Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, family, friends,

clients, employers, or your financial and other relationships. Any external relationship can trigger
a conflict of interest. That someone has a conflict of interest is a description of a situation, not a
judgement about that person's opinions, integrity, or good faith.
COI editing is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. It undermines public confidence and risks
causing public embarrassment to the individuals and companies being promoted. Editors with a COI
are sometimes unaware of whether or how much it has influenced their editing. If COI editing causes
disruption, an administrator may opt to place blocks on the involved accounts.
Editors with a COI, including paid editors, are expected to disclose it whenever they seek to change
an affected article's content. Anyone editing for pay must disclose who is paying them, who the client
is, and any other relevant affiliation; this is a requirement of the Wikimedia Foundation. Also, COI
editors should not edit affected articles directly, but propose changes on article talk pages instead.
When investigating COI editing, do not reveal the identity of editors against their wishes.
Wikipedia's policy against harassment, in particular, the prohibition against disclosing personal
information, takes precedence over this guideline. Editors discussing changes to this guideline
should disclose whether they have been paid to edit Wikipedia.

Wikipedia guidelines

 Guidelines list

 Policies list

Behavioral

 Assume good faith

 Conflict of interest
 Courtesy vanishing
 Disruptive editing
 Don't bite the newbies
 Don't edit to make a point
 Etiquette
 Don't game the system
 User pages
 Other behavioral guidelines
 WMF friendly space policy

Discussions

 Talk page guidelines

 Signatures

Content
  Citing sources

 External links

 Identifying reliable sources

 medicine

 Fringe theories

 Non-free content

 Offensive material

 Don't copy long texts

 Don't create hoaxes

 Patent nonsense

 Portal namespace

 Other content guidelines

Editing

 Article size
 Be bold
 Edit summary
 Understandability
 Other editing guidelines

Organization

 Categories, lists, templates

 Categorization
 Disambiguation

Style

 Manual of Style

 contents

 lists

 tables

Deletion

 Deletion process
  Speedy keep

 Deletion guidelines for administrators

Project content

 Project pages

 WikiProjects

 Templates

 User pages

 User boxes

 Shortcuts

 Subpages

Other

 Naming conventions

 Notability

 v

 t

 e

Contents

 1Wikipedia's position
o 1.1Purpose of Wikipedia
o 1.2COI editing
o 1.3Paid editing
o 1.4Wikimedia Foundation terms of use
 2How to disclose a COI
o 2.1General COI
o 2.2Paid editors
 3What is conflict of interest?
o 3.1External roles and relationships
o 3.2COI is not simply bias
o 3.3Why is conflict of interest a problem?
o 3.4Actual, potential and apparent COI
 4Dealing with edit requests from COI or paid editors
o 4.1Responding to requests
o 4.2Attribution in edit summaries
o 4.3Paid editors on talk pages
 5Copyright of paid contributions
 6Covert advertising
o 6.1US: Federal Trade Commission, state law, and native advertising
o 6.2European fair-trading law
o 6.3UK Advertising Standards Authority
o 6.4Advertising Standards Canada
 7Other categories of COI
o 7.1Legal and other disputes
o 7.2Campaigning, political
o 7.3Writing about yourself, family, friends
o 7.4Citing yourself
o 7.5Cultural sector
o 7.6Wikipedians in residence, reward board
 8Miscellaneous
o 8.1Solicitations by paid editors
o 8.2Law of unintended consequences
o 8.3No shared accounts, no company accounts
o 8.4Making uncontroversial edits
o 8.5Supplying photographs and media files
 9How to handle conflicts of interest
o 9.1Avoid outing
o 9.2Dealing with single-purpose accounts
o 9.3Templates
 10See also
 11Further reading

Wikipedia's position[edit]
Purpose of Wikipedia[edit]
Further information: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not
As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia's mission is to provide the public with articles that summarize
accepted knowledge, written neutrally and sourced reliably. Readers expect to find neutral articles
written independently of their subject, not corporate or personal webpages, or platforms for
advertising and 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 above personal concerns.

COI editing[edit]
See also: Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide
Shortcut

 WP:COIEDIT
Editors with a COI should follow Wikipedia policies and best practices scrupulously:

 you should disclose your COI when involved with affected articles;
 you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly;
 you may propose changes on talk pages (by using the {{request edit}} template), or by
posting a note at the COI noticeboard, so that they can be peer reviewed;
 you should put new articles through the Articles for Creation (AfC) process instead of creating
them directly;
 you should not act as a reviewer of affected article(s) at AfC, new pages patrol or elsewhere;
 you should respect other editors by keeping discussions concise.
Note that no one on Wikipedia controls articles. If Wikipedia hosts an article about you or your
organization, others may add information that would otherwise remain little known. They may also
decide to delete the article or decide to keep it should you later request deletion. The media has
several times drawn attention to companies that engage in COI editing on Wikipedia (see Conflict-of-
interest editing on Wikipedia), which has led to embarrassment for the organization concerned.

Paid editing[edit]
Shortcuts

 WP:PE
 WP:PAY
 WP:NOPR
 WP:NOPAY
 WP:FCOI
An editor has a financial conflict of interest when they write about a topic with which they have a
close financial relationship. This includes being an owner, employee, contractor, investor or other
stakeholder. Being paid to contribute to Wikipedia is one form of financial COI; it places the paid
editor in a conflict between their employer's goals and Wikipedia's goals. The kind of paid editing of
most concern to the community involves using Wikipedia for public relations and marketing
purposes. Sometimes called "paid advocacy", this is problematic because it invariably reflects the
interests of the client or employer. The Wikimedia Foundationrequires that all paid editing be
disclosed.
If you receive or expect to receive compensation (money, goods or services) for your contributions to
Wikipedia:

 you must disclose who is paying you, on whose behalf the edits are made, and any other
relevant affiliation;
 you should make the disclosure on your user page, on affected talk pages, and whenever you
discuss the topic;
 you are very strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly;
 you may propose changes on talk pages (by using the {{request edit}} template), or by
posting a note at the COI noticeboard), so that they can be peer reviewed;
 you should put new articles through the Articles for Creation (AfC) process instead of creating
them directly;
 you should not act as a reviewer of affected article(s) at AfC, new pages patrol or elsewhere;
 you should respect volunteers by keeping discussions concise (see PAYTALK).
If you are an administrator, you must not use administrative tools for any paid-editing activity (except
when related to work as a Wikipedian-in-residence, or as someone paid by the Wikimedia
Foundation or an affiliate).
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.

Wikimedia Foundation terms of use[edit]

Further information: Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure
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 person or organization on whose behalf the edits are made); and any other
relevant affiliation. This is the policy of the English Wikipedia.

How to disclose a COI[edit]

General COI[edit]
Shortcuts

 WP:DISCLOSE
 WP:DCOI
If you become involved in an article where you have any COI, you should always let other editors
know about it, whenever and where ever you discuss the topic. If you want to use a template to do
this, place {{connected contributor}} at the top of the affected talk page, fill it in as follows,
and save:

showConnected contributor template

Note that someone else may add this for you. You can also make a statement in the edit summary of
any COI contribution. If you want to note the COI on your user page, you can use
the {{UserboxCOI}} template:

showUserboxCOI template

Example
For a COI editor's talk-page declaration, see Talk:Steve Jobs

If you propose significant or potentially controversial changes to an affected article, you can use
the {{request edit}} template. Place this at the bottom of the talk page and state your
suggestion beneath it (be sure to sign it with four tildes, ~~~~). If the proposal is verifiable and
appropriate, it will usually be accepted. If it is declined, the editor declining the request will usually
add an explanation below your entry.

Paid editors[edit]
Further information: Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure

Shortcuts

 WP:COIPAYDISCLOSE
 WP:COIDISCLOSEPAY
 WP:UPE
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. You may do this on your user page, on the
talk page of affected articles, or in your edit summaries. As you have a conflict of interest, you must
ensure everyone with whom you interact is aware of your paid status, in all discussions on Wikipedia
pages within any namespace. If you want to use a template to disclose your COI on a talk page,
place {{connected contributor (paid)}} at the top of the page, fill it in as follows, and save:
 showConnected contributor (paid) template

Example
For a paid editor's talk-page declaration, see Talk:Mia Farrow.

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—that is, if Acme Corporation is paying you to write about Acme
Corporation—the client parameter may be left empty. See {{connected contributor
(paid)}} for more information. Note that other editors may add this template for you. Paid editing
without such a declaration is referred to as Undeclared Paid Editing (UPE).
You are expected to maintain a clearly visible list on your user page of your paid contributions. If you
propose changes to an affected article, you can use the {{request edit}} template. Post it on
the talk page and make your suggestion underneath it. Paid editors must respect the volunteer
nature of the project and keep discussions concise; see WP:PAYTALK.

What is conflict of interest?[edit]

External roles and relationships[edit]
Shortcut

 WP:EXTERNALREL
While editing Wikipedia, an editor's primary role is to further the interests of the encyclopedia. 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, legal, or financial (including
holding a cryptocurrency)—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
an autobiography or written by the subject's spouse.
Subject-matter experts (SMEs) are welcome on Wikipedia within their areas of expertise, subject to
the guidance below on financial conflict of interest and on citing your work. SMEs are expected to
make sure that their external roles and relationships in their field of expertise do not interfere with
their primary role on Wikipedia.

COI is not simply bias[edit]

Further information: WP:ADVOCACY
Shortcuts

 WP:COINOTBIAS
 WP: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. 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.
Why is conflict of interest a problem?[edit]
On Wikipedia, editors with a conflict of interest who unilaterally add material tend to violate
Wikipedia's content and behavioral policies and guidelines. The content they add is typically
unsourced or poorly sourced and often violates the neutral point of view policy by being promotional
and omitting negative information. They may edit war to retain content that serves their external
interest.

Actual, potential and apparent COI[edit]

Shortcuts

 WP:ACTUALCOI
 WP:POTENTIALCOI
 WP:APPARENTCOI
An actual COI exists when an editor has a COI with respect to a certain judgment and is in a
position where the judgment must be exercised.
Example: A business owner has an actual COI if he edits articles and engages in
discussions about that business.
A potential COI exists when an editor has a COI with respect to a certain judgment but is not in
a position where the judgment must be exercised.
Example: A business owner has a potential COI with respect to articles and discussions
about that business, but she has no actual COI if she stays away from those pages.
An apparent COI exists when there is reason to believe that an editor has a COI.
Example: Editors have an apparent COI if they edit an article about a business, and for some
reason they appear to be the business owner, although they may actually have no such
connection. Apparent COI causes bad feeling within the community and should be resolved
through discussion whenever possible.

Dealing with edit requests from COI or paid

editors[edit]
Further information: Wikipedia:Edit requests

Responding to requests[edit]
Shortcut

 WP:COIRESPONSE
Editors responding to edit requests from paid editors are expected to do so carefully,
particularly when commercial interests are involved. When large amounts of text are
added to an article on behalf of the article subject, the article has, in effect,
been ghostwritten by the subject without the readers' knowledge. Responding
volunteers should therefore carefully check the proposed text and sources. That an
article has been expanded does not mean that it is better.

 Make sure the proposed paid text complies with WP:WEIGHT.

 Look for unnecessary detail that may have been added to overwhelm something
negative.
 Make sure nothing important is missing. Responding editors should do their own
search for independent sources. Do not rely on the sources offered by the paid
editor.
 Look for non-neutral language and unsourced or poorly sourced content.
 Be cautious about accepting content based on WP:SPS such as a person