Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide

For the "plain and simple" guide for general new editors, see Wikipedia:Simplified ruleset.

If you have a close association with the subject of a Wikipedia article, and you wish to edit the article, you are bound by some restrictions. The short version:

• Be transparent about your conflict of interest.
  • In fact, if you are receiving compensation for creating an article, or if writing an article is part of your job, you are required to disclose this per our terms of use.
• The practice of editing or creating articles about yourself, your family or friends, your organization, your clients, or your competitors is strongly discouraged.
• Post suggestions and sources on the article's talk page, or in a draft.
• Get neutral, uninvolved, disinterested editors to review your suggestions. Respect the volunteer community's time; avoid making protracted or repeated requests.

Disclosure

For paid editors

Main pages: Wikipedia:Terms of use, Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure, and WP:DISCLOSE

The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use state:

Paid contributions without disclosure

These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:

• a statement on your user page, either custom-written or using {{paid}},
• a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or
• a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions.

Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure.

Also see FAQ on disclosure of paid contributions.

For volunteer editors

Ethically, you need to disclose your conflict of interest. You have one if you are editing about yourself, or anyone you know personally. You can do so on your user page, or on the talk page of the article you have a conflict of interest with.

Advice

1. Register with an independent username. Your username should represent you as an individual, not your company or organization as a whole. It may be your real name, or it may be a name you invent to represent yourself, but it should not be your company's or client's official name or the names of its products or services, or be designed to promote them. Also, multiple people may not ever use the same account. Any of these are grounds for a block of the account until the username is changed. Some editors will use a name like John at Montane Corp to make clear that they're from an organization but editing as an individual.
2. Declare your conflict of interest. Being transparent about who you are and who you're working for is the easiest way to gain the community's trust, get help, avoid embarrassing revelations of misconduct, and possibly obey the law. Clearly state your background and goals on your userpage as explained here, at the COI noticeboard, and at the talk pages of articles related to your COI. Here are positive examples of editor disclosures: 1, 2, 3, 4. It's also appropriate to add the connected contributor template to the article's talk page. The COI template may also be used on the article, if there are neutrality concerns being discussed.
3. Do not make direct edits to live articles. Wikipedia's guidelines strongly discourage COI editing. The safest way to avoid it is simply to never make direct edits to live articles. That doesn't mean your contributions are unwelcome. Instead of direct editing, propose changes, get editors to review them, discuss any issues, and let others make the changes. A simplified guide to making these types of requests can be found here.
4. Create a draft or request an article. If you would like to request the creation of a new article where you might have a COI, create a draft or request an article. If you write a draft, If you create a draft, do it forwards by finding reliable sources first and then summarizing them (rather than writing the draft first and then sourcing it). Once the draft is finished, you can then ask someone to review it by typing {{subst:submit}}. if you request an article, be sure to add sources.

What to do when something goes wrong

• If an article about your company is deleted: Seek to understand why by reading the deletion rationale. Was it promotional? Did it lack good sources? Did it fail to demonstrate the subject's importance? Fix these issues and/or use the new article wizard to have your draft reviewed before resubmitting. If you think the article was incorrectly deleted, first attempt to talk to the administrator who deleted it. Then, for uncontroversial deletions, submit a request for undeletion. For controversial deletions, use Deletion Review. If you need a copy of the deleted article, ask for it to be 'userfied' by either the administrator who deleted it or someone on this list.
• If there's a mistake in the article: Use {{edit COI}} on the talk page. It might be appropriate to add sourcing to demonstrate why the edit is wrong. You may be told that the edit is non-controversial and you could've done it yourself; this tends to be grammar and spelling mistakes, reverting of vandalism, and similar, minor edits.
• If you want to ask someone to make changes to the article: Post requested edits on the article's talk page using {{edit COI}}, or ask for help at Conflict of Interest collaboration project or at the Conflict of interest noticeboard.

See also

• Wikipedia:Help available for editors with conflicts of interest
• Wikipedia:About you - guidance for article subjects
• Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Scam warning
• Wikipedia:Expert editors
• Wikipedia:When your boss tells you to edit Wikipedia