VRCWiki:Conflicts of interest

Conflict of Interest (COI) refers to an individual's status as it relates to any major affiliations they may have to a given project, whether it be a World, Avatar, Prefab, Community, or etc. Likewise, Conflict of Interest editing (COI editing) is the practice of which an individual who is strongly affiliated with a project creates a page for said project, or writes substantive edits for an existing one.

Conflict of Interest is better understood not just as an individual policy within its own right, but rather as a contextual segment of general editor policy alongside Notability, Neutral Point of View (NPOV), or No Original Research (NOR). COI policies complement the rest by ensuring the worst-case scenarios for each are wholly avoided in the first place- before any edits are even made. For example, Notability by definition cannot be self-defined, and this directly leads into our COI policies preventing first-parties from defining the Notability of their own projects through page creation.

It isn't necessarily assumed that an editor with a COI would create or edit a page for the purposes of advertisement- per se, but the fact is an editor with a COI will intrinsically be more likely to embellish information, curate what information is present, or treat the page as a primary source.

Examples

You would be someone with a Conflict of Interest if- for a given project- you:

• Created the project.
• Helped develop, moderate, or facilitate the project itself in any tangible way.
• Were the sole/initial financial provider for the project. (e.g: Commissioning)

Policies

The VRChat Wiki has two fundamental policies regarding COI and COI editing, these being:

1. Editors who have created a project, or have made substantive contributions to the project itself, are completely forbidden from creating pages on said project.
2. Editors with a substantive COI on a project are restricted to purely minor edits for any pages pertaining to said project.

Pages found to have been created in violation of these policies will be candidates for swift deletion, and the author notified soon after through appropriate channels.
(at the moment, their talk page and possibly Discord- if applicable)

Situations that are NOT (necessarily) Conflicts of Interest

Conflict of Interest is- like many things in life- not strictly speaking a binary definition, but more of a gradient of proximity. When an editor with even a slight affiliation to a project gauges their own potential COI, it is oftentimes desirable to err on the side of caution and assume they do, avoiding any potential editor conflict. However, there are plenty of situations in which case someone with a potential COI can very much still make constructive major edits to a project's page; it ultimately comes down to a variety of factors.

It can help to conceptualize your potential COI with a project by assessing it in direct proportion to how simple it would be to cease your affiliation. More plainly: if it's easy for you to "leave" without any impact- you probably don't have much COI, and if your involvement is historically in the body of work itself- you 100% do.

In any case, anyone who feels as though they have even a minor COI to something they're editing should both disclose the details of that fact in the edit summary, and take extra care to ensure any written content they contribute follows all of our editing guidelines, especially NPOV.

Here are some examples listed roughly in order from most severe to least:

Having a personal relationship with someone affiliated with a project

This one is the trickiest to nail down, as it can cover everything from "intimate romantic relationships" to "we're mutuals on Twitter". Only you can fully quantify the extent of your relationship with the individual in question, and thus qualify whether you could- or even should ethically contribute to the project's page. Out of all of the examples, this is the one to be most cautious about; tread carefully.

Being a Patreon subscriber, or having made other financial contributions to a project

Financial contributions tend to signify a fairly strong interest in a project, but are not wholly indicative of one's affiliation, and can be revoked at any time. While someone in a position of financial support will likely trend towards positive phrasing, they are still ultimately independent from the project itself, and do not implicitly share the same ideological expectations or even opinions on it as those who've put much more effort and work into creating or sustaining it. It is a position still very much worth keeping an eye on and disclosing, but isn't wholly indicative of a COI on its own.

Being a member *of* a project's community

Functionally similar to the financial contributors above, except with even more leeway, independence, and ease of revoking status. Being involved in a community can mean a variety of different things; whether it's directly contributing content, participating in events occasionally, or lurking a Discord server. All of these fall into different places on the COI spectrum, but are generally fairly low concern as long as the standard guidelines are being appropriately met.

Having a strong interest in a project

Having a general vested interest in a topic or project you're contributing to editing isn't just not COI but is very much encouraged! Everything you read here on this wiki is contributed by volunteers, and our time- like yours- is very much finite! While we strongly appreciate all of those who donate their time unequivocally to any page on the Wiki that needs it, we also very much stress the importance of spending your time contributing healthily, even if it's only to the topics that most interest you!

A general example that sums all of this up:

Let's assume a hypothetical project in the form of a World called "Super Fun World".

• The creator of Super Fun World cannot create a "Super Fun World" page, but an interested community member can!
• Perhaps that interested community member happens to also be a Patreon subscriber to Super Fun World('s creator), in which case they're generally advised to disclose that information in the edit summary of the page's creation.
• One of the 3D modellers for Super Fun World notices a couple typos on the page, and correct them in a minor edit.
• The creator of Super Fun World sees an incorrect date being attributed to an event hosted in the world and makes a minor edit changing the date to the correct one with a valid citation (if one didn't already exist and the error was a typo).
• A hardcore fan of Super Fun World reads a new development blog published by the creator and uses their judgement to decide some of the information is notable enough for inclusion in the article, writing a new section (or adding to an existing one) with a neutral point of view using the blog as a citation.

...and so on!

Conflict of Interest noticebox

If an article primarily (or entirely) contains content written by someone with a partial Conflict of Interest, it will be displayed with the following noticebox:

V · EConflict of interest

This page was written by an involved party in violation of the Conflict of interest policy, and may be subject to removal. Once this page has enough edits from varying parties, this notice may be removed.

Consider editing this page.

Note, this cannot be used to circumvent the two fundamental policies. Any pages found to have been created in violation of them, even if they contain this noticebox, will still be eligible for deletion.

It can be added to to an article using the following text: {{Noticebox/Conflict of interest}}

See also

• VRCWiki:Guidelines
• Wikipedia:Conflict of interest on Wikipedia