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For those who want to get it right: the "bright line" guideline is, never touch an article where you have a conflict of interest. (And if you need "conflict of interest" defined for you, just assume you have one, okay.)

This is not a Wikipedia rule, but it is true that if you are caught violating it the media and public will crucify you. And that's probably bad.

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Well, it sure is an official guideline [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COI

You confuse guideline with policies. Guidelines have a fair bit if leeway, policies have very little wriggle room. If a policy has wriggle room, it's not been drafted very well :-)

I say that because in my observation of companies' PR disasters after Wikipedia editing, the real-world idea of what constitutes COI is quite a bit broader than Wikipedia jargon "COI". Rules-lawyering doesn't convince the papers.

I've done a bit of work liaising with the nicer variety of PR person who really doesn't want to get it wrong - the above is my general advice in these cases.

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