Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conflict of interest management/Evidence

Main case page (Talk) — Preliminary statements (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Target dates: Opened 6 March 2024 • Evidence closes 20 March 2024 • Workshop closes 27 March 2024 • Proposed decision to be posted by 3 April 2024

Scope: The intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy, in the frame of the conduct of the named parties.
Public evidence is preferred whenever possible; private evidence is allowed (arbcom-en-bwikimedia.org).

Case clerks: Firefly (Talk) & Amortias (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Aoidh (Talk) & Barkeep49 (Talk) & Maxim (Talk)

Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Wikipedia in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored or removed. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.

Submitting evidence

• Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute.
• Public evidence is preferred whenever possible, private evidence is allowed (arbcom-en-bwikimedia.org).

  If in doubt about whether evidence can be public under our policies (especially WP:OUTING) email the Arbitration Committee your evidence submission. The Committee can then let you know whether it should be public or private evidence.

• You must submit evidence in your own section, using the prescribed format.
• Editors who change other users' evidence may be sanctioned by arbitrators or clerks without warning; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the arbitration clerks by e-mail or on the talk page.

Word and diff limits

• The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee.
• If you wish to exceed the prescribed limits on evidence length, you must obtain the written consent of an arbitrator before doing so; you may ask for this on the Evidence talk page.
• Evidence that exceeds the prescribed limits without permission, or that contains inappropriate material or diffs, may be refactored, redacted or removed by a clerk or arbitrator without warning.

Supporting assertions with evidence

• Evidence must include links to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable.
• Please make sure any page section links are permanent, and read the simple diff and link guide if you are not sure how to create a page diff.

Rebuttals

• The Arbitration Committee expects you to make rebuttals of other evidence submissions in your own section, and for such rebuttals to explain how or why the evidence in question is incorrect; do not engage in tit-for-tat on this page.
• Analysis of evidence should occur on the /Workshop page, which is open for comment by parties, arbitrators, and others.

Expected standards of behavior

• You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being incivil or engaging in personal attacks, and to respond calmly to allegations against you.
• Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all).

Consequences of inappropriate behavior

• Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without warning.
• Sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may include being banned from particular case pages or from further participation in the case.
• Editors who ignore sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may be blocked from editing.
• Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Evidence presented by Tryptofish

History of policy on COI reporting and outing

I note that the case scope includes the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy, and that several Arbs commented on the case request page that they wish that editors would be more inclined to email the Committee instead of just assuming that ArbCom already knows.

The COI guideline refers editors to the outing policy as taking precedence, and the latter says in part: Nothing in this policy prohibits the emailing of personal information about editors to individual administrators, functionaries, or arbitrators, or to the Wikimedia Foundation. In context, please note that emailing ArbCom is not currently emphasized, and editors are likely to look elsewhere instead. It is also in terms of "nothing prohibits", rather than the importance of reporting. The paid editing page likewise only refers to emailing Checkusers or a "paid" email address, with no mention of ArbCom.

Circa 2015–16, the community held very extensive discussions on how to report COI editing, and there are walls of text in the harassment policy talk page archives. But for a tl;dr, I want to point ArbCom to this 2016 discussion: [1], which I think gets at what is most relevant now. I see (with a bit of embarrassment, now) myself and multiple other editors saying that emailing ArbCom sounds like a bad idea; there are also then-members of ArbCom saying that ArbCom doesn't have the resources to deal with private evidence of COI/paid editing. (There's also discussion of a failed proposal to set up a mailing list of functionaries, to whom private evidence would be emailed. The failed proposal is here: [2], and the RfC rejecting it is here: [3].)

WMF posted their position here: [4], and the community discussed it here: [5].

This case should be informed by this history, and this is a good time to reevaluate it for present-day needs. Since ArbCom sets its own policies and procedures, this case may be an opportunity for ArbCom to take, for itself, a more active role as someone to contact with private information about COI/paid editing. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:09, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Joe Roe

Editing with a financial conflict of interest is "paid editing"

"Paid editing" is how we usually refer to edits made for or with financial compensation; what the Terms of Use call paid contributions. It is perhaps an unfortunate choice of words, because people sometimes take them at face value and assume it refers to only literally being paid to make an edit. However, the relevant policies make it clear that they are intended to apply to any contribution where there is a financial conflict of interest present. From Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure § Additional notes on who must disclose (emphasis added to this and subsequent quotes):

Users who are compensated for any publicity efforts related to the subject of their Wikipedia contributions are deemed to be paid editors, regardless of whether they were compensated specifically to edit Wikipedia.

And Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § Paid editing:

Being paid to contribute to Wikipedia is one form of financial COI; it places the paid editor in a conflict between their employer's goals and Wikipedia's goals. [...] More generally, an editor has a financial conflict of interest whenever they write about a topic with which they have a close financial relationship.

This isn't the place to get into why the policies are worded in this way. Suffice to say, the basic principle, set out in Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § COI is not simply bias, is that COI is not just a problem of quid-pro-quo advocacy, but of a tendency to bias that we assume exists when [an editors] roles and relationships conflict.

An employee has a financial conflict of interest in relation to their employer

As specifically stated in Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § Paid editing:

[A close financial relationship] includes being an owner, employee, contractor, investor or other stakeholder.

Edits with a financial conflict of interest must be disclosed

Immediately after defining edits with a financial conflict of interest as a form of "paid editing", Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § Paid editing goes on to say:

The Wikimedia Foundation requires that all paid editing be disclosed.

Evidence presented by Dennis Brown

To claim that any kind of COI automatically means "paid editing" is a can of worms you don't want to open. For example, I've worked in the UV industry for decades, and when making edits in that area, I had a disclaimer on my user page. Some of my work here included uploading example images of items that had the brand of the company I worked for. (example:[6]) Did it benefit the company? Probably not but some may argue it does. It provided an example image of a common product that was readily available to me, rather than me buying an outside product to photograph. The majority of my related uploads were not company branded. The goal was to expand the articles, provide examples and I managed the COI by not adding the company name, nor slanting my edits to make them look better, nor adding images just to upload the company logo. I am considered expert in the field, so the articles benefited from the work, the company did not directly benefit. But it is still a (then declared) COI. Saying any COI is paid editing would automatically disqualify me from having the admin bit, as true "paid editing" has a clear consensus to be incompatible with adminship, and would have far reaching, damaging effect here.

This means that a professor that makes an edit about the university they teach at is a paid editor, because that university pays his salary, so he can not continue to hold the admin bit. You can't just carve out exceptions for professors over us lowly businessmen, after all, a job is a job, and making edits relating to your source of income the same. Some universities are FOR PROFIT, after all. What if the professor makes edits related to their FIELD, but their university is known as the only university studying that field? Isn't that a COI similar to mine, where it may incidentally promote their university? They indirectly benefit, so if COI is the same as paid editing, they must hand in the admin bit. COI is a fuzzy line, not a clear cut thing, and it is more common than most think. It is also manageable.

Most everyone has a COI of some kind, because most of us have jobs or affiliations that create the conflict of interest. Whether you belong to a social club (Lions Club, Optimists Club, etc), work at any job with any level of expertise, or a barista at Starbucks, any edits you make to either the company or related articles are a conflict. How we manage those conflicts is what matters. This is NOT the same thing as plain speak "paid editing" as a traditional 3rd party contractor, nor is it the same as working for XYZ, Inc. and part of your job title includes managing social media and thus making edits on Wikipedia (paid but in between "contractor" and "simple COI", as the damage is limited in scope) If you decree that a simple COI is the same as paid editing, you are going to need to desysop a lot of people, including me. Many have minor COI and don't think to declare because it isn't abused, but you will see cases popping up if you overreach here.

Note, this doesn't speak to the merits of this particular case, which I am not privy to all the details of, as most is private. I just don't want to see Arb shoot itself in the foot by declaring "COI == Paid editing". If anything, it needs to clarify that they are not the same for the purpose of adminship. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:11, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Jessintime

Nihonjoe denied having COIs until this case was filed

Heritage Internet Technologies (formerly Heritage Web Solutions)

In 2008, while Nihonjoe was an admin, he inserted text about the above named company into the Provo, Utah article [7]. An editor later removed that information from the article, saying it seemed like advertising and non-neutral [8]. Nihonjoe reverted that editor within hours [9].

The same editor who tried to remove the information then raised concerns about the HWS article on that talk page [10] and would express concerns that someone with ties to the company had contributed to the article [11]. Nihonjoe's response was that "any article about a company is going to be somewhat promotional" [12] and then he turned up at the user's talk page to accuse that other editor of having a blatant POV [13].

Auquaveo

At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aquaveo in February, Nihonjoe said simply that the article in question was about "one of many topics I find interesting" and asked for the page to be userfied, without admitting he worked for the company in question [14]. He would later accuse the editor who nominated the page for deletion of harassment [15]. (Nihonjoe would later change his tune and admit he only began working on the article after he started working for the company [16])

D. J. Butler

Nihonjoe in February denied having any conflict of interest with Butler [17]. After some prodding by members of this committee while the case was pending, Nihonjoe listed D. J. Butler as one of several articles for which he has a conflict of interest -- see User:Nihonjoe/Contribs/Intro -- because he "published a collection of his short fiction."

Nihonjoe and WP:DYK

Nihonjoe has gotten both the Butler article and the now deleted Aquaveo article on the main page through WP:DYI. See Template:Did_you_know_nominations/D._J._Butler and Template:Did you know nominations/Aquaveo. Neither of those are listed at User:Nihonjoe/DYK.

--Jessintime (talk) 15:07, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.