Wikipedia Conflict of Interest: What Is Allowed

Under Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline, you have a conflict when you write about yourself, your family, friends, clients or employers, and the guideline says conflict-of-interest editing is strongly discouraged. What it asks of you instead is disclosure, edit requests on the article's talk page, and, if you are paid, a public statement of your employer, client and affiliation.

The rules differ by role. A subject correcting a wrong date, a company employee updating a headcount and an agency paid to improve a client's page are all conflicted, but the guideline and the Terms of Use ask different things of each. Most of the confusion online comes from treating "conflict of interest" as one rule instead of a set of duties that depend on who you are and what you are doing.

This guide is the rulebook. It does not argue whether a Wikipedia page is worth having, and it does not walk through every removal route. It sets out what each kind of conflicted person may do, what disclosure actually looks like on the page, how to write a request that a volunteer will act on, and what happens when the rules are broken. It is information, not advice. Wikipedia's rules are community guidelines that change, so read the live pages before you act.

The short version

A conflict of interest is about your role and relationships, not your beliefs. Subjects, employees, owners, contractors, family and agencies all have one.
The guideline strongly discourages conflicted editing and says to propose changes on the article talk page instead. A short list of uncontroversial edits is allowed.
Paid editors must disclose employer, client and affiliation under the Wikimedia Terms of Use. A shared company account or a company name as the username is not allowed.
An edit request works when it is specific, neutral and sourced to independent coverage. Once editors decline it, you do not make the change yourself.
Breaking the rules gets accounts blocked and promotional pages deleted, and it can become a public story about the subject.

What counts as a conflict of interest on Wikipedia

A conflict of interest is a situation created by an outside role or relationship, not a judgment about your character. The guideline separates three levels. An actual conflict means you are in a position to exercise judgment on the conflicted matter. A potential conflict means the conflict is present but you are not in that position. An apparent conflict means there is reason to believe an editor has a conflict, but that editor does not.

The guideline's examples show how wide the net is. It covers editing about yourself, your family, friends, clients or employers, and anyone with a close financial relationship to a topic, including owners, employees, contractors and stakeholders. It also covers people with an antagonistic real-life relationship with a subject, anyone involved in a court case or close to a litigant, and people who edit articles while involved with campaigns that engage in advocacy in the same area.

A conflict does not disappear because you believe you are being fair. It also does not make your point wrong: the guideline warns against using a conflict allegation as a trump card in a content dispute.

The rulebook by role: subject, employee, agency, relative

The guideline applies to every conflicted person, and then asks more of the people who are paid. This table sets the four common roles side by side.

Role	Direct edits	Disclosure	Preferred route
Subject of the article	Strongly discouraged. Narrow exceptions only	On your user page and in related discussions	Request on the talk page, then volunteer response team
Employee or owner	Strongly discouraged for your own organization	User page and talk page, with an individual username	Request on the talk page, with independent sources
Paid agency or freelancer	Paid advocates are "very strongly discouraged" from direct editing	Employer, client and affiliation, required by the Terms of Use	Request on the talk page only
Relative, friend or close associate	Strongly discouraged	On your user page and in related discussions	Request on the talk page

The wording in the table comes from the guideline and from Wikipedia's plain-language guide for people with a conflict. The pages I read list employees and owners among conflicted editors and treat payment as a separate matter, with its own disclosure duty. If you draw your salary from the company the article is about, treat yourself as paid for this purpose.

Subjects

If the article is about you, the guideline says you should not create or edit it and that you have no right to control its content. Disclosure is the other half: say who you are on your user page and in any related discussion. A short list of edits you may make yourself is set out further down.

Employees and owners

Employees tend to underestimate the rule because the edit feels harmless: a product name, an office address, a headcount. The guideline lists editing about your employer as a conflict and I found no carve-out for small facts. The plain guide adds that your username should represent you as an individual, not your company or organization as a whole, and the guideline says not to create a shared organizational account or use the organization's name as the account name.

Agencies and freelancers

Agencies carry the strictest duty. The guideline calls paid advocacy, meaning being paid to promote someone on Wikipedia, a subset of paid editing, and says the Wikimedia Foundation regards it as a "black hat" practice. Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing and are told to propose changes on talk pages. The guideline mentions benign examples of paid editing, such as Wikipedians collaborating with mission-aligned organizations like galleries and museums, and the reward board. Neither describes a normal client engagement.

Relatives and friends

A friend or relative writing "just a short page" is covered by the same list as the subject: the guideline names family and friends directly.

What disclosure looks like and where it goes

Disclosure means a plain public statement of your connection, in a place editors will see it. For paid editors it is a condition of the Wikimedia Terms of Use, which require disclosure of employer, client and affiliation. I could not read the Terms of Use page itself for this guide, so this section relies on how Wikipedia's guideline and plain guide report it. Wikipedia's own page about conflict-of-interest editing says the 2014 update covers contributions for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation, which matters: a promised fee counts before it is paid.

The guideline lets paid editors disclose in any one of three places: a statement on their user page, a statement on the talk page of the affected article, or an edit summary. The plain guide gives the templates: add the connected contributor (paid) template to affected talk pages, or the paid template on your user page. For an unpaid conflict, the guideline says to disclose on the user page and in related discussion, and to tag the article talk page with the connected contributor template where appropriate.

Setting up a compliant disclosure before the first request

Open an individual accountOne person, one account. Not the company name, not a product name, not a shared team login: the plain guide says multiple people may not use the same account.
Write the user page statementSay who employs you, who the client is if you are an agency, and your affiliation with the article's subject. Use the paid template if you are compensated.
Repeat it where the request is madeAdd the connected contributor template to the article talk page so that a reviewer sees the connection without searching for it.
Say it again in the requestOpen each request with one sentence stating your connection. Reviewers should never have to guess.
Keep the statement currentIf the engagement ends, changes client or widens to a second article, update the page. A stale disclosure is read as a hidden one.

As an illustration only, with placeholders in square brackets, an agency disclosure can be as short as: "I am employed by [agency] and paid by [client] to suggest changes to the article about [client]. I have a conflict of interest and will make requests on the talk page rather than edit the article." An employee's version is the same with the employer named and no client. The wording is invented for this guide; the elements are the ones the guideline lists.

When disclosure itself creates a risk

The guideline contains a warning that rarely appears in commercial guides: declaring a conflict publicly can expose your identity, so do not declare one if it could cause you real-world harm. A subject who is being harassed is the obvious case. The guideline's own route for a subject is email to the volunteer response team. The volunteer response team page cautions against sharing personally identifying information, especially names, physical addresses and email addresses, and says the Wikimedia Foundation cannot guarantee confidential treatment of sensitive information, though volunteers must keep it confidential. Paid editors should not read this warning as a way around the Terms of Use: the pages I read set no exception to the disclosure duty for compensated work.

The edits a conflicted person may make themselves

The guideline gives a short list of non-controversial edits that a person with a general conflict may make directly. Anything outside it belongs on the talk page.

Remove spam and revert unambiguous vandalism.
Remove content that unambiguously violates the policy on biographies of living persons.
Fix spelling and grammar errors.
Revert or remove your own conflicted edits.
Make an edit that has clear talk page consensus, although letting someone else make it is preferred.
Add reliable sources, especially when another editor has asked for them.

For an article about yourself, the guideline adds that editing is allowed where the article contains defamation or a serious error that needs to be corrected quickly, and that you should then follow up by email to the volunteer response team or ask at the living persons noticeboard. I could not read the full policy on biographies of living persons for this guide, so I cannot tell you how it defines the threshold. Read it before relying on the exception.

Writing an edit request that survives review

The edit request is the mechanism the guideline gives conflicted editors: you post on the article's talk page, using the request edit template (the plain guide names an edit COI version), and you disclose your connection. Other editors review the request and may decline it. The guideline states plainly that the writing of puff pieces and advertisements is prohibited.

The plain guide adds the sourcing standard. Good sources typically include academic journals, newspaper articles, magazine profiles and expert websites. Poor sources typically include blogs, press releases and sources with a direct connection to the subject. It also says not to copy sources or company documents word for word, and to write so it is impossible to tell that someone who works for the company wrote it.

The table below turns that into a drafting check. The requests are invented and generic.

Request as first drafted	Why a reviewer declines it	Workable rewrite
"Update the page to reflect our new, industry-leading position"	Promotional wording, no source	Change "chief operating officer" to "chief executive" with a link to an independent report of the appointment
"Remove the paragraph about the 2019 complaint"	Asks to delete sourced material	Add one sentence that the complaint was later dismissed, citing the ruling or independent coverage of it
"Replace the Career section with the text below"	A full draft for an existing article, hard to review	Three separate requests, each one sentence long, each with one source
"The company website confirms the founding year"	Source connected to the subject	Cite a registry entry or independent coverage that gives the founding year

In practice, two habits help a request get answered: one issue per request, and a disclosure sentence at the start of each. The plain guide also warns paid editors to avoid suggesting full drafts for existing articles, since drafts can be carried into the live article without adequate review. If a request is declined, the guide is blunt: you "should never implement changes by editing the article yourself". Read the reply, find which source would change the answer, and ask again with it.

Paid editing: what a client or employer must ask and expect

If you hire an agency or a freelancer, you share the exposure. The guideline says that media may name editors and their paymasters, which can embarrass the organization involved. Wikipedia's page about COI editing documents the enforcement that has followed: account blocks and bans, the deletion of articles, a block of edits from a set of IP addresses, topic bans, and a cease-and-desist letter from the Foundation. It describes detection through volunteers flagging suspicious activity, matching IP addresses to organizations and journalist investigations.

Put these questions to any provider in writing, before an engagement:

Under what username will you work, and will your disclosure name us as the client?
Will you ever edit the article directly, or only post requests on the talk page?
Do you operate more than one account, and will any account other than the disclosed one touch our topic?
What will you do if a request is declined: stop, appeal with a better source, or leave it?
Do you accept payment that depends on an article staying live or on a particular wording?

An answer that avoids the first or second question means the provider plans to work around the rules. The third matters because the same page describes networks of sockpuppet accounts among the cases that were investigated.

What a good provider actually does

A compliant provider does a smaller job than most pitches suggest. It reads the article as an outsider, lists the statements that are wrong or outdated, finds the independent source for each, and files short disclosed requests. It will often tell you that nothing can be done about an accurate, sourced paragraph, and it does not promise a page that Wikipedia may not accept. The same page quotes Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales saying that, in one corporate case, publishing a white paper online and linking to it would have been the more transparent choice than paid edits.

What happens when the rules are broken

The guideline says conflicted editors causing disruption may be blocked, and single-purpose accounts are warned first and may be blocked if the pattern continues. The Conflict of Interest Noticeboard decides whether a specific editor has a conflict with a specific article. Its page says to use it only after ordinary talk page discussion has failed, and it lists three outcomes: a conflict is found, no conflict is found, or there is no consensus.

When a conflict is found, the outcomes on that page are mild at first: a tag on the talk page, a tag on the article, or a warning to the user. That is the best case. The worse case is the one a subject or a company rarely plans for, which is that the investigation becomes visible. A noticeboard thread, a deleted article and a block log are all public, and a journalist can find them. A company that made a small, wrong edit can end up with a larger and more discoverable page about the edit than about the fact it wanted to change.

Two limits protect the people being investigated: the noticeboard page says harassment policy takes precedence over the guideline, and the guideline tells editors not to reveal an editor's identity against their wishes. Neither is a reason to skip disclosure.

A realistic timeline and a worked scenario

Wikipedia's plain guide describes an escalation path: talk page request, then the help desk, then the noticeboards, then the volunteer response team, with roughly one week per step. Treat that as the shape, not as a promise. The scenario below is invented, with generic parties.

Assume a mid-sized company has an article that gives an outdated headcount, names a former chief executive as the current one, and still describes a regulatory inquiry as open. The communications manager is an employee and therefore conflicted. An independent trade-press report supports each correction, and a regulator's published notice confirms that the inquiry closed.

When	What the manager does	Stop point
Day 1	Opens an individual account, writes the disclosure on the user page, adds the connected contributor tag to the talk page	Nothing is edited in the article
Day 1 to 2	Posts three one-issue requests, each opening with the disclosure sentence and giving its own source	One source per request
Week 1 to 2	Answers questions without arguing. Does not implement any change after a decline	A decline means improve the source, not edit
Week 2 to 3	If a request has had no reply, asks at the help desk or at a noticeboard, as the plain guide suggests	One polite follow-up, not repeated posts
Week 3 to 4	If a statement is a serious error about a living person, writes to the volunteer response team with the sentence and the source	Email once, with evidence

Usually the headcount and the name are the easy requests, because a reviewer can check them against a source in minutes. The inquiry sentence takes longer, and the answer may be "add the closure" rather than "remove the paragraph". That is an accurate result. The plain guide's one-week steps are rough waits, and the volunteer response team page states no response time, so plan in weeks and allow for a slower queue.

Writing the internal rule for your own team

The cheapest protection is an internal rule that exists before anyone is tempted. A company or a public figure's team should settle four points in writing.

Who may touch Wikipedia at all. Name one person, with an individual account and the disclosure on it. No one else edits, including the founder.
Which edits are never made directly. Everything outside the guideline's short list, which in practice means everything except vandalism, spam and spelling.
What counts as a source. Independent coverage only, the standard the plain guide sets. Company announcements are leads to find coverage, not citations.
What happens on discovery. If someone has already edited without disclosure, the safe course is to stop, disclose on the account and move to requests. The guideline lets conflicted editors revert their own conflicted edits, and that is usually the right first move.

If the real concern is not the Wikipedia text but what search engines and AI assistants repeat from it, the lever is the independent source behind the sentence, plus an accurate owned page one that gives readers and machines a clear statement of the facts.

What to do next if you are conflicted and affected

Start with a read, not an edit. List every statement that is wrong, outdated or weakly sourced, and find the independent source for each fix. Set up the disclosure, and post nothing until each request is short, neutral and sourced. Reputation Partners works this way when a client asks about a Wikipedia article: we prepare the list and the sources, and the client or their representative uses the routes above in their own name. We do not edit anonymously and we do not recommend removing accurate, lawful, public-interest information about wrongdoing; our ethics page sets out the lines.

If this is happening to you now

If you or your team have already edited an article you are connected to, stop editing, disclose the connection on your account and move every change to the talk page. If you want a second reader before you post, ask for a private review of the article and the sources.

Book a private audit

Questions people ask

Can I edit my own company's Wikipedia page?

The guideline strongly discourages it and says not to create or edit articles about your organization. You may remove vandalism, spam and clear violations of the policy on living persons, fix spelling, and make edits that have talk page consensus. Everything else goes through a disclosed edit request with independent sources.

Do I have to disclose a conflict of interest if I am not paid?

The guideline says to disclose on your user page and in related discussions. The Terms of Use duty applies to compensation, but the guideline asks every conflicted editor to be open about the connection. Hiding it makes later requests harder to trust and invites a noticeboard thread.

Can a PR agency write a Wikipedia article for a client?

Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct editing and must disclose employer, client and affiliation. For a new article, the plain guide points to Articles for creation for review. Acceptance depends on notability and independent sources, and no agency controls that outcome.

What is the volunteer response team for?

It is the volunteer group that handles queries, complaints and comments sent by email to Wikimedia projects. The guideline names it as a follow-up route after correcting defamation or a serious error in an article about yourself. The plain guide says it usually gives general guidance and redirects people to community forums, and its page states no response time.

What happens if I already edited my page without disclosing?

Stop editing. Disclose the connection on your account, and consider reverting your own conflicted edits, which the guideline allows. Move any wanted change to the talk page as a request. Disruptive conflicted editing can lead to blocks, so being open early is better than waiting for someone to raise it at the noticeboard.