Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 05:45, 13 March 2017

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages 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 this guideline's talk page.

Shortcuts WP:COI WP:CONFLICT

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

Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Misplaced Pages 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 judgment about that person's opinions or integrity.

COI editing is strongly discouraged on Misplaced Pages. It undermines public confidence, and it risks causing public embarrassment to the individuals being promoted. Editors with a COI cannot know 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 influence 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. In addition, COI editors are generally advised not to edit affected articles directly, and to propose changes on talk pages instead.

When investigating COI editing, do not reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages.

Misplaced Pages's position

Purpose of Misplaced Pages

As an encyclopedia, Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages's content policies and best practices, and Wikipedians must place the interests of the encyclopedia and its readers above personal concerns.

COI editing

Editors with a COI should follow Misplaced Pages policies and best practices scrupulously.

If you have a conflict of interest you should declare your COI, and put edits through peer review instead of articles directly:

• you may propose changes on talk pages (see the {{request edit}} template) or on the COI noticeboard, so that they can be peer reviewed before being published;
• you should put new articles through the articles for creation process instead of creating them directly, so they can be peer reviewed before being published;
• you should disclose your COI when involved with affected articles;
• you should respect other editors by keeping discussions concise;
• you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly.

Note that no one on Misplaced Pages controls articles. If Misplaced Pages hosts an article about you or your organization, others may add information that would otherwise remain little known, 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 Misplaced Pages (see Conflict-of-interest editing on Misplaced Pages), which has led to embarrassment for the organization concerned.

Paid editing

• 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 Misplaced Pages is one form of financial COI; it places the paid editor in a conflict between their employer's goals and Misplaced Pages's goals. The kind of paid editing of most concern to the community involves using Misplaced Pages 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 Foundation requires that all paid editing be disclosed.

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

• you may propose changes on talk pages (see the {{request edit}} template) or on the COI noticeboard;
• 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 should respect volunteers by keeping discussions concise (see PAYTALK).
• you are very strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly.

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

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 Misplaced Pages.

How to disclose a COI

General COI

• WP:DISCLOSE
• WP:DCOI

If you become involved in an article where you have a COI (one that does not involve being paid to edit Misplaced Pages), you should let other editors know about it whenever 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:

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:

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

• WP:COIPAYDISCLOSE
• WP:COIDISCLOSEPAY

If you are being paid for your contributions to Misplaced Pages, 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. The community expects paid editors to declare that they are being paid whenever they seek to influence an article's content; this includes when writing drafts in draft space or user space. 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:

For a COI editor's declaration, see Talk:Steve Jobs.
For a paid editor's 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—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.

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?

External roles and relationships

"P has a conflict of interest if, and only if, (1) P is in a relationship with another requiring P to exercise judgment in the other's behalf, and (2) P has a (special) interest tending to interfere with the proper exercise of judgment in that relationship."

• WP:EXTERNALREL

While editing Misplaced Pages, 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, financial or legal—can trigger a COI. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Misplaced Pages 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 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 Misplaced Pages.

COI is not simply bias

• 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. COI is like "dirt in a sensitive gauge."

Why is conflict of interest a problem?

"A person is judged to have a conflict of interest on the basis of being in a conflicted situation, whether or not that person thinks he or she is capable of resisting the temptation or corrupting influence of the interest that could interfere with her judgment."

Until the latter half of the 20th century, the professions relied on the "virtue-centric approach": those with a COI were simply expected to act honourably and objectively. This is now known to have been naive. 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." For example, a conflicted person might overcompensate in an effort to be fair, leading to decisions he would otherwise not have made.

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, that judge's 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. The appearance of impropriety means she would have to recuse herself.

Actual, potential and apparent COI

• WP:ACTUALCOI
• WP:POTENTIALCOI
• WP:APPARENTCOI

An actual COI exists when an editor has a COI with respect to a certain judgment, and he 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 his own business.

A potential COI exists when an editor has a COI with respect to a certain judgment, but she 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 her 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: An editor has an apparent COI if he edits an article about a business and for some reason appears to be the owner. In fact he may have no such connection. Apparent COI causes bad feeling within the community and should be resolved through discussion whenever possible.

Edit requests from COI or paid editors

Responding to requests

• 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 by or 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 necessarily mean that it is better.

Make sure the proposed version of the article complies with WP:WEIGHT. Be on the lookout for unnecessary detail that may have been added to overwhelm something negative, and check whether anything important is missing. Look for non-neutral language and unsourced or poorly sourced content. Be cautious about accepting content based on WP:SPS, such as a personal website, or primary sources such as a company website or press release. Responding editors should do their own search for independent sources. If the proposed new text is added to the article, the edit summary should include full attribution; see WP:COIATTRIBUTE below.

Paid editors on talk pages

• WP:COITALK
• WP:PAYTALK

Paid editors must respect the volunteer nature of the project and keep discussions concise. When proposing changes to an article, they should describe the suggested modifications and explain why the changes should be made. Any changes that may be contentious, such as removal of negative text, should be highlighted.

Before being drawn into long exchanges with paid editors, volunteers should be aware that paid editors may be submitting evidence of their talk-page posts to justify their salaries or fees. 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

Copyright of paid contributions

• WP:COICOPYRIGHT
• WP:PAIDCOPYRIGHT

Editors are reminded that any text they contribute to Misplaced Pages, assuming they own the copyright, is irrevocably licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Content on Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages contributors.

Paid editors must ensure that they own the copyright of text they have been paid to add to Misplaced Pages; otherwise they are unable to release it. A text's author is normally assumed to be the copyright holder. Companies sometimes provide paid editors with text written by someone else. Alternatively, a paid editor might write text for Misplaced Pages within the scope of their employment (a "work for hire"), in which case copyright resides with the employer.

Where there is doubt that the paid editor owns the copyright, they (or the employer or author) are advised to forward a release from the copyright holder to the Wikimedia Foundation (permissions@wikimedia.org). See WP:PERMISSION for how to do this and Misplaced Pages:Declaration of consent for all enquiries for a sample letter.

Attribution in edit summaries

• WP:COIATTRIBUTE
• WP:PAIDATTRIBUTE

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.

Covert advertising, consumer protection

• WP:COVERT
• WP:NOHIDDENADS

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 Misplaced Pages 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.

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.

Other categories of COI

Legal and other disputes

• WP:COIBLP
• WP:COILEGAL

The biographies of living persons policy says: "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."

Similarly, editors should not write about court cases in which they or those close to them have been involved, nor about parties or law firms associated with the cases.

Campaigning, political

• WP:COICAMPAIGN
• WP:COIPOLITICAL

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 their opponents. Government employees should not edit articles about their agencies, government, political party, political opponents, or controversial political topics.

Writing about yourself, family, friends

• WP:COISELF
• WP:SELFPROMOTE

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, Misplaced Pages's volunteer response team, or ask for help on WP:BLPN, our noticeboard for articles about living persons, or the talk page of the article in question.

Citing yourself

• WP:SELFCITE

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: propose the edit on the article's talk page and allow others to review it.

Cultural sector

• WP:CURATOR

Museum curators, librarians, archivists, and similar are encouraged to help improve Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files.

Wikipedians in residence, reward board

There are forms of paid editing that the Wikimedia community regards as benign. These include Wikipedians in residence (WiRs)—Wikipedians who may be paid to collaborate with mission-aligned organizations, such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. WiRs must not engage in on-Misplaced Pages public relations or marketing for their organization, and they should operate within the bounds defined by Core characteristics of a Wikipedian in Residence at Wikimedia Outreach. They must work closely with a Misplaced Pages project or the general Misplaced Pages 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.

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

Miscellaneous

Law of unintended consequences

• WP:LUC

Once an article is created about yourself, your group, or your company, you have no right to control its content, or to delete it outside the normal channels. Content is irrevocably added with every edit. If there is anything publicly available on a topic that you would not want to have included in an article, it will probably find its way there eventually.

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

• WP:COIADVICE
• WP:COIU

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 Misplaced Pages 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.

How to handle conflicts of interest

If an editor has disclosed that s/he is editing with a COI, or edits in a way that leads you to believe they might have 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 there has been no COI disclosure, consider first whether the issue may be simple advocacy. 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 sockpuppets 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 Misplaced Pages:Checkuser. If revealing private information is needed to resolve COI editing, and if the issue is serious enough to warrant it, editors can seek the advice of functionaries or the arbitration committee by email.

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 be placed on user Talk pages to warn editors that they may have a conflict of interest)
• {{uw-coi-username}} (another Talk page warning, this one for editors whose username appears to violate the WP:Usernames policy)
• {{COI editnotice}} (this template goes on article talk pages and gives instructions to COI editors on how to submit edit requests to the article)
• {{UserboxCOI}} (for users to self-declare on their own Userpages those articles with which they have a conflict of interest, one such template per article)

See also

Wikimedia Foundation

• wmf:Terms of Use#4. Refraining from Certain Activities
• Sue Gardner, "Press releases/Sue Gardner statement paid advocacy editing", Wikimedia Foundation, 21 October 2013.

Contact us

• Misplaced Pages:Contact us - Subjects

Article

• Conflict of interest editing on Misplaced Pages

Policies

• Misplaced Pages:Paid-contribution disclosure
• Misplaced Pages:Username policy
• Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not

Wikiprojects

• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Cooperation (inactive)
• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Integrity

Miscellaneous

• Category:Requested edits (lists edits for review where proposer has a conflict of interest)
• Category:Misplaced Pages articles with possible conflicts of interest
• Misplaced Pages:Reward board
• Misplaced Pages:FAQ/Organizations
• User:COIBot
• Users creating autobiographies (an edit filter)
• Statement on Misplaced Pages from participating communications firms, June 2014

Essays

• Misplaced Pages:Best practices for editors with close associations
• Misplaced Pages:Conflicts of interest (medicine)
• Misplaced Pages:Don't cry COI
• Misplaced Pages:For publicists publicizing a client's work
• Misplaced Pages:Ghostwriting
• Misplaced Pages:Independent sources
• Misplaced Pages:Paid editing (essay)
• Misplaced Pages:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide
• Misplaced Pages:Public relations (essay)
• Misplaced Pages:Search engine optimization
• Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages is in the real world

Historical

• Misplaced Pages community discussion on paid editing, 2009.
• Misplaced Pages community discussion on conflict of interest, 2012.
• Misplaced Pages:COI+ (failed proposal, 21 February 2013)
• Commercial editing (failed policy proposal turned into an essay, November 2013)
• No paid advocacy (failed policy proposal, November 2013)
• Paid editing policy proposal (failed policy proposal, November 2013)
• Conflict of interest limit (failed policy proposal, December 2013)

Notes

1. The word interest refers here not to curiosity but to something in which a person has a stake. Interest (from Middle English, interess) originally meant "the possession of a share in or a right to something." Neil R. Luebke, 1987: "he term 'interest' means some actual share or right on the basis of which one can materially gain or lose. It does nor mean an affection for some person, a feeling of sympathy for some cause, or a desire for some area of activity. In this sense I could have an interest in the Bad-News-Corporation, through a generous bequest by my rich uncle, even though I detest its corporate practices and conscientiously refuse to buy its products."
2. Wayne Norman, Chris McDonald, 2012: "A person has a conflict of interest because of the kind of situation she finds herself in, not simply because of the actual state of her own desires, interests, motives, and so on."

   Bernard Lo and Marilyn J. Field, Institute of Medicine, 2009: "A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest. ... Secondary interests may include not only financial gain but also the desire for professional advancement, recognition for personal achievement, and favors to friends and family or to students and colleagues ... policies do not ... imply that the individual researcher ... is an unethical person. They assume only that under some conditions a risk exists that the decisions may be unduly influenced by considerations that should be irrelevant. ... the determination that an individual or institution has a conflict of interest is a judgment about the situation and not about the ... who happens to be in that situation."

3. Advocacy is prohibited by our policies on neutral point of view and what Misplaced Pages is not. Paid advocacy is an especially egregious form of advocacy. Sue Gardner, then executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, wrote in 2013: "Editing-for-pay has been a divisive topic inside Misplaced Pages for many years, particularly when the edits to articles are promotional in nature. Unlike a university professor editing Misplaced Pages articles in their area of expertise, paid editing for promotional purposes, or paid advocacy editing as we call it, is extremely problematic. We consider it a 'black hat' practice. Paid advocacy editing violates the core principles that have made Misplaced Pages so valuable for so many people."
4. Davies writes: "A conflict of interest is a situation in which some person P (whether an individual or corporate body) stands in a certain relation to one or more decisions. On the standard view, P has a conflict of interest if, and only if, (1) P is in a relationship with another requiring P to exercise judgment in the other's behalf and (2) P has a (special) interest tending to interfere with the proper exercise of judgment in that relationship. The crucial terms in the standard view are 'relationship,' 'judgment,' 'interest,' and 'proper exercise.'"
5. Norman and McDonald quote legal scholar Bayless Manning, 1964: "ubjective intent is not important  ... If the wrong kind of outside interest is held, no amount of leaning over backward or purity of soul will satisfy Committee or the statutes."
6. The first court case to use the term conflict of interest as currently understood was in 1949 in New York. Until the 1950s COI in the professions was addressed by expecting the conflicted individual to act objectively. Norman and McDonald write that this was naive.
7. Columbia University, Responsible Conduct of Research: "A potential conflict of interest involves a situation that may develop into an actual conflict of interest."
8. "An apparent conflict of interest is one in which a reasonable person would think that the professional's judgment is likely to be compromised."
9. One approach is to disclose personal information, either on Misplaced Pages or privately to a trusted editor, although editors should not feel obligated to do this.

References

1. Jay M. Feinman (ed.), One Thousand and One Legal Words You Need to Know, Oxford University Press, 2005, 100.
2. Angus Stevenson, Maurice Waite (eds.), Concise Oxford English Dictionary (luxury edition), Oxford University Press, 2011, 740.
3. Neil R. Luebke, "Conflict of Interest as a Moral Category," Business & Professional Ethics Journal, 6, 1987 (66–81), 68. JSTOR 27799930
4. ^ 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, 441–470.
5. ^ Bernard Lo and Marilyn J. Field (eds.), Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice, Institute of Medicine, National Academies Press, 2009, 49.
6. ^ "Paid contributions without disclosure", Terms of Use, Wikimedia Foundation.
7. Sue Gardner, "Press releases/Sue Gardner statement paid advocacy editing", Wikimedia Foundation, 21 October 2013.
8. Davis 2001, 8.
9. Michael Davis, "Introduction," in Michael Davis and Andrew Stark (eds.), Conflict of Interest in the Professions, University of Oxford Press, 2001, 12.
10. Davis 2001, 11.
11. Davis 2001, 303, citing In Re Equitable Office Bldg. Corporation, 83 F. Supp. 531 (S.D.N.Y 1949).
12. ^ Norman and McDonald, 2012, 461.
13. Davis 2001, 11–12.
14. ^ Davis 2001, 15.
15. ^ "Conflicts of interest", Responsible Conduct of Research, Columbia University.
16. Davis 2001, 18.
17. The case arose out of a claim against a company by a competitor over edits made to the article Weihrauchpräparat on the German Misplaced Pages. The judgment can be read here.
18. Mike Sweney, "Nike becomes first UK company to have Twitter campaign banned", The Guardian, 20 June 2012.

Further reading

(chronological order)

• Michael Davis, "Conflict of Interest," Business and Professional Ethics Journal, 1(4), 1982, 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, 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, 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.
• Michael McDonald, "Ethics and Conflict of Interest", The W. Maurice Young Center for Applied Ethics, University of British Columbia, 23 April 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, 441–470.

• Misplaced Pages behavioral guidelines
• Misplaced Pages notability
• Misplaced Pages conflict of interest guidelines