Talk:Bill Sweetman (internet marketer)

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This page is not an advertisement. It provides factual information about Bill Sweetman and is intended to clear up the confusion between Bill Sweetman, the aviation specialist (currently listed on Wikipedia), and Bill Sweetman, the Internet marketer. Thank you very much. BillSweetman (talk) 23:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC) I made a few edits to remove any 'adjective' words that might make a reader think this was an advertisement. Thank you. BillSweetman (talk) 23:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[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.[1]
  • 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.

More information available here.

Best Regards,


Reservoirhill (talk) 02:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)