Wikipedia talk:Autobiography

How do I create my auto biography on Wikipedia

How Kiran Sagar DC (talk) 18:10, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

@Kiran Sagar DC: You don't. Please read Wikipedia:Autobiography to find out why not. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:41, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I want to Create and my own Biography. How do I write Rajput Sachin (talk) 05:16, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

You can't. Please read Wikipedia:Autobiography to find out why not. --Chewings72 (talk) 06:02, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

How can i write my own biography Bharatswagger (talk) 04:29, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

The answer appears twice immediately above your comment. Mindmatrix 13:44, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

In the name of all that's holy...

...can we have indefinite semiprotection of this page and its talk? I'm tired of reverting people's lame resumes. EEng 20:47, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Wrong venue. Please move to WP:RFPP

--Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:07, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, my post was aimed at admins who understand that WP is not a bureaucracy. So could some admin with common sense and who happens to be watching review the history and decide whether indefinite semiprotection of this talk page -- the page itself is already semiprotected -- is warranted? There's something somewhere causing people to think this is a place to post their autobiographies, and this has been going on for years. It's hard to see what's lost by not allowing IPs and unconfirmed accounts to post here. EEng 22:07, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

As an admin who watches this page, I'm meh about this. Yeah reverting resume posters is annoying, but they're not *that* common (at time of writing, the last 50 edits go back to December last year), and this page acts as a sort of honeypot for stupidity. Graham87 01:49, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

The honeypot theory is interesting, but really we have no way of knowing. What we do know is that every single one of the last 50 edits [1] is some fool posting his autobio, sinebot signing it, or someone reverting it; there's not a single productive contribution. It's not a big deal, but I suggest we try protection. EEng 02:19, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Not quite every single one; see the above section. By honeypot, I meant that it would attract users whose contributions might need to be looked at for other reasons. It'd be interesting to hear more opinions though. Graham87 03:13, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

I misunderstood your honeypot point to be that by attracting idiots here we save other pages from being targeted. But now I understand. So maybe anytime anyone posts here some bot should revert all their other contributions. I like it! EEng 03:23, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Are Writer inboxes necessary?

I was thinking of putting a writers inbox for the biography of E. W. Hornung. Is it necessary or it considered something as a non essential so I don't get into an accidental edit war with User:SchroCat. Dwanyewest (talk) 13:17, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

As there is a discussion on the article talk page, that is a more appropriate place to have a discussion, rather than on a page unconnected with the article (see MOS:INFOBOXUSE for the guideline). You have not yet answered the question I raised last time, so I am not sure on what grounds you think it necessary at present, or why you would deliberately want to start an edit war. - SchroCat (talk) 13:23, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

A modest proposal

Given the inflation of auto-biographies on the Wikipedia, I wonder if it would be advisable to explicitly identify such articles as such. Disputes about auto-biographical articles usually center on notability, but clearly the major problem is the question of neutrality. If there is no policy to automatically delete biographies created by the subject of the author, shouldn't there at least be a way to indicate, in the article itself since many readers do not look at talk pages, to the potentially unsuspecting reader that the biography was self-initiated. In summary, I am proposing that auto-biographical content be very visibly identified as such, if it is allowed to exist in the Wikipedia. This would be a solution that there seems to be much wasted effort arguing notability with the authors of such content. Amazingly the authors of such articles never seem to be embarrassed at having to argue for their own notability semi-publicly, when it is obvious that the best evidence of notability is that one does not need to create one's own biography in Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.12.45.75 (talk) 01:28, 30 November 2019 (UTC) N.B. The above proposal was written before I realized that the AUTO and COI tags exist, and should therefore be deprecated. 118.12.45.75 (talk) 03:58, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Use of AUTO and COI tags

I see now that there is already a way to do this, using the COI and AUTO tags. These tags should be used more frequently. Category:Autobiographical_articles — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.12.45.75 (talk) 12:35, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

No, these tags are not for simply identifying when sometime in the history of the article there were edits made by people who may have had a conflict of interest.

The COI tag is for identifying articles that are biased.

The AUTO tag is for identifying articles where COI applies and significant unreviewed edits have been made by the subject of the article. --Ronz (talk) 17:40, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Ronz - please refer to the contents of the COI and AUTO notices themselves:

COI "A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. "

The neutral point of view has to be proven before the tag is removed.

AUTO "This article is an autobiography or has been extensively edited by the subject or by someone connected to the subject."

It needs to be shown that a majority of the edits from the subject nor from someone connected to the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.12.45.75 (talk) 15:25, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

You made a proposal. I've rejected it because it ignores the purpose of the tags, to identify problems related to neutrality. --Ronz (talk) 16:30, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

The POV tag is used to identify content that needs to be checked for bias. AUTO is used to tag autobiographical content. And COI is used to tag content where there is a possible conflict of interest. Conflict of interest is not the same thing as bias. You do understand what a conflict of interest is, don't you? 118.12.45.75 (talk) 02:42, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

The proposal is separate from application of the tags AUTO and COI, which have clearly described purposes. I have added AUTO and COI tags where I judge them to be appropriate, independent of the proposal I made before realizing that the Wikipedia already has a mechanism for flagging this kind of content 118.12.45.75 (talk) 02:45, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Third opinion

coastside (talk · contribs) wants to offer a third opinion. To assist with the process, editors are requested to summarize the dispute in a short sentence below.

Viewpoint by (name here)

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I have two related claims. One is that the AUTO tag is used to flag content where there appears to be a strong autobiographical contribution. In the actual articles I have flagged as AUTO, the subject of the article has created the content themselves or someone closely related to them has created that content. I am claiming that this is appropriate use of the tag.

I am further claiming that the COI tag is used to flag content where there appears to be a conflict of interest for the editor who created the article and/or is the major contributing editor of the article. This is not exactly the same as the AUTO tag, though clearly there is an overlap.

Note that the Wikipedia strongly discourages autobiographical content, and I consider these tags useful in explicitly identifying such content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.12.45.75 (talk) 04:06, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Viewpoint by (name here)

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Third opinion by coastside

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Correct Use of AUTO and COI tags

This section is being opened to discuss the correct usage of AUTO and COI tags. This is clearly an important general issue related to the handling of content that may be autobiographical or have a conflict of interest. 118.12.45.75 (talk) 05:03, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

One main question at issue seems to be defining the threshold needed to justify adding Template:COI or Template:AUTO. One view is to set a low bar, that is, to assume that simply because the article has or appears to have contributions by someone connected to the subject, this in itself justifies tagging it. The opposing view is to set a high bar, meaning that there needs to be specific and demonstrable evidence of bias caused by a conflicting interest before tagging the article.

It seems clear from the Template documentation that an extreme low-bar interpretation is not intended. The AUTO page says the template should be used only when autobiographical content in a Wikipedia article has been reasonably well established, not when it is merely suspected, and goes on to talk about the body of evidence which would be needed. While the COI page says "Use this tag to alert readers that the article may be biased by a conflict of interest", which could be interpreted as setting a low bar since the word may is relatively weak, however it still recommends starting a talk page discussion "to explain what is non-neutral about the article". In other words, there should be something specific in the article that can be pointed out as biased. Not simply the fact that some contributor may have a connection to the subject of the article. FrankP (talk) 12:19, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes I agree with your interpretation of the policy that the threshold should be higher for adding a AB/AUTO/AUTOBIO than for a COI. This is natural, since COI captures a wider range of possibilities and an autobiography is a more specific conflict of interest. In my view giving explanation at the talk page should be required when adding either tag. Note that the tags indicate substantial evidence but not necessarily absolute certainty. Setting the threshold too high reduces the utility of the tag. Furthermore tagging is not final. A tag can be removed after suitable discussion or editing has taken place. 118.12.45.75 (talk) 12:42, 20 December 2019 (UTC)