Talk:Stephanie Moser

Discussion

This article was originally drafted and edited by Sneferu as part of an undergraduate class assignment relating to this class: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/University_of_Washington/ARCHY_319_Archaeology_of_Australia_(Winter). I am the instructor and Sneferu is my student. Neither of us have met the subject or have any personal or professional relationship with her. We have had some email contact with to collect and check information. Comtebenoit (talk) 19:31, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Comtebenoit Did the subject themselves not give direction in editing to the writer? Because their edits very clearly indicate she did. That is a conflict of interest when someone is editing at the behest of a subject whether or not it is a professional conflict or a class assignment. As such, I've restored it and would appreciate if you would refrain from removing maintenance tags on this article. Praxidicae (talk) 19:34, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

• Hi Praxidicae, what basically happened here was that the student reached out to Moser to get her CV and hopefully a photograph, as well as just general excitement that they could let her know that they wrote the article. They weren't in contact with Moser beforehand, nor was the article written for her. (IE, neither the student nor the instructor was in contact with Moser, nor were they asked to make this.) Moser replied with some advice as far as the article replied, mostly smaller edits. The student, who was very excited about everything, agreed to make the edits. These look to be more along the lines of corrections:

1. This one removed the sentence "Her work includes guidelines for museums to consult with local communities about the interpretation of their heritage." and a source ([1]). They also changed the word "studies" to "explores". I think that this last change was done because studies implies more of a passive action (reading others work) while explores suggests that she's creating new research.
2. The next edit is more changing the wording here and there to be more specific and to fix incorrect or incomplete information, such as giving the full name of the thesis and updating numbers. The term major could be seen as a POV term but I think that this is meant to signify size and scope as opposed to level of importance. Either way, this needs a source and I'm not sure if the given source states this.
3. This edit actually looked like it was reducing potential promotional prose. There was the word "important" left in, which I have removed from the article. Essentially, it was less promotional than the prior version.

After this the material was just general formatting, fixes, and the removal of redundant information. Basically, the Moser labeled edits weren't really all that problematic. If I'd come across this as an uninvolved admin I wouldn't have seen these as really problematic as far as COI goes. I don't really know that this is even really a COI in the traditional sense. I'm going to pull in DragonflySixtyseven to get their opinion on this, as well as put in for a third opinion. (Which would be necessary since I worked with the class, I can't really make a definitive judgement.) Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:57, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I can see how it looks suspicious, and I definitely wouldn't call it best practice, but I'm willing to accept that this isn't a CoI. DS (talk) 02:51, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

I don't see this as a strong conflict of interest. Disclosure has been more than adequate, and parties have been warned. For BLPs, we should give a little deference to information from the subject. I note that this is a conduct issue, whereas the third-opinion process is better-suited to content issues. I suggest that editors focus on the content here rather than claiming COI, but if anyone wants to take this further, go to WP:COIN. Bovlb (talk) 01:43, 21 June 2019 (UTC) Thank you, seems there is a consensus on "not COI", so I've removed the tag. Comtebenoit (talk) 02:09, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

“Conflict of interest”

Sneferu8 (myself) shared the finished article with subject and there were a few things subject suggested. Like the number of PhD candidates she supervised was sixteen and Sneferu8 had it as fourteen.

Part of the assignment is to contact subject at the start to request CV and picture. That’s the reason Sneferu8 was in touch with subject and he didn’t know her or know of her previously. Establishing rapport is just something Sneferu8 does as a personal policy.

Not sure this constitutes conflict of interest. Sneferu8 always thought that was when a writer serves too many masters. The only one I call Boss is my professor. At no time did Sneferu8 get cozy with the subject or receive direction from her and certainly no sort of payment. Subject had absolutely no creative input into the work of Sneferu8.

When it came time to defend my work in the chat room I had nothing to hide. The editors there take no prisoners and had Sneferu8 been anything but sincere it surely would have been a bloodbath. Sneferu8 (talk) 15:12, 16 June 2019 (UTC)