Wikipedia:Teahouse/Host lounge/How-to guides/COI

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This guide explores conflict of interest situations.

Conflict of interest

Wikipedia shouldn't be edited to promote a users own interests, or those of other people or businesses. For example: you shouldn't write an article about yourself, your friend or family member, or the company you work for!

I'm a notable person (really, I am!), so can I write my own article? If not, what should I do?

ItsZippy's reply

The best practice is to avoid editing articles about yourself or anyone that you have a connection to. This is because, even with the best intentions, it is very difficult to write neutrally when it is about yourself. If you want to write your own article to give a good impression from yourself, you should not. Anyone writing on Wikipedia should do it solely for the purpose of building an encyclopedia, not for advancing any outside interests. If you are just wanting to improve the encyclopedia, there is no policy preventing you from doing so; however, you will need to be extra careful not to accidentally promote yourself or present yourself in only a good light - if people have criticised you, that will need to be included. If you are going to write an article about yourself, it would be a good idea to get feedback on your article as you go - the Teahouse is a good place for that. If you think that an article about you should be on Wikipedia but don't think that you can write neutrally, you can request it at Wikipedia:Requested articles, where an uninvolved editor can create it. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:32, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I found an article about someone I know and there is wrong information in it, what do I do?

Trevj's reply:

There is a complete policy on

immediate removal

. In the case of inaccuracies, and where the article's subject is known personally to you, either:

1. discuss the information on the article's talk page, stating what's incorrect and how you know this to be the case (also clearly declare your conflict of interest); or
2. correct the information yourself, again being sure to clearly declare your conflict of interest on the talk page and/or in the Edit summary depending on the nature of the information/presence of references.
- If in doubt, default to not performing the edit yourself (with an exception in the case of potentially defamatory material).

Add your own reply here!

I've been assigned to work on my employer's article. Is that all right?

Bilby's reply:

There has been a lot of discussion on Wikipedia about this in recent months. Strictly speaking you can, but in practice there are a lot of problem that arise and which might put you in a bad position. The main concern is that it is hard to be neutral in what you add to the article when you need to satisfy your employer's needs, and if changes are not neutral your alterations will be removed. Instead of making changes directly, the recommended approach is to suggest changes on the talk page of the article - you will find that via the "talk" tab at the top of each page. You may also wish to talk to the people at

help page you can turn to. And finally, the conflict of interest noticeboard

is used both to discuss editors with conflicts of interest and for editors to ask for assistance and advice, so that may prove to be a useful place to turn.