QUOTE(MBisanz @ Mon 7th September 2009, 8:34pm)
I hope my proposal
at ANI is seen as useful to the situation.
As follows
QUOTE
I would concur with Lar. As it is currently written, the outing policy protects all parties, the guilty and the innocent, the helpful and the not so helpful, equally. In the interest of encouraging contributions, that is probably the best way to leave the policy. However, I think we could beef up our autobiography and conflict of interest guidelines to better protect the community. Possibly something along the lines of "If you wish to defend a subject you have a conflict of interest to in a Wiki-debate, you waive the protection from outing of the nature of the interest (biography subjects, company relationships, etc), as a matter of fairness to the other participants in the debate." MBisanz talk 19:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I think that would be useful. Or something even simpler: if you are asked whether you have a conflict of interest, you must give a straight answer: yes or no. Benji refused to do this.
Actually the existing policy is quite strong: it is strongly discouraged.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AUT..._about_yourselfQUOTE
The proper way to get your own writing about yourself in if you really think you can meet the inclusion criteria and are willing to accept having a neutral, non-promotional article is to make a proposal containing the text you want, instead of just putting it up directly, and seek the consensus of the community through discussion. Not only does this provide independent viewpoints on it that can allow you to discover biases you were not aware of having, it also helps provide an indication of good faith and that you are willing to put the interests of Wikipedia first instead of standing in a position of conflict of interest.
This post has been edited by Peter Damian: