It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one ofWikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not beenthoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.
This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia is full of rules you have never heard of. Don't despair!
Is this how you feel right now?
Right, so you are a notable person and have come to Wikipedia to edit an article that is related to you or your work, perhaps to add some useful details, or to fix a glaring error. And now you have heard one or all of the following:
And you realise that behind that tempting "edit" tab at the top of your biography, there awaits a posse of anonymous Wikipedians ready to haul you over the coals for infringement of a million rules you've never heard of. Worry not, help is at hand! With a bit of luck, it will all work out, and you will make some friends here!
Wikipedia article subjects must be notable, or "worthy of notice". If Wikipedians express doubt that you and/or your book, record, etc. are notable enough to have an article in Wikipedia, and havenominated your article for deletion, check Wikipedia'snotability criteria. Look for published sources on yourself or your work, especially inGoogle books,Google news archive search andGoogle scholar, and post links to the available sources on the article's talk page, or in the deletion discussion. Eligibility for a Wikipedia entry depends on there being substantial coverage of you or your work in independentreliable sources. These are also the sources that should mainly be reflected in the article.
Note that according to Wikipedia rules,you can't just write articles from your personal knowledge. You need to citereliable sources, such as a newspaper or book, for every statement you add to an article. Otherwise it's calledoriginal research and will most likely be deleted, no matter how true and factually accurate it is. It's a basic rule that all Wikipedians have to observe.
Citing a source in Wikipedia works like this—simply add the following after the statement concerned:
<ref>White, Tom. ''The biography of Susan the Celebrity''. Cool Publishing, 2010, p. 111, ISBN 1234567890</ref>, or
<ref>Smith, Joe (13 July 2010). "Interview with Susan the Celebrity". New York Times</ref>, etc.
<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/08/08/richard-nixon-farewell-address-50-years/</ref>, etc. Nowadays, you're probably more likely to find sources on the Internet than in books. If you have the time please do read aboutBare URLs, however.
Make sure that the source you cite backs up what you have written, but—don't copy the wording of the source. (That would immediately get you into hot water with another Wikipedia rule,the one on copyright violations.)
The publications you entered as references should show up at the bottom of the screen, in a "Notes" or "References" section. If they don't, you can create such a section yourself, and enter{{Reflist}} in the section. (SeeWikipedia:Citing sources for a full explanation of how references work in Wikipedia.)
It is very important to Wikipedians that each article be written from aneutral point of view. This means that articles must reflect things like praise and criticism for example in roughly the same proportion in which they are found in published sources.
Basically, if you are working on your own article or an article on a piece of work you have done, you edit with aconflict of interest. This is not forbidden in Wikipedia, but it requires circumspection to get it right. SeeWikipedia:Conflict of Interest.
Also seeWikipedia:Autobiography, another important Wikipedia guideline that discusses the inherent difficulties involved in writing about yourself, and suggests ways in which you can contribute to your own biography.
If you would like to contribute images that can be used to illustrate articles about you and your work, these are always welcome, but must be released under a license that Wikipedia can use. For further information, seeWikipedia:Image use policy.
You can upload images viaWikipedia:Upload orCommons:Upload. Pictures uploaded usingWikipedia:Upload are only available to the English-language Wikipedia, while images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons are also available to other language versions of Wikipedia, as well as other Wikimedia projects.
Commons accepts onlyfree content, that is, images and other media files that can be used by anyone, any time, for any purpose. SeeCommons:Licensing.
If you don't want to release a full-resolution version of your image under an open license, you can use low-resolution versions of publicity photos, for example.
If there is a Wikipedia article about you, you are invited to contribute a short audio recoding of your spoken voice, so that our readers may know what you sound like and how you pronounce your name. Details of how to do so, and examples, are atWikipedia:Voice intro project. You can ask for help or clarification on theproject talk page. As with images, a free licence must be applied.
Now for somethingreally important:avoid making legal threats on Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a rule that editors must not threaten to sue each other. If they do make such a threat, they getblocked from editing until they have resolved their dispute. This rule isvery strictly enforced, so making legal threats isreally counterproductive in Wikipedia! If something is wrong or libelous in an article about you, simply say, "That statement about me is not true and I hope it will be corrected for the following reasons ..." If you say, "This is libelous!" or "This is defamatory!", it may be perceived as a threat to take legal action, possibly leaving you unable to edit Wikipedia until you have retracted the threat, and shifting all the attention on you, rather than the statement in the article. There is a really useful essay about how this situation is sometimes mishandled by Wikipedia's volunteer editors, atWikipedia:Don't overlook legal threats (WP:DOLT for short). Forewarned is forearmed!
If you have a serious privacy concern, such as your home address or your personal phone number having been posted on a Wikipedia page, you may contact the Wikimedia Foundation's volunteer response team (or VRT). Please e-mailinfo-en-qwikimedia.org with a link to the page in question and the details of the problem. For more details on how to get an error corrected, seehere.
If your biography keeps getting used by malicious people with an ax to grind against you, and you are losing sleep over it because nobody watches over your article, request that your biography be deleted at thebiographies of living persons noticeboard. You have a good chance that yourwish to have your biography deleted will be heeded, unless there is a clear consensus among editors that Wikipedia would be seriously deficient without an article about you.
wikimedia.org with a link to the page in question and the details of the problem. For more details on how to get an error corrected, seehere.