Wikipedia talk:Autobiography

Use of Zaphod Beeblebrox as an Example: Problems

If autobiographies are truly unreliable, there should be plenty of examples of real autobiographies that are problematic. However, this article uses a fictional example, which is not very compelling about the real world. Are real autobiographies such as those by famous politicians, artists, musicians, athletes, etc. generally unreliable? If so, how unreliable? Surely a historian has done some statistical analysis of how reliable autobiographies are, and they're reliable about 95% of the time, that should have some implications. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrismartin76 (talk • contribs) 13:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Link on Mr. Wales pic caption

It links to https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-August/005621.html the content doesn't make sense to me. @EEng: I see you edit this often. Thanks Adakiko (talk) 00:14, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I've got limited bandwidth for a few weeks until I return from the International Space Station, but I believe that somewhere in there is the quote seen in the caption. (A lot of the old archives have messed up formatting so it may be hidden somehow.) EEng 00:34, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

I've gone and fixed the link; it was indeed broken. Sometimes links could be broken like this when messages were deleted or moved around in the old version of the mailing list software, Mailman. This is one of the many, many reasons it was upgraded. Graham87 00:51, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Misleading advice

If your life and achievements are verifiable and genuinely notable, someone else will probably create an article about you sooner or later. Er, no; there are more notable living people without articles than with them. I would certainly not give this advice to, say, an Algerian pop singer who peaked in popularity in the 90s. Mach61 (talk) 18:45, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

It's a bit of a hollow, unverifiable claim to make, and I think it should be worded another way. However, to be blunt—the point of the advice is to dissuade people from making autobiographies, because most autobiographies are bad. Any rewording has to somehow maintain the firm tone and intent, or else it's mostly a useless verbiage in the context of this page. Remsense留 18:48, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Merge

I propose to merge this page into Wikipedia:FAQ/Article subjects, and to make the various shortcuts point to that page.

My reasons for doing so are several: the content is duplicative; it is often not clear which page should be recommended to enquirers at help desks; it is confusing for people searching for such pages to find so many variants; and it will reduce the maintenance overhead.

Rather than merging in the other direction, I would keep the "FAQ/Article subjects" title, as it is part of a series; it also applies to people wanting to write about their company or organisation.

Thoughts? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:19, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose this is a guideline and therefore holds weight. WP:FAQ isn't even an essay. Further Wikipedia:FAQ/Article subjects is about subjects who already have an article, which is different to most situations where this guideline applies when people are trying to create a new article. It's not uncommon for us to have a formal guideline or policy and then another page which explains it - following your reasoning would mean merging multiple policies and guidelines into the FAQ. SmartSE (talk) 17:59, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
  • You are incorrect; the FAQ page is also about people who want or think there should be an article about them (e.g. Q11: "Can I start an article about myself or my company?"). We can easily say the FAQ page is a guideline. I make no proposals to merge policies into FAQs. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:33, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
    • There's a specific process for properly making a page into a guideline. Graham87 (talk) 07:02, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is an important page with hundreds of incoming wikilinks and probably thousands of incoming external links (I just made one myself from a question on Quora). Andrewa (talk) 04:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
  • So? We have redirects for that. Our internal housekeeping should not trump convenience for people with concerns about what we write about them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:56, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
• Strongest possible oppose. This is an in-depth explainer with plenty of good reasoning that I think would be either (1) a lot longer than a lot of the FAQ answers on the suggested page and dominate it, or (2) would be required to be trimmed down to fit the size of that and a lot of the valuable info would be lost. Wikipedia has plenty of explanatory project pages explaining community conesus and guidelines and offering advice. We don't need to trim them down for the sake of slimming the project. E-ink is free. If you want this advice proffered there, an except can be included with reference to the page, possibly with {{main}}. microbiologyMarcus ^{[petri dish·growths]} 00:36, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

How To Add information?

What needs to remember when adding information? and to ensure not violating any rules of Wikipedia? I hope someone mentor me. Tricounty17 (talk) 06:59, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I recommend reading the various guidelines and policies that the page itself links to. Remsense诉 07:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Or have a look at Wikipedia:Simplified ruleset and feel free to ask on my talk page of there's anything there you don't understand. Or drop in to the teahouse to seek a more formal mentor. Andrewa (talk) 04:46, 11 March 2024 (UTC)