Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing
- This Wikipedia essay was first written by Sebwite in 2009. Essays are not project guidelines or policies, and may or may not have broad support among the Wikipedia commuity. This essay was written by Sebwite and 273 other editors.
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Are you planning to write a Wikipedia article about yourself? Are you planning to pay for someone to write an article on your behalf? Before you proceed, please take some time to thoroughly understand the principles and policies of Wikipedia, especially one of its most important policies, the neutral point of view (NPOV) policy.
Wikipedia seeks neutrality. An article about you written by anyone must be editorially neutral. It will not take sides and will report both the good and the bad about you from verifiable and reliable sources. It will not promote you. It will just contain factual information about you from independent, reliable sources.
This is a mixed blessing.
Some accomplishment or event, good or bad, may give you notability enough to qualify for a Wikipedia article. Once you have become a celebrity, your personal life may be exposed. No one is perfect, so your faults may get reported, and overreported, and reported enough to end up on Wikipedia. Even if you have lived a life free of scandal, and your Wikipedia article is spotless, at some time in the future your first publicized mistake may well end up getting into that article. Suddenly your fame may turn into highly publicized infamy. Yes, Wikipedia is highly publicized! It is mirrored and copied all over the place. Some reporters use Wikipedia as a source for their articles, so information about the mistakes you have made which end up in the Wikipedia article about you and which are covered in independent reliable published sources may be repeated.