Wikipedia:The spam fallacy

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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WP:SPAMFALLACY

Users with a conflict of interest may want to add external links to Wikipedia articles. They may also desire to create a new Wikipedia article about their non-notable company.

The reason they want to do so is Wikipedia's reputation as a trustworthy encyclopedia. People tend to believe what they read on Wikipedia, and the number of readers is huge.

When deciding to add promotional content to Wikipedia, an editor may think:

"If I add an advertisement to Wikipedia, many people will read it."

This is only half of the truth, and a logical fallacy. Wikipedia is only trusted by many people because of its strict policies:^[1]

Editors with a conflict of interest should consider that Wikipedia is only interesting to them because volunteers, every day and every night, are investing their personal free time to defend the encyclopedia against biased, promotional and disruptive edits. Paid editors must respect the volunteer nature of the project and keep discussions concise.

Editors with a conflict of interest should never forget that the fundamental reason for their edits, to be honest, is exactly the strict adherence to Wikipedia's principles that they may be complaining about.

Notes

^
This statement may seem to conflict with WP:IAR and the fifth "pillar" of Wikipedia. However:
- As a part of the Terms of Service, the paid editing policy has legal implications and overrides WP:IAR.
- WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR are Wikipedia's core content policies. It is impossible to "improve or maintain" Wikipedia by violating these policies.
- WP:NOT describes what Wikipedia is not. WP:IAR is about Wikipedia, and thus by definition not applicable to anything listed in WP:NOT.
For these reasons, the statement "strict policies" is appropriate here, and unaffected by WP:IAR.

[1] This statement may seem to conflict with WP:IAR and the fifth "pillar" of Wikipedia. However:
As a part of the Terms of Service, the paid editing policy has legal implications and overrides WP:IAR.
WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR are Wikipedia's core content policies. It is impossible to "improve or maintain" Wikipedia by violating these policies.
WP:NOT describes what Wikipedia is not. WP:IAR is about Wikipedia, and thus by definition not applicable to anything listed in WP:NOT.
For these reasons, the statement "strict policies" is appropriate here, and unaffected by WP:IAR.

[2] As a part of the Terms of Service, the paid editing policy has legal implications and overrides WP:IAR.

[3] WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR are Wikipedia's core content policies. It is impossible to "improve or maintain" Wikipedia by violating these policies.

[4] WP:NOT describes what Wikipedia is not. WP:IAR is about Wikipedia, and thus by definition not applicable to anything listed in WP:NOT.

[1]