User talk:Charles Matthews/Conflict of interest

Thoughts

Here's the problem: it's entirely possible to have a so-called "conflict of interest" without it being an issue, because we have a myriad of policies that already take it into account. If anything, the only things we should be worrying about is making sure such possible biases are up front. I do edit articles on children's books, for instance, but I also work in the industry. Does that qualify as a conflict? Possibly. What should be done about it? I'd like to think that my edits speak for themselves - I don't edit articles that solely have to do with product my company offers, I also edit "the competition," and I'm not editing from any specific POV. This can trickle down further - you mention "dog lovers should edit about cats." I'm an idie rock fan, it's what I know, should I be editing about John Cougar Mellencamp instead, even though I know nothing about him and a whole lot about Headlights?

I understand the need to be vigilant about spam and self-promotion. The question isn't "should we allow it," but "do our current policies already address the issue." I'd say the answer is yes, and the focus should be more on being direct about those than anything else. Just my two cents. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I think your suggestion that "dog lovers should write about cats" is extremely confused, and not at all what conflict of interest policies should address. People learn and write about things because they have an interest in them; is a expert on topology supposed to recuse himself from that article because he's interested in topology? Of course not. The "dog lovers" example is actually even more silly. In what way exactly is a dog lover's love for dogs going to invalidate or compromise her edits? Is she going to insist that they are better than cats or something? Surely that would be excised as non-encyclopedic in any case, yes?

It seems much better to reserve COI discussions for instances in which someone has an actual financial/personal interest in the material covered. I agree that it's rather unseemly for someone to start an article on him or herself, for example. Given that most users are at least semi-anonymous, though, it's not clear how this could be policed fairly.....NoahB 22:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

dog lovers should write about cats ... probably not the best scheme. Fiberglass boat maintainers should write about wooden boat maintence? Auto drivers should write about motorcycles? Swimmers should write about walking? While cat owners may be tempted to be advocates of cats, may have different "everyone knows" about cats, be tempted to disparage other pets, ... those conflicts are not really conflicts of interest, which (to me, at least) is about concealed or competing interests. htom 17:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Cat lovers and dog lovers should both edit both articles – and something else as well

I have written several articles and edited much more. As for the subjects I care about, I have written long and detailed texts using many sources. In other articles I have made smaller changes. That's how it works, everyone is doing this for free. I think it is not a good idea to discourage people of writing about subjects they like, it's not good for the athmosphere. If someone told me that I shouldn't edit something because of my interests (or worse, a world view), I would most probably understand it as a personal attack.

I also think that the page Wikipedia:Conflict of interest has not been developing only in a good way. This far I have not had the courage to put my comments there. But earlier in a page history it was about what kind of pages or behaviour were inappropriate, now it is starting to be what kind of traits of a user are inappropriate. And on Wikipedia:No personal attacks it clearly states that "Comment on content, not on the contributor." If someone is acting disruptive way that is enough to ban him/her. There shouldn't be any reason to go into personal matters.

Best wishes, --Shyranoe 15:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The purpose of the page is to set out guidelines as to what sort of editing is discouraged due to the high potential for bias. Although bias can be fixed, the point is to take the workload off the community by trying to reduce the amount of bias that exists ab initio, so there is less to deal with. Also, it is supposed to discourage people who want to deliberately insert vanity material in. I'm not quite totally happy with it either, honestly, I've thought the earlier versions (when it was still called "Vanity guidelines") were better. mike4ty4 04:04, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that "Vanity guidelines" would be much better. Then it could be clearly about content. An idea of a conflict of interest should be introduced only as something one can think silently himself/herself. It shouldn't be a Wikipedia guideline. I'm afraid of personal attacks sneaking into Wikipedia through this guideline. --Shyranoe 14:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

My opinions of COI guideline are not so strong anymore, because it has improved. Another reason why I don't think so badly about COI guideline now is that I have learned that it is really needed for some things. --Shyranoe 12:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Ignorance is not a very useful form of objectivity

" Put it this way: dog lovers should edit about cats." is a notion that has been tried by chain stores in their selection of buyers for product lines, usually with disastrous results. Example: a science fiction buyer for a major book chain was, in his previous job, a buyer of hammers for a hardware chain. This did not work out well and did not lead to increased profits for the chain. Ignorance is not a very useful form of objectivity. --Pleasantville 18:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Prescient

This essay in quite prophetic, given one of the current arbitration cases. One of its main (purported) issues is indeed conflict of interest, and this essay correctly predicted the nature of much of the discussion there. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)