Can You Create Your Own Wikipedia Biography?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the feasibility and rules surrounding the creation of personal Wikipedia biographies. Participants explore the implications of writing articles about oneself, the criteria for notability, and the potential for such articles to be deleted. The conversation touches on the broader concept of personal documentation and the nature of online biographies.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express the idea that creating a Wikipedia article about oneself is not allowed due to Wikipedia's notability guidelines.
  • Others suggest that if someone were to write an article about themselves, it might only be noticed if someone searches for their name, implying a level of importance.
  • A participant mentions that Wikipedia has specific criteria for notability, including significant academic contributions or awards, which must be met for an article to be accepted.
  • There is a suggestion that many new articles are deleted quickly, with some participants noting that a significant number of new pages are removed shortly after creation.
  • Some participants discuss the nature of personal biographies and how they differ from journal entries or microblogging, emphasizing the limitations of traditional biographies in capturing everyday life.
  • One participant humorously reflects on their own lack of notability by referencing a personal Wikipedia page that does not exist.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally disagree on the feasibility of creating personal Wikipedia articles, with some asserting that it is not possible while others suggest that it could be done under certain conditions. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the practicality and implications of such articles.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include the subjective nature of notability, the varying interpretations of Wikipedia's guidelines, and the potential for articles to be deleted based on community monitoring.

Pengwuino
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You know what I'm wondering? That's right, donuts.

But seriously, can you make a wikipedia article about yourself? I was bored and decided I'd start wikipedia'ing my professors. Of course, none of them are noteworthy :smile: so i just started wikipedia'ing names I know to see if anyone coincadently has a name that is noteworthy. That got me to thinking, can you simply make an article on yourself? It'd be like your own mini-biography!

OH MY GOD WHAT A GREAT IDEA FOR A SITE! A site where everyone writes a wikipedia article for their own life... man, that would be awesome, no one would abuse the free editing or anything! It would be perfect. I'll make Ivan's biography first. Kidnapped by aliens as a child and apparently lives with many wild animals. Fought for Swiss army in WW3.
 
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You can't. It's part of their rules and regulations, so that we don't have a Wikipedia article about the 6.5 billion people that dwell on this earth.
 
Nope. One, you can't make one about yourself. Two, if you aren't important enough, if someone else makes one about you, it'll be taken down.
 
Party poopers. Though, the only way for anyone to notice that you'd written an article about yourself would be if they were also searching for your name and found your article and reported it. And, wouldn't that mean you were important enough for someone to look you up?
 
Moonbear said:
Party poopers. Though, the only way for anyone to notice that you'd written an article about yourself would be if they were also searching for your name and found your article and reported it. And, wouldn't that mean you were important enough for someone to look you up?

:smile:

So all PFers should go make an article on themselves, and report back how long it takes to get them taken down!
 
There's no rule against making a page for yourself provided that you meet the guidelines

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(academics)]Wikipedia guidelines[/url] said:
1. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.
2. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level.
3. The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g. a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g. the IEEE)
4. The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions.
5. The person holds or has held a named/personal chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research.
6. The person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at an academic institution or major academic society.
7. The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.
8. The person is or has been an editor-in-chief of a major well-established journal in their subject area.
9. The person is in a field of literature (e.g writer or poet) or the fine arts (e.g. musician, composer, artist), and meets the standards for notability in that art, such as WP:CREATIVE or WP:MUSIC.

But Wikiedpia is a not a directory of people
 
Moonbear said:
Party poopers. Though, the only way for anyone to notice that you'd written an article about yourself would be if they were also searching for your name and found your article and reported it. And, wouldn't that mean you were important enough for someone to look you up?

They can find a list of newly formed articles. I think it's so that there are no articles on "dsjfkljlewadnsfgewa" (random string of characters). There's some way that they protect against that...
 
  • #10
Moonbear said:
Party poopers. Though, the only way for anyone to notice that you'd written an article about yourself would be if they were also searching for your name and found your article and reported it. And, wouldn't that mean you were important enough for someone to look you up?

The article wouldn't survive for very long. Roughly half of all new pages are deleted within a few days.

There are kids who spend 14 hours a day browsing through articles looking for ones to delete. Hundreds, maybe thousands of kids like this. It's like an RPG game to them. The social system at wikipedia actually promotes this sort of activity, it's kind of depressing.
 
  • #11
I couldn't even make it into jimmysnyderpedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Snyder"
 
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  • #12
Pengwuino said:
No.

Journals are not biographies.

80*360 journals can be more than a biography.

I think biographies fail the capture the tiny details of a every single day and perspective of life from each year/day of the life.

While other micro blogging sites provide future/present details.

I don't write journals or post everything I do currently but it's always interesting to find something I wrote 10-5-2 years ago.
 

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