wary of editors asking you to make edits that challenge your sense of neutrality). If you intend to participate in this kind of paid editing, transparency and neutrality are key. Editing in a way that biases the coverage of Wikipedia or that violates our core policies is not acceptable.

References at bottom of page

  1. ^ Gardner, Sue. "Press releases/Sue Gardner statement paid advocacy editing", Wikimedia Foundation, 21 October 2013.
  2. ^ Resolution:Media about living people, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, 2009 and 2013

break2

Coretheapple, I don't think anyone wants them to be "airtight" necessarily, it's just right now they are somewhat toothless, and out of line with the position of the foundation. Part of the issue on getting consensus seems to stem from editors that work in friendly topic areas, generally with a small group of other interested editors, some of which could technically be said to have a conflict of interest, but who are generally interested in neutral coverage of their topic and of building the encyclopedia.

On the other side of the coin, you have the administrative types (with or without the bit) who are fighting a crushing tidal wave of promotional crap and biased editing from people who's main interest in Wikipedia is what it says about them, their company, or their client. We've always found it hard to get a good solid policy tool to deal with the crapflood without making the "enthusiast" type editors fear witchhunts against them. Gigs (talk) 22:07, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I definitely agree with your second paragraph, and that's my perspective as well. The problem is that these discussions tend to get bogged down in hair-splitting and legalistic discussions aimed ostensibly at possible issues with the language but have the effect of making progress impossible. Coretheapple (talk) 15:51, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thinking about this from a strawman perspective

In response to the discussions above, I thought I’d lay out a bit of a strawman relative to the types of concerns I have. I personally think “paid editing” as we call it is bad for WP. But I believe that subjective, indiscriminate COI inquisitions are even worse and cause far more overall and long-term damage to the encyclopedia than the relatively few instances of “paid editing” that seem to occur. The inquisitions occur because we’ve created vague, subjectively interpretable language that gives license to the I know it when I see it behavior that allows any editor to be accusatory to another editor without regard to WP:AGF. Vague language, and the subjective enforcement it engenders also further reinforces community biases against different classes of editors and organizations. It is truly mindboggling how a community that prides itself on NPOV, RS and V has 20/20 vision (I know it when I see it) when it comes to commercial organizations but is effectively blind (I know it when I see it) relative to more favored classes of organizations and editors. So the below strawman language is something I think is much less vague and fairly addresses “Paid, COI, Advocacy and such” across all classes of editors and organizations. Examples are notional and probably need more refinement to ensure all classes and editors and organizations are fairly addressed. (Please feel free to add to the examples that you might think fit into the category. The language does not address the more complex COIs that “competition”, “family relationships” and such bring to the table. The language does not at this point address specific enforcement processes which would need to be crafted at some point.

  • “Paid editing”: Editors who are paid for the explicit purpose of editing Wikipedia on behalf of the payer are deemed by the community to have an unacceptable Conflict of Interest and should not edit any WP article on behalf of the payer. Payers may be an employer, consultants, individuals or organizations. Editors should not be accused of “paid editing” unless there is a self-declaration or other empirical evidence that the suspect editor is being paid “to edit Wikipedia” on behalf of the payer. Wikipedia contributions by “paid editors” may be summarily deleted by any editor.
    • Examples:
      • An organization’s PR department hires a Wikipedia editor as a consultant to create or edit the organization’s Wikipedia article.
      • An organization employs a Wikipedia editor to create or edit articles related to the organization’s mission, products, services, etc.
      • An individual pays a Wikipedia editor to create or edit articles of specific interest to the individual.
  • “Financial COI editing”: Editors who are paid or otherwise receive material benefits from any organization (see WP:ORG for the WP definition of an organization) or the organization’s activities should not engage in editing any Wikipedia articles that would give the appearance that their financial relationship with the organization conflicts with the aims of Wikipedia. Wikipedia contributions to such articles when a “financial” relationship exists must comply with WP:NPOV and WP:RS and will be subject to close community scrutiny.
    • Examples: (need some here)
  • ”Paid advocacy”: Editors who are paid or otherwise receive material benefits from any organization (see WP:ORG for the WP definition of an organization) or the organization’s activities should not engage in editing any Wikipedia articles that would give the appearance that they are promoting or advocating the mission, purpose, policies, political positions, products, services or otherwise POVs of the organization. Wikipedia contributions to such articles when a “paid” relationship exists must comply with WP:NPOV and WP:RS and will be subject to close community scrutiny.
    • Examples: (need some specific examples here)
      • Employees of any organization whose mission or purpose is political, environmental, social, educational, cultural, or medical advocacy should not edit articles related to their organization or mission.
      • Employees of any organization whose mission or purpose is the production and sale of products and services should not edit articles related to the organization, its products or services.
        • Rationale: Employees of any organization are presumed to have a direct COI with Wikipedia aims because the mission of the organization, whether it is advocacy or for profit/not for profit production of products and services, the editor’s association with the organization presumes that contributions would reflect the POV of the organization and not be neutral.

“Non-paid advocacy”: Editors who have a close association such as membership, volunteer status, participation in governance, etc. with any organization (see WP:ORG for the WP definition of an organization) or the organization’s activities should not engage in editing any Wikipedia articles that would give the appearance that they are promoting or advocating the mission, purpose, policies, political positions, products, services or otherwise POVs of the organization. Wikipedia contributions to such articles when such associations exist must comply with WP:NPOV and WP:RS and will subject to close community scrutiny.

    • Examples: (need more specific examples here)
      • Board members, advisory board members, voting members (general assembly membership) or volunteers of any organization whose mission or purpose is political, environmental, social, educational, cultural, or medical advocacy should not edit articles directly related to their organization or organization’s mission.
      • An unpaid member of the board of directors of an organization such as Wild Salmon Center should not edit articles related to wild salmon, their propagation, conservation, environmental status, etc.
        • Rationale: Although unpaid, such a board member has a direct COI with Wikipedia aims because the mission of the organization is advocacy and as such, the editor’s association with the advocacy organization presumes that contributions would reflect the POV of the organization and not be neutral.

Remember, for this most part this is just a strawman to describe/define the nexus between undesirable COI/article editing. Although vagueness or subjectivity cannot be removed completely, I do think it conveys a more precise and fair application of COI concerns to all classes of editors and organizations. It does not address enforcement processes because those would necessarily follow consensus on what is and what is not an undesirable COI. Any thoughts? --Mike Cline (talk)

Do you mean devil's advocate and not strawman? I'm kind of confused on what you are getting at. Gigs (talk) 17:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
If I understand correctly, it's a proposal being floated for others to knock down, with the hope that in the process, further insight will be gained on what revisions may be desirable to this guideline. isaacl (talk) 19:16, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Bingo! --Mike Cline (talk) 21:41, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
I'll play. Your last example and requirement is far too close to the sort of enthusiast editing we wouldn't want to damage. The fear of damaging such with witchhunts sinks a lot of COI proposals. An avid collector of Barbie, the president of the Barbie collector's association (and may even make a little inconsequential money off it running a forum or something), we wouldn't want to necessarily topic ban if they are editing in the topic area they are an expert on, if it's in a productive way that is genuinely interested in furthering encyclopedic coverage. Gigs (talk) 17:40, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest&diff=585324530&oldid=584281012 was just reverted. Should we go with the language the FTC uses, or the language we use here at wikipedia, or what?--Elvey (talk) 01:29, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

We should use the vocabulary they use, because we're citing them. Also, part of the point is to make clear that the kinds of things the FTC discusses are regarded as undisclosed advertising. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:34, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Karl Marx

Merry Christmas

What happened to the Karl Marx bit? "Friedrich Engels would have had difficulty editing the Karl Marx article, because he was a close friend, follower, and collaborator of Marx" (seen here) is a simple and easily understood expression of our position on writing about people to whom you're closely connected. Right now is the first time I've looked at this policy page in some years, and I can't understand the removal of simple bits, such as the Marx example, the Wikipedia:Suggestions for COI compliance link, and the "How not to handle COI" section. Nyttend (talk) 12:30, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I certainly liked Marx and Engels and would put the example back in. Not that I think it is enough, but it was a good example. As far as the suggestion pages, I didn't look closely at this one, but my usual objection is that they can read like "these are the superficial actions you can take to get around the rules." BTW, I used to love Marx and Engels Alley, right next to the Lenin Library, a block from the Kremlin, there was a great Irish pub ... Now it looks like a Russian Restaurant and it's called "Little Banner Alley" 55°44′58″N 37°36′24″E / 55.749516°N 37.606726°E / 55.749516; 37.606726 Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:28, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The example is simply wrong. For a more pertinent example, would there be anything wrong with Bill Clinton editing the Hillary Clinton article? The answer is the same as for anyone else editing that article: Maybe; it depends on the content of the edit.

If we would simply focus on content and ignore who is editing, in almost all contexts, the benefits to WP would vastly outweigh any possible minor detriments. Even someone with a history of vandalism or disruption can make an edit that improves an article.

Every edit should be judged on its own merits without regard to who made the edit. Any policies or guidelines contrary to this fundamental principle, including WP:COI, are detrimental to Wikipedia. --B2C

--B2C 01:45, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

By that note, there's no real reason to tell people to worry about COI at all, as long as they produce a neutral result; the quote says "have difficulty editing", not "shouldn't", because anyone can make productive edits, but closely-connected people need to be strongly discouraged. This page has become much more complex and much harder to understand since my "here" link; there's no real point in giving advice based on it, and my comments to {{spamblock}}ed editors who want unblocks will be based on the COI suggestions page, since it doesn't demand that people become experts in US federal law before editing. If this page presents much of anything comparable to the WP:COIC section in my "here" link, I can't find it, and presumably I would have an easier time finding it than would someone reading the page for the first time. Nyttend (talk) 05:31, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Possible conflict of interest for new article

Dear wikipedia-community,

My superior, a professor of mathematics, has asked me to translate (and post) her German wikipedia-article into the english one.

As I am not sure whether this is a conflict of interest, I would like to ask you how to proceed with this.

The article would contain the following text:

Goulnara Nurullovna Arzhantseva, also Goulnara Arjantseva (Russian: Гульна́ра Нурулловна Аржа́нцева; * 28 November 1973, Perm Oblast, Soviet Union) is a Russian mathematician. She is professor of algebra at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Vienna and one of the two Deputy Directors of the Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematical Physics. Arzhantseva attended the Kolmogorov’s specialized physics & mathematics school for young talents of the Moscow State University. Afterwards she studied mathematics at the same university. She earned her PhD in 1998 with a dissertation on “Generic Properties of Finitely Presented Groups” under the guidance of Professor Alexander Ol’shanskii. Thereafter she had academic positions at the University of Geneva and the University of Neuchâtel (both Switzerland). In October 2010 she started her position as professor at the University of Vienna. She is the first female full professor of mathematics at the University of Vienna since its creation in 1365. Her research areas are algebra, metric geometry, low-dimensional topology as well as geometric, analytic, combinatorial and computational aspects of group theory. Arzhantseva received a Starting Independent Researcher Grant of the European Research Council (ERC) in 2010.

Thank you in advance, 2001:62A:4:2F00:FC60:A188:EC6B:5B04 (talk) 10:57, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Other than the COI problem, why is Professor Arjantseva so notable to deserve an article? The Yeti 14:51, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree, indications of notability seem to be lacking. Wikipedia:Notability (academics) is probably the governing notability criteria, but Wikipedia:Notability (people) and Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline may also provide a way to demonstrate this person's notability. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:14, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
FYI for anyone who is interested: de:Goulnara Arzhantseva (Google translate). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:14, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I visited the article on de.wiki but I did not see any references which can establish the notability of the subject. The Yeti 08:19, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Both "mental state" and "actual situation" should be in this guideline

This guideline should cover both the "wiki-classic" position of

  • If your other interests cause you to edit in a way that puts them in front of Wikipedia, you have a COI,

and the recently-reverted position of

  • If your real-world situation is one where you would be considered to have a "conflict of interest" and therefore presumed to be non-neutral by outside, neutral observers, then you have a COI.

The first is what I call a "real" conflict of interest. Only the editor knows if he has one. The second is one that is sometimes called an "apparent" conflict of interest. In many if not most cases they are one in the same. But not always. This guideline should cover both.

If there is initial support for the idea that both real and apparent COIs are problems that need to be covered by this guideline in the next few days, I plan on opening an WP:RFC or WP:CENT, as a change this substantial needs broader support than just those of people watching this page. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

If the latter "apparent" (apparent to whom, exactly?) is added, then there needs to be a differentiator between having a COI and violating COI with POV edits. This is a guideline and not a policy, so it really need to be guidance - which it is when it says "careful with your editing if you are associated, otherwise you may be subject to sanction under the policy NPOV", it is not guidance if it says "if you have a an association, you'll be sanctioned per COI no matter how neutral your edits are. Dreadstar ☥ 02:27, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
I disagree. An editor whose interests cause them to edit disruptively, yet has no actual connection to the article subject, has no COI but is in violation of WP:NPOV, which is why that policy exists. For example, I'm a big Seahawks fan. (I'm outing myself now with that, honestly.) I have been a fan since I was a child, and I have a great deal of passion for the team, its history, and its players. I'd probably have difficulty editing articles related to the organization without bias. I'd like to think I wouldn't, but I know myself well enough to not trust myself. Do I have a conflict of interest? No. I'm not an employee of the team, or a member, nor are any of my friends or relatives directly connected to the team. Besides being a native of Washington State, I have no direct connection to the team. Therefore, I have no conflict of interest as Wikipedia has long defined it. If Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch made an edit to the article, and did so in an unbiased and helpful manner, despite being a great editor he'd have a COI and his editing should bear a little extra scrutiny. The reason why is because Lynch could directly benefit from promoting the team, as a member of that team. As a fan of that team, any benefit I might receive is wholly intangible. That is what the difference is, and it's why we have a COI guideline separate from our NPOV policy. And I'd also like to add, the spirit and purpose of the COI guideline has always been this way, at least since I began helping the community handle COI concerns. This is not so much a change, as a much-needed disambiguation. -- Atama頭 06:54, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Interesting example. I'm rooting for the Broncos, so can I still edit Thunder (mascot) now? I ask for a reason: I own an interest in an Arabian horse who was bred by the same person who owns the aforesaid Thunder. Do I have a COI? Would I have a COI if I took money for teaching riding lessons with that horse? (I don't at the moment, but I might someday) Let's take a different issue: I owned a horse with cerebellar abiotrophy, a genetic disease, and I wrote a lot of the material in that article (back in 2006-2007 when I didn't write as well then as now, BTW) Was that a COI? I sure didn't benefit financially from it (in fact, she cost me a lot of money in vet bills- and she died last year) ), I sure did have a POV, (that genetic diseases are bad). I got into some trouble for editing the Arabian Horse Association article (even though there is nothing about c.a. in it) by an editor who was pissed off at me for exposing the breed's dirty little secret - I am a member, and was active in the organization in that time period, through about 2009 - due to this issue. That person actually outed me by locating some of my earliest edits where I had originally had a user name that was close to my real name before I realized that was a very bad idea an asked to have it changed and had my old name removed from all edits, but apparently I missed some talk page posts or something) How would the collective group here view that? Full disclosure: In that same period, I was an officer in my local community's affiliate of the AHA. (I'm not an officer now, but I am still a member). Seriously, there are probably some people who would say I have a COI and should be banned from editing horse articles. How far down the rabbit hole shall we go? Montanabw(talk) 18:53, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Your first series of questions, about whether you'd have a COI in those circumstances, no you wouldn't. Because you lack a tangible connection to the material you edited, and wouldn't be able to benefit directly from those edits, you don't have a COI. Since your edits were an attempt to push your point of view, you were in violation of our NPOV policy, which is far more serious than having a COI. Editing with a COI alone will at worst bring scrutiny to your edits, or lead you into conflict with other editors, but it's not something directly enforceable. No administrator can block someone simply for having a COI. On the other hand, violating the NPOV policy can directly lead to a block. It's an oversimplification for me to say this, clearly, but in general we block people for behavior that is discouraged by policy but not behavior discouraged by guideline (and there are always exceptions, that's definitely not a "rule" but it's usually the case). That's one reason why COI has always been a guideline, and editors with a COI who are blocked are blocked because their COI leads them to behavior that is discouraged by policies not exclusive to conflicts of interest. Of course, there are also cases where an editor's conflict of interest makes other editors uneasy enough that they establish a consensus for a topic ban or some other kind of ban, whose violation can then lead directly to blocking. But again, that doesn't stem from the COI guideline itself, that comes from the WP:BAN policy.
As to your second set of concerns, about the editor who used an old user name that you edited under before you changed your username, that was bad behavior from the other editor and was clearly outing. When you changed your username, you clearly tried to establish privacy and that privacy was violated. Sometimes outing can function as a form of mutually-assured-destruction, though, where the editor becomes censured for outing but still effectively taints you in the process. Once the cat's out of the bag, there's no helping it. We can revdelete the project but we can't revdelete people's minds, if they see that violation of privacy they know what they know. It's like a lawyer who states something inadmissible in court; the judge can order it struck from the record, can hold a lawyer in contempt, and can request that the jury disregard what they heard, but the judge can't wipe their brains like the Men in Black. Oversighters and others often try to work fast to hide things on Wikipedia to prevent this from happening but it can still happen. -- Atama頭 09:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
This guideline used to talk about having a COI if you had "a high level of personal commitment to [an] idea". That seems to have disappeared. In the current "statutory" model, if you dedicate your life to an idea, and you want to make sure that everyone else knows how wonderful it is by editing here, then you have no COI and (practical effect) none of the rules about refraining from editing articles directly applies to mere POV pushers. We don't have an equivalent "If you're irretrievably biased, then you shouldn't edit the articles about it" clause in the NPOV policy.
But if you are a temporary, entry-level employee who wants to correct the number of employees in an infobox about your employer, then anyone can tell you to stop it because you have a "conflict of interest" (even though your interest and Wikipedia's actual interest are identical, namely to have accurate information in the article about your employer).
I'm not sure that this change in model benefits us. At minimum, it leaves a hole the size of an unpaid activist in our governance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:41, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
You're confusing defining COI with enforcement. And no one has ever argued that an entry-level employee couldn't fix the number of employees in an infobox. WAID, please stop these straw-man arguments. This is an issue that could determine whether WP has a future, so whatever anyone's view of it, we need clarity. What I'm asking is that we use the definition of COI that all other organizations use (and the guideline already does; it's just the lead that's out of sync), and that we stop the Alice-in-Wonderland approach where words mean whatever we want them to mean.
To what extent we say we don't want COI editing is a separate question. But first we have to understand what it is, and there's already a body of literature we can use. We don't have to make things up. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:51, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Actually, I saw a request from a COI editor to have someone else make exactly that change a couple of weeks ago because he'd been told repeatedly and forcefully that he was not permitted to make any change whatsoever to his employer's article. Whatever you meant to say here, you actually did just define the entry-level employee as having a conflict of interest with respect to his employer's article, even when his interest and ours coincides perfectly.
As you say, we could declare this person to have a COI and still be welcome to edit freely. There may be a value in defining COI like the rest of the world does. It occasionally leads to silly outcomes in the rest of the world (e.g., non-profits needing to jump through legal hoops to accept certain kinds of donations from Board members or senior staff), and it doesn't address many real problems in the real world. There may be even more value to using the term that the real world intends, which is potential conflict of interest.
But whatever we decide to do, let's not pretend that it's not a significant change in the way that we are using this particular bit of jargon. We used to use it to label and exclude proselytizers but not entry-level employees; you now want to use to label all employees without exception, but not to tell the person whose life is dedicated to, say, Education reform to stay out of the articlespace because her life goal of promoting the One True™ Solution to Dyslexia is incompatible with Wikipedia's goals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
WP:NOPAY says (bold added): "If you have a financial connection to a topic – including, but not limited to, as an owner, employee, contractor or other stakeholder – you are advised to refrain from editing affected articles directly."
What I tried to do is make the lead compatible with the rest of the guideline, the rest of the world, and the English language. This is a very common definition of COI; you'll find it in a lot of the books: "a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest."
So if the janitor at Pfizer can change 90,000 employees to 91,000 in the infobox without being "unduly influenced" by his position, then fine, he can go ahead. That has always been the case, and no one is trying to change it – while at the same time we recognize that if there are other people around who can make the change instead, that's even better if the company is a contentious one. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:51, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
NOPAY says that the janitor should refrain from editing that article, period. It does not say that he should refrain unless his mental state is not being unduly influenced. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:58, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Then start a section with a proposal to change NOPAY. My point is that my edits to the lead summarized the rest of the guideline. They did not change it. But you keep repeating "there has been a change!" so that people think there's something new they need to oppose. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:08, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Edits to lead

I've rewritten the first two (now three) paragraphs to move the lead more clearly away from the idea that COI is about an internal mental state. That involved removing "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 think that sentence was causing confusion by making editors think it was okay to write an article about themselves or a client, so long as they believed that advancing Wikipedia's interests was more important to them. But COI is about a person's relationships, not about their beliefs. It is a fact about the world, not about a state of mind.

I've edited the first two paragraphs to make that clearer. I've also added a sentence to clarify that the word interest in conflict of interest doesn't refer to something a person is simply curious about. So the top of the lead now reads:

Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, your family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial or other connections. Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest. A common definition of conflict of interest is "a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest."[1]

The word interest in conflict of interest refers to something that a person has a stake in or stands to benefit from, not something he is merely curious about; the word (from Middle English, interess) originally meant "the possession of a share in or a right to something."[2]

Conflict of interest is not an internal mental state; it is not about beliefs or biases, although it can lead to bias. It is about a person's roles and relationships in the world, and the tendency to bias that we assume exists when roles conflict.[3] Deciding that someone has a conflict of interest is a description of a situation, not a judgment about that person or his actual beliefs.[4] Examples of conflict-of-interest editing would be writing about a spouse, legal opponent or client. In each case the person's primary role (that of being a Wikipedian while editing) is undermined by a secondary role. The conflict of interest these relationships create has been described as "dirt in a sensitive gauge."[5]

Notes
  1. ^ Bernard Lo and Marilyn J. Field (eds.), Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice, National Academies Press, 2009, p. 46.
  2. ^ Jay M. Feinman (ed.), One Thousand and One Legal Words You Need to Know, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 100.
    • Angus Stevenson and Maurice Waite (eds.), Concise Oxford English Dictionary (luxury edition), Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 740.
  3. ^ Michael Davis, "Introduction," in Michael Davis and Andrew Stark (eds.), Conflict of Interest in the Professions, University of Oxford Press, 2001, p. 12.
  4. ^ Lo and Field 2009, p. 49.
  5. ^ Davis 2001, p. 11.

SlimVirgin (talk) 00:05, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

This 'mental state' interpretation has been argued in high profile disputes on English Wikipedia. I agree with SV that the 'state of the world' is what both the general public and Wikipedians mean by conflict of interest, and I am delighted to see it explained so clearly. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 14:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Agree. Conflict of interest is about objective facts (a delimited set of relationships) and objective tests: 'would a reasonable third party view the relationship as raising a conflict.' It's not about a person believing they individually can overcome the conflict. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:14, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, I'm glad it's seen as an improvement. I've further tweaked the first sentence: COI editing "involves contributing to Wikipedia to promote yourself, your family [etc] ...." to COI editing "involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, your family ...". That should help to avoid someone arguing that promotion wasn't intended, which again relies on the internal mental state, or state of mind, argument. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:14, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes it is a major and material improvement. Coretheapple (talk) 17:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, yes, yes. Very good edit SlimVirgin. That's a point I've tried to make for years (with varying success); COI exists when there is a relationship with an article subject, not a state of mind. It's related to having a POV, in that a person with a COI may have a particular POV toward the subject (positive or negative) but often a person will have a bias without a COI, or may have a COI but is able to edit without a bias. This is why we don't just redirect WP:COI to WP:NPOV, and why we have separate noticeboards (WP:COIN and WP:POVN). -- Atama頭 21:28, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, and yes, I agree that it's been a consistent misunderstanding. Bias exists without COI, and COI can exist without bias, but not without the assumption or perception of bias, which is a separable (but key) point. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:48, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I do think this is a major change that needs wider community input. The wording is such that for example it could be argued that physicians editing in their area of expertise would have a COI. Is that what we want? I'd like this to be opened up to the community.(Littleolive oil (talk) 22:13, 24 January 2014 (UTC))

Add: I'm not going to push this further and I won't notify the community, its a suggestion. Those with more interest and expertise in the area can take it from here.(Littleolive oil (talk) 22:17, 24 January 2014 (UTC))

(ec) Hi Olive, the edits to the lead have simply made the lead reflect the rest of the guideline, as well as the scholarly and professional sources. There isn't anything in this guideline that implies that physicists editing about physics would have a COI. Can you point to something that you feel might imply that? (because if it does, we need to tweak it). SlimVirgin (talk) 22:19, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Hello Littleolive oil. :) No, a person's profession does not present a conflict of interest automatically, nor a person editing within their area of expertise. It would be a conflict of Wikipedia's own interests really if a person who is an expert was barred from editing using their expertise. We even have an essay that supports expert editors (and even though it's an essay, it's an old one that has had the support of the community for a long time). Now, if you were a physician and you were working on an article about a clinic or hospital that employed you, then you would almost surely be considered to have a COI. Also, if you were a member of a professional organization as a physician, editing that organization's article would also be a COI. If you created an article about a medical case you were involved with, or a patient you treated, or a paper that you published, or anything else you have a direct relationship with, that's a COI. I hope that helped clarify matters a bit. -- Atama頭 22:25, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

This statement is wide open to subjective interpretation and especially with the final "other connection." which could include anything and everything and in the wrong hands will be used against editors.

Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, your family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial or other connections. Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest.

I don't want to argue this with you, Slim. I respect your knowledge and the body of work you've done on policy. I see problems when a policy is open to subjective interpretation. I would like to see this opened up so there is community input, but I'll leave it at that. Best wishes. And in the end there is only one way to establish a COI and that is in the edits. Anything else is speculation.(Littleolive oil (talk) 22:38, 24 January 2014 (UTC))

Thanks Atama for the comment. I understand COI. What I've seen lots of is misuse, so a change in wording that will in my mind cause even more problems is a concern. COI on Wikipedia is by no means clear cut in the minds of its users which is why I'd opt for more input, but I won't push that further. Nice to see you around again.:O)(Littleolive oil (talk) 22:47, 24 January 2014 (UTC))

  • The edits here change quite a bit, especially considering some recent RFA comments by the editor who actually made the changes.... :) (argh, sorry, SV, but...) I'd like to see some community notification and consensus regarding this. Dreadstar ☥ 01:26, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Just to explain, it is this that changes things substantially: "Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, your family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial or other connections. Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest.
Conflict of interest should necessarily include edits that violate WP:NPOV, not just an association. I'm also concerned that the focus on the editor instead of the edits will further magnify Outing and harassment of said editors. Dreadstar ☥ 01:46, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi Dreadstar, COI is never about state of mind. That's a really important point. I think we need to make an effort to follow the scholarly and professional sources on this, and not reinvent the wheel (or uninvent it). COI is about a person's actual associations, things that can be judged objectively. So the COI question is never "what does this politician think?" It's always: "has this politician taken money from X?" If yes, then it doesn't matter what he thinks. We know he has a COI in relation to X and therefore, even if his mind is as pure as the driven snow, he has to step down from making decisions about X.
The COI guideline deals with roles and relationships (the state of the world, rather than state of mind). You're right that we have a problem on WP with enforcing it because of the OUTING policy. But to what extent we want to enforce it is a separate issue. The point that Sue Gardner made was a good one, namely that ethical individuals and groups want a solid guideline that they can follow. They will self-police. The unethical ones will do what they want no matter what we write, so this guideline is mostly aimed at the good guys. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:07, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
You are not correct, Dreadstar, that COI should necessarily include edits that violate NPOV. That is often a consequence of a COI, but it does not in any way define a COI. An editor with a COI may edit in a manner that is wholly balanced and non-disruptive. I've used this example before, but I'll use it again here... Once, when volunteering on the COI noticeboard, I saw that an editor came on to "out" himself. He was the curator of a museum, and he had been editing the article about his museum in his spare time in attempts to improve it. He was unaware of our COI guideline, and when he came across it he realized it could apply to himself, so he announced his relationship on the COI noticeboard so that it wouldn't taint the work he'd done. (You can see the actual noticeboard entry here in the archives.) The curator had done such a great job that he was commended for his work, and another volunteer suggested that he apply for a Good Article Review. (You can see here where the article was reviewed two weeks after the noticeboard discussion.) It didn't pass the first time, but one of the comments was that in the article, "The language is neutral, as is the presentation of information." In other words, the editor was balanced enough in writing the article that not only did it not violate our NPOV policy, it was good enough for GAR. (After the editor worked on it a bit more, it passed a follow-up, and it has GA status today.) And again, this all happened on his own initiative, if you look at his user talk page he had not been approached by any other editors giving assistance before he made his posting to COIN, nor does his editing history show much interaction with other editors to get assistance prior to his actions improving the article.
Now, did that editor have a COI? He most certainly did, a very strong conflict of interest in fact. He was the curator of the museum, and had a strong connection to the article subject and had an obvious motive to show the subject in the most positive light possible. Did his conflict of interest cause an issue? No it didn't, he was able to edit the article quite well despite his COI, and ironically his position as curator was probably what put him in the best position to improve the article. This is why we have a guideline about conflicts of interest, not a policy. It's also why we don't forbid editing with a COI. We have a guideline that tries in the best way possible to define what the community has considered a conflict of interest to be, that gives advice to editors who may have a COI, and gives advice to editors who encounter someone with a COI. And as much as you may not like it, COI has everything to do with the editor and nothing to do with the editor's behavior. It's one of the few areas where it's necessary. Our COI guideline brings much-needed scrutiny to people who, by the nature of their relationship to the article subject, may find it more difficult to follow our policies and guidelines than an editor who doesn't have that relationship, and attempts to help such people avoid falling into disruptive editing patterns. Sometimes the COI guideline isn't needed, like the Imperial War Museum curator (who is still active, and has helped other articles reach GA and A status, all topics by the way which fall under his COI as they are related to his war museum). But sometimes it can be used to help people who really need some guidance, and I'd like to think that I've helped a good number of people thanks to having a guideline like this to draw from. -- Atama頭 06:44, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
No, I am not wrong, I just may not be getting my point across clearly enough. In order to sanction or restrict editors because they have a 'close relationship', one would need to show NPOV edits. Why on earth would you sanction or restrict editors who work for "company X" or in "field Y" yet post only neutral, relevant information on "company X" and "field Y". If they posted content that violated NPOV, were warned over and over again, then yes, sanction and restrict them. But not for just having an 'association'. There are editors out there who want to keep others from editing just because they had an opinion of a group, not to mention the vicious unfair attacks on those who would dare to work for company x, and post neutral material....by god they should be shot, hung, drawn and quartered. If you think I'm kidding, I'll be happy to point you to several major abuses of COI. Dreadstar ☥ 07:02, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

No one is wrong here, not Dreadstar with his often extraordinary clarity of thinking, you Atama, with your experience, and fair and compassionate handling of COI issues, nor Slim Virgin with her extensive, perhaps unmatched knowledge of policy. You are each looking at this from a different angle, given your experience. My concern is that key words were removed in the rewrite SV did which may change how the policy reads, allowing for interpreations that could lead to abuses. COI has been discussed extensively in the last year or so including in RfCs and is highly contentious. Clearly there is no definitive, stable (as much as is possible to have stability in a guideline), position within the community on COI except what exists in the guideline. That guideline, in my opinion, should then not be changed except with larger community input so that the policy reflects the community as a whole. I'd like to say more but have to rush. I may be able to revisit this later today. Best wishes all.(Littleolive oil (talk) 16:32, 25 January 2014 (UTC))

Olive makes a good point. I see two separate issues. 1) What is a COI? And 2) What limits should be placed on someone with a COI? Here we are discussing the former, but we cannot really define this without knowing how the latter is to be applied - some people think anyone with a COI should never edit in wikipedia mainspace on anything where they have a possible COI (which seems a bit draconian, per Atama's example above). I am very concerned about the wording, " friends, clients, employers, or your financial or other connections." Indeed, this could be interpreted to mean a physician couldn't edit medical articles, or myself, in the legal profession, could not write about the law. And how much involvement creates a COI? I happen to know Montana's current Governor, is he a "connection" that prohibits my editing of his article - even vandal patrol? (Which I do, by the way) Per my comments in the outing section, how far do we go? Or, to take a different angle, I used to work in state government, does this mean I could not edit any articles about Montana? A solid guideline that explains things is good, but keeping out people with true expertise is a terrible mistake. I think the content of the edits is critical; someone with a COI can be a NPOV editor and should not be artificially banned until or unless their behavior warrants action. Montanabw(talk) 18:35, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Olive, there is a right and wrong here. There's a vast academic literature on conflict of interest, and the way our lead is currently written contradicts it (as well as the rest of the guideline).
If the New York Times were to publish news articles about Viagra that were written or sponsored by Pfizer, you wouldn't argue that the only thing that matters is content (because how would you know what was missing?) or the author's state of mind (also unknowable). What would matter is that the material couldn't be trusted because of the author's very close association with the product he's writing about.
How close is too close is something we can discuss at the local level. The important point at guideline level is that COI is not an entirely subjective thing. It's based on facts about the world: this person is married to that person, this person works for that company, and so on. It isn't based on unknowables such as "is this person trying to be neutral?" SlimVirgin (talk) 21:55, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm with Littleoliveoil: This is a major change, and it therefore needs evidence of community support.
These changes (including, if memory serves, even the addition of some of these sources) to make COI more of a "statutory" system (e.g., "if you are employed by X, then you have an conflict of interest for all articles related to X, even if your actual edits are perfect and the changes have zero effect on your income", as well as the obvious converse, "If you make no money off of this, then you don't have a COI, even if you're hoping that your pet theory about the One True™ Cause of Cancer [but not yourself] will be accepted if you spam it all over Wikipedia") has been discussed in the past and rejected.
In the past, good edits were good edits and not a violation of this guideline. In the past, bad edits made for the purpose of making money and for making no money whatsoever but making your ideas famous, was a violation of this guideline. That is, we opposed both paid and unpaid advocacy here, and we didn't mind if someone happened to have a real-world connection if their edits were pretty close to perfect.
Declaring that a lowly intern who did good work was said to have no COI, but an unpaid internet activist who used Wikipedia for POV pushing did. We are now saying the opposite. WP:Consensus can change, but we need some reason to think that it actually did. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:02, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
I can't remember a time when we accepted that pharmaceutical companies could write articles about their own products, so long as their edits were neutral in the view of untrained Wikipedians. If this guideline ever implied that, please show me where.
It's important to stress that my edits to the lead weren't major changes at all. They brought the lead into line with the rest of the guideline, which talks about financial COI, paid advocacy, legal COI, campaigners, political relationships, and "you and your circle" – all discussed in terms of close relationships in the real world, not personal opinions and states of mind. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
We, meaning the Wikipedia community, have long accepted the view that pharma companies were permitted to contribute information about their own products, so long as the contributions were very clearly neutral. This means:
  • Adding information about drug molecules: checkY Good
  • Blanking criticism and side effects: ☒N Bad
However, this hasn't been a serious issue for years, because pharmaceutical companies (but not the "nutritional supplement" ones!) are legally restricted from saying just about anything about their products except what has been approved by the drug regulatory agencies. We have had some pharma company employees. You will find very few mainspace edits under their accounts. In fact, these two are the only ones I remember seeing. Aside from a trivial amount of formatting and rearranging, it added a ==Contraindications== section (which was promptly reverted as unnecessary by another editor). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:55, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Here is the Wikimedia Foundation's conflict of interest policy for its officers. It talks about "significant relationships," including financial relationships, not states of mind. Conflict of interest is about relationships and roles. Some people here are arguing that we take the word "table" and decide from now on that it means "chair"! SlimVirgin (talk) 00:20, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Sure, I can tell you when the concept that we cared more about the content of the edit than the contributor's personal situation appeared on this page: it was certainly present no later than when you finished copyediting the merge of WP:Vanity pages into WP:COI back in October 2006. At that time, it said things like this:

"As Wikipedians and encyclopedists, our job is to put the interests of the encyclopedia first. Anyone who prioritizes outside interests over the interests of the encyclopedia is subject to a conflict of interest. Material that appears to promote the interests or visibility of an article's author, family members, or associates places the author in a conflict of interest. When editors write to promote their own interests, their contributions often show a characteristic lack of connection to anything the general reader might want to consult as a reference..."[4]

Notice the emphasis on the content of your edits—"material that appears to promote", for example. Notice the absence of emphasis on whether you actually have a close connection to the subject. Having a close connection is only concerning here because people with close connections, in practice, tend to be non-neutral editors. Notice, too, that it is about the internal state of mind (your prioritization of Wikipedia or some other interest) as well as the appearance of what you were prioritizing.
In the old version, if you worked for a pharmaceutical company, and you edited without any "Material that appears to promote the interests or visibility of" your employer, then you were not considered to be "place[d] in a conflict of interest". The types of commitments that created a COI were broader and included non-financial/non-family internal personal commitments, not just the "external relationships" that you've defined. Paid advocacy (a much narrower and more pernicious issue than having any financial connection whatsoever) was called out separately in the guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:28, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
You wrote: "In the old version, if you worked for a pharmaceutical company, and you edited without any 'Material that appears to promote the interests or visibility of' your employer, then you were not considered to be 'place[d] in a conflict of interest'." I don't think that's correct. The guideline has always discouraged direct COI editing so far as I know – not outright prohibited it (still doesn't), but discouraged it.
Paid advocacy is still called out separately, and is still "very strongly discouraged," which suggests we think it's worse than other kinds of COI. So there has been no change there either. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:41, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
That's a direct quotation from the old version. There was no secret "unless you work for BigPharma" clause in that version. At that time, obviously non-promotional edits were accepted from anyone, including from people who, by virtue of their employment, happen to know more about drugs than either of us. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:00, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Side by side

Just to be clear about the differences we're discussing. This is for the beginning of the lead:

Proposal

Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, your family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial or other connections. Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest. A common definition of conflict of interest is "a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest."[1]

The word interest in conflict of interest refers to something that a person has a stake in or stands to benefit from, not something he is merely curious about; the word (from Middle English, interess) originally meant "the possession of a share in or a right to something."[2]

Conflict of interest is not an internal mental state; it is not about beliefs or biases, although it can lead to bias. It is about a person's roles and relationships in the world, and the tendency to bias that we assume exists when roles conflict.[3] Deciding that someone has a conflict of interest is a description of a situation, not a judgment about that person or his actual beliefs.[4] Examples of conflict-of-interest editing would be writing about a spouse, legal opponent or client. In each case the person's primary role (that of being a Wikipedian while editing) is undermined by a secondary role. The conflict of interest these relationships create has been described as "dirt in a sensitive gauge."[5]

Notes
  1. ^ Bernard Lo and Marilyn J. Field (eds.), Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice, National Academies Press, 2009, p. 46.
  2. ^ Jay M. Feinman (ed.), One Thousand and One Legal Words You Need to Know, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 100.
    • Angus Stevenson and Maurice Waite (eds.), Concise Oxford English Dictionary (luxury edition), Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 740.
  3. ^ Michael Davis, "Introduction," in Michael Davis and Andrew Stark (eds.), Conflict of Interest in the Professions, University of Oxford Press, 2001, p. 12.
  4. ^ Lo and Field 2009, p. 49.
  5. ^ Davis 2001, p. 11.
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 to promote your own interests, including your business or financial interests, or those of your external relationships, such as with family, friends or employers.[1] When an external relationship undermines, or could reasonably be said to undermine, your role as a Wikipedian, you have a conflict of interest. This is often expressed as: when advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

Notes
  1. ^ Note: the word interest is used here to refer to benefit or gain, not to something you are merely interested in, such as a hobby or area of expertise.

I think that is an improvement. The only addition I'd like to see is that an identified/potential COI is not in itself an indication of inappropriate editing, and could actually be a benefit to the project, such as when an editor write knowledgeably (ie. with appropriate reference to WP:V & WP:RS & WP:NPOV) about a subject which they are interested, such as a published expert on trains, who writes about trains, or a scientists writes about science. --Iantresman (talk) 00:48, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Ian, thanks. There's nothing in the above (or anywhere else in the guideline) that would stop a scientist writing about science or a train expert writing about trains. That's precisely the point: knowing a lot about something doesn't mean you have a COI, so experts are not affected by the COI guideline at all, at least not in virtue of having expertise.
Having a COI is about having a role in the real world that would undermine your role on Wikipedia, e.g. being a scientist working for Pfizer, then writing a WP article about a drug that you've developed for Pfizer. That's what these edits have tried to clarify – that that kind of editing is discouraged. But if you know a lot about stamps, and you love stamps, and you want to share that knowledge with Wikipedia, there's no hint of a COI. COI doesn't come into it. (There might be POV editing, but that's a separate issue.) SlimVirgin (talk) 01:37, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
The changes were reverted - so clearly we need to discuss this further. As I count the opinions here it is 7 to 4 for the changes, I've put them back in. Slim's changes seem quite logical - we need to define conflict of interest in the same way that the rest of the world does - it is not a mental state, but an observable set of facts. We need to define this clearly in our context so that folks will know what's a COI and what's not. The mental interpretation is fairly new, going back to the beginning it's been about relationships. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:40, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
While we're at it, shall we replace WP:Notability with a link to the dictionary definition? Wikipedia has its own jargon because it needs it. Diverging from the common definition can be confusing, but it may be necessary in some cases.
Notice that I don't actually object to using the real-world definition in principle. It's just that this is a major change, which means that it requires some evidence of consensus, and it means that we need to make changes elsewhere to cover problems that were previously handled here (e.g., unpaid activists), but aren't including here any longer. And we'll also need a cultural change, so that people realize that "COI", which was previously always a derogatory, problem-indicating term (because "COI" actually meant "creates COI-related editing problems", not merely "has a close connection to the subject"), will now often mean "professional subject-matter expert, whose edits are (to quote the guideline) 'welcome'". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
This is not a change, and no one is saying that subject-matter experts can't edit. The guideline says the opposite: that being an expert has nothing to do with COI.
If you go back to the start of this guideline, it was about vanity articles and articles about friends and contacts. If someone wants to create a new definition of COI that's more about state of mind, they can propose one. What we can't have is careless language that seems to say one thing then suddenly says the opposite, and that pays no attention to how COI is used in the rest of the world. All that does is confuse people who want to do the right thing. As Sue Gardner said, ethical people want a clear COI guideline that they can follow. The unethical ones will do what they want anyway. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:24, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Funny, I just saw a new editor being "warned" yesterday because "being an independent physician" made him have a COI about an organization whose work he likes, even though he's not part of the org. Perhaps you really meant to say something like, "lots of editors will say that subject-matter experts can't edit, but I personally think they're wrong"? Or perhaps you just aren't really involved in the practical application of the COI guideline, so you don't know what real editors are really doing in practice? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
  • @SlimVirgin Your wrote: "There's nothing in the above (or anywhere else in the guideline) that would stop a scientist writing about science or a train expert writing about trains".
  • I know that, and you know that. But what I would like to stop, are those editors who state that any association of a person with a subject is enough to claim a potential COI. If we state these things clearly, we can try and prevent unnecessary harassment, or inappropriate use of COI claims. --Iantresman (talk) 10:24, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Hi Ian, the guideline does say (see WP:EXTERNALREL): "[S]ubject-matter experts are welcome to contribute to articles in their areas of expertise, while being careful to make sure that their external relationships in that field do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia."

    Are you thinking that the proposed lead should include a summary of that, just to emphasize the point? SlimVirgin (talk) 20:06, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

SV, it's the first paragraph I have the most problem with, particularly "Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest." Holy shit. That's beyond overbroad. You DO realize how many people we have on wiki who take everything literally and use guidelines and their view of policy as a bludgeon? I shudder to think what some people could to with that? We'd all get baned from anything we were actually interested in! =:-O i like the nuance of the existing version, though some tweaks could possibly enhance it. But not that first paragraph you proposed. Montanabw(talk) 02:51, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi Montana, Alan made some suggestions in another section. Putting those together with Ian's suggestion:
Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, your family, friends, clients, employers, or financial connections. The source of a conflict of interest is an external relationship of some kind."
This is where I have the second strongest objections -- it is simultaneously too narrow (spiritual, political, educational connections not lited, just for an example) and overbroad (wWTF is a "financial connection?") It isn't needed, what's in there now is better than this. Montanabw(talk) 03:26, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
I strongly agree with this statement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:55, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
And then we would add somewhere to the lead:
"[S]ubject-matter experts are welcome to contribute to articles in their areas of expertise, while being careful to make sure that their external relationships in that field do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia."
That language above is probably useful, perhaps phrased, "...interfere with the (not their) primary goals of wikipedia." Montanabw(talk) 03:26, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
Would making those changes make it more acceptable to you? If not, is there anything you can suggest we do with the proposal that would take it in your direction? SlimVirgin (talk) 03:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
See above. Montanabw(talk) 03:26, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
  • @(talk). Yes, "Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest" is too broad for the very reason you state. Some editors take that to mean that it is always detrimental, whereas it can be a benefit, where we have experts. I think all policies should be worded in such as way that they can not be misappropriated.
  • I would suggest that every editor has a potential conflict of interest, that can be used in both a constructive and inappropriate ways. The latter is not good when an editor repeatedly violates key Wikipedia policies in order to benefit personally or financially.
  • From which it can be seen that it is the violation of other Wikipedia polices that is the issue, and if I COI is identified, that it incidental. --Iantresman (talk) 13:55, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Promote your own interests

The introductory sentence states: "COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia to promote your own interests". I don't believe there is an editor on Wikipedia who doesn't editor articles in which they are interested, that coincides with promoting them (actually or apparently). I don't think this is what the sentence means, and there should be a clear differentiation between editing articles in which you are editing, and editing such articles inappropriately. --Iantresman (talk) 19:03, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Precisely! Montanabw(talk) 19:09, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
That is one of the reasons I rewrote the first two paragraphs, Iantresman, because people currently think the lead means they're not meant to write about things they're interested in. That's not what COI is about, either on WP or in the real-world. It's just a misunderstanding of what's meant by COI or "interest". See above for the text I added (which was reverted). SlimVirgin (talk) 21:32, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
That's a new misinterpretation for me. It seems like this one misunderstanding could be handled without reference to the other changes, though.
In theory, COI is supposed to work like this:
  • Alice makes money by selling widgets.
  • Alice also makes money by serving on the board of Big Company.
  • Big Company needs to buy widgets.
  • Can they buy them from Alice? Answer: only if Alice's best interests (making money by selling widgets) lines up with the best interests of Big Company's owners (getting a good deal on a good product). If the two entities' interests align, then it's called "synergy" or "win–win". If they don't, then there is a "conflict"—Alice's interest is in conflict with Big Company's interest.
In law, it was quickly determined that stock holders were almost always the losers in these situations. So the law was changed to permit zero exercise of judgment by Alice: by statute, Alice has a conflict of interest in this transaction, even if she sells at a 99% discount just because she loves the company and doesn't actually need the money. She is defined as having a risk of hurting Big Company in this transaction. She can still make the sale, but they have to go through procedural hoops (e.g., she cannot be present during the vote on the widget contract).
In Wikipedia's old system, you had this:
  • Alice makes money by selling widgets.
  • Somebody vandalized the article about Alice's company.
  • Can Alice revert the vandalism herelf? Answer: Alice's best interests (good marketing) involve a non-vandalized version of the Wikipedia article. Wikipedia's best interests (good encyclopedia article) involve a non-vandalized version of the same article. Is there a conflict in these interests?
Well, no: that's the "synergy" or "win–win". Both Alice and Wikipedia want exactly the same undo button to be clicked. But under SlimVirgin's use of the real-world standard, the answer is yes: Alice has a permanent conflict of interest with respect to the article, [Alice, Inc], even when Alice is doing exactly what the COI-free parts of the community want to have done at that article. Everything in the guideline about best practices for COI-affected editors applies to Alice. Alice is defined as having a risk that her outside interest will unduly affect her ability to identify and revert poop vandalism. NOPAY is listed as an exception to the general dispensation to make non-controversial reversions of poop vandalism, and as owner of the company, Alice is advised by NOPAY #2 to completely refrain from editing the article, even to revert poop vandalism. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
WAID, it's another straw-man argument from you – entry-level people won't be able to correct the number of employees, and no one working for the company will be able to revert vandalism. But no one is arguing this.
What we are saying is that Alice shouldn't write the article about her widgets. And that when you argue "but she might be able to do so neutrally," you miss two points: (a) most people won't be in a position to judge whether she has done it neutrally; and (b) readers expect the articles to have been written by independent editors. Expect donations to dry up if it gets around that the pharmaceutical industry is writing its own articles with the approval of the Foundation and the community. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:04, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
No, it's not a strawman argument. That's what NOPAY actually tells Alice to do, in black and white. We know that we are going to have people enforce those words mindlessly, because we always have people enforcing policies and guidelines mindlessly (or even making them up out of whole cloth. I saw someone last week telling people that they were not allowed to remove tags like {{nocat}} that he placed on articles, even after the problems were resolved). Writing policy so that you get the desired outcomes is difficult. We cannot assume that every newbie or self-appointed anti-paid-editing person is going to use the excellent judgment that you would. Your re-emphasis of the "all employees are hopelessly conflicted" idea in the lead is only going to make NOPAY's limitations more serious. And it's still not addressing the problem of the unpaid activist, whose "reward" for POV pushing is personal satisfaction or cultural change rather than filthy lucre.
For clarity, many of the changes have appeared during the last year or so. It's not merely your decision to re-write the lead that constitutes a major change. Your re-write had the effect of bringing the drift into view, but it is not merely your re-write that is a major change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:18, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
If you go back to the start of the guideline and several related pages, it was always about close connections in the world (Engels shouldn't write about Marx, that kind of thing). I take your point about people enforcing things mindlessly. We can easily add a section about using common sense, and we can add there that the Pfizer janitor need not worry about changing the number of employees in the infobox, and similar examples. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:30, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

The original COI guideline was at Wikipedia:Editing with a conflict of interest, created by Eloquence in August 2006 and merged in October that year into what had been Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines. The combination of those two pages became the current WP:COI.

First sentence of Wikipedia:Editing with a conflict of interest: "In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a clear conflict of interest, or where such a conflict can or might be justifiably assumed based on the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged." So the idea that there was once a version that said COI editing was okay, so long as the edits were neutral, is false so far as I can tell. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:32, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

That old version addressed public relations professionals and owners, not regular employees, and it focused on the creation of new articles and significant changes to existing ones, not all edits of any kind. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:32, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm someone who has worked as an advocate for editors with conflicts of interest in the past (as well as someone who has worked against disruptive editors with conflicts of interest) but even I agree with this conclusion. The guideline has been careful to avoid stating that such a thing is forbidden, and in many cases it is (and should be) tolerated, but the implication has always been that at the very least if you edit with a COI people are going to treat you with suspicion. They have a reason to, and the guideline explains why (or tries to). Saying that something may be allowed if people don't object is different from saying that it's "okay". Because if it did, that would be dangerous, a disruptive editor (especially one who is subtly disruptive) who has a COI could then point to the guideline and declare that it gave them permission. -- Atama頭 08:31, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
We have said for years that it's okay for Alice to revert poop vandalism. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:32, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Potential conflict of interest

Perhaps some of the recent disagreement could be bridged by the use of the phrase "potential conflict of interest". The way I'd use this is that if you are writing about a topic where you have any of the many connections that have been discussed here you have a potential conflict of interest. That only become an actual conflict of interest when those interests, well, actually conflict, that is when something one is doing on behalf of one's non-Wikipedian interests conflict with Wikipedia's interest of producing an excellent neutral encyclopedia article. For example, someone writing about him- or herself always has a potential conflict of interest, but there is no actual conflict of interest in (for example) correcting your own inaccurately reported birthdate. - Jmabel | Talk 03:00, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Joe, the guideline touches on that in this section: "A potential conflict of interest occurs when P has a conflict with respect to a certain judgment, but is not yet in a position where that judgment must be exercised. It becomes an actual conflict of interest when P is in that position." SlimVirgin (talk) 03:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
I don't believe that defining a difference between a conflict of interest and a potential conflict of interest has ever been done in my time volunteering. Every COI was by implication a "potential" problem, which is why the guideline existed in the first place. This seems like a redefinition, where a conflict of interest is now defined as a problem that has resulted from a potential conflict of interest leading to actual disruption.
At the same time, I don't object to this redefinition. I think it addresses some concerns raised on this talk page, and some concerns I've seen raised in the past from people concerned about how to handle conflicts of interest. The problem is that Wikipedia's traditional definition of a COI does not match what most people in the real world consider to be a COI, which is where a close connection has caused a problem. This has put the whole approach to the COI guideline in a strange position, where it's difficult to determine what to do, if anything, when a COI is identified. By changing the article to define what a potential COI is, and then separately to show how to identify what an actual COI is (disruption stemming from an editor's relationship to an article subject) I think that makes it easier.
I can admit that I've been one of the people who have for a long time insisted that a COI should not be a "mark of shame" for editors the way other terms like "POV" or "BLP violation" or "spammer" or "vandal" have been. But maybe I should be more flexible about this. If we instead declare that a person with a close relationship to an article subject only has the potential for a COI, and that when it leads to disruption it becomes an actual COI, that's probably easier for people to understand than saying that they are a COI editor who is productive versus a COI editor who is disruptive. It's simply a matter of semantics, but I think it's an important difference. I can't help but support this. -- Atama頭 08:25, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi Atama, the thing to bear in mind is that no disruption is necessary for there to be an actual conflict of interest. Many Wikipedians have a potential COI, perhaps because WP hosts articles about their family members, companies they own, books they have written, etc. They have a potential conflict of interest with respect to exercising judgment about those articles. But they have an actual conflict of interest if they are put in a position where they do exercise judgment about them, or are expected to (for example, by editing them, voting in an AfD, etc). Their involvement need not be disruptive to become an actual COI, unless we regard actual COI as disruptive in and of itself.
As for using the ideas of actual, potential and apparent COI more than we currently do (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Apparent, potential and actual conflict of interest), I would love to write the guideline along those lines. But I'd worry that there would be confusion and resistance at every point if we were to introduce more distinctions, even though I agree that they're important and useful. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:25, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
I've created three shortcuts for that section – WP:APPARENTCOI, WP:POTENTIALCOI and WP:ACTUALCOI – which might help to make them more useful concepts in COIN discussions. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:38, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
"Their involvement need not be disruptive to become an actual COI, unless we regard actual COI as disruptive in and of itself." I thought that was the point here. Otherwise I'm confused about the difference between "potential" and "actual" COI. Are you saying that an employee has a "potential" COI if their employer has an article on Wikipedia, and it doesn't become an "actual" COI until they edit it? If that's the case, I don't see why making that distinction is helpful. That's like saying every editor on Wikipedia is a "potential" vandal, and becomes an "actual" vandal when they vandalize an article. Why would that language be necessary? That's why I thought we were suggesting that an actual "COI" requires some kind of disruption. That gives the word "conflict" a second meaning; not just that an editor's external relationship conflicts with their ability to edit the encyclopedia, but that those edits cause "conflict" with other editors in some way. -- Atama頭 02:32, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

COI is not a badge of shame

Atama, just picking up on something you wrote above, I would like us to move away from the idea that actual or potential COIs are badges of shame. They're not judgments about the editor at all, or about anyone's honesty, integrity, biases or lack thereof.

They are simply statements about the world (you are married to this person, you are employed by that person, you are the author of this book), so you have a potential COI with respect to those articles and an actual COI if you edit them. But it's a comment about the relationship, not a judgment about the editor. And even actual COIs can be managed (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Escape, disclosure or management). SlimVirgin (talk) 20:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, if you're stating that an actual COI is when an editor's actions cause disruption and require a response, it is in a sense a "badge of shame" because they are harming the project, or if that term seems too pejorative just call it "actionable behavior". Either way, by stating that a COI needs to be disruptive to be considered a COI, then a COI is a "bad thing" to put it simply. It's something that must be prevented, controlled, or mitigated to protect the encyclopedia. A potential COI on the other hand isn't a "bad thing" until it develops into an actual COI. Does that make sense? -- Atama頭 01:59, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
It's important to remember the reality: most of the people who add {{uw-coi}} to editors' talk pages do believe that COI is a black mark against the editor, and they are using it as a way to shame, discourage, or attack the editor.
My concern with this paragraph is that it's not very helpful in practice, and it's easily confused with what we used to describe as the difference between "having a COI" and "abusing a COI", or "having a close connection" and "having a COI problem". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:44, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm with SV. The reality is wrong. Nearly everyone here has some conflicts of interest due to the wide range of subjects that Wikipedia covers. The sooner we start working toward destigmatizing the term the better. We can't have meaningful conversations about COI until we start using better terminology. Gigs (talk) 16:53, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Declaring a conflict re: this page

I'll just remind folks of the last sentence in the intro.

"Any editor who discusses proposed changes to WP:COI or to any conflict of interest policy or guideline, should disclose in that discussion if he or she has been paid to edit on Wikipedia."

Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:11, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I bet we can solve all crimes by just posting a notice that all fugitives should turn themselves in. Gigs (talk) 16:56, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Consequences cannot be unhooked from definition

As I mentioned above, my concern with a definition - current or proposed - is how it ties in with the consequences. We all agree some people take a COI to an extreme and would, if left unchecked, actually forbid anyone with actual knowledge from editing as an expert (see WP:CHEESE). This is my concern with the "yourself, your family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial or other connections. Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest." Whoa! Combine that with an extreme "no one with a COI can edit" position and we have a mess. So that's my concern. The above statement does express a legitimate concern, but it must be paired with an answer to the "so what do we do if someone has a COI?" consequences. Am I making sense here? OTOH, this is less problematic: "A common definition of conflict of interest is "a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest." But again, how do we demonstrate this? We can really only look at results. I don't think it's possible for anyone to be 100% neutral on anything if you actually have expertise with the topic; of course, you have a viewpoint. But if you are a good faith editor, you learn to recognize and acknowledge your own bias so that you find a way to either write neutrally or have someone else check your work. So, my conclusion is that before we go off to the races defining a COI here, we need to trot over to the other drama boards where they are ranting about COI and paid editing and look at what the consequences are for having a COI. Montanabw(talk) 05:54, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

1) I think we can strike "your financial or other connections" and replace it with "subjects for which you are paid to edit." 2)Change "Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest" to "External relationships can trigger a conflict of interest" 3) There is a duty to the reader to know if a writer has such a conflict. 4) That information is primarily in the hands of the writer. 5) It is an issue of ethics in writing (and off wiki the ethical choices are a) don't do it; or b) if it is done, disclose). As for consequences, there are in fact regularly very little for violations of V, NPOV and NOR (not to mention CIV) - unless the editor is "caught" (usually requiring lots of diffs); all our policies basically run on the honor system: this is the right thing to do, now go do it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:07, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi Alan, we can't say "external relationships can trigger a conflict of interest," because those are the only things that do. The point of "any external relationship" is to stress that it can be a relationship of any kind (legal, financial, personal, professional). What matters is the closeness of it, the extent to which it exerts influence, etc. The guideline already addresses this at WP:EXTERNALREL:

Any external relationship – personal, religious, political, academic, financial, and legal – can trigger a conflict of interest. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense. An article about a band should not be written by the band's manager, and a biography should not be written by the subject's spouse. But subject-matter experts are welcome to contribute to articles in their areas of expertise, while being careful to make sure that their external relationships in that field do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia.

SlimVirgin (talk) 20:12, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
What? We can say "external relationships can trigger a conflict of interest," regardless of whether those are the only things that do. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:10, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
You're right, I phrased that badly. I meant to say that it would be odd way to put it:
"Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, your family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial or other connections. External relationships can trigger a conflict of interest."
The latter is implied by the former. But "any relationship ..." etc provides more information. The point of the sentence is to say that it doesn't matter what kind of relationship it is: what matters is closeness, influence, etc, per WP:EXTERNALREL. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:23, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

If there's a problem with the sentence: "Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest" (but really I can't see why it would be problematic, and it's already in the guideline), we could rephrase:

Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, your family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial or other connections. The source of a conflict of interest is always an external relationship of some kind. A common definition of conflict of interest is "a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest."[1]

  1. ^ Bernard Lo and Marilyn J. Field (eds.), Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice, National Academies Press, 2009, p. 46.

Would that be an improvement? SlimVirgin (talk) 00:35, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

"Always" seems unneeded verbiage and therefore I would strike. Simple declarative is better (and the objection above was to the open endedness of "or other") Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:49, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
Okay, so it would become:

Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, your family, friends, clients, employers, or financial connections. The source of a conflict of interest is an external relationship of some kind. A common definition of conflict of interest is "a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest."

SlimVirgin (talk) 00:57, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
I don't agree that an external relationship is the only thing that can cause a COI. It's the only thing that causes a COI under law, but we're not required to live within the limits of those law. If you decide that your purpose in life is to proselytize for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and you are an isolated, unpaid activist, then you have a conflict of interest: your personal interests are in direct conflict with Wikipedia's interests. Similarly, if you believe that your academic work is terribly important, and you use Wikipedia for self-promotion, then you have no "external relationship", but you still have a COI.
Or, to put it more succinctly, either we remove this notion that external relationships are absolutely required for a COI to exist, or we remove most of the WP:COISELF section, especially WP:SELFPROMOTION. You can't have it both ways. My relationship to myself is not "external". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:52, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
It's external to Wikipedia. The question is whether you have a relationship with the person or group that you're writing about (and you do if you qua editor are also the subject of the article), and whether that relationship is one that constitutes a COI. COI is always about relationships, but obviously not all relationships trigger a COI. The definition the guideline uses is not only used in law; it's used everywhere. COI is not about personal beliefs; it's about relationships and roles in the real world, and this guideline has always been about that too. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:05, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing: There are few laws about COI, it's mostly in ethics policies, some of which might as well be laws (i.e. you can get disbarred, etc). I would say that self promotion is a special case but also a proper subset of "external relationships". You obviously are related to yourself, and the relationship is external to Wikipedia. Gigs (talk) 17:01, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

NO

SV .. just no. I'm sorry you're wrong here. All due respect to your tenure here, but the changes you're trying to make are major changes that affect the fundamental meaning of "wp:coi". Dreadstar is right in what he says above. I know you watch over policy pages; and I respect and admire that ... but you're trying to make fundamental changes here that would need to go through a major RfC. "COI" was never meant to be a "Bacon number" ... respect the history and what Wikipedia is supposed to be please. — ChedZILLA 23:51, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Ched, so far as I can tell, there is nothing in my proposed lead that isn't in the guideline; that was the point of the edit, to summarize the guideline more accurately. So can you please point to the issue that you see as a change? SlimVirgin (talk) 23:58, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
The contention of Ched and others seems to be that a mental state is the definition of Conflict of Interest. I just don't see this at all. The definition has all ways been about the facts of a relationship, e.g. about Marx and Engels (or Bill and Hillary). The definition is in the first sentence of this quote
When an external relationship undermines, or could reasonably be said to undermine, your role as a Wikipedian, you have a conflict of interest. This is often expressed as: when advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.
The definition is clearly the 1st sentence, the 2nd sentence is meant to be an illustration "This is often expressed as". But it is a confusing illustration that simply does not define anything. Given that some folks take the flawed illustration take it as a definition, the 2nd sentence needs to be removed. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:11, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
The discussion about a mental state that influences a person's edits is already covered adequately by the NPOV policy. The "mental state" in question is just another way of saying "bias". Bias may or may not come into play in a conflict of interest situation. Someone who is paid to whitewash an article or spam external links to a web site doesn't really have a bias, they just have a job they're trying to do. Yet that editor clearly has a conflict of interest. I think that insisting that a bias must be present for our COI guideline to be applicable unnecessarily hinders our ability to use the guideline in particular circumstances, and further makes this guideline redundant when compared to our NPOV policy. -- Atama頭 02:26, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
The assertion that "This is often expressed as" was merely meant to be an example might be more convincing if that watering-down language hadn't been added by SlimVirgin three months ago. If you check the archives, you'll find people declaring that sentence (which I don't frankly like; you will find my proposals for revisions to it there, too) as being the single most important sentence in the entire guideline. And when the mosrt important sentence is about what's "more important" to the editor, then there really has been a serious element of "mental state" in the guideline for years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:59, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
But it was never the best way to express COI. (Why is saying that's how it's often expressed "watering-down language"?) That sentence started life reflecting a degree of compulsion (because the guideline was mostly concerned with PR people) as "Where an editor must forego advancing the aims of Wikipedia in order to advance outside interests, he stands in a conflict of interest," added by me in June 2007.
It was changed to the (arguably) more subjective "Where an [sic] advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest" by NJGW, in an effort to fix vandalism (or a mistake) in October 2008. It has made people think that if they feel that Wikipedia is more important to them, that's okay, there's no COI (even when writing an article about their wife's latest book). SlimVirgin (talk) 04:59, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Chedzilla, the original COI guideline was at Editing with a conflict of interest, created by Eloquence (Erik Moeller) in August 2006, then merged in October 2006 into what had been Vanity guidelines. The combination of those pages became the current WP:COI.
The first version of Editing with a conflict of interest was about paid editors and the closeness of the writer to the article subject. The final version before it was merged into COI points to "the proximity of the editor to the subject," and discusses PR departments and paid editors. So right from the start they were looking at relationships that would give rise to a tendency to bias, as the current guideline has made clear for years (e.g. the Marx and Engels example).
It's a misunderstanding that the COI guideline was ever about state of mind. Someone who loves stamp collecting does not have a COI in relation to articles about it just because of that love (or strong dislike), or just because he might have difficulty editing neutrally. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:45, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
SV, and I do respect a lot of the work you do here, but your rewording actually doesn't clarify, it broadens COI dramatically, with the potential for a host of unintended consequences. Bottom line is that for the real world, NPOV is what matters, and whoever can write NPOV should be allowed to. Montanabw(talk) 02:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
So then you're arguing that COI should not be "broadened" beyond stating that everyone should edit with a neutral POV and everything else is irrelevant? I'm sorry, but that is a dramatic change of the COI guideline; not just a change, but an elimination of it. In my experience, conflicts of interest do matter. I've seen elsewhere on this talk page where there is a concern that people will use the conflict of interest guideline to shut down any editors who might be suspected of having a COI, or those who admit to having one. Yes, people can and have tried to use it as a bludgeon in disputes, or to punish those they disagree with, but it rarely succeeds, and those people are severely abusing the guideline. If that is your concern, that is what should be addressed, not removing this guideline out of fear. I've seen it do a lot of good over the years. I know from what you said above that you've been on the bad end of people who tried to misuse this guideline against you, and I'm genuinely sorry that it happened to you (I wish I was there at the time to address those others), but I don't think this is the way to address that. I'm curious, but have you seen the WP:PSCOI essay? It's a different approach with the same goal, except written in a way that is meant to be clearer to editors who are new to the project. I'm curious what you think of it. -- Atama頭 06:06, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
Oh heavens no, but your example of making assumptions, putting words in my mouth, exaggerating what I said, and implying that I said something I didn't say is EXACTLY what proves my point here! You set up a straw man argument and then proceed to skewer it! Frankly, I have seen the existing COI guideline succeed many times, so I'm not sure we need to fix what isn't broken other than to be sure our "clarifying" is not changing the actual meaning. That's really all I'm saying. I think that people with a COI can edit with a neutral point of view, and many others who have too strong a POV to be totally neutral will still work in good faith to allow others to make the article better. It's the witchhunt mentality that I worry about, and it IS alive and well. (I can't find the current dramaboard right now where someone said that people with a COI should never be allowed to edit, but if I find, I will repost). I will look at PSCOI, but who ever finds these offshoot articles? Not the people who need them. Montanabw(talk) 00:32, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Full disclosure: I just created Thunder (mascot). For the sake of playing with how extreme things could go, let's see: I'm rooting for the Broncos, I own Arabian horses and as I think I noted somewhere in here that I happen to be a co-owner of a sweet little 22 year old mare who was bred by Thunder's owner (though I didn't buy from her and have never actually met the lady). Seriously, shall I disclose my COI at the article? (Hmph!) I'm mostly joking, but I'm serious inasmuch as some people would probably say "yes." So I'm putting it up as a theoretical. Montanabw(talk) 00:32, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

None of those things would undermine your neutrality. A more subtle and better example, which I have actually seen "in the wild" would be someone who is a massive hobby collector of a particular brand of model cars, so much so that they could be said to have pretty large financial incentive related to their hobby. This person was editing articles related to their brand of collectibles. They are clearly one of the most authoritative experts on the subject, but they also have a conflict of interest because the value of their collection will vary with the public perception of the collectibles. This is our "sticky wicket" and probably the hardest kind of case to deal with both in guidelines and in practice. Gigs (talk) 17:06, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
OK, so I also have well over 100 Breyer horse models that I collected as a kid and managed to prevent my mother from tossing at a garage sale. They are probably worth thousands, but mostly they sit in boxes in storage. Am I precluded from editing the Breyer model horse article? The lead image currently in the article is of some examples from my collection. (The particular examples aren't worth much because they have some serious wear and tear on them from when I played with them as a kid, but still...)  ;-) Trust me, I can take this from any equine angle you can find. See below! (grin) Montanabw(talk) 19:42, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't say precluded, but you do have a potential conflict of interest there. This situation of "generally benign COI" is the hardest sort of COI situation to deal with in policy drafting, since someone like you is probably the most suited to edit those articles and we definitely wouldn't want to discourage you from good faith submissions to them. Gigs (talk) 19:48, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
But you see, that's why this is a problem; I've got a couple boxes of things that I played with as a kid that, like some baseball cards, might be worth something now, but I'm never going to sell any of them because they have a sentimental value. Seriously, I also own two real live horses, (at the moment, for a while there I had four) one of whom is probably worth something in the mid-four figures (about the average price for an average show-quality riding horse around here), so am I precluded from editing all horse articles too because I could make some money if I sold her? What if I teach riding lessons? What about my example above about my three degrees of separation from Thunder (mascot)? Seriously, if the Broncos win the Super Bowl, the value of the ($500 rescue horse who is 22 years old) MIGHT go up - a little (to be honest, she can't be bred and she's old, so probably not, but still...). Do you see how silly this could get?  ;-) Montanabw(talk) 22:26, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

COI vs WP:PRIVACY

My understanding is that WP:PRIVACY is more important than WP:COI (which is not to suggest that WP:COI is unimportant). If an editor's off-wiki website includes information which may suggest a possible conflict if interest, can it be alluded to without WP:OUTING them? Does it matter what this information is? eg. Suppose I'm a member of the Vegetarian Society, can another editor claim a COI if I edit articles on the vegetarianism? What about if I am the press officer of said society? What if I own and run a vegetarian store? --Iantresman (talk) 13:14, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

1)If the user is misrepresenting themselves, they are violating the terms of use. 2) If you are a member of a society, you may have a coi when you write about the society but you would not have a coi if you write about other topics; 3)If you are a press officer you would have a coi when writing about the society but not about other topics; 4) If you are a store owner, you would have a coi, when writing about the store but not about other topics. We make these judgments all the time when examining sources for articles - is it independent or not -- we should therefore be able to make these judgments about ourselves, and be up front with them. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Privacy is important, but if an editor misinforms us about issues which are not actually private (ie. their role on a website elsewhere), we do need to be able to deal with that. Most COI reports involve an uninvolved editor pointing out an undisclosed conflict of interest. But as for exactly which bits of information about an editor constitute a conflict of interest, it's very hard to write a general answer, and I think there's a big grey area. bobrayner (talk) 16:58, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Would an editor be misrepresenting themselves if they choose to side with WP:PRIVACY, and not to reveal (or confirm) on Wikipedia, that they are a member of a society that they may mention on their own website? I don't see how an uninvolved editor can point out an undisclosed conflict of interest, without contravening WP:PRIVACY. After all, anonymous editors never have these issues, and can not be upheld to the same degree of accountability. --Iantresman (talk) 17:24, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
OK, so say I am a member (one of millions) of AARP and I edit any article about issues facing people over 50 (arthritis, perhaps?), do I have a COI? What if I edit the AARP article itself? What if, to take another example, I am a member of the American Automobile Association (I am) and have "benefitted financially" by using my member benefits for getting my car towed or jump-started or (most recently) having a locksmith get me into my car when I locked my keys inside? Then I edit the AAA article. Can I be outed? Do I have a COI? Or perhaps, what if I join a smaller organization (perhaps, as an example, my local humane society - though I am not at the moment) and my name is on their members list on their web site, (true of some groups I'm in) or perhaps I donated money to them and they thanked me on their web site (this happens, sometimes)? Then (to take the humane society example) I edit animal welfare articles? (which I do) Shall I be either editing with a COI or deserve to be outed? Seriously, how far down this rabbit hole do you want to go? Montanabw(talk) 18:17, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
I think there are two separate questions here; what things count as a COI, and what is appropriate disclosure by third parties. We can describe the former in general terms but we'll never have a list of all examples which can resist all attempts at hair-splitting. We just have to deal with it case by case. The latter question might be worth exploring here. bobrayner (talk) 18:46, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm certainly aware of editors who have claimed a COI, because another editors is a member of the something like the AARP, and are attempted to edit anything to do with age. But I am more interested if you can bring ANY public information to Wikipedia, if the editor has chosen not to make the known to Wikipedia. --Iantresman (talk) 18:49, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
A recent example:
  • An article about a new concept, Merchant sharing was recently deleted. The article's creator, with an account-name we'll call "X", cited one paper (in a dubious journal) promoting the concept, written by somebody with a real name that we'll call Y. This paper proposed using a new currency and it also cited a French wikipedia article. The IT underlying the new currency is on a github page run by somebody using the same account-name X. The French wikipedia article has been edited by X so it supports the ideas in Y's paper. The new currency is being promoted by a website run by Y which, in turn, relies heavily on X's userpage on French wikipedia, and that userpage promotes Y.
  • So, obviously, X has a severe conflict of interest, and their only edits here (and on fr.wikipedia) are to promote these notions. They didn't disclose the COI and seem to have deliberately obfuscated the connection between X and Y both onsite and offsite, which has allowed some policy violations to proliferate. However, all these details - including the association between X and Y - are easily googled.
Is it wrong of me to point out any of this? bobrayner (talk) 22:18, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
But the article wasn't deleted because there a COI. It was deleted because sources did not find it notable. There would have been no need to violate the editor's privacy in order to have the article removed. --Iantresman (talk) 22:25, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
A number of other pages are still affected, both here and on fr.wikipedia. And more generally speaking, when somebody is determined to inflate notability - a common feature of COI problems - they can often make a superficially convincing case in venues like AfD; pointing out "You wrote that source" can be a good way of deflating such claims, and it's hard to imagine that privacy concerns should overrule it. bobrayner (talk) 22:38, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't matter whether an editor wrote a source. What is important is whether it is a reliable source. WP:PRIVACY is quite clear about the use of personal information in COI cases. I have yet to see any justification for using personal information, when other Wikipedia policies seem sufficient to deal with a COI case. --Iantresman (talk) 00:12, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
As per Iantresman, privacy claims will overrule it. Essentially, the policy on outing trumps the guideline on COI editing - we can't prove a conflict of interest by revealing undisclosed personal information about another editor. Where it has been an issue in the past, I have contacted a CheckUser or ArbCom member (the latter hasn't helped much, though, so I'd focus on the CheckUsers), as both are trusted with personal information, and asked them to collaborate that a COI exists. That has worked fine - it is generally enough to say that we've confirmed that a COI exists without having to reveal private information. - Bilby (talk) 01:01, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
That is problematic; because COI/N cases get shut down for failing to identify what an editor has been doing off-wiki. More generally, if we can't point out conflicts of interest using publically available information, then how can we deal with the conflict of interest problem? bobrayner (talk) 03:16, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

IMHO, most of the time when I come across a problematic COI, the content they add sucks for other reasons anyway, (NPOV, Notability, copyvio, etc.) and that provides ample grounds for doing what needs to be done. Usually a problematic COI will come back at those of us trying to fix the problem with a "don't you know who I am and that I am so terribly important in my Godlike nature!" rant that self-outs voluntarily. Then they act like a troll and get themselves blocked. Or else they just slink off. If someone with a COI can write a neutral, notable, original, sourced article, then what the heck, let them, tag is you insist, but why go on a witchhunt after them? Montanabw(talk) 05:44, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

There is definitely a conflict between our outing policy and COI guideline. There always will be, the same way that blocking a vandalism-only account from a new editor conflicts with WP:BITE. But just because guidelines and policies may have the potential to work against each other, that doesn't mean that they can't coexist by using proper judgment. In this case, when determining a conflict of interest, you must always do so without outing someone. I've had to revdelete more than once at COIN because of outing, it's a constant danger and always will be. The revdelete policy specifically states that even in conflict of interest discussions, edit history may be hidden to protect personal privacy.
But it's not outing when an editor declares their connections themselves, and that happens frequently. WP:OUTING itself states that "if individuals have identified themselves without redacting or having it oversighted, such information can be used for discussions of conflict of interest (COI) in appropriate forums". That outing can come in many ways; sometimes through an editor's choice of username, mentioning personal information or connections during discussions, or (very often) by declaring their real-life connections in order to claim authority, ownership, or expertise that will strengthen an argument or establish their credibility in some way. As an example, if an editor gives their real life name and that name happens to match the owner of a business, it's not outing to then declare that the person who keeps deleting negative material from that business's article is displaying a conflict of interest, even if the editor never directly stated that they were the owner. It's a reasonable conclusion that does not violate their privacy beyond what they've already shared.
I do realize the paradox that we present in our guidelines and policies. We want editors to be transparent about conflicts of interest, and we declare that editors should disclose them so that we can approach them from an honest perspective. But at the same time we're also stating that disclosing such information can potentially lead to censure, and that if they choose to not disclose personal information that nobody can force them to do so and that they're safe in doing so anyone who digs up their personal information is guilty of outing. But that's the only way to balance our COI guideline while simultaneously protecting editors' privacy. If there's another way to do it that's more fair, I'm open to suggestions. -- Atama頭 08:52, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
WP:OUTING is clear that "Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information". In other words, just because my name may make it easy to identify me personally, I get to chose whether to make information about me known to other Wikipedia editors. As a policy consistent with Wikimedia:Privacy policy, this would seem to trump COI absolutely, especially as a COI in itself, is not an offence, only an abuse of COI is potentially problematic and covered by other behavioural guidelines? --Iantresman (talk) 15:09, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't work that way. That's an example of an abuse of the outing policy. You can't say, "You can't bring my position as owner against me because I want you to pretend I'm not the owner." Once you provide personal information, any conclusions that can be drawn are fair game (without requiring "opposition research" or digging up info off-Wiki to prove such conclusions). We give people the right to be anonymous, and the ability to waive that right if they choose to provide information. If you disclose information and want to retract it, there are avenues to have that done but you can't have it both ways. Another example is where you edit under an IP, and that IP identifies where you are editing from; if you want to avoid disclosing the location you edit from you can create an account to keep your IP private. Wikipedia puts the choice for privacy in the hands of editors, but editors can't ask other editors to pretend to be ignorant of known information if that information is suddenly inconvenient. Otherwise we couldn't even block sockpuppets because people could declare that the information used to determine the use of multiple accounts is a violation of privacy. In any case, you can't just ask other editors to play dumb when you're making it obvious by your own words and actions who you are. -- Atama頭 01:55, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

We regularly identify and "out" spammers and sockpuppeteers. Privacy is not a blank check to abuse Wikipedia. One recent case was an IP editor pretending to be someone independent suggesting changes to his biography. The IP was 1 digit different from a previously SPI/CU confirmed IP of the subject of the biography. I'm not going to pretend that is someone other than the subject of the article because of "privacy" concerns, that's ludicrous. I thanked him for suggesting changes on talk, and chastised him for continuing to pretend to be different people. If that is "outing" people, then I will continue to "out" people because to do otherwise would be ridiculous. Gigs (talk) 16:45, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

A conflict of interest is not an abuse, it is a potential abuse of other Wikipedia policies. Outing is an abuse of Wikipedia's privacy policy. Editors who chose anonymous usernames enjoy full anonymity, yet can still abuse Wikipedia's behavoural policies. --Iantresman (talk) 01:14, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

An attempt at a taxonomy of common Wikipedia COIs

A person:

  1. creates an article about themselves. The original reason we created these sorts of guidelines.
  2. is paid to create an article for a third party that they have no other relationship with.
  3. is employed in a PR/Media role at a company, and edits Wikipedia on behalf of their employer
  4. edits articles related to a company they own or work for
  5. edits articles related to a sports team/event they have bet on

Gray areas. Edits articles related to:

  1. a friend or family
  2. a professor their had in college
  3. their personal collection of collectible objects
  4. their profession
  5. a business that they like and would like to see succeed

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gigs (talk • contribs)

  • Interesting way to look at it. Here's my take on it IMHO: A person - 1-4 yes, but 5 is dubious. What if I bet on horse racing? Which I do, big bucks, usually $2 show bets. Am I now precluded from editing an article on, say Beholder (horse) because I won eight bucks at my local simulcast place due to a couple of fortunate bets and her and Close Hatches in the Breeders' Cup Distaff? I mean, seriously. Shall I be banned from uploading File:Montana Expo Park Horse Racing 05.JPG and ones like it because I had a $2 bet on the race in question? As for the Gray areas, 1, yes, that's pretty clear and probably OK. But 2-5 are open to abuse -- I work in the legal profession, am I banned from editing any articles about the law? I teach a US history college class, am I banned from editing articles about US History? I edit on a MacBook Pro, am I banned from editing articles about Apple Computer? Montanabw(talk) 19:36, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I think "their profession" should be a bit more nuanced. I don't edit Parker Hannifin or Mattel because as a former employee I have a COI, but I do a lot of work on general engineering articles, and most of the other editors I work with are also engineers. Those articles are certainly related to my profession. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:43, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I actually have no problem with a person creating an article about themselves, as long as they are notable, and it is reasonably NPOV with sufficient WP:RS. I think it becomes a problem if the person removes negative information, and deviates too far from WP:NPOV.
  • I wonder whether this example could be (a) converted into a flow chart (b) indicates actual violations of policy that might be COI a problem (c) also shows where COI is a benefit, such as people who are experts, or know their field well. (d) are there very grey areas, what if I have written a book on vegetables, do I have useful expertise, or am I just trying to sell my book? --Iantresman (talk) 21:00, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
You have useful expertise if you write about vegetables, and a COI if you write about your book. When you're trying to decide whether a potential COI exists, ask yourself: "What is the real-world relationship that might constitute a conflict in this situation, and what would the conflict consist of?" SlimVirgin (talk) 02:30, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
I fear it could wind up like jury selection: the only people allowed in are those too ignorant to have any knowledge or opinion. I fear too tight a COI restriction would mean that if you give a shit about something, then it's a COI. For some, COI always equals POV. IMHO, it is the edits that count, the work itself. I would instead ask, "can I tell what the views of this person are by the content of their edits, and if so, is this POV-pushing that is inappropriate?" Montanabw(talk) 05:26, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree with the first part of what you said, but the people who argue that COI is about POV are mistaken. It's never about state of mind (beliefs, knowledge, feelings, desires, opinions, expertise or lack thereof), but about relationships. If you love horses (or dislike them), edit about horses, but if you write a book about horses, don't write an article about that book. It's actually pretty simple most of the time. There are cases where it might be hard to decide how pressing someone's COI is, but most of the time it's fairly straightforward. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:52, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin I think we would draw the line in a similar position regarding what constitutes COI. Other editors have their own thoughts. I think the guidelines needs to give better examples of (a) clear problematic COI (b) (b) a healthy topic interest, but not a conflict of interest. The advantage of doing this is to reduce the number of spurious WP:COIN cases, reduce the harassment of some editors by others. --Iantresman (talk) 11:23, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

But that is PRECISELY the rub -- so if I do write a book about horses, I get not writing an article about the book, and not using my book as a source in a WP article, but because I would then be in the "business' of making money with horses, I can see some people saying I have a COI for Every. Single. Freaking. Article. at WPEQ. Let's take a theoretical, though. If we were to pretend that this author of a book on horse tack was a wikipedia editor (let's call her "Editor Foo to avoid a BLP issue, I don't know this person from a hole in the ground, personally, it was just the first book that came up in a search at Amazon), would "Editor Foo" Be precluded from contributing to ANY articles on horse tack? Do you see my concerns about how far down a rabbit hole we want to go? I am concerned that taking this too far would mean only the WP:CHEESE editors would remain. Montanabw(talk) 22:21, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
Of course. Every professional expert makes money from their expertise in their job. This to me seems like a healthy interest. --Iantresman (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
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