Sunshine Review:Conflict of interest policies
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A conflict of interest is when an editor has goals or aims (interests) that conflict with the goal of Sunshine Review, which is to create a fair, balanced, and reliable encyclopedia about government transparency and accountability.
Editing articles in order to promote the specific interests of a particular side of an issue, government agency, public relations firm, political consulting agency or other groups, companies, or individuals rather than to contribute to Sunshine Review's common good and its goals is a conflict of interest.
You are very strongly discouraged from engaging in editing when you have a conflict of interest. Conflict-of-interest editing tends to disrupt Sunshine Review's goals. Editors who contribute to Sunshine Review because they have some particular agenda they want to push tend to cause disruptions and to run afoul of Sunshine Review's ideals of neutrality, fairness, balance, reliability and accuracy.
It hurts Sunshine Review as a reliable resource when people who have a conflict-of-interest edit, both because it means that other editors have to clean up any violations of neutrality, balance and reliability -- which wastes time they would otherwise have spent building up the information on Sunshine Review -- but because it causes Sunshine Review to be viewed by readers as unreliable and as having an agenda.
As a result, if you have a conflict of interest (if you are editing Sunshine Review because you have a particular viewpoint you want to push, rather than because you want to build information on Sunshine Review in support of Sunshine Review's common interests in pursuit of the common good), please don't edit here.
If you have a conflict of interest, but you want to add information in a spirit of impartiality consistent with Sunshine Review's goals, please identify yourself on the "talk" or "discussion" page of any articles you edit. Editors who fit these descriptions should particularly take care to identify themselves:
- If you work for a public relations agency or political consulting firm that has been retained to promote one side or the other of a ballot proposition.
- If you work for a campaign committee that is supporting one side or the other of a ballot measure.
- If you work for a political campaign that has some special interest in a particular event covered on Sunshine Review.
- If you work for an organization and you are editing an article on Sunshine Review about that organization.
- If you are a public official and plan to edit your own page
- If you are a public official and you plan to edit your school district, township, city, county or state website.
If you edit in the characteristic fashion of someone with a conflict-of-interest, other contributors who believe you may have a conflict of interest can ask an administrator to check your IP address. If this happens, it is possible that a conflict of interest you have not identified may come to light, which would potentially embarrass you and your employer or association inasmuch as it would tend to create the impression that you are trying to game the system and distort the information available on Sunshine Review.
This also might result in you being blocked from editing.
[edit] Reporting a possible COI
If you believe that an editor is editing on Sunshine Review who has a conflict of interest, you can write about that here:
