[pompino]

The website talks only about affiliation.

"Potential" is one of those funny words which can be stretched to mean anything. As such, its not worth arguing about. So your personal view of what is a potential conflict isn't something we can get into here. But what would be interesting is if you actually had evidence of bias in the article. That is definitely something we can discuss - regardless of who said it.

[pvg]

"Potential" is one of those funny words which can be stretched to mean anything.

There are common practices for that sort of thing and 'works for a competitor' falls well within them. The disclosure is so that readers can make their own assessment about whether the possible conflict has introduced actual bias. There really isn't anything complicated to discuss here.

[pompino]

>The disclosure is so that readers can make their own assessment about whether the possible conflict has introduced actual bias.

You are the reader here. Do you have any evidence of bias?

[pvg]

I'm saying the omission of the disclosure of an obvious conflict is a bad lapse. It's bad whether it results in bias or not and independent of what I think. The OG commenter was right to point it out and you're not right to suggest it only counts if there is evidence of bias.

[pompino]

For any journal, compliance is not the goal, the goal is the have high quality, impactful papers. If you care about compliance more than the paper, then sure, so be it, but its not a conversation I'm particularly interested in.

[pvg]

This isn't about 'compliance'. It's fine if you didn't know about the practice and its purpose but that's neither my fault nor a reason to misrepresent what wrote.

[pompino]

I don't agree with your opinion. Its no big deal, we can all happily co-exist! As a reader, you seem to care more about compliance than discussing the contents/quality of the paper. That tells me everything I need to know.