Wikipedia talk:Autobiography/Archive 2

message: There is currently an edit war going on on the Reed College page, and as a result it has been suggested that some members of a college's community should recuse themselves from edits because of this (the Autobiography) policy.  As a matter of policy, it it this group's opinion that college students, alumni, trustees, or staff members should not edit pages about their college?  So my position is clear, I would believe that a college should not have their (e.g.) PR department edit an article, and that no one should edit that article on behalf of the college, but that membership in any of the above categories should not be a bar from edits -- as an individual -- to a page about the college in question.  Thank you for your consideration -- Gnetwerker 02:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflicts of Interest re Colleges 

message: While browsing through the Wikipedia articles needing translation category,  I found articles containing substantial autobiographical material in non-English, such as:
Sakir kocabas
Stehr, Nico
What is the proper handling?  I would think that translation by another person into English will still retain the autobiographical element.  I want them removed from the "needing translation" category. 67.160.10.87 12:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One of those has since been translated the other deleted. Either way you need to do the same as if its in english. That is either remove objectional content (if the person is notable enough) or WP:VFD it if not. Simply removing the translation tag just means leaving the crap arround in a format most of our visitors/editors can't read. Plugwash 01:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "autobiography as translation service" 

message: To the existing list
: 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.
I added "your relatives", being bold (its not *in bold* in the text, of course). Arguably, like all the other items, its covered under "other poss c o i" but I thought it should be explicitly mentioned. William M. Connolley 23:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Your relatives 

message: I do not agree with the removal of:
:"Of course, you should feel free to correct mistaken or out-of-date facts about yourself, such as marital status, sexual orientation, criminal involvement or lack thereof, current employer, place of birth, work done in foreign countries, etc."
as being inconsistent with official policy. My reasoning is explained at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Soapbox contradiction, part II. It's best to keep the discussion in one place, so please comment there. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:30, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent removal 

message: Hi, i came here looking for info about what to do if:
There is some person who repeditively makes a page about himself and re-creates it every time it is deleted.
Is there any policy on how to deal with this? I have seen the page in question in the new pages log three times and I have no doubt that it has been there more than that. The page I am talking about is Yileen Gorden (probably a red link) made by User:Yileen. I have told the guy twice (via his talk page) to keep that kind of stuff on his user page, I even copied the contents of his article to his user page. but I have not recieved any replies to my comments, nor have I seen him change this behaviour. Somehow, when i go to Special:Contributions/Yileen it comes up blank. Is this because  all of his contributions were deleted? I'd really like to know what I do now. Any help is greatly appreciated MichaelBillington 12:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I need help 

message: I have been seeing cases around Wikipedia that seem to be a form of autobiography, where foreign nationals come to the English-language Wikipedia, to promote a point of view or set of articles here which aren't necessarily notable or agreed with by most English-language speakers. Plus of course there are the nationalist pride elements, as the citizens of one country may want to edit an article to ensure that their country is portrayed "in the proper light", regardless of how the rest of the Wikipedia community feels.  I've been toying with the idea of adding a paragraph to this Autobiography guideline to reflect the nationalist problem, or in other words, "If English is not your native language, please use caution when editing articles about your own country or politics, to ensure that you are not pushing a nationalist POV."  I've also been seeing cases where books in non-English languages are having pages show up for them here on the English-language Wikipedia, when it's not entirely clear that the book is at all notable outside of its native tongue.  Please rest assured that I don't want to flat-out exclude non-native English speakers, because often their edits are valuable.  But the POV-pushing is starting to become worrisome from areas that are politically volatile.   What do other Wikipedia editors think?  Is this something that it might be worth addressing at WP:AUTO, or has it already been addressed elsewhere, or is it just not yet time to try and hammer out the difference because "nationalistic autobiography" and "personal autobiography"?  --Elonka 23:02, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Notability in its native tongue should be sufficient, if that notability is real. One of the main areas we've tried to address with WP:CSB is the limitations caused by the fact that this encyclopedia is overwhelmingly the work of anglophones. On the other hand, presenting an exaggerated national (or local ) importance ("the lightbulb was really an Elbonian invention"; "It is a little-known fact that Disraeli's guiding principles all derived from his three-week visit to Miese-on-Seine") or distorting history on a nationalist basis ("We didn't invade Fredonia: it was a justifiable act of self-defense after a Fredonian tourist was caught with a pistol"; "we never kicked out the Djamms, they all left voluntarily at the same time") are a problem. But they are just as much of a problem if they come from someone whose nationality is in the English-speaking world. - Jmabel | Talk 19:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nationalism 

message: Worth a look: Brian Wasson, The wide world of Wikipedia, and why PR practitioners should take note, March 28, 2006, Public Relations Society of America. 80% or more things we would probably all agree with, to the point where we might want to link it from this project page. Two things I disagree with, that should probably be pointed out if we do so.
* "Do not post copyrighted material, even if it’s from your own Web site and you are authorized to do so. Material on Wikipedia is considered open source and may be picked up by other Web sites without your permission." Heck, if it's on your site and you are authorized to release it under GFDL, great! Just recognize that once it is released under GFDL, people can publish it freely. But, for example, the bulk of the list of prominent cases on the page about the NAACP LDF came from the organization itself and was used by permission. This is a perfectly valid way to get content, as long as it is either strictly factual (as in the LDF case) or is presented as the organization's views on topics where their views are of encyclopedic notability. In either case, it should be explicitly indicated as coming from the organization's own materials, just like citing any other source.
* "The “external links” section at the bottom of each article can be a valuable way to drive traffic to your Web site. When appropriate, add your URL to this area." Sort of true, but really frowned upon to add a link to your own site. If you believe it is appropriate, the protocol is to mention it on the talk page, and let someone else decide if it belongs in the article.
- Jmabel | Talk 19:56, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent points, especially the second - I hadn't noticed that one. Perhaps we could point out that external links are appropriate if they provide an informative role to give more information about the subject, but not if they're blatant rah-rah boosterism? And I don't recall the article mentioning the use of talk pages, either - that would be a good thing to bring into the discussion. PR folks (who I deal with pretty well daily) are usually used to putting the information out in the most flattering form possible - but they can't do that here, so they could be well served to learn the use and function of talk pages, as you point out. All in all, though, I think this is a great resource that should be linked to this project page. Tony Fox (speak) 20:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public relations practitioners 

message: I want to raise a question that I think is relevant to WP:AUTO, if only because I can't find another guidelines about it.  On a number of pages, I see descriptions of groups, centers, "movements", philosophies, etc. that appear to on closer examination to be basically the expression of one person.  They aren't autobiographical pages.  On the contrary, the point of the pages is to promote one's pet project (that's five Ps!) by suggesting that it is much larger than oneself.  These are clearly POV issues, but if they get addressed that way, it turns into a kind of recursive, muddy, debate.
I would be in favor of asking people to recuse themselves from posting on groups that they founded, or ideas that they invented, as part of the WP:AUTO guidelines. Ethan Mitchell 14:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP:AUTO and The Image of Size 

message: I feel like not enough people have tried to put themselves in the shoes of a person who has been poorly portrayed on a Wikipedia page. It has never happened to me, thankfully, but I can imagine how awful it would be. I imagine that it would be like being unpopular in elementary school -- except that people not only make up things about you behind your back, they also put those things in the newspaper.
It is not really fair to expect every notable person in the world to have the time, knowledge, or emotional stamina necessary to engage the wikipedia community and to convince others in the usual way about the incorrectness of their portrayal. Yes, Jimbo has survived the current policy, but remember that he is familiar with Wikipedia, both the process and the community.
Because of the unfairness of being attacked without being able to respond, and because of the amount of damage that may result from an unfair or incorrect wikipedia article about you, I propose that, on any page about a living person, that person should, if they wish, be permitted to have a SMALL section where they are permitted to respond to the rest of the page. This section wouldn't quite be the property of that person (flaming, etc, would not be permitted) but the person would be given a wide latitude to say what they wish.
The section would be clearly marked as the sole, unverified OPINION of that person.
Yes, this part would not be encyclopaedic. But we have a chance to, at very little cost, perform a function that print encyclopaedias cannot -- to allow people a chance to defend their reputation.
A disclaimer would be present that Wikipedia has no way of knowing if the contents of that section was actually written by that person (because it would be impractical to verify identity). However, if it appears that a cogent defence of the person has been replaced by something less cogent by a troll pretending to be them, we should feel free to revert back to the prior version, in order to best protect the person. Bayle Shanks 01:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Propose "person's POV" section 

message: Wikipedia:Autobiography says "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." Paying others to do things they themseves are not allowed to do is not acceptable behavior. See this where a talk page is used to advertise for exactly that. Please see Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest created by User:Eloquence 10 August 2006 in this regard. WAS 4.250 21:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paying others 

message: But what if you do deserve a biography on WP, so you write it YOURSELF but try NOT to push your own biases as right and stick to only verifiable 3rd-party sources of information (and try to avoid original research as much as possible)? It is still "strongly discouraged"?!?!?!?! If so that would make no sense at all. 74.38.32.128 02:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Any response? This was a point I was trying to discuss. I would suggest that if an autobiography managed to conform to the necessary policy on first writing that it should not be discouraged at all! This does make a lot of sense, at least to me, and I would like to hear some opinion on it. 170.215.83.83 22:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For one, there's common sense. The vast majority of situations will not have an ideal situation like that. -- Ned Scott 00:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But what about if you do manage to pull it off? Then what? Does it get nuked at a glance? Do you get insulted, flamed, etc? 70.101.147.74 00:37, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you do manage to pull it off, then you've got an article. If someone lists it for deletion, it will likely survive and be kept. If someone gets mad, then they probably don't get it. No big deal. -- Ned Scott 00:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But would you be reprimanded for "violating" this "official guideline"? 170.215.65.35 02:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why no response? Anyway, I sure couldn't find out "directly", since for one I have no notable achievements (at least not yet) to warrant a biography here, auto or not, so I could not push the guideline into territory it should but does not deal with, without violating official content policies... 74.38.35.171 08:09, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You will only get in trouble if what you post is biased/unverifiable/original research. If it is not then no problem.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.53.37.218 (talk) 11:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Easy. Just WP:IAR. Unless WP:SNOW, it has no chance of being well taken, for example, if you are really self-biased, it would probably get deleted by WP:SNOW policy... So beware. MEEEEEEEEE! (talk) 05:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  But what if it IS verifiable, etc.? 

message: It is difficult to write neutrally about yourself.  Therefore, 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. 
...
</blockquote>
It is difficult to write neutrally about anything.  This section should be rewritten thus:
When making modfications to articles about you, bare in mind the pitfalls described above.  Take care before removing or modifying the prior work of others.  It is very easy to be tempted to remove some piece of information that you would rather not be presented, but the only valid reason for doing so is if the information is:
* Unverifiable
* Verifiably untrue
* Biased
* Original Research
* A breach of copyright
Please afford the same respect to prior conrtibutors that you would for contibutors to any other article.  The best way to avoid major conflicts is to use the discussion pages before making sweeping changes to any article, including an article about you.
Wikipedia does not wish to have an inaccurate article about anything including people.  The Neutral point of view policy means that articles should be balanced and fair and verifiable and of course should contain as much relevant infromation as possible.  Any contributions that adhere to the principles of notability, neutral point of view, verifiability and non-original research should be accepted by the wikipedia community, regardless of the identity of the contributor.
If you don't like the photo, you can help Wikipedia 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  notice.
====In other languages====
Mention what to do if Wikipedia has an article about you in language
A, and you just want to translate it into language B, as I hereby intend to do for
Talk:Dan_Jacobson (Taiwan), as other translators have not stepped forward. Jidanni 00:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  If Wikipedia already has an article about you 

message: Mention what to do if Wikipedia has an article about you in language
A, and you just want to translate it into language B, as I hereby intend to do for
Talk:Dan_Jacobson (Taiwan), as other translators have not stepped forward. Jidanni 00:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: In other languages

message: If you already maintain a personal website, you can  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," (unless, of course, the claim is true and you can provide evidence) 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.
</blockquote>
For my money this is much better.... comments? Dndn1011 10:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verifiable sources 

message: For the second time now, I have looked for the equivalent of WP:AUTO for corporations, i.e. a user who is a paid employee of a company working on WP in an official (or unofficial) capacity. I send them here and just mention that it is uncouth, but is there something else I can direct them to (besides my current trifecta of WP:AUTO, WP:CORP, and WP:ADVERT)? I am not talking about viral marketing here which is obvious spam, but assumed good faith. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 18:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you know of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's another good one I guess. Thanx, but was hoping for more of a direct AUTO translation... — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 01:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Corporations 

message: I suggest that just as you should not be keen on creating your own article, you should also not be keen on seeing that it is deleted. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Theo Clarke for some recent discussion that has some bearing and some possible principles forming... Some potential principles: 
* It's OK to suggest deletion, but it may not be wise to tag as speedy (that's too fast, some community review is approrpiate) yourself... let others do that.
* The subject's wishes, if he or she is a wikipedian in good standing, are a factor, but not the only, or not a decisive factor, in the decision (if the decision is on the cusp otherwise, this could sway things but no one gets to say "I just don't want an article, make it go away").
Thoughts? ++Lar: t/c 09:55, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can be "keen" on creating your own article. Did you mean "creating your own autobiographical article", perhaps? You could suggest deletion of the former, the latter is tougher and may require a higher level of proof. It can't be strictly forbidden though as we have to be fair, and some people may have good enough judgment. Forbidding would be grotesuqely unfair to them. 74.38.35.171 02:30, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

text: What about if you ended up writing an autobiography, and you realize it is biased, unverifiable, etc. vanity. Could you then nominate it for deletion? I think you should be able to. 74.38.32.195 07:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggesting deletion of your own article 

message: Say Wikipedia has a biographical article on some guy, and that same guy actually has an account on Wikipedia. But the thing is, the guy wasn't involved in the creation of the article, and no one knows the guy in the article is this user. My question is, if they guy finds this article about himself and starts editing it up and down and all around, is there not any way we could find out that the editor is the guy in the biography? What's to say there isn't—nay, what's to stop there from being—tons of biographies on Wikipedia right now with positive POV all over it that may actually be being made biased by the person in the article him-or-herself who just so happens to have an account that we didn't know about? Or is this covered somewhere? I mean, it's not like I'm going to look for this stuff in WP:AB.VolatileChemical 18:42, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well if it's POV then it should be caught and dealt with as a WP:NPOV breach. What may lead to suspicion that it is a non-neutral autobiographical attempt, however, is if it's happening to a single article on someone. Of course if it is not POV, then there's no problem with the changes. 74.38.35.171 06:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good. This would be a really bad website if people couldn't edit their biographies at all. VolatileChemical 05:56, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be really, really bad indeed. What if it's something as simple as a typo? 74.38.35.171 06:12, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hidden editing 

message: I saw this at Talk:Dino Dini:
"Dndn1011, since you are Dino Dini, you really shouldn't edit this article. I removed the sections on your early life, etc., since they don't really add much to the topic of you being a game developer/designer. It's also completely unsourced. I know that you don't really need a source, since you lived it, but that kind of OR isn't permitted on Wikipedia. But moreoever, Wikipedia policy stricly prohibits anyone who has an article from editing that article, apart from blatant corrections ("Hey, I wasn't born in 1932!") and reverting vandalism. Therefore, I removed most of those sections you added."
Doesn't this sound like WP:AUTO is thus being placed on a HIGHER authority than WP:V and WP:NOR?! I don't think it should as this is a guideline, and those are policy. Big difference. Also, it "strongly discourages", not "strictly prohibits" writing an autobiography.
To test my case I've been pushing here, I'd like to know if anyone has managed to pull off a fairly neutral, verifiable autobiography, and I'd like it see exactly what happened. Could you please point me to a couple of cases as they might settle this for me. If it "strictly prohibits" then we should expect to see even neutral, verifiable, non-original-research A/B edits being reverted and the editor reprimanded, obviously at least to me a horribly unfair thing to do since they technically violated no official policy. 74.38.35.171 04:26, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please read my propsed change to the guideline above.  I believe I covered everything. Dndn1011 00:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did. It's interesting. I do find the present guideline a little too restrictive as it seems to suggest even honest attempts to be neutral would be shunned. 74.38.35.171 21:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear anon, if you're looking for a good example of a reasonably good article that was edited (sometimes quite frequently) by its subject, Poppy Z. Brite is a good one. Other than one line involving the word "interesting" (which I don't think she wrote), there is little to no POV that I can see in the article, it is factual and accurate and sourced. She's not the only editor, but she's one of the better ones on it, and most of her edits have been NPOVing and removing vandalism or correcting small things like a wrong title in the section about her published works. It's a pretty good article which gives a good overview of the subject. 63.21.91.164 08:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Throwing more sticks on the fire 

message: I am going to make a template concerning WP:AUTO.  Please post on pages which contain conflict of interest because I am having the same problem with Julia Allison. Bearly541 22:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see  Bearly541 22:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template 

message: {Self-edit} produces This article includes text from the actual subject. Please verify content in source box.
If the person doesn't put it up, warn them, and put it up yourself.  It allows self edits to fix, wrong dates, correction of vandilism, but at the same time allows users to know they content should be varified. --71Demon 18:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  You need a template {Self-edit} 

message: I saw this:
"Creating 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. "
How does non-independent creation discourage such validation of notability and verifiability? mike4ty4 02:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it's not guaranteed that if you write an article about yourself it's going to be biased, but you gotta admit that it makes it more likely to be. Everyone wants to cast themselves in the best light, it's not even intentional, it's just what we do.  About the verifiability thing, if I don't know Mr. DudeGuy, and I write an article about him, I'm going to have to rely on publicly available sources, since that's the only way I can get info about him.  But if he writes an article about himself, it's not exactly that that discourages validation etc, but it does make it possible for him to include non-notable and non-checkable info about his cat or his favorite breakfast cereal.  Trust me, I have definitely seen this occur (well, not with cats and breakfast cereal per se, but you know). I hope this kind of answers your question, but if it doesn't, definitely keep the discussion going here or by dropping me a message on my talk page.  delldot talk 16:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How does it do that? 

message: I've added this instructive example to the page - the hazards of creating one's own article - David Gerard 19:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The unfortunate case of [[Petronella Wyatt]] 

message: Like most policy/guideline pages, this one has suffered a surfeit of special-case subclauses and convoluted grammar. I've just gone through trying to rewrite it more clearly, without removing important points. If there's any subtle phrasing I've removed which you feel is particularly important, please feel free to restore it - David Gerard 14:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've restored a whole section that was vandalised by , that linked to our content policies and described how they applied, and condensed the paragraph of your text in the introduction that attempted to cover the same ground.  Uncle G 15:37, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That Beeblebrox quote is perfect! I've done a pile more tightening and tried to write something that would plausibly give pause to a well-meaning minor celebrity - David Gerard 22:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tightening and de-crufting 

message: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Optimus_Prime_%28person%29&diff=138413307&oldid=136512708  —  pd_THOR | =/\= | 21:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a WP:COI noticeboard. See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. WP:AUTO is just a special case of WP:COI. mike4ty4 20:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  since there appears to be no [[WP:AUTO]] noticeboard 

message: Indeed, there isn't. Perhaps there should be. I've found J. Scott Armstrong, which was created by one user who has done nothing else. Furthermore, this  by the said Armstrong advertises his wiki biog, which is quite unusual. It also may be a copyvio of . Wots the appropriate procedure? William M. Connolley 21:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a WP:COI noticeboard. See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. WP:AUTO is just a special case of WP:COI. mike4ty4 20:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  J. Scott Armstrong