Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

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✔ This page documents an English Wikipedia behavioral guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.
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This page in a nutshell: Do not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests, or those of other individuals, companies, or groups, unless you are certain that the interests of Wikipedia remain paramount.
For specific examples where you may be able to help, see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard.

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 in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Where an editor must forgo advancing the aims of Wikipedia in order to advance outside interests, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

COI edits are strongly discouraged. When they cause disruption to the encyclopedia in the opinion of an uninvolved administrator, they may lead to accounts being blocked and embarrassment for the individuals and groups who were being promoted.[1]

Contents

[edit] What is a conflict of interest?

See also: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a forum for advertising or self-promotion, or a vanity press. As such, it should contain only material that complies with its content policies, and Wikipedians must place the interests of the encyclopedia first. Any editor who gives priority to outside interests may be subject to a conflict of interest.

There are no firm criteria to determine whether a conflict of interest exists, but there are warning signs. Adding material that appears to promote the interests or visibility of an article's author, its author's family members, employer, associates, or their business or personal interests, 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. If you do write an article on an area in which you are personally involved, be sure to write in a neutral tone and cite reliable, third-party published sources, and beware of unintentional bias. Neutral point of view is one of Wikipedia's five pillars.

If other editors suggest that your editing violates Wikipedia's standards, take that advice seriously and consider stepping back, reassessing your edits, and discussing your intentions with the community. In particular, consider whether you are editing tendentiously.

[edit] Examples

Citing oneself
See also: Wikipedia:Autobiography and Wikipedia:No original research#Citing oneself

Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is notable and conforms to the content policies. Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion.

Financial

If you fit either of these descriptions:

  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 the owner, officer or other stakeholder of a company or other organisation about which you are writing;

then we very strongly encourage you to avoid editing Wikipedia in areas where there is a conflict of interest that would make your edits non-neutral (biased). Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy states that all articles must represent views fairly and without bias, and conflicts of interest do significantly and negatively affect Wikipedia's ability to fulfill this requirement. If your financially-motivated edits would be non-neutral, do not post them.

Legal antagonists

If you are involved in a court case, or close to one of the litigants, you would find it very hard to demonstrate that what you wrote about a party or a law firm associated with the case, or a related area of law, was entirely objective. Even a minor slip up in neutrality in a court-case article on Wikipedia for an active case-in-progress could potentially be noticed by the courts or their parties, and this could potentially cause real-world harm, not just harm to Wikipedia. Because of this, we strongly discourage editing when this type of conflict exists.

Self-promotion

Conflict of interest often presents itself in the form of self-promotion, including advertising links, personal website links, personal or semi-personal photos, or other material that appears to promote the private or commercial interests of the editor, or their associates.

Examples of these types of material include:

  1. Links that appear to promote products by pointing to obscure or not particularly relevant commercial sites (commercial links).
  2. Links that appear to promote otherwise obscure individuals by pointing to their personal pages.
  3. Biographical material that does not significantly add to the clarity or quality of the article.
Autobiography
For more details on this topic, see Wikipedia:Autobiography.

It is not recommended to write an article about yourself. If you are notable, someone else will notice you and write the article. In some cases, Wikipedia users write articles about themselves when the more appropriate action would be to create a user page. In these cases, the article is normally moved into the user namespace rather than deleted. If you believe you may be notable enough, make your case on the appropriate talk pages, and seek consensus first, both with the notability and any proposed autobiography.

Close relationships

Friedrich Engels would have had difficulty editing the Karl Marx article, because he was a close friend, follower and collaborator of Marx.[2] Any situation where strong relationships can develop may trigger a conflict of interest. Conflict of interest can be personal, religious, political, academic, financial, and legal. It is not determined by area, but is created by relationships that involve a high level of personal commitment to, involvement with, or dependence upon, a person, subject, idea, tradition, or organization.

Closeness to a subject does not mean you're incapable of being neutral, but it may incline you towards some bias. Be guided by the advice of other editors. If editors on a talk page suggest in good faith that you may have a conflict of interest, try to identify and minimize your biases, and consider withdrawing from editing the article. As a rule of thumb, the more involvement you have with a topic in real life, the more careful you should be with our core content policies — Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:No original research, and Wikipedia:Verifiability — when editing in that area.

The definition of "too close" in this context is governed by common sense. An article about a little-known band should preferably not be written by a band member or the manager. However, an expert on climate change is welcome to contribute to articles on that subject, even if that editor is deeply committed to the subject.

Campaigning

Activities regarded by insiders as simply "getting the word out" may appear promotional or propagandistic to the outside world. If you edit articles while involved with organizations that engage in advocacy in that area, you may have a conflict of interest.

Promotional article production on behalf of clients

Producing promotional articles for Wikipedia on behalf of clients is strictly prohibited.

[edit] How to avoid COI edits

Wikipedia is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit," but if you have a conflict of interest avoid, or exercise great caution when:

  1. Editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with,
  2. Participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors,
  3. Linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam);
    and you must always:
  4. Avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially neutral point of view, verifiability, and autobiography.
Action
Those who feel the need to make controversial edits, in spite of a real or perceived conflict of interest, are strongly encouraged to submit proposed edits for review on the article's talk page along with a {{Request edit}} tag to attract users to review the edit, or to file a request for comment.

[edit] User subspace to publish short autobiographies

Contributing signed-in users may use their user subspace to publish short autobiographies within the bounds of good taste and compatible with the purpose of working on the encyclopedia. If you wish to write about yourself without working on the encyclopedia, consider starting a website or a blog instead. Wikipedia is not a free webhost.

[edit] How to handle conflicts of interest

Conflict of interest often raises questions as to whether material should be included in the encyclopedia or not. It also can be a cause, or contributing factor, in disputes over whether editors have an agenda that undermines the mission of Wikipedia. Suspected conflict of interest incidents may be reported on the conflict of interest noticeboard, and users may be warned with the {{uw-coi}} user warning template. Conflict of interest is not a reason to delete an article although other problems with the article arising from a conflict of interest may be valid criteria for deletion.

Dealing with suspected conflicted editors

The first approach should be direct discussion of the issue with the editor, referring to this guideline. If persuasion fails, consider whether you are involved in a content dispute. If so, an early recourse to dispute resolution may help. Another option is to initiate discussion at WP:COIN, where experienced editors may be able to help you resolve the matter without recourse to publishing assertions and accusations on Wikipedia. Using COI allegations to harass an editor or to gain the upper hand in a content dispute is prohibited, and can result in a block or ban.

Remember, conflicted editors do not lose their privileges to edit Wikipedia pseudonymously. Revealing the names of pseudonymous editors is in all cases against basic policy.

Primacy of basic content policies

All text created in the Wikipedia main namespace is subject to rules covering criteria for articles (what Wikipedia is not); encyclopedic quality (verifiability and original research); editorial approach (neutral point of view); as well as the Wikipedia copyright policy. All editors are expected to stick closely to these policies when creating and evaluating material, and to respect the good faith actions of others who edit content to ensure it complies with these policies.

Who has written the material should be irrelevant so long as these policies are closely adhered to. The imputation of conflict of interest is not by itself a good reason to remove sound material from articles. However, an apparent conflict of interest is a good reason for close review by the community to identify any subtle bias.

For an article about something obviously important, but which was written with too much COI to easily edit, it is often possible to reduce an article to the basic identifying information and then neutral editors can help the article to be improved.

Importance of civility

During debates in articles' talk pages and at articles for deletion, disparaging comments may fly about the subject of the article/author and the author's motives. These may border on personal attacks, and may discourage the article's creator from making future valuable contributions.

Avoid using the word "vanity" or similar judgmental terms — this is accusatory and discouraging. It is not helpful, nor reason to delete an article. Assuming good faith, start from the idea that the contributor was genuinely trying to help increase Wikipedia's coverage.

Conflict of interest in point of view disputes

Another case is within disputes relating to non-neutral points of view, where underlying conflicts of interest may aggravate editorial disagreements. In this scenario, it may be easy to make claims about conflict of interest. Do not use conflict of interest as an excuse to gain the upper hand in a content dispute. When conflicts exist, invite the conflicted editor to contribute to the article talk page, and give their views fair consideration.

[edit] How not to handle COI

There is a little drama that is enacted more often than it should be.

  • Act One: Someone writes a hatchet job about a company with a less than stellar reputation.
  • Act Two: The company arrives, is (justifiably) horrified and angered by the hatchet job. They respond without experience, clumsily, by trying to force a change to a whitewash.
  • Act Three: Self-righteous Wikipedian responds in anger against the attempt to "censor" or "whitewash" by yelling at the company and forcing the article back to a hatchet job status.
  • Act Four: Company comes crying to otrs and the office.
  • Act Five: In the happy version of the ending, otrs/the office comes in and reminds everyone to act with love and neutrality to write a good article which is acceptable to both reasonable critics and reasonable supporters of the company... reliance on solid sources, neutral language, etc. carries the day.

In reality, Act Five often ends up cycling back through Acts One through Four. This is a Bad Thing.

Remember: an editor with a self-evident conflict of interest turning up on the talk page is an indication that they are playing it straight. Even if the changes they advocate are hopelessly biased, treat them with respect and courtesy, and refer to policy, sources and above all be fair.

[edit] Editors who may have a conflict of interest

This section of the guideline is aimed at editors who may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits in mainspace where there is a clear conflict of interest, or where such a conflict can be reasonably assumed, are strongly discouraged. Significantly biased edits in mainspace are forbidden.

[edit] Declaring an interest

Some editors declare an interest in a particular topic area. They do this in various ways. Many Wikipedians show their allegiances and affiliations on their user pages. You may choose to reveal something about yourself in a talk page discussion. Disclaimer: Wikipedia gives no advice about whether or how to use its pages to post personal details. This guideline only raises some pros and cons.

Advantages:

  • By declaring an interest, you pre-empt anyone outing you or questioning your good faith.
  • Most editors will appreciate your honesty.
  • You lay the basis for requesting help from others to post material for you, or to review material you wish to post yourself.

Disadvantages:

  • Your declaration may be invoked against you at some point.
  • Your edits to the area in question may attract extra attention.
  • Your declaration will give you no special rights as an advocate. You may even be cautioned or, in extreme cases, told to stay away from certain topics.[3]

In the case of commercial editing (editing on behalf of a company):

  1. a disclosure enables you to ask openly for help in getting material posted and edited, but
  2. once your position is known, you will have to adhere stringently to neutral edits of affected articles, or no edits at all. Note that if you only correct bias against your company and its interests, and not bias in its favour, your editing will be different from that of a regular Wikipedian, who would be expected to do both.

[edit] Defending interests

In a few cases, outside interests coincide with Wikipedia’s interests. An important example is that unsupported defamatory material appearing in articles may be removed at once. Anyone may do this, and should do this, and this guideline applies widely to any unsourced or poorly sourced, potentially libelous postings. In this case it is unproblematic to defend the interest of the person or institution involved. An entire article that presents as an attack piece or hostile journalism can be nominated for speedy deletion and will be removed promptly from the site. Those who post here in this fashion will also be subject to administrative sanction. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons gives details on how biographical articles on living persons should be written.

On the other hand, the removal of reliably sourced critical material is not permitted. Accounts of public controversies, if backed by reliable sources, form an integral part of Wikipedia's coverage. Slanting the balance of articles as a form of defence of some figure, group, institution, or product is bad for the encyclopedia. This is also the case if you find an article overwhelmed with correctly referenced, but exclusively negative information. This may present a case of undue weight, for example, when 90% of an article about a particular company discusses a lawsuit one client once brought against it. In such a case, such material should be condensed by a neutral editor, and the other sections expanded. One of the best ways to go about this is to request this on the talk page.

The intermediate territory will naturally contain some grey areas. In many articles, criticism tends to collect in a separate section. There you may find properly referenced reports of well-publicised debates next to vague assertions that "Some people say X, while others think Y." Treat everything on its merits. Ask for reliable sources. Before removing a whole criticism section or article and distributing its parts over other sections of the article, which may be the best way ahead, consult other editors on the Talk page. Use crisp, informative edit summaries to detail what you have done, an excellent way to establish your reputation as a diligent editor. Raise any less obvious reasoning as a note on the talk page, with any additional links that support your edits.

[edit] Suggesting changes to articles, or requesting a new article

Shortcuts:
WP:COIC
WP:COI compliance
See also: Wikipedia:Suggestions for COI compliance

An editor with a conflict of interest who wishes to suggest substantive changes to an article should use that article's talk page. When making a request please consider disclosing your conflict of interest to avoid misunderstanding.

To request a new article, you can present your idea on the talk page of a relevant article or WikiProject.

[edit] Non-controversial edits

Editors who may have a conflict of interest are allowed to make certain kinds of non-controversial edits, such as:

  1. Removing spam and reverting vandalism.
  2. Deleting content that violates Wikipedia's biography of living persons policy.
  3. Fixing spelling and grammar errors.
  4. Reverting or removing their own COI edits. Cleaning up your own mess is allowed and encouraged.
  5. Making edits that have been agreed to on the talk page.

To determine what is controversial, use common sense. If another good faith editor objects, then it's controversial.

[edit] Photographs and media files

Wikimedia Commons encourages parties with potential conflicts of interest to upload digital media files, such as photographs, illustrations, audio files and video clips, so long as the media is of good quality, is in a format we use and the copyright holder is willing do so under one of the free licenses we accept.

While Commons prefers full resolution media, reduced resolution images are acceptable when the copyright owner is unwilling to freely license a full quality image. See Commons:Welcome for detailed requirements.

Once media files are uploaded to Commons, they can then be incorporated into Wikipedia articles where appropriate. The best approach is to mention the availability of the image or media files on the article's talk page. But it is usually acceptable to edit the article directly to add one or two images that illustrate the existing article content, e.g. adding a publicity mug shot to the biography of a performing artist.

[edit] Consequences of ignoring this guideline

Further information: Wikipedia:Ownership of articles
Wikipedia's Law of Unintended Consequences

If you write in Wikipedia about yourself, your group, your company, or your pet idea, once the article is created, you have no right to control its content, and no right to delete it outside our normal channels. Content is not deleted just because somebody doesn't like it. Any editor may add material to or remove material from the article within the terms of our content policies. If there is anything publicly available on a topic that you would not want included in an article, it will probably find its way there eventually. More than one user has created an article only to find himself presented in a poor light long-term by other editors. If you engage in an edit war in attempt to obtain a version of your liking you may have your editing access removed, perhaps permanently.

In addition, if your article is found not to be worthy of inclusion in the first place, it will be deleted, as per our deletion policies, Therefore, don't create promotional or other articles lightly, especially on subjects you care about.

[edit] Blocks

Further information: Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Disruption

Accounts that appear, based on their edit history, to exist for the sole or primary purpose of promoting a person, company, product, service, or organization in apparent violation of this guideline should be warned and made aware of this guideline. If the same pattern of editing continues after the warning, the account may be blocked.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Editing in the interests of public relations is particularly frowned upon. This includes, but is not limited to, edits made by public relations departments of corporations; or of other public or private for-profit or not-for-profit organizations; or by professional editors paid to edit a Wikipedia article with the sole intent of improving that organization's image.
  2. ^ Isaiah Berlin:

    In his own lifetime Engels desired no better fate than to live in the light of Marx's teaching, perceiving in him a spring of original genius which gave life and scope to his own peculiar gifts; with him he identified himself and his work, to be rewarded by sharing in his master's immortality.

    From Berlin's Karl Marx, 4th edition, p. 75. This description covers several aspects of what it might be to stand too close to a subject.
  3. ^ Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not makes it clear that Wikipedia articles are not propaganda or advocacy. If you want to be an advocate for better topic coverage in an area, the conventional route is to join a related WikiProject, or start a fresh one. If you want to spread your own opinions, you are in the wrong place for that.

[edit] Further reading