Template:COI

Template documentationviewedithistorypurge

When to use

Use this tag to request help from other editors with an article that may be biased by a conflict of interest, and to request help from other editors with an article that is biased or has other serious problems as a direct result of editing by the subject of the article, or by a person with a close connection to the subject (e.g., public-relations employees or paid editors).

Do not use this tag if you can quickly solve the problem, e.g., by removing peacocking and puffery or by reverting the blanking of well-sourced criticism. If the article/edit also has problems with neutrality, however, then use of the tag is likely appropriate.

This tag is not generally used to notify readers that an article appears to be partially or wholly autobiographical. If this is the case, please use the more-specific {{autobiography}} tag. An exception to using the autobiography tag is when such use would reveal the identity of a Wikipedia editor.

Like the other neutrality-related tags, if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start a discussion, any editor will be justified in removing the tag without warning. Be careful not to violate the policy against WP:OUTING users who have not publicly self-disclosed their identities on the English Wikipedia.

Note: COI is an abbreviation for Conflict Of Interest; see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. Do not use the {{Conflict of interest}} template, which is a navigation box for encyclopedia articles.

The article should have a specific problem

In order to be tagged, the article should have a specific, articulatable, fixable problem. Do not apply this tag simply because you suspect COI editing, or because there is or was a COI editor. COI editors can be added to the talk page using the template {{Connected contributor}}.

The COI tag should be removed once the problem is fixed.

When to remove

This tag may be removed by editors who do not have a conflict of interest after the problem is resolved, if the problem is not explained on the article's talk page, and/or if no current attempts to resolve the problem can be found.

How to use

{{COI|talk=talk page section|date=August 2026}}

To tag a section, use {{COI|section|talk=talk page section|date=August 2026}}

When placing this tag, please tag the article talk page with {{Connected contributor}}. If dealing with a paid editor, use {{Connected contributor (paid)}}.

To place a warning on the user talkpage of someone with a suspected conflict of interest, use {{uw-coi}}.

Notes

This template will categorise tagged articles into Category:Wikipedia articles with possible conflicts of interest, or a dated subcategory thereof.

This template is a self-reference.

This template is not useful for substitution.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:COI in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for COI

<templatedata> { "description": "Use this tag to alert readers that the article may be biased by a conflict of interest.", "params": { "1": { "label": "Type (section)", "description": "Something to replace the word \"article\", normally \"section\".", "type": "string", "required": false, "autovalue": "", "example": "section", "default": "article" }, "talk": { "label": "Talk page section", "description": "The section of the talk page containing relevant discussion", "type": "string", "required": false, "autovalue": "", "aliases": ["discuss"], "suggested": true }, "date": { "label": "Month and year", "description": "Provides the month and year of the citation request; e.g., 'January 2018', but not 'jan18'", "type": "string", "required": false, "autovalue": "{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}", "suggested": true } }, "format": "inline" } </templatedata>

Redirects

• {{Close connection}}

See also

• {{Autobiography}}
• {{Uw-coi}} - user notice about COIs
• {{Connected contributor}} - to mark an article's talk page if a user with a COI has edited the corresponding article
• {{Connected contributor (paid)}} same as "Connected contributor" but for paid editors
• {{UserboxCOI}} - to make a standardized self-declaration of a conflict of interest on one's user page
• {{Undisclosed paid}}
• {{COI editnotice}} - placed on article talk pages to warn against COI editing

Other common cleanup templates

• Wikipedia:Template index/Cleanup
• Template:All plot
• Template:Anachronism
• Template:Autobiography
• Template:Citation style
• Template:Cleanup image
• Template:Cleanup list
• Template:Cleanup merge
• Template:Cleanup reorganize
• Template:Cleanup rewrite
• Template:COI
• Template:Confusing
• Template:Connected contributor
• Template:Context
• Template:Copy edit
• Template:Expert needed
• Template:Fiction
• Template:Globalize
• Template:How-to
• Template:Missing information
• Template:More citations needed
• Template:Notability
• Template:Primary sources
• Template:Promotional
• Template:Self-contradictory
• Template:Technical
• Template:Tone
• Template:Too many see alsos
• Template:Uncategorized
• Template:Unreferenced category
• Template:Underlinked
• Template:Undisclosed paid
• Template:Unfocused
• Template:Unreferenced

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:COI/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.