If you edit articles about an institution to which you have close ties; its history, architecture, Board of Trustees/staff, resources (the kinds of things that would go in an About or History section on a website, that is less relevant to your collections, and more relevant to the institution’s own history) personal bias is more likely, and your editing may be perceived as a conflict-of-interest by the Wikipedia community. Simple factual changes (e.g.: personnel updates or outdated statistics) may likely be made to pages related to your institution and its history, without raising eyebrows, but more substantive changes should proceed carefully.
Be open to conversation and dialogue with other Wikipedia editors as they might have questions about your additions to Wikipedia. To this point, please remember that Wikipedians are not out to get you- they are out to make sure that there is not PR work going on and to maintain established peer-review structures within Wikipedia.
Paid editing is conflict-of-interest editing done in exchange for payment or done during on-the-clock hours. While the term has a negative connotation, Wikipedians sometimes receive funding from the Wikimedia Foundation to do outreach or events planning, and even to improve content about an institution on Wikipedia, and there are best practices to disclose paid editing. For example:
Wikipedia's content is governed by three principal core content policies: neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research. Editors should familiarize themselves with all three. Here are the “in-a-nutshell” definitions of each:
Conflict-of-Interest editing has different import when it is done by a new Wikipedia editor, as opposed to a more seasoned Wikipedia editor, and partly because there is disagreement among the community about Conflict-of-interest editing. Seasoned Wikipedia editors are expected to have a working familiarity with the core-content policies, and to also have a workflow that includes looking up best practices There is no one, canned response or set of sanctions for Conflict-of-interest editing, and conflict-of-interest are more often than not resolved at the discussion level on Wikipedia talk pages, rather than at the public level.
Employing a Wikipedian-in-Residence or hosting public Wikipedia events at your institution will increase the scrutiny of your institution’s edits by the Wikipedia community. Policies regarding resolving conduct during disputes and resolving COI disputes: Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Harassment and Wikipedia:Dispute resolution (many more also available)
If you edit articles about an institution to which you have close ties; its history, architecture, Board of Trustees/staff, resources (the kinds of things that would go in an About or History section on a website, that is less relevant to your collections, and more relevant to the institution’s own history) personal bias is more likely, and your editing may be perceived as a conflict-of-interest by the Wikipedia community. Simple factual changes (e.g.: personnel updates or outdated statistics) may likely be made to pages related to your institution and its history, without raising eyebrows, but more substantive changes should proceed carefully.
Be open to conversation and dialogue with other Wikipedia editors as they might have questions about your additions to Wikipedia. To this point, please remember that Wikipedians are not out to get you- they are out to make sure that there is not PR work going on and to maintain established peer-review structures within Wikipedia.
Paid editing is conflict-of-interest editing done in exchange for payment or done during on-the-clock hours. While the term has a negative connotation, Wikipedians sometimes receive funding from the Wikimedia Foundation to do outreach or events planning, and even to improve content about an institution on Wikipedia, and there are best practices to disclose paid editing. For example:
Wikipedia's content is governed by three principal core content policies: neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research. Editors should familiarize themselves with all three. Here are the “in-a-nutshell” definitions of each:
Conflict-of-Interest editing has different import when it is done by a new Wikipedia editor, as opposed to a more seasoned Wikipedia editor, and partly because there is disagreement among the community about Conflict-of-interest editing. Seasoned Wikipedia editors are expected to have a working familiarity with the core-content policies, and to also have a workflow that includes looking up best practices There is no one, canned response or set of sanctions for Conflict-of-interest editing, and conflict-of-interest are more often than not resolved at the discussion level on Wikipedia talk pages, rather than at the public level.
Employing a Wikipedian-in-Residence or hosting public Wikipedia events at your institution will increase the scrutiny of your institution’s edits by the Wikipedia community. Policies regarding resolving conduct during disputes and resolving COI disputes: Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Harassment and Wikipedia:Dispute resolution (many more also available)