AngusW99

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, AngusW99. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about in the page Ben Britton, 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, company, organization or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see WP:DISCLOSE);
• 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 must 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 WP:PAID).

Also please note that editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. Polyamorph (talk) 09:19, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

My apologies if I have blundered in here and not understood procedures here. To clarify Ben Britton is a former student of mine. He is now at a different academic institution. I still interact with him and collaborate scientifically with him. Does this preclude me from adding or clarifying content on this page? The small edit I made was backed by a reference to evidence the statement. AngusW99 (talk) 17:51, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Hello, no that would not be a good idea to edit biography pages of people who you have a personal or professional association. Best wishes Polyamorph (talk) 18:18, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

sorry - I can read that two ways. (i) No - precluding someone with first hand knowledge would be a bad idea (but declare CoIs, and request edits), or , (ii) No - you shouldn't edit bio pages if you have any personal/professional link (the risk of bias outweighs any direct knowledge). Just want to get this clear as I don't want to waste your time (and mine). AngusW99 (talk) 18:52, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

You should not edit bio (or other) pages which you have a clear personal or professional association, but you are free to comment on talk pages to share knowledge / references, which other editors may then use to improve the article(s). Polyamorph (talk) 20:57, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, that's very clear - route to share knowledge but bias filtered through other editor!AngusW99 (talk) 21:00, 14 January 2019 (UTC)