This page documents an English Wikipedia behavioral guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts WP:COI WP:CONFLICT

This page in a nutshell: Do not edit Wikipedia in your own interests or in the interests of your external relationships.

Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial or other relationships. Any external relationship can trigger a conflict of interest. (The word interest refers here to something in which a person has a stake or from which they stand to benefit.)^{[n 1]}

Conflict of interest is not about actual bias. It is about a person's roles and relationships, and the tendency to bias that we assume exists when roles conflict.^[3] That someone has a conflict of interest is a description of a situation. It is not a judgment about that person's state of mind or integrity.^[4][5] (See #What is conflict of interest?.)

COI editing is strongly discouraged. It undermines the public's confidence in Wikipedia, and risks causing public embarrassment to the individuals being promoted. If it causes disruption, accounts may be blocked. Editors with a financial conflict of interest, including paid editors, are advised not to edit affected articles. They may suggest changes on the talk page and must disclose their COI. Paid editors are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose who is paying them (the "employer"), on whose behalf the edits are made (the "client"), and any other relevant affiliation. (See #Paid editing and Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.)^[6]

When investigating COI editing, do not reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Wikipedia's policy against harassment takes precedence over this guideline. Editors discussing changes to this guideline should disclose whether they have been paid to edit Wikipedia.

Purpose of Wikipedia

As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia's goal is to provide reliable, nonpartisan information. Readers expect neutral articles written independently of the article's subject, not a corporate or personal webpage, nor a forum for advertising or self-promotion. Articles should contain only material that complies with Wikipedia's content policies and best practices, and Wikipedians must place the interests of the encyclopedia and its readers first.

COI editing strongly discouraged

COI editing is strongly discouraged. COI editors should follow Wikipedia policies and best practices scrupulously, and may be blocked if they cause disruption. If you have a COI:

Note that you do not control articles. Others may add information that would otherwise have remained little known; decide to delete the article; or decide to keep it should you later request deletion. While Wikipedians generally avoid naming editors and their paymasters, other media routinely do. This has led at times to embarrassment for the organization concerned; see Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia.

Wikimedia Foundation terms of use

The Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use require that editors who are being paid for their contributions disclose their employer (the person or organization who is paying for the edits); the client (the organization or person on whose behalf the edits are made); and any other relevant affiliation. This is the policy of the English Wikipedia.

General COI

• Example of a general COI: suggesting an edit about your family member.
• Example of a financial COI: suggesting an edit about your own company.

If you become involved in an article where you have a general COI (including a financial COI) that does not involve being paid to edit Wikipedia, place the ((connected contributor)) template at the top of affected talk pages. Fill it in as follows, and save:

((Connected contributor|User1=Your username |U1-declared=yes| |U1-otherlinks=Insert relevant affiliations, disclosures, article drafts or diffs showing COI contributions.))

In addition, disclose the COI on your user page and during any discussion about the topic. You can also make a statement in the edit summary of any COI contribution.

Paid editors

• Example of a paid COI: the subject of an article has paid you to influence its content.

If you are being paid for your contributions to Wikipedia, you must declare who is paying you, who the client is, and any other relevant role or relationship. Place the ((connected contributor (paid))) template at the top of talk pages of affected articles. Fill it in as follows, and save:

((Connected contributor (paid)|User1=Username of the paid editor|U1-employer=Name of person/organization that is paying for the edits|U1-client= Name of client|U1-otherlinks=Insert relevant affiliations, disclosures, article drafts or diffs showing paid contributions.))

In addition, make the disclosure on your main user page in a clearly visible list of your paid contributions; on article drafts in user space or elsewhere; and during any discussion about the topic elsewhere. You can also make a statement in the edit summary of any paid contribution. Paid editors must respect the volunteer nature of the project and keep discussions concise; see WP:PAYTALK.

Terminology

• The employer is whoever is paying you to be involved in the article (such as a PR company).
• The client is on whose behalf the payment is made (usually the subject of the article).

If the employer and client are the same entity – if Acme Corporation is paying you to make contributions about Acme Corporation – the client parameter can be left empty. See ((connected contributor (paid))) for more information.

External roles and relationships

While editing Wikipedia, an editor's primary role is to further the interests of the encyclopaedia. When an external role or relationship could reasonably be said to undermine that primary role, the editor has a conflict of interest. (Similarly, a judge's primary role as an impartial adjudicator is undermined if she is married to the defendant.)

Any external relationship – personal, religious, political, academic, financial or legal – can trigger a COI. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense. For example, 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 within their areas of expertise, subject to the guidance on financial conflict of interest, while making sure that their external roles and relationships in that field do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia.

COI is not simply bias

Determining that someone has a COI is a description of a situation. It is not a judgment about that person's state of mind or integrity.^[5]

A COI can exist in the absence of bias, and bias regularly exists in the absence of a COI. Beliefs and desires may lead to biased editing, but they do not constitute a COI. COI emerges from an editor's roles and relationships, and the tendency to bias that we assume exists when those roles and relationships conflict.^[3] COI is like "dirt in a sensitive gauge."^[8]

What is wrong with COI?

Until the latter half of the 20th century, the professions relied on the "virtue-centric approach," in which those with a COI were simply expected to act honourably and objectively.^{[n 4]}

This is now known to have been naive and unrealistic.^[4] The virtue-centric approach underestimates the extent to which the judgment of individuals with a COI may be impaired. Conflicted individuals cannot know the extent to which they have been influenced; philosopher Michael Davis writes that they often "esteem too highly their own reliability."^[10][11] For example, a conflicted person might overcompensate in an effort to be fair, leading to decisions he would otherwise not have made.^[10]

The virtue-centric approach ignores the damage COI inflicts on public confidence, and the unease it causes within the affected community. If a judge is involved with a defendant, her role as an impartial adjudicator is undermined in the view of her colleagues and the public no matter how convinced she is that she can remain impartial.

Trust test

How can you tell whether you have a COI? Having a COI is not about having an opinion, but about being in a certain situation. Ethicist Michael McDonald suggests a "trust test" to determine whether that situation is "likely to interfere or appear to interfere" (bold added) with your independent judgment.^[12]

Actual, potential and apparent conflict of interest

Actual conflict of interest: An actual COI exists when an editor has a COI with respect to a certain judgment, and he has been placed (or has placed himself) in a position where the judgment must be exercised.^[13]

Example: A company owner has an actual COI if he edits articles and engages in discussions about that company.

Potential conflict of interest: A potential COI exists when an editor has a COI with respect to a certain judgment, but she has not been placed (or has not placed herself) in a position where the judgment must be exercised.^[13]

Example: A company owner has a potential COI with respect to articles and discussions about her company, but no actual COI if she stays away from those pages.

Apparent conflict of interest: An apparent COI exists when there is reason to believe that an editor has a COI, but as a matter of fact he does not.^[14]

Example: An editor has an apparent COI if he edits an article about a company and for some reason appears to be the company owner, but in fact he has no such connection.^[14] Apparent COI causes bad feeling within the community and should be resolved through discussion whenever possible.^{[n 5]}

Financial relationships

If you have a close financial relationship with a topic you wish to write about – including as an owner, employee, contractor or other stakeholder – you are advised to refrain from editing affected articles. You may suggest changes on the talk page of those articles, where you should disclose your COI. You can use the ((request edit)) template to suggest changes.

Paid contributions

Being paid to contribute to Wikipedia is one form of financial conflict of interest. Being paid to promote external interests on Wikipedia (known as "paid advocacy") is the type of paid contribution of most concern to the Wikipedia community, because edits by paid advocates invariably reflect the interests of the client or employer. Paid advocacy includes public relations, marketing and advertising.

Advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not. Paid advocacy is an especially egregious form; the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice.^{[n 6]}

If you receive, or expect to receive, compensation (whether money, goods or services) for your contributions to Wikipedia:

Requested edits are subject to the same standards as any other, and editors may decline to act on them. To find an article's talk page, click the "talk" button at the top of the article. See WP:TEAHOUSE if you have questions about these things.

Wikipedians in residence

There are forms of paid editing that the Wikimedia community regards as benign. These include Wikipedians in residence (WiRs) – Wikipedians who are paid to collaborate with mission-aligned organizations, such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums. WiRs must not engage in public relations or marketing for their organization, and they must operate within the bounds defined by Core characteristics of a Wikipedian in Residence at Wikimedia Outreach. They must work closely with a Wikipedia project or the general Wikipedia community, and are expected to identify their WiR status on their user page and on talk pages related to their organization when they post there.

Reward board

Another benign example of paid editing is the reward board, where editors can post incentives, usually to raise articles to featured- or good-article status. If you participate in this kind of paid editing, transparency and neutrality are key.

Responding to requests

Editors should exercise caution when responding to edit requests from COI and paid editors, particularly when commercial interests are involved. Adding large amounts of text on behalf of the article subject means that the article has, in effect, been ghostwritten by them, without the readers' knowledge.

Editors responding to edit requests should carefully check the proposed text and sources. That an article has been expanded does not necessarily mean that it is better. Be on the look out for unnecessary detail that may have been added to overwhelm something negative. In particular, editors should try to determine whether anything important is missing and whether the text complies with WP:DUE. If the new text is added to the article, the edit summary should include full attribution; see WP:COIATTRIBUTE below.

Paid editors on talk pages

Paid editors must respect the volunteer nature of the project and keep discussions concise. To justify their salaries or fees, paid editors may submit billable hours, along with evidence of their talk-page posts. Volunteers should be aware of this before being drawn into long exchanges with such editors. No editor should be expected to engage in long or repetitive discussions with someone who is being paid to argue with them.

Editors who refuse to accept a consensus by arguing ad nauseam may find themselves in violation of the disruptive-editing guideline.

Copyright of paid contributions

Editors are reminded that any text they contribute to Wikipedia, assuming they own the copyright, is irrevocably licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Content on Wikipedia, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied and modified by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that it be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.

Paid editors must ensure that they own the copyright of text they have been paid to add to Wikipedia. If the text is a work for hire, the copyright resides with the person or organization that paid for it ("the employer"). Otherwise the text's author is assumed to be the copyright holder. It is important not to assume that the paid editor is the author, because companies may provide paid editors with approved texts.

Paid editors, the employer or the author should forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation (permissions@wikimedia.org). The release must include the name(s) of the author and copyright holder, and that the copyright holder has released the text under a free licence.

Attribution in edit summaries

If editors choose to add material to an article on behalf of a COI or paid editor, they must provide attribution for the text in the edit summary. The edit summary should include the name of the COI or paid editor, a link to the draft or edit request, and that the edit contains a COI or paid contribution. For example: "Text inserted on behalf of paid editor User:X; copied from Draft:Paid draft."

In addition to complying with copyright requirements, this transparency allows editors and readers to determine the extent of COI input into the article.

United States Federal Trade Commission

All editors are expected to follow United States law on undisclosed advertising, which is described by the Federal Trade Commission at Endorsement Guidelines and Dot Com Disclosures.

European fair-trading law

In 2012 the Munich Oberlandesgericht court ruled that if a company or its agents edit Wikipedia with the aim of influencing customers, the edits constitute covert advertising, and as such are a violation of European fair-trading law. The ruling stated that readers cannot be expected to seek out user and talk pages to find editors' disclosures about their corporate affiliation.^[16]

UK Advertising Standards Authority

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK found in 2012 that the content of tweets from two footballers had been "agreed with the help of a member of the Nike marketing team." The tweets were not clearly identified as Nike marketing communications, and were therefore in breach of the ASA's code.^[17]

Legal and other disputes

The biographies of living persons policy says: "[A]n editor who is involved in a significant controversy or dispute with another individual – whether on- or off-wiki – or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person, given the potential conflict of interest."

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.

Campaigning, political

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 campaigns in the same area, you may have a conflict of interest. Political candidates and their staff should not edit articles about themselves, their supporters or opponents. Government employees should not edit articles about their agencies, government, political party, political opponents, or controversial political topics.

Writing about yourself, family, friends

You should not create or edit articles about yourself, your family, friends or foes. If you have a personal connection to a topic or person, you are advised to refrain from editing those articles directly and to provide full disclosure of the connection if you comment about the article on talk pages or in other discussions.

An exception to editing an article about yourself or someone you know is made if the article contains defamation or a serious error that needs to be corrected quickly. If you do make such an edit, follow it up with an email to WP:OTRS, Wikipedia's volunteer response team, or ask for help on WP:BLPN, our noticeboard for articles about living persons.

Citing yourself

Using material you have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant, conforms to the content policies, including WP:SELFPUB, and is not excessive. Citations should be in the third person and should not place undue emphasis on your work. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion.

Cultural sector

Museum curators, librarians, archivists and similar are encouraged to help improve Wikipedia, or to share their information in the form of links to their resources. If a link cannot be used as a reliable source, it may be placed under further reading or external links if it complies with the external links guideline. Bear in mind that Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files.

Law of unintended consequences

No shared accounts, no company accounts

Do not create a shared organizational account, or use the name of an organization as the account name. The account is yours, not your employer's.

Making uncontroversial edits

Editors who have a general conflict of interest may make unambiguously uncontroversial edits (but see WP:FINANCIALCOI). They may:

1. remove spam and unambiguous vandalism,
2. remove unambiguous violations of the biography of living persons policy,
3. fix spelling and grammatical errors,
4. repair broken links,
5. remove their own COI edits, and
6. add independent reliable sources when another editor has requested them, although it is better to supply them on the talk page for others to add.

If another editor objects for any reason, it is not an uncontroversial edit. Edits not covered by the above should be discussed on the article's talk page. If an article has few involved editors, ask at the talk page of a related Wikiproject or at WP:COIN. Also see WP:COITALK.

Supplying photographs and media files

Editors with a COI are encouraged to upload high-quality media files that are appropriately licensed for Wikipedia and that improve our coverage of a subject. For more information, follow the instructions at Commons. In some cases, the addition of media files to an article may be an uncontroversial edit that editors with a COI can make directly, but editors should exercise discretion and rely on talk pages when images may be controversial or promotional. If the addition of an image is challenged by another editor, it is not uncontroversial.

If an editor has disclosed that s/he is editing with a COI, raise the issue in a civil manner on the editor's talk page, citing this guideline, or open a thread on WP:COIN. Avoid making disparaging comments about the subject of the article, its author, or the author's motives.

If an editor edits in a way that leads you to believe they might have a COI, consider whether the issue may be simple advocacy instead. The appropriate forum for concerns about advocacy is WP:NPOVN. The appropriate forum for concerns about sources is WP:RSN. If there are concerns about sock- or meatpuppets, please bring that concern to WP:SPI.

Avoid outing

When investigating COI editing, the policy against harassment takes precedence. It requires that Wikipedians not reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Instead, examine editors' behavior and refer if necessary to Wikipedia:Checkuser.

Dealing with single-purpose accounts

Accounts that appear to be single-purpose, existing for the sole or primary purpose of promotion or denigration of a person, company, product, service, website, organization, etc., and whose postings are in apparent violation of this guideline, should be made aware of this guideline and warned not to continue their problematic editing. If the same pattern of editing continues after the warning, the account may be blocked.

Templates

Relevant article talk pages may be tagged with ((connected contributor)) or ((connected contributor (paid))). The article itself may be tagged with ((COI)). A section of an article can be tagged with ((COI|section))

Other templates include:

• ((uw-coi)) (to warn editors who may have a conflict of interest)
• ((uw-coi-username)) (to warn editors whose username violates the WP:Usernames policy])
• ((COI editnotice)) (for article talk pages, provides instructions for conflicted editors to use edit requests)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia.

(chronological order)

• Michael Davis, "Conflict of Interest," Business and Professional Ethics Journal, 1(4), 1982, pp. 17–27 (influential)
• Luebke, Neil R. "Conflict of Interest as a Moral Category," Business & Professional Ethics Journal, 6, 1987, pp. 66–81. JSTOR 27799930 (influential)
• Michael Davis, "Conflict of Interest Revisited," Business & Professional Ethics Journal, 12(4), Winter 1993, pp. 21–41. JSTOR 27800924
• Michael Davis, Andrew Stark (eds.), Conflict of Interest in the Professions, University of Oxford Press, 2001.
• Andrew Stark, Conflict of Interest in American Public Life, Harvard University Press, 2003.
• Thomas L. Carson, "Conflicts of Interest and Self-Dealing in the Professions: A Review Essay," Business Ethics Quarterly, 14(1), January 2004, pp. 161–182. JSTOR 3857777
• Sheldon Krimsky, "The Ethical and Legal Foundations of Scientific 'Conflict of Interest'", in Trudo Lemmings and Duff R. Waring (eds.), Law and Ethics in Biomedical Research: Regulation, Conflict of Interest, and Liability, University of Toronto Press, 2006.
• Bernard Lo and Marilyn J. Field (eds.), Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice, National Academies Press, 2009.
• Wayne Norman, Chris McDonald, "Conflicts of Interest", in George G. Brenkert, Tom L. Beauchamp (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Business Ethics, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 441–470.