What must be declared, and who may never review whom

1.1A conflict is any financial, professional or personal interest that could reasonably be seen to affect your judgement about a page or manuscript.

If someone could reasonably doubt you, it’s a conflict.

1.2This includes employment by, payment from, or an advisory role with the publisher or author; co-authorship in the last five years; and close personal relationships.

Jobs, money, co-authors, close ties.

1.3Working in the same field, citing someone’s work, or attending the same conferences is not, on its own, a conflict.

Being in the same field is normal, not a conflict.

1.4Interests that ended more than five years ago need not be declared, though you may still choose to.

Old ties expire after five years.

2.1Reviewers are never matched with authors from their own institution, their co-authors identified via ORCID, or anyone sharing their email domain.

Some conflicts are blocked before you see anything.

2.2For web pages, contributors cannot review, correct or source pages on a site they own, are employed by, or are paid by. They may still be credited as author of pages they wrote.

You can’t check your own employer’s pages.

2.3Authors may add further exclusions, named people, institutions or funders, when describing a paper. These are never shown to reviewers.

Authors can block anyone else they need to.

3.1Declare any conflict before reading a manuscript or contributing to a page. Declarations are recorded on your account; the nature of the interest appears on your public profile.

Declare first. Your profile shows the interest.

3.2A declaration states the relationship, the other party and the dates. It does not need to include amounts of money.

Who, what kind, and when, not how much.

3.3Declarations stay on your profile while the interest applies and for two years afterwards.

Visible while it matters, then for two more years.

4.1For manuscripts, a declared conflict means you are not matched with that paper. There is no way to review with a conflict.

For papers: no exceptions.

4.2For web pages, a direct conflict such as employment means you may author but not review or correct. For an indirect conflict, the publisher may still accept your work; the disclosure then appears in the page’s attribution block.

For pages: disclosed, and readers can see it.

5.1If an undeclared conflict comes to light, the affected contribution is suspended and reviewed. Confirmed cases may lead to removal of the contribution and suspension of the account.

Hiding a conflict can cost you the credit and the account.

5.2Anyone can report a suspected conflict. The contributor is told and may respond within seven days before a decision is made.

Anyone can report; you get to reply.

5.3If a contribution is removed, the page record shows that it was removed and why. The original text is not deleted from the record.

Removals are recorded, not hidden.

6.1CitePep staff may not review manuscripts or take paid requests, and must declare any interest in a publisher on the platform.

Staff don’t review, and declare their interests.