On 10 July 2014 17:17, Jennifer Gristock <gristock(a)me.com> wrote:
This [in my view, peculiar] perspective, that citing yourself is a COI, is
a million miles away from Pau's [in my view,
sensible] advice that
First, COI <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest> is
related to editing Wikipedia in your own interests or in the interests of
your external relationships. It does not forbid obviously writing about the
things you're an expert on. If you are able to separate these two things,
you're allowed to do it.
I would be much obliged if those who agree with Pau could +1 his email
(or this one) so that I can be sure that the whole system I am attempting
to design, - which involves academics and their students contributing
information from their own research and citing it - does not by definition
forbidden because of COI.
No, citing yourself is not necessarily COI. One reason is that Wikipedia
distinguishes between "apparent" or "potential conflict of interest",
which
is relatively easy to comprehend (we are all familiar with the
finger-pointing involved), and "conflict of interest" in the Wikipedia
sense, which means that potential conflict of interest has somehow infected
your editing.
I happen to have met this recently in relation to work I did over 30 years
ago. And I was reluctant to cite a joint paper for mine, just because I
have also a long (but not quite so long) history with the COI guideline and
the way it got drafted. The guideline is not intended to prevent academic
experts contributing to Wikipedia in their area of expertise: that would be
self-defeating, daft, and anyone can draft that guideline (i.e. conflate
potential conflict of interest with what is under discussion).
To try to put it more clearly: Wikipedia has content policies (and topic
policies, not usually called that). If your potential conflict of interest
means you infringe on the spirit of those, you're in trouble. I do mean the
spirit: citing the letter of the law in something like NPOV is not useful
here, because policy is not drafted like a legal document.
So, in reverse order:
3. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines, but they are not drafted by
lawyers for lawyers
2. They are drafted to explain the reasonable expectations applying to
those who edit the site.
1. In relation to COI and content policy, we hit the kind of area where
people are least likely to respect the spirit, and it matters the most that
they do.
I would say to get 1 right, any system does have to educate those invited
to join it on the implications.
Charles