Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 13:06, 8 October 2006

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages ]. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

]

Avoid writing articles about yourself and be careful editing them, since we all find objectivity especially difficult when we ourselves are concerned. Such articles frequently violate neutrality, verifiability, and notability guidelines. Contribute on the talk page instead. Feel free to correct mistaken or out-of-date facts about yourself.

You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. This applies to articles about you, your achievements, your business, your publications, your website, your relatives, and any other possible conflict of interest.

Misplaced Pages has gone through many prolonged disputes about the significance, factual accuracy, and neutrality of such articles, including one about Jimmy Wales himself . Refraining from such editing is therefore important in maintaining Misplaced Pages's neutral stance and in avoiding the appearance of POV-pushing.

If you have published elsewhere on a subject, we welcome you to contribute to articles on the subject for Misplaced Pages. However, every Misplaced Pages article is expected to cover its subject in a neutral, fair, and comprehensive way in order to advance knowledge of the subject as a whole. Articles that exist primarily to advance the contributor will likely be deleted.

The problem with autobiographies

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 (see puffery). People have a tendency towards self-aggrandizement when talking about themselves, and for presenting opinions as facts. Misplaced Pages does not present opinions as facts. Muhammad Ali writing "I am the greatest" in a Misplaced Pages article about himself is not acceptable, for example. Misplaced Pages articles must be written from a neutral point of view (which 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.) However true something may be, if readers cannot verify it, it does not belong here. Everything in Misplaced Pages 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. (For example: Unless your shoe size is, for some extraordinary reason, already a matter of widespread public knowledge, including your shoe size in an article about yourself is original research, since verifying it would require readers to come to you and measure your feet for themselves.) Misplaced Pages is not a publisher of first instance, and as such, original research is not permitted in Misplaced Pages.

If Misplaced Pages already has an article about you

It is difficult to write neutrally about yourself. Therefore, it is considered proper on Misplaced Pages 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.

However, 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 just 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. However, be prepared that if the fact has different interpretations, others will edit it.

Since Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, it should be a secondary or tertiary source. This means that Misplaced Pages should not contain any "new" information or theories (see Misplaced Pages: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.

Misplaced Pages does not wish to have an inaccurate article about you. Our Neutral point of view policy means that we aim to have a balanced and fair article. Our goal is not to offer opinions of our own, but only to accurately reproduce those 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 don't like the photo, you can help Misplaced Pages by contributing a good photo under a suitable free content license.

It would probably be a good idea to identify yourself on the article's talk page with the {{Notable Wikipedian}} notice.

Creating an article about yourself

Creating or editing an article about yourself is strongly discouraged. If you create such an article, it might be listed on articles for deletion. Deletion is not certain, but many feel strongly that you should not start articles about yourself. This is because independent creation encourages independent validation of both significance and verifiability. All edits to articles must conform to Misplaced Pages:No original research, Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, and Misplaced Pages:Verifiability.

If your achievements, etc., are verifiable and genuinely notable, and thus suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages, someone else will probably create an article about you sooner or later. (See Misplaced Pages:Wikipedians with articles.)

Note that anything you submit can be edited by others. Several 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. People are generally unable to determine whether they are themselves encyclopedic.

One thing which you can do to assist other Misplaced Pages editors is, if you already maintain a personal website, please ensure that any information that you want in your Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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.

See also

• Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons
• Misplaced Pages:Deletion of vanity articles
• Misplaced Pages:Vanity guidelines
• Misplaced Pages:Notability (people)

• WikiProject Biography