Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep per WP:SNOW. The discussion highlighted the conflict between WP:OUTING and WP:N, but the consensus in favor of the the current COI/N is clear. Nonadmin close. Xymmax (talk) 20:53, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard

It has come to my attention that it is against policy to speculate that particular wikipedia editors are particular real-life people. This noticeboard is in large part devoted to the exercise of speculating that particular wikipedia editors are particular real-life people. Therefore,

• delete. —Random832 19:46, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Could I get a wiki-link to the policy against speculation of identity? MBisanz ^talk 19:50, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

People keep saying it exists, so it must be around here somewhere. I think it was in WP:NPA or WP:HARASS at some point in the past. It's been the subject of a couple of ArbCom decisions, i know. —Random832 19:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

• Speedy keep. This is not the way to make a point about the COI/N, which serves a clear, obvious, and transparent purpose. --Cheeser1 (talk) 19:54, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
• keep Yes, there are very serious tensions between our privacy attitude and our need to prevent conflicts of interest. Nominating COIN for deletion isn't going to help resolve that. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, it will, since a delete decision will (obviously) get it deleted, and a keep decision will be a clear declaration in favor of "outing" and will as a consequence get the anti-"outing" language removed from policy. —Random832 19:58, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep The policy being referenced is WP:OUTING. 95% of COIN reports deal with individuals who through their username, edit summmaries, IP addresses, article content, talk pages, or links from things they've added, in some way identify themselves as being related to the article topic. Outside of possible the jossi case, which was more off-wiki harassament, I can't remember the last time a case dealt with a user who gave no indication in a public forum they were related to a topic and was outed on Wiki as being related. MBisanz ^talk 20:04, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • That's exactly the problem - policy FORBIDS making those connections from their username, edit summaries, or article content. And, N.B., the language I see at WP:OUTING is quite a bit more reasonable than what actually gets applied. —Random832 20:08, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

    • Posting another person's personal information (legal name, home or workplace address, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, regardless of whether or not the information is actually correct) is harassment, unless that editor voluntarily provides or links to such information himself or herself.

      from WP:OUTING. To me that means that any info that I see through a WHOIS based on an anon. IP edit, or that I see through looking at a username or edit summary, or that I follow through a link the user provides, is information that editor voluntary provides. MBisanz ^talk 20:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Is "outing" when a user Victorjofemar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) creates his own article Jofemar and spams Jofemar.com, or when Markstacy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) creates an article (Touchstone Technologies) where he is the CEO? this is not outing. Its simply information that editor voluntary provides.--Hu12 (talk) 21:03, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
        • Outing to me would be if User:KnicksRule created Hyperion Technologies, and and then a user tracked down where the CEO of Hyperion lived and drove by his house and saw a knicks bumper sticker on his car. MBisanz ^talk 21:06, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
          • Or the Knicks Dave Debusschere Bobble Head on the dashboard of that car, the WP:Bobble Head Test is well known for its outing accuracy.--Hu12 (talk) 21:17, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Pointing out that a given username likely has a COI on a article doesn't violate OUTING as the user himself provides the username. Same with the IP address of an anon editor. harlock_jds (talk) 20:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. All of Wikipedia's official policies and guidelines can be summarized as five pillars that define the character of the project, one of those pillars is neutrality. Conflict of interest isn't just a matter of speculating that particular wikipedia editors are particular real-life people, but about preventing self-promotion and biases in order to insure each point of view is represented accurately when a conflict arises regarding that neutrality.--Hu12 (talk) 20:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Why does it matter who wrote the article? If an article isn't neutral, it's non-neutral no matter who wrote it. —Random832 21:20, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Perhaps you should read WP:COI (if you haven't already). --Cheeser1 (talk) 21:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
• KEEP, WP:Harass is a guideline, and should be interpreted with common sense; policies must be strictly adhered to. COI/N clearly performs an essential function. By the way, this feels an awful lot like trolling to me. Tsk, tsk, tsk. --BETA 04:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Or WP:POINT, BETA 04:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
  • WP:COI is also a guideline, what policy are you referring to that must be (and is not being) strictly adhered to? —Random832 15:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
• Question -- Random832, in your edit summary nominating the noticeboard for deletion, you wrote: "I said i'd do it, and i'm not going to go back on my word."^[1] Is there some historical background or previous discussion on this? Thanks, --A. B. ^(talk) 08:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. Neutrality is a non-negotiable foundation issue. Even if some obscure loophole of privacy policy would state that rooting out COIs violates privacy, you can't get away from analysing the neutrality of facts. If this noticeboard would go, people would still need to discuss those matters somewhere. What do you prefer - rampant, mostly unmonitored, and also due to the prohibition unverifiable wild speculation everywhere an editor with a conflict of interest touches, or a centralised place to openly discuss the same, based on data that is already published in accordance with the privacy policy? Don't know about you, but I'm in favour of centralised discussion. Plus, having (or merely being accused of having) a COI isn't exactly a capital offence. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 12:01, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
  • A non-neutral article isn't any LESS non-neutral if the person who is covered by the article was not the one who wrote it. WP:COI has nothing to do with neutrality, period. —Random832 15:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
    • On the contrary, the two are closely linked. The main problem with COI editors is that they consistently bias articles in favour of whatever viewpoint they happen to hold. Hut 8.5 16:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Eh, the very first sentence in WP:COI defines COI as a conflict of goals between an editor and Neutrality policy (and other Wikipedia's core policies, Verifiability and No Original Research). I agree lack of neutrality, no matter where it comes, is bad, and that COI situations are not the sole source, but COI situations definitely are a source of non-neutrality. (I'm not exactly awake right now, sorry if I misunderstood what you were chasing.) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 19:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep conflicts of interest by people editing Wikpedia articles are a very important issue and it is necessary to have a process to investigate them. The vast, vast majority of these cases are based around information that is public knowledge, so there is no problem with potentially "outing" identities. The nomination also smacks of WP:POINT. Hut 8.5 16:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
• Keep I've spent hours of my life, perhaps not so wisely, sorting through alleged conflict of interest articles, and paring them down or listing them for deletion. These are almost all among the very worst articles in Wikipedia, and there needs to be a central location to deal with them. If an editor is identified as a particular person as a result, that may be unfortunate, but it doesn't call into question the premise of investigating cases where NPOV, one of the core foundation policies, may be breached. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 20:15, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.