"Stephen Bain" wrote

That seems common sense to me too. All we need to say about conflicts of interest is "try to recognise your own biases, be open to others who apprehend biases, and don't let your biases get in the way of editing neutrally".

Entrenched POV editing is something which is a recognised problem from the early days, and for which we have no complete solution.

The way it works now, roughly speaking, is that we can throw out POV editors who cannot/will not respect sourcing requirements, and who cannot/will not adhere to community norms of decent behaviour. If people can stick within those two things, then they probably are de facto of good standing here. Even if they use selective citation to make an article lie through its teeth, which is quite possible and the basis of all skilful propaganda.

Adding a 'conflict of interest' guideline is a further way of cutting down on heavy POV slants. Like the other things, it works on an 80-for-20 basis: it will not deter the real agenda-pushers who wish to subvert our coverage, but it will have an impact, on people who came and cluelessly thought that open editing meant complete freedom to act here.

Charles

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