I have supported many editathons and advised many academics on COI.
Most academics are keen to edit openly, using their real identity,
some have expressed the view that this is how to behave ethically on
the internet. If they are likely to be a long term contributor, I
strongly advise them to be pragmatic and use an anonymous account. If
they make early blunders, or have a long break from editing, they can
even throw away the account and have a clean start. This leaves them
free to be frankly judged for NPOV as any other editor, without
colouring their contributions by a preemptive COI statement.
Academics are always going to want to edit in their field of research
and contribute to articles about their projects, past projects and
colleagues. Though we want expert editors[1] there is always a risk
that they will be pestered by a wiki-gnome for adding a reference to a
work they were part of editing, or contributed a paper to. I have seen
articles languish as drafts for months because an expert in this
situation was worried about being publicly challenged by COI claims,
and so asked for others independently to review and make the go-live
decision.
A well run workshop will emphasize what COI is, and how difficult it
is to write neutrally. Given that, I have almost always been impressed
by how academics wanting to tart up their topic on Wikipedia are
able to perfectly well stick to sources and write in a neutral style
(I cannot say the same for undergrads!).
* Key tip: Wikipedia is not academia.net or similar, so
university/college profiles are almost never suitable to be cut
paste as stub biography articles. It is worth walking through
creating a stub BLP as an early example in any academic editathon.
Links
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_editors
P.S. the date this email is posted to wikimediauk-l may be several
days after being sent.
On 16 April 2015 at 09:58, Charles Matthews
charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote:
As has been implied, the COI guideline is nuanced, and so the best advice is
to keep on the safe side. The terms of use of the site in respect of paid
editing are, on the other hand, clear cut. The former relates to intention,
the latter to factual matters that are easier to discuss.
I would approach the topic from the direction of paid editing, making the
point however that COI need not arise from a financial interest.
Charles
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