Wikipedia:Autobiography

It has been suggested that this page be merged into Wikipedia:FAQ/Article subjects. (Discuss) Proposed since February 2024.

This page documents an English Wikipedia content guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts WP:AB WP:AUTO WP:AUTOBIO

This page in a nutshell: Avoid writing or editing an article about yourself (or paying someone else to do so), other than to correct unambiguous errors of fact.

Writing an autobiography on Wikipedia is an example of conflict-of-interest editing and is strongly discouraged. Editing a biography about yourself is acceptable only if you are removing unambiguous vandalism or clear-cut and serious violations of our biography of living persons policy.

Wikipedia has gone through many prolonged disputes about the significance, factual accuracy, and neutrality of such articles.^[1] Avoiding such editing keeps Wikipedia neutral and helps avoid pushing a particular point of view.

Writing autobiographies is discouraged because it is difficult to write a neutral, verifiable autobiography, and there are many pitfalls.

If you have been published elsewhere on a topic, we welcome your expertise on the subject for Wikipedia articles. However, every Wikipedia article must cover its subject in a neutral, fair, and comprehensive way to advance knowledge of the subject as a whole. Please acknowledge and minimize your biases while enriching the Wikipedia readers' knowledge. Articles that exist primarily to advance the interests of the contributor will likely be deleted.