Sources on conflict of interest
- Davis, Michael and Stark, Andrew (eds.). Conflict of Interest in the Professions, University of Oxford Press, 2001.
- Krimsky, Sheldon. "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.
- Lo, Bernard and Field, Marilyn J. (eds.). Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice, National Academies Press, 2009.
- Stark, Andrew. Conflict of Interest in American Public Life, Harvard University Press, 2003.
Template:Connected contributor
Please see discussion at WT:COIN about whether it's appropriate to use Template:Connected contributor on an article talk page in a specific situation. Link to discussion. --Middle 8 (contribs • COI)
Jesse Cutler
COI vs content experts
It appears that WP:FCOI is suggesting that everyone who is remunerated in some way, has a COI in their field of activity, even though WP:EXTERNALREL welcomes most subject experts.
Expert | COI |
---|---|
WP:EXTERNALREL "subject-matter experts are welcome to contribute within their areas of expertise, subject to the guidance on financial conflict of interest" | WP:FCOI "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." |
I suspect every editor has a potential COI, but we must make it clear where there is an actual COI, eg.
- Do paid scientists, train drivers, beauty therapists, and homeopaths, have a COI writing about science, trains, beauty treatments and homeopathy?
- Do paid book authors on science, trains, beauty treatments, and homeopathy, have a COI on their subjects?
- Does someone who sells books on science, trains, cosmetics, and homeopathy have a COI?
- Do members of organisations/societies on science, trains, cosmetic industry, and homeopathy, have a COI on their subject?
--Iantresman (talk) 07:38, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
- Yes.
- Individuals and organizations whose professional goals and ethics parallel those of Wikipedia are highly welcome, but need to be careful to follow WP:COI. At the other extreme, those without professional ethics whose goals contradict those of Wikipedia will have great difficulty contributing to Wikipedia where their coi applies, beyond making suggestions on talk pages and non-controversial edits. --Ronz (talk) 17:42, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- I think we need to be very careful in attributing a COI to some employees. Train drivers would be one, they receive a salary for driving a train, but what financial benefit is there to write about trains? Another example would be an auto mechanic writing about cars. A salaried employee could have a COI, as in the case of a salaried salesman who also receives a bonus on things sold. But just because they work for a company, they may have no financial benefit in how a company performs.AlbinoFerret 17:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think the distinction matters. They all have very strong interests to put their pov first. --Ronz (talk) 19:40, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- This comes up regularly, and most editors do draw a distinction between subject matter expertise and COI, and that is reflected in the guideline itself. This RfC recently explored this topic. Herbxue (talk) 20:02, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think the distinction matters. They all have very strong interests to put their pov first. --Ronz (talk) 19:40, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- I think we need to be very careful in attributing a COI to some employees. Train drivers would be one, they receive a salary for driving a train, but what financial benefit is there to write about trains? Another example would be an auto mechanic writing about cars. A salaried employee could have a COI, as in the case of a salaried salesman who also receives a bonus on things sold. But just because they work for a company, they may have no financial benefit in how a company performs.AlbinoFerret 17:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- COI is about roles and relationships, not about POV or expertise. A train driver doesn't have a COI with regard to trains just because he knows about them. He does have a COI if he owns a train company and writes about it. There are grey areas in the middle where it can be hard to determine whether problematic editing is caused by COI or expertise/bias, but for the most part it's easy enough to tell the two apart. Sarah (talk) 20:20, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- An example of grey area Sarah is talking about: a train driver may lose his job if the company folds because wikipedia gave it bad fame, so it is his immediate interest to keep its article shiny positive. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:41, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- I agree that there would be a COI when writing about your employer. Say if the train driver worked for the Foo railroad, the COI would be articles about or that mention the Foo railroad, but in the general topic of say trains that do not mention the employer there would be no COI. AlbinoFerret 23:32, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- This is your interpretation of WP:FCOI, which, intentionally or not, avoids the broad phrasing "if you are an employer". That's why it is a grey area, and I would hate to take part in the trainwreck discussion of this poor train driver. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- I didnt think that "if you are an employer" was applicable in the case of a train driver, which would be an employee. AlbinoFerret 01:46, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
- This is your interpretation of WP:FCOI, which, intentionally or not, avoids the broad phrasing "if you are an employer". That's why it is a grey area, and I would hate to take part in the trainwreck discussion of this poor train driver. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- I agree that there would be a COI when writing about your employer. Say if the train driver worked for the Foo railroad, the COI would be articles about or that mention the Foo railroad, but in the general topic of say trains that do not mention the employer there would be no COI. AlbinoFerret 23:32, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- An example of grey area Sarah is talking about: a train driver may lose his job if the company folds because wikipedia gave it bad fame, so it is his immediate interest to keep its article shiny positive. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:41, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- COI is about roles and relationships, not about POV or expertise. A train driver doesn't have a COI with regard to trains just because he knows about them. He does have a COI if he owns a train company and writes about it. There are grey areas in the middle where it can be hard to determine whether problematic editing is caused by COI or expertise/bias, but for the most part it's easy enough to tell the two apart. Sarah (talk) 20:20, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
I think that if anybody wants to confuse themselves on this they certainly can, and there's nothing we can do about it. However we can break down the question in two parts, and most of it becomes crystal clear.
The first part is the terms of use, which is official Wikipedia policy, and even stronger than policy (if you don't agree to follow it you can't edit here at all). It says that if you are being paid to edit then you must declare your paid status, which is a conflict of interest in the terms of this guideline. What is "paid to edit"? The ToU doesn't break this down, although it gives a few examples in the FAQs. It presumes that the concept is clear and editors all understand plain English. It's not worthwhile to dissect a straight forward concept like this: somebody pays you to edit, and you edit, you are a paid editor. It does say that experts such as university professors may edit in their fields of expertise - universities don't pay their faculty members to edit Wikipedia, they pay them to do research and teach. But if the prof goes outside his field of expertise and writes what a great university he works for - well that is not quite as straightforward, that's a matter where a conflict of interest guideline can come into play. (But I'd say if he is pushing students to come to the university, and his salary depends on it - then it's pretty close to paid editing)
The second part is about less clear situations. WP:EXTERNALREL is subject to WP:FCOI, so there is no contradiction between them. WP:FCOI is very close to the ToU, but mentions specific relationships, owners, etc. It also seem to be a bit broader than the ToU - no use trying to nibble around the edges on this. Given this, if you are an expert, and you have no financial COI, then you may edit. The "specific case" of the train driver above, actually wasn't very specific. If the train driver is one of a thousand drivers for the company and gets a straight salary that's not affected by the year-to-year fluctuations of the company's business, then I really wouldn't see it as a COI situation. On the other hand, if the train driver is one of 4 employees of the company, which is going to go out of business soon unless somebody drums up some business, then I'd say he would have a conflict of interest.
The obvious cases are sorted out by the ToU, the cases where some judgement is needed are subject to this guideline. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:25, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
- Smallbones, you make it seem so simple, and yet editors were unable to reach consensus with regard to this exact issue and how it relates to healthcare professionals [1]. I suspect that Iantresman's question relates more to these difficult areas, as opposed to the straightforward cases that are clearly identified by applying ToU. 108.181.201.237 (talk) 01:43, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Some important points have been made, notably that (1) Many editors have some kind of relationship with their subject, and consequently (2) a potential COI. The question arises, (a) how do we make it clear when these same editors are editing acceptably, and can do so without fear of other editors harassing them, and using WP:EXTERNALREL improperly against them, and (b) how we word it so that it is relationship-independent? --Iantresman (talk) 08:00, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
- In my view, a member of company X that makes specific product Y or offers specific service Y who comes to WP to edit, has a COI with regard to X and Y (and their competitors); they should declare that COI (disclosure) and should submit their edits on those topics to peer review (in other words, they should not directly edit content in existing articles where they have a conflict, but rather should offer content proposals on the article Talk page using {{edit request}}; and if they create a new article related to their COI, they should submit it through AfC instead of creating it directly) This is the standard way that COI is managed in publishing. Going through peer review is not a bar to editing - the mentions above that editors with a COI are somehow barred from editing is just kooky and wrong. Editors with a COI who follow our policies and guidelines can surely be productive members of the WP community - many editors can and do make valuable contributions this way.
Someone like a doctor or lawyer who offers a general professional service Y does not have a COI with regard to Y. The question that arose in the RfC I started that Herbxue mentions above, was whether an alt-med practitioner like an acupuncturist, who offers a specific service (acupuncture), should be considered to have a COI. The community reached no consensus on that question. In the absence of a consensus that they do have a COI, in my view they should not be considered to have one.
On the subject matter experts thing. Expertise doesn't create a COI. But an expert writing about his or her company or products has one. The bigger and more difficult COI-ish issue with experts arises if they come here to use Wikipedia as a platform to advocate for their views on issues in their field. That is of course a violation of the policies, WP:SOAPBOX and WP:NPOV. The COI guideline discusses this in WP:SELFCITE where it says: "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." (emphasis added) Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest (medicine) also deals with this well, where it says: "'Being an expert', including being a licensed healthcare professional, has never been considered a conflict of interest by the Wikipedia community. However, in the past experts have tried to use Wikipedia to promote their own theories beyond their prominence within the scientific community, and that is always inappropriate." (emphasis added) The essay, WP:EXPERT also deals with this, in point 6 of the advice section. Jytdog (talk) 12:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I think "COI" is less of a problem with people who work in an area editing articles on that area than the fact that an awful lot of such editors are only editing Wikipedia because they work in that area and they think that because they work in the area they must be right even if they refuse to cite reliable sources, and sometimes get extremely defensive when asked to cite reliable sources. Joe Traindriver removing sourced information (positive or negative) from articles on the railroad, and replacing it with his own OR (again, positive or negative), being asked to provide sources and accusing other users of arrogantly dismissing his expertise in the field is, in my experience, a far bigger problem on the far larger number of Wikipedia articles than COI is. Calling these users "content experts" at the expense of our core content policies does not help the problem. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:29, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
- I agree with that. Experts can be such valuable members of the community but if they don't get on board with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, they can be some of the most disruptive editors we have. The WP:EXPERT essay is super helpful, as are other essays linked from there. Jytdog (talk) 12:31, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
So, do (a) paid scientists, train drivers, beauty therapists, and homeopaths, have a COI writing about science, trains, beauty treatments and homeopathy, or (b) Are we just saying that editors should adhere to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, irrespective of whether there is a perceived or actual COI? How do we make this clear? --Iantresman (talk) 12:55, 19 August 2015 (UTC)