User:Igorberger/Conflict of interest
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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
What constitutes conflict of interest between an editor and Wikipedia and how can it be avoided. Here at Wikipedia we have many editors who are consultants in their selected field. These editors have clients who have articles or may have an article on Wikipedia in the future. If an editor works on an article that is his or hers client, a person or a corporation, should that be construed as a conflict of interest?
In my opinion maintainig and creating an article on behalf of a client is not a violation of WP:COI if that is done as an overall relationship between a consultant editor and the client. If a prospective client contacts an editor consultant and offers to pay for creation of a Wikipedia article that could be seen as conflict of interest, because we as editors on Wikipedia are not here to sell Wikipedia articles but to build a free online encyclopidea. Also contacting a consultant editor with a particular desire to have a Wikipedia article is POV and a violation of WP:NPOV. If an anrticle is to be made or maintained it has to be done to the strictest adherince to NPOV or it is a violation of NPOV and loss of good faith by the community on the part of the editor.
We have to see if an editor is a good faith editor or is just a singal porpuse account created to sell Wikipedia article space. Does this editor contribute to building of Wikipedia or was the account created to sell articles on Wikipedia. Any editor creating an account just for the purpose to edit his or her company on his WP:BLP can be seen as COI, because it is a POV and not NPOV which is to build Wikipedia.
As a community we have to assume good faith - WP:AGF about our editors and we should not accuse an established editor of WP:COI just because they are a consultant in a particular field. But we need to understand the relationship an editor has with a percieved client in order not to persume that the editor has COI. This relationship needs to be disclosed to the community upon request by the community.
Let's not jump on the band wagon and blame all our professional editors of conflict of interest just because they are professionals. We all have to work and earn a living, meanwhile we are voulinteering are time and energy to build an online free encyclopidea.
