CL-SSERC-Scot

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, CL-SSERC-Scot. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#How to disclose a COI);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:Spam);
• do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Do not use Wikipedia as a means of promoting SSERC, Agent00x (talk) 14:34, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Managing a conflict of interest - response

Hi Agent00x (and the rest of the welcoming committee, thanks for getting in touch. As you can tell, this is all new to me. I hope I am replying in an appropriate manner, if not, please forgive me. I take your point about conflict of interest - frustratinglyI was interrupted and had to stop before rewording it a little and putting in relevant (external) references. The intention of the edit is purely factual - courses at the venues listed do not apply in Scotland (or Wales and Northern Ireland for that matter - which I intend to add). There is no intention to try to drum up trade here.

I would, however, appreciate some wider advice as I am, as I said, new to this. The organisation I work for, SSERC, currently has no Wikipedia entry. Considering it has been going over 50 years and is a key player in the education landscape in Scotalnd , this doesn't seem right. Above, you suggest that editors should 'avoid creating articles about... your organisation'. I quite see the point but if no-one else has done so, would it be OK for me to in that circumstance - as long as it was clearly flagged. I have nothing to hide and am, as with this minor edit, merely seeking to put factual information onto Wikipedia. I have no interest at all in trying to use it for promotion. What are your thoughts? If it wouldn't be acceptable, how should I go about getting such a page created? Cheers, Chris CL-SSERC-Scot (talk) 22:27, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

If you are looking to edit articles based on the organisation that employs you, there are a couple of pages you should first review. WP:COI is a guideline page talks about editing where you may have a conflict of interest. Editors with a COI (for example, you to the organisation that employs you) are strongly encouraged not to edit the articles themselves, but to proprose changes on the article talk page. Instructions for this are in the guideline page. There is also WP:PAID which, rather than being a guideline, is Wikipedia policy. If you are being paid by your organisation to edit Wikipedia, then "you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.", and the policy page lists the ways this is done.

Wikipedia works off reliable sources and what they say. WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:OR are core content policies. If multiple third party reliable sources do not discuss your organisation in sufficient detail, then your organisation may not be notable enough for an independant article. I would strongly recommend, if you do create an article, you go through the WP:AFC process by creating a draft and having it be reviewed.

I hope this helps. Agent00x (talk) 12:55, 17 January 2021 (UTC)