Paid editing on Wikipedia is defined as an editor giving up his independent editorial judgement in return for money, or goods or services in lieu of money, by inserting or deleting content to the advantage of his employer into or from a new or existing article, talk page, or policy. Many, but not all, types of paid editing are forbidden. For example paid editing of a talk page is generally acceptable, but paid editing of a policy page is generally unacceptable. All paid editors are required to disclose their paid status on both their user page and on the affected article's talk page.

Paid editing is a type of conflict of interest (COI) and paid editors must follow the guidelines on COI very carefully. Other types of editing that may be considered similar to paid editing, such as editing Wikipedia for a graded class project, or editing an article that indirectly relates to your employer's business without the employer's knowledge, are not considered paid editing unless the editor's employer has some control over the editing process. These types of editing are likely to be conflicts of interest, however.

Paid advocacy is any contribution or edit to Wikipedia content that advocates for your employer's point of view. Advocacy of any sort is prohibited by our policy on neutral point of view. Paid advocacy is considered to be an especially egregious form of advocacy, as well as an especially egregious form of paid editing.

Paid editing by Wikipedia administrators or bureaucrats is incompatible with the duties these people have freely accepted. It is grounds for summary removal of these privileges, to be reinstated only upon appeal to the Arbitration Committee.

Paid editing of policy pages, requests for deletion, requests for comment, and similar pages must be clearly disclosed on the page as well as on the editor's user page, and closers of those pages may discount the paid opinion in the same manner they would discount the opinion of a sockpuppet.

Certain activities are never acceptable:

• seeking payment for taking on a particular position in any editorial decision, policy dispute, or other issue arising in Wikipedia,
• advertising services as a Wikipedia editor, administrator, or bureaucrat, or
• bidding on advertised jobs to edit on behalf of, advocate for, or for the benefit of the employer.

Any of these activities will result in a block.

Examples of prohibited activities

1. An editor advertises article creation or maintenance of articles about a corporation for a fee, even if disclosure of this arrangement is made and no guarantee of outcomes is made.
2. An editor is obliged to make edits in the article namespace on behalf of his or her employer as part of his or her job description or duties.
3. An editor responds to a freelance jobs board posting to write and submit content on Wikipedia.
4. A political consulting firm hires an editor to edit Wikipedia articles to promote a particular point of view.

Examples of normally acceptable editing

Note that these are not safe harbor categories and that additional circumstances might make make any of these examples unacceptable.

1. A non-governmental organization without specific financial interest in the content rewards an editor with a prize for creating a high quality web resource.
2. An editor responds to an on-Wikipedia bounty board or reward board request for article improvement.
3. An employee of a company notices a mistake in an article in which his or her company has an interest and brings it up on the article talk page, or contacts another user or administrator to request the content be examined.
4. An editor adds Wikipedia editing as a line on his or her resume or curriculum vita as an indication of writing skills or public service.
5. An employee of an organisation or company corrects a factual mistake, which is not subject to any POV, in the article about his employer.

• Nothing in this guideline overrules the policy on biographies of living people (BLP). Anyone who discovers any material that violates BLP policy is encouraged to remove the offending material, report it on the article's talk page, and make a report to the Biographies of living people noticeboard.
• Organizations that wish to pay editors in a manner that will not affect their independent editorial judgement may make a request to the Wikimedia Foundation for temporary suspension of these guidelines for their particular project.