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

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Submitting evidence

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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 Nihonjoe

The D. J. Butler article was first edited by me in 2019, two years before I had any COI regarding that subject (I published a collection of their work in July 2021, and they had a story they donated for a charity anthology published in February 2021). It's not uncommon for me to submit a DYK for article I create or greatly expand, either. Them not being listed at User:Nihonjoe/DYK is likely just an oversight and completely irrelevant.

The Aquaveo article has already been discussed elsewhere, and I see no need to rehash things here.

The Heritage Internet Technologies entry on the Provo, Utah page followed the same format as other entries there (a link to the article and an explanation of why the company was notable, supported by reliable sources), and all of the information in that paragraph was supported by the included article from Inc., which is considered a very reliable source for business information. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 18:10, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by AddWittyNameHere

Timeline of Nihonjoe and D. J. Butler

• April 2019: Nihonjoe starts editing a pre-existing AfC draft and subsequently moves it to mainspace and nominates it at DYK.
• May-June-July 2019: a number of additional edits to the article.
• 2021: Per Nihonjoe's own explanation in the section above, in 2021 he developed a COI in regards to the article's subject. (At very latest by July 2021, but in practice--between the charity anthology and the fact that publishing does not happen from one day to the next--most likely several months before). He did not declare this COI.
• 2022: Several more edits to the article: a string of 4 edits on 6 January 2022, a string of 3 on 15 June 2022, followed by a string of 6 on 27 June 2022. He did not declare this COI.
• February 2024: When asked about a COI with D. J. Butler, Nihonjoe denied this.
• March 2024: Nihonjoe lists D. J. Butler as one of several articles on which he would have a COI now due to publishing work [he has] done, but not when they were created.

Considering Nihonjoe has identified the relevant publishing work as having taken place in 2021, his 2022 edits were therefore done with an (at the time undeclared) COI. AddWittyNameHere 20:20, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Serial Number 54129

Representing evidence of now-(rightly) blocked sock. Interesting points in the chronology are raised, unfortunately questioning much of the accepted chronology, and probably require further investigation in the context of the broader narrative. ——Serial Number 54129 21:45, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Nihonjoe at Action Target

In 2010 Nihonjoe wrote a draft article for Action Target which he has only recently declared was done while he was a temporary employee. [18] Per that declaration he seems to think he now has "no COI" for his subsequent edits, since he had left that role by the time he moved it into mainspace (also in 2010 [19]). What he doesn't mention is that no other person edited that article before he moved it, and it was written as a draft in his personal user space.

In 2014 Nihonjoe reverted a user named "Action Target" trying to remove a small amount of content from Action Target [20] that was essentially the same as that which was in the article when Nihonjoe wrote it as a draft. In doing so he advised them "Please especially take note of our conflict of interest guideline. As you are likely directly related to the company in question (given your username), it is generally recommended that you do not directly edit the article." [21]

In 2017 when the user returned and self identified as an employee of Action Target seeking Nihonjoe's input regarding updating the company logo (which Nihonjoe had originally uploaded), Nihonjoe soft blocked them for a username violation. [22]

With the benefit of hindsight only, it is hard to see how Nihonjoe thought he was acting in the best interests of Wikipedia by continuing to edit articles only he knew he had written while having a direct financial conflict of interest.

Articles he knew at the time had never been reviewed by anyone who knew he had written them with a COI. Which observers would certainly not have thought was the situation as they were seeing it. Not given his status and given he was happily giving advice to new users with a suspected or declared conflict, as he reverted their edits to content he had written with an actual and active COI of equal significance.

It is hard to draw any firm conclusions as to intent, given Nihonjoe's very limited public statements on these matters, but given the need for trusted users to be accountable and transparent and the fact COI is about appearances as much as it is proveable intent or even effect, that is in itself surely a cause for concern. Action Johnson (talk) 15:50, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by DanCherek

Nihonjoe's full protection of Dave Wolverton in 2022

• On 13 January 2022, Nihonjoe applied indefinite full protection to the article Dave Wolverton. The protection reason was: still waiting for a confirmation source, but he just passed away according to several well-known authors, protecting to prevent vandalism. There was no recent history of vandalism [23].
• This prevented anyone who wasn't an administrator from being able to directly make updates to the article, and led to edit requests on the talk page from several editors.
• On 15 January 2022, another administrator lifted the full protection. The unprotection reason was: revert application of full protection per WP:PREEMPTIVE...I can't think of any other deaths that were full protected, and not sure why this would be any different (no recent history of abuse).
• Nihonjoe listed this article among his COIs in March 2024.

DanCherek (talk) 21:50, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Nihonjoe's full protection of Brad R. Torgersen in 2021

• On 11 August 2021, Nihonjoe applied full protection for two weeks to the article Brad R. Torgersen. The protection reason was: Persistent disruptive editing: Slow edit war happening. Take it to the talk page and come to a consensus rather than arguing via edit summary..
• There indeed had been an edit war prior to the full protection [24]. Several IP editors and one registered editor – who was autoconfirmed but not extended-confirmed – were in dispute over the inclusion of details of Torgersen's military service. Some of the disputed content had previously been removed or edited by Nihonjoe in his earlier edits to the article [25][26].
• Nihonjoe listed this article among his COIs in March 2024.

DanCherek (talk) 21:50, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by El_C

Weak response to persistent CIO emboldens violators

<Placeholder> Ongoing matter @Special:Permalink/1212673945#Warning_RE:_"Belgian schools,"_etc. El_C 02:52, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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