People assume that you can only have a Wikipedia page if you are a famous or infamous person, place, or thing, which in turn, seems to justify a Wikipedia page. Now, in most cases, this is true, but if you follow down any rabbit hole within Wikipedia (which is easy to do when you only meant to look up an actor’s birthday), you’ll find what seems to be random people and facts associated with and linked to the information you were looking up.
This is the essence of Wikipedia. What makes Wikipedia so interesting and relevant is the connection to other relevant information. So, why is it so hard to have a Wikipedia page verified? If you have a Wikipedia page written about you, it may become disassociated by an editor because it does not have relevant links or your page did not associate you to any organization, location, or business.
The second reason why personal Wikipedia pages aren’t verified is that they do not have any links to 3rd party sources that can verify a statement within the Wikipedia page. A new page must show where some of the information presented within the page is sourced.
You have to become a part of the Wikipedia ecosystem
Let’s say you are a stage actor in Florida, and you performed in small-town theaters within Central Florida. You want to make sure that every aspect of your statements about what you do has links to other Wikipedia pages. First, make sure you are linked to locations and sub-locations. Florida, Central Florida, the town that you performed in, Orlando, Sanford, Daytona. 2nd is associations or organizations you may belong to that are associated with your talent or profession like an actor’s guild (if you are a member). 3rd; is other performers in the same profession within the first 2 categories.
If they have Wikipedia pages or listings then you want to have links to those pages within your page.
Volunteer editors rule Wikipedia
The editors that will help approve a page are volunteer editors who take Wikipedia editing very seriously. They are not interested in the subject matter of the Wikipedia pages per se. They are more interested in keeping the process of accepting pages unified and stable.
Nothing makes an editor’s teeth itch more than seeing a Wikipedia page written in the 1st person. They will also kick back a page that’s written with accolades and congratulatory remarks without references to sources of information those statements may have come from.
Let’s summarize what you need to do to make sure your Wikipedia page is not taken down or kicked back by editors.
- Do not write your own Wikipedia page. It’s better to have a friend or knowledgeable Wikipedia page creator do it for you.
- Have verifiable sources to reference. Websites, magazines, etc and include them in the reference section of the Wikipedia page.
- Become a part of the Wikipedia ecosystem. Add yourself to a list of professionals in your field within a localized community.
- Make sure that your Wikipedia page is not written in the first party, i.e., ” I attended Roosevelt High School in Chicago.” Wikipedia is written in statement-only form.
- Also, check out several Wikipedia pages before attempting to write a Wikipedia page so you can understand the style of writing that’s considered acceptable by the volunteer editors.
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