Contents
Tags about self written articles
There used to be a tag that would go on articles obviously written by the subject. And a CAT that would add them to such a list. Can anyone help me find that tag and CAT ? -Sticks66 03:25, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
- See Template:Autobiography and Category:Autobiographical articles. Graham87 10:34, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
- Thx. I get that the CAT is a hidden one that doesn't appear on the page, but how do you put the offending article into the Category ? -Sticks66 11:11, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
- Tag it at the top with {{Autobiography}}, using the code {{autobiography|date=February 2013}}, or whatever the current month is. Graham87 12:44, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
- Thx. I get that the CAT is a hidden one that doesn't appear on the page, but how do you put the offending article into the Category ? -Sticks66 11:11, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Translation from one language to another?
If some information (or an entire biography) exists in one language, but not another, is it permissible for the subject of the page to translate the content from one language page to another? And would it be okay to translate a page from English into all the languages Wikipedia supports? Mjs (talk) 23:36, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
- I think that's a bad idea, for several reasons:
- Each Wikipedia (English, German, etc.) has its own notability criteria.
- How will you be doing this translation -- I hope not via computer translation!
- Ideally all articles, but especially BLPs, should have someone watching and caretaking them. Will you really be doing that in every language? And even if you are, if you're the only person doing so -- for your own article -- that's really inappropriate.
- It's a form of spamming. I honestly can't comprehend the chutzpah to assume all of humanity urgently needs to know about him or her, when no one else in each particular language has bothered. As I love to quote:
Upon some of Cato's friends expressing their surprise, that while many persons without merit or reputation had statues, he had none, he answered, "I had much rather it should be asked why the people have not erected a statue to Cato, than why they have."
- Let others show an interest in you and create the article themselves. They're certainly free to draw on existing articles in other languages when they do so.
- EEng (talk) 17:29, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Userspace
This is a topic that I'm fairly ignorant about. Is it appropriate to write an autobiographical article about oneself in one's userspace, as has happened at User:Zala Chandrakant? Thank you, Toccata quarta (talk) 04:51, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
- It depends if they are (or have been) a regular contributor to Wikipedia. In the case you've linked, I'd say give it six months to a year and if the user hasn't made any significant contributions by then, nominate their user page for MFD. Graham87 15:04, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Do we really strongly discourage people from writing about themselves?
I frequent WP:Pages needing translation into English, and sometimes translated articles I find listed there. But I refuse to translate articles written by people about themselves (as well as WP:COI articles). But I find that others are willing to go right ahead and translate autobiographies and COI articles. To me, "strongly discouraged" means at the very least that we don't facilitate the presence of the articles on Wikipedia. But if Wikipedia has not even one substantive guideline enjoining editors from this enabling, encouraging behavior, then we aren't really discouraging anything, let alone "strongly". In that case, we should probably stop making the false assertion that we are, and in addition might as well dispense with the toothless {{uw-autobio}} and {{uw-coi}}.
That's a blunt statement of my assessment of the situation as I've observed it. What do you all think? —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:48, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
- In the case of a translated article it's not necessarily clear that it is an autobiography. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:44, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
Interpretive question re. "proposal"
I was re-reading WP:YOURSELF and had a question: what is the meaning of "proposal" in the sentence "The proper way to get your own writing about yourself into Wikipedia... is to make a proposal at Articles for creation containing the text you want, instead of just putting it into the encyclopedia directly, and seek the consensus of the community through discussion". There are, I think, two plausible readings of the sentence:
-
- potential autobiographers should create a draft, which will be reviewed by Articles for Creation reviewers once submitted. This interpretation meshes well with context, since drafts, being in the "Draft" space, aren't really "in the encyclopedia" in the typical sense of the word. Further, reviewers often leave comments on drafts and there are feedback mechanisms at AfC, which could be the "consensus through discussion" referred to.
- potential autobiographers should post on one of the Articles for Creation talk pages with details of a proposed autobiography, following which there is discussion with the AfC community. If consensus in favour of the article is reached, then the autobiographer could create the draft, which brings us back to reading 1. This overall interpretation aligns a bit better with the traditional notion of consensus and discussion on Wikipedia, but it comes at the cost of adding a second step into the process.
I'm inclined to prefer the first reading of "proposal", given that imposing a high-level discussion as to whether the draft should exist sounds like a lot of extra work. However, in either case, I propose that the wording of the sentence in issue be tweaked to better reflect the reading we agree upon.
I welcome any other opinions and feedback from contributors to this page. I'll mention this at Articles for Creation (where I do some work) so that other editors can weigh in too. Thanks! /wia /tlk 15:43, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
- I believe it to be a legacy instruction from the Requested Articles concept. Today we "allow" the creation of autobiographies at WP:AFC. though very few folk have the skill to be neutral about themselves, and it wastes a load of time trying to explain to them that they just are to going to make it here. They also get rather offended. Fiddle Faddle 16:08, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
- The "second reading" will simply get nowhere at AFC. We have no interest in discussing potential/possible/wished for/hypothetical drafts - we review submissions of drafts that someone has already written. We do not deal with article "requests" at all. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:58, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
- It seems we are all on the same page here. I propose that we amend the wording of WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY to reflect this. How about something like "The proper way to get your own writing about yourself into Wikipedia... is to create a draft at Articles for Creation containing the text you want, instead of just putting it into the main namespace directly, and seek the consensus of the community through discussion"? /wia /tlk 05:35, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
- Actually, I think that the current "highly discouraged" wording is right on. We really don't want people writing about themselves, and encouraging them to do so at AfC is just going to increase the AfC load. LaMona (talk) 16:44, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- I agree. I sometimes feel that by "discourage" we mean only "we use the word 'discourage' a lot", while in practice we don't discourage at all, beyond observing the guidelines applicable to any article. The bottom line is that people aren't supposed to write Wikipedia articles to their own ends; WP:AGF notwithstanding, when people create articles about themselves, I consider it extremely unlikely that they are doing so as an altruistic gift to the world. Looking for ways to simplify work-arounds they can use to achieve their own ends indirectly after we have already told them we don't want them to directly isn't a goal I support. —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:21, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Hi LaMona and Largoplazo! I concur regarding the current wording "highly discouraged". Given that (and let me know If I am misreading your comments), is removal of the entire sentence about "proposals" something you'd support? /wia /tlk 17:36, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Yep, I support removing that whole paragraph, the one beginning "The proper way to get your own writing about yourself into Wikipedia ...". There is no proper way to do it! If a would-be autobiographer figures out that route on his own, fine, but we shouldn't be drawing the map. —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:40, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Hi LaMona and Largoplazo! I concur regarding the current wording "highly discouraged". Given that (and let me know If I am misreading your comments), is removal of the entire sentence about "proposals" something you'd support? /wia /tlk 17:36, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- I agree. I sometimes feel that by "discourage" we mean only "we use the word 'discourage' a lot", while in practice we don't discourage at all, beyond observing the guidelines applicable to any article. The bottom line is that people aren't supposed to write Wikipedia articles to their own ends; WP:AGF notwithstanding, when people create articles about themselves, I consider it extremely unlikely that they are doing so as an altruistic gift to the world. Looking for ways to simplify work-arounds they can use to achieve their own ends indirectly after we have already told them we don't want them to directly isn't a goal I support. —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:21, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Actually, I think that the current "highly discouraged" wording is right on. We really don't want people writing about themselves, and encouraging them to do so at AfC is just going to increase the AfC load. LaMona (talk) 16:44, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- It seems we are all on the same page here. I propose that we amend the wording of WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY to reflect this. How about something like "The proper way to get your own writing about yourself into Wikipedia... is to create a draft at Articles for Creation containing the text you want, instead of just putting it into the main namespace directly, and seek the consensus of the community through discussion"? /wia /tlk 05:35, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 13 January 2016
41.221.97.2 (talk) 09:21, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
Not done as you have not requested a change, but I suspect you are in the wrong place, as this page is only to discuss improvements to Wikipedia:Autobiography.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Given the nature of this page, you will also need to reach consensus before any significant changes are implemented. - Arjayay (talk) 09:44, 13 January 2016 (UTC)