Wikipedia:Autobiography

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✔ This page documents an English Wikipedia content guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.
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This page in a nutshell: Avoid writing or editing an article about yourself, other than to correct unambiguous errors of fact.
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Writing an autobiography on Wikipedia is strongly discouraged, unless your writing has been approved by other editors in the community. Editing a biography about yourself should only be done in clear-cut cases.

Wikipedia has gone through many prolonged disputes about the significance, factual accuracy, and neutrality of such articles.[1] Avoiding such editing keeps Wikipedia neutral and helps avoid pushing a particular point-of-view.

Writing autobiographies is discouraged because it is difficult to write a neutral, verifiable autobiography and there are many pitfalls.

If you have published elsewhere on a topic, we welcome your expertise on the subject for Wikipedia articles. However, every Wikipedia article must cover its subject in a neutral, fair, and comprehensive way in order to advance knowledge of the subject as a whole. Please forget your biases while enriching the Wiki users knowledge. Articles that exist primarily to advance the interests of the contributor will likely be deleted.

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[edit] The problem with autobiographies is that there is no problem

It is said that Zaphod Beeblebrox's birth was marked by earthquakes, tidal waves, tornadoes, firestorms, the explosion of three neighbouring stars, and, shortly afterwards, by the issuing of over six and three quarter million writs for damages from all of the major landowners in his Galactic sector. However, the only person by whom this is said is Beeblebrox himself, and there are several possible theories to explain this.

– The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Fit the Ninth

Although humorous, the above illustrates the several fundamental problems with autobiographies:

  • They are often biased, usually positively. People will write overly positively about themselves, and often present opinions as facts. Wikipedia aims to avoid presenting opinions as facts. (Neutral point of view does not mean simply writing in the third person).
  • They can be unverifiable. If the only source for a particular fact about you is you yourself, then readers cannot verify it. (One common area where this is the case is with hopes, dreams, thoughts, and aspirations. There is no way for readers to verify what you think.) Everything in Wikipedia articles must be verifiable.
  • They can contain original research. People often include in autobiographies information that has never been published before, or which is the result of firsthand knowledge. This type of information would require readers to perform primary research in order to verify it. Wikipedia is not a publisher of first instance; original research is not permitted in Wikipedia.

[edit] Why these problems exist

Just because you believe honestly you are being neutral doesn't mean you are. Unconscious biases can and do exist, and are a very common cause of the problems with autobiographies—which is why we discourage autobiographies themselves and not just self-promotion. Not only does this affect neutrality but it also affects the verifiability and unoriginal research of the autobiography. One may inadvertently slip things in that one may not think need to be attributable even though they do, due to those very same biases. Even if you can synthesize an autobiography based on only verifiable material that is not original research you may still not be able to synthesize it in a neutral manner.

[edit] If Wikipedia already has an article about you

It is difficult to write neutrally and objectively about oneself (see above about unconscious biases). You should generally let others do the writing.

Contributing material or making suggestions on the article's talk page is considered proper—let independent editors write it into the article itself or approve it if you still want to make the changes yourself.

In clear-cut cases, it is permissible to edit pages connected to yourself. So, you can revert vandalism; but of course it has to be simple, obvious vandalism and not a content dispute. Similarly, you should feel free to correct mistaken or out-of-date facts about yourself, such as marital status, current employer, place of birth, and so on. (Note it on the talk page.) Be prepared that if the fact has different interpretations, others will edit it.

Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it should be a secondary or tertiary source—it should not contain any "new" information or theories (see Wikipedia:No original research) and all information should have checkable third-party references. Facts, retellings of events, and clarifications which you may wish to have added to an article about yourself must be verifiable by third parties.

If you are a regular Wikipedia editor, you can identify yourself on the article's talk page with the {{Notable Wikipedian}} notice.

[edit] Problems in an article about you

The simplest way to flag problems: email info-en-q@wikimedia.org with full details of the problems.

Wikipedia does not wish to have an inaccurate article about you. We want it to be accurate, fair, balanced and neutral. Our goal is to accurately reproduce the opinions of others, which should be sourced and cited. You can help by pointing us to sources which can enable a more balanced view to be presented.

If you are notable enough for an article but there are problems and not much attention being paid to it, you may also wish to place a note on the help desk detailing the problems and asking for uninvolved editors' attention.

If you do not like the photo, you can help Wikipedia by contributing a good photo under a suitable free content license. If you have a promotional photo you are willing and able to release under such a license, that's ideal for us and you.

If there are legal problems with material in an article about you, please email info-en-q@wikimedia.org promptly with full details.

[edit] Creating an article about yourself

If your life and achievements are verifiable and genuinely notable, someone else will probably create an article about you sooner or later. (See Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles.)

Creating an article about yourself is strongly discouraged.

  • Independent creation encourages independent validation of both significance and verifiability. All edits to articles must conform to Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and Wikipedia:Verifiability. Even if you did manage to pull off an autobiography conforming to our content policies it still may not get checked simply because you made it.
  • If no third party has yet created an article about you, there is the danger that, should the article be vandalised, there will be no interested editors watching and the vandalism may remain uncorrected for long periods.[2]
  • Self-created articles are often listed on articles for deletion. Deletion is not certain, but many feel strongly that you should not start articles about yourself. Beware that third-party comments may be most uncomplimentary.
  • Many people exaggerate their own significance or notability above what third parties would think. If you are not "notable" under Wikipedia guidelines, creating an article about yourself may violate the policy that Wikipedia is not a personal webspace provider and would thus qualify for speedy deletion.

Note that anything you submit will be edited mercilessly by others. Many autobiographical articles have been a source of dismay to their original authors after a period of editing by the community, and in at least four instances have been listed for deletion by their original authors. In some cases the article is kept even if the original author requests otherwise.

If you create an autobiography you must have no promotional intent and must be willing to accept it being neutralized if it is not neutral, or even deleted if it comes to that. If you do turn out to be notable, you have also got to expect the article to stay—you cannot just get it deleted because you are not happy with it. Our neutral point of view policy is absolute and non-negotiable, and all encyclopedic topics are fair game for Wikipedia.

One thing which you can do to assist other Wikipedia editors is, if you already maintain a personal website, please ensure that any information that you want in your Wikipedia article is already on your own website. As long as it's not involving grandiose claims like, "I was the first to create this widget," or "My book was the biggest seller that year," a personal website can be used as a reference for general biographical information. As the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy states: Self-published sources and other published sources of dubious reliability may be used as sources in articles about themselves ... so long as the information is notable, not unduly self-aggrandizing, and not contradicted by other published sources.

Finally one should also make considerations of time and effort upon the Wikipedia community, as well as one's reputation. Even if you do manage to pull off a neutral, verifiable autobiography, the very fact that so many autobiographies have not been that way has trained Wikipedians to expect the opposite—and hence one may be wasting their time or effort if they become provoked by the fact it's still an autobiography, regardless of policy compliance. Furthermore this may also result in a reputation hit not only because you violated the guideline but also because you may have wasted someone's effort.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Rogers Cadenhead (2005-12-19). Wikipedia Founder Looks Out for Number 1. cadenhead.org.
  2. ^ Petronella Wyatt. "Wicked-pedia: 'Why the online encyclopedia makes me want to scream'", The Daily Mail, Associated Newspapers Ltd, 2007-04-22. 

[edit] See also