Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Autobiography

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep Hiding talk 16:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WP:AUTO

I'm proposing the deletion of this policy for several reasons.

  1. I met David Mertz the other day, who edits both his own article and others exceptionally well as Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters. Roger Ebert edited his own article two quick times as Rebert Heck, even Jimbo, who said doing this was a faux pas, edited his own article sometimes with grammar touchups, sometimes with rewordings that could change the construence of the phrase, and sometimes with factual changes among others.

Whether anything is right or wrong with this is up for debate, but what isn't up for debate that this policy is being flatly ignored, because when Jimbo ignores it, you know the average Wikipedian isn't going to respect it. Yet, when there's been problems with people editing their own article, such as with Chip Berlet, this policy wasn't discussed once, but rather policies such as WP:NPOV and WP:NOR.

  1. This opinion piece on USA Today, causing Wikipedia some bad press. If not for this policy, Mr. Siegenthaler could have just fixed the problems if he didn't ignore the policy like the people above and more, but instead he used it as an excuse to make us look bad. The longer we don't allow areas of expertise to fix problems like that, the more problems we'll have.
  2. If a policy is WP:IARed all the time, there's no purpose in having it at all.
  3. When you click on the edit button, right there at the bottom...

If you don't want your writing to be edited and redistributed by others, do not submit it. With WP:AUTO, we'd have to change this to...

If you don't want your writing to be edited and redistributed by others except the person who this article is about if this article is about a person, do not submit it.karmafist 08:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep. I do not have a problem with editors correcting factual inaccuracies about themselves, however, editors should not be allowed to start articles about themselves. Notability should be determined by others. Edwardian 08:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, per Edwardian. Karmafist misses the point of the guideline. Ambi 08:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The nominator is indeed missing the point, and indeed not realizing that this article an explanation of some of the non-neutrality, non-verifiability, and original research issues that autobiographies have, and how to avoid them. And far from not being discussed once, "What links here" tells us that this guideline has been referenced from all over the place. Keep. Uncle G 11:59, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep per Edwardian's argument. Furthermore, it provides an essential control against editors who attempt to seize control of an article and to bias it in violation of the NPOV rule. While we occasionally tolerate users editing their own article, that is very much the exception and those edits are generally scrutinized much more closely by other editors. WP:AUTO complements and elaborates on WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Rossami (talk) 17:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment Seizing control of any article, whether it's about you or not, would be in violation of NPOV. Whether it's referenced all over the place is moot if it's ignored, and I concur about the starting of articles, but this distinction has never been solidified, it's only discouraged. Personally, I think the opposite should be the case -- creation=never, occasional assistance=ok, but this rule has been around so long that it's going to be hard to change now due its entrenchment in established wiki-thought.karmafist 22:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. As mentioned in previous comments, any mischief caused by violation of this policy would also violate other, more fundamental policies (NPOV, original research, verifiability). Even starting one's own article should be reasonable if it meets those criteria. Perhaps a better tack would be to emphasize in the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy that one's own self-knowledge is not encyclopedic. Dystopos 01:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
addendum. ...and that one's own self-importance is a non-neutral point of view. Dystopos 03:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep I love Karmafist, and I share strongly his distaste that this guideline is often IARed, but deleting it seems a bit like throwing the baby out with bath-water. It is a guideline (not policy) after all; one expects that circumstances both exceptional and non-controversial will arise in which it is not operative. Roger Ebert may correct the date of his birth, and Jimbo the spelling of his high school, without anyone thinking they are likely to abuse NPOV. AUTO does need to respected more, and I nominate any article begun by its subject when I see it. However, for mundane details and routine copyedits, I think AGF should shield the minor edits of subjects to their own articles. Xoloz 02:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep I have to vote to keep this because at least with the guideline in place, it adds to our credibility rather than takes away from it. Regardless of those editors that have made corrections or adjustments to articles about themselves, it is still a practice that should be frowned on. However, I also freely admit that I can sympathize with those that do have articles about themselves that are incorrect or just plain crummy and desperately need editing. If this were a policy, I would be more in favor of deletion, but since it is merely a guideline, then let it stay as a friendly reminder that autobiographical work is not something this Wiki endorses.--MONGO 03:09, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep per Uncle G. Stifle 13:47, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Robert McClenon 19:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, but possibly it should be made more clear that this guideline is not by itself sufficient grounds for rejecting autobiographical material. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 22:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. We should have guidelines for editing an article about yourself. Trödel|talk 23:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
    • as to (2) above - if he was genuine and following the guideline, he would have added it to the talk page - and it would have been corrected. In fact his complaint has proven that wikipedia works and how it works (on a speeded up time scale). With few edits before his complaint, there is now forming a respectable, mature article in a matter of days through the wikiway. Trödel|talk 23:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Whenever i've tried a similar non-afd non-unilateral thing by using a talk page, it plain just didn't work. Considering the Siegenthaler op piece, I figured that might have given this enough momentum to make some drastic changes here. karmafist 07:34, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Agreed - talk page comments are sometimes ignored on pages watched by very few. I have used the deletion process to get immediate attention to a problem before - unfortunately it works better than leaving announcements all over the place, but it is not without risks if the article is borderline :). Trödel|talk 11:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
        • I recommend familiarizing yourself with Wikipedia:Requests for comments, which is exactly the way of drawing more attention to a talk page discussion. Uncle G 19:49, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
          • Article/Policy related rfcs do nothing from my experience, Uncle G. They'd be far more useful if they follwed the user rfc format, which I did lately with Ward Churchill karmafist 15:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, this is plainly good advice. -Splashtalk 21:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, this is not the place to take it if you have a complaint about how this policy is written, I'd be in favor of a rewrite on the policy but just deleting it is not the best way. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 22:53, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. The policy is sensible in that anyone sufficiently popular to have an article should also have a significant number of friends who can help edit the article. It might include an exception for correcting factual inaccuracies (but even those are subject to interpretation and differences in recollection). I came to this page while crafting a comment on User_talk:82.108.78.107 regarding edits of Podcasting history by someone affiliated with Adam Curry [1] and thought it might be appropriate to mention the autobiography policy in my comment. We clearly need some kind of guideline like this to help keep the NPOV. -- ke4roh 03:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Wales == canon. Ashibaka (tock) 04:12, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, it's a guideline, not hard policy, and as others have said, the big issue is people _starting_ articles associated with themselves. ¦ Reisio 02:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. While it seems the momentum is to keep, I'd like to comment that I believe it needs substantial revision, as opposed to either being kept just as it is, or deleted entirely. The idea of discouraging entries created to aggrandize a person is a good one. However, as currently constituted, the formulated text seems to bar every self-correction by the subject of an article. The results are then handled by selective enforcement, where popular people are given a pass, while strict wording can be used against those less popular. Moreover, the implications can quickly become perverse, in favoring those with friends who are comfortable with Wikipedia - or perhaps those who are skilled at constructing sock-puppets. I suggest the material be revised with more nuanced discussion about self-editing, and explicitly permitting sourced self-correction of obvious factual errors in pre-existing articles. -- Seth Finkelstein 07:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Useful and necessary. Gamaliel 09:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Just read it (never had a reason before, sadly) and it seems perfectly straightforward, sensible, and necessary. Nothing in it bars or discourages self-correction, merely encourages perspective and objectivity abut one's own view of the facts. --Calton | Talk 08:22, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Note the statement "it is considered proper on Wikipedia to let others do the writing. Instead, contribute material or make suggestions on the article's talk page and let independent editors write it into the article itself.". While it's fine advice for ruminative material, it makes no distinction between general editing and correcting egregious fallacies. It certainly reads discouragingly with regard to self-correction. -- Seth Finkelstein 12:47, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep as per Edwardian's arguments, and because this "cure" would be worse than the disease it purports to fix. �' Ξxtreme Unction {yak�,blah} 15:00, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep -- Zora 14:16, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete. I don't think their's anything wrong with writing an article about Yourself in the mainspace. -- Eddie 16:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
    • If you're noteworthy enough to be encyclopaedic, then chances are an article already exists on you. ¦ Reisio 18:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep even if I disagreed with it; all failed proposals should be archived and saved. If we don't agree with this anymore, it should have {{historical}} put on it, not be deleted. Blackcap (talk) 23:46, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep per Blackcap. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. While it may be ignored, it is a nice general policy to have in place, i.e. don't self-aggrandize. Everything is taken on a case by case basis, but having this in place can be a useful sign post and good as a reminder for those cases with blatant violations. Xuanwu 08:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete - see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Daniel_Hirst for a VERY good reason why this is a bad policy. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 10:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the reference - I find the article to epitomize why this is good policy. First the article reads like an autobiography - the tone is unmistakeable. Secondly, there are questions of notablity which are not being directly addressed because the article is clear vanity. These questions would be more likely to be addressed if the quick vanity answer did not exist. Trödel|talk 18:45, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep even if this policy is rejected. All policies and proposals should be archived with {{historical}} or {{rejected}}, not be deleted. Blackcap (talk) (vandalfighters, take a look) 02:27, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.