User:ColinFine/What Wikipedia doesn't care about

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In this essay, whenever it says "yourself" it means "yourself, your band, your school, your company, your product, your relative, your non-profit, your teacher, your book, your film, your album, your invention, etc". Note particularly that it includes "your employer" and "your client".

Here are some things that Wikipedia doesn't care about:


Approval[edit]

  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether you want there to be a Wikipedia article about yourself;
  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether you want there not to be an article about yourself;
  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether the subject of an article or proposed article has given permission or approval for it;
  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether a person or an organisation has given permission for copyright material to be used in Wikipedia unless they are the legal owner of the copyright, and they have released the material under a suitable license: see DCM;
  • Wikipedia doesn't care what you want an article about yourself to say;
  • Wikipedia doesn't care what you want an article about you not to mention;

Information[edit]

  • Wikipedia doesn't care what you (or I, or any random person on the internet) know, think, or believe, about anything - including about yourself - unless it has been reported in reliable published sources;
  • Wikipedia isn't interested in your opinion on the subject of a Wikipedia article, or on anything else mentioned in an article. Your opinion on the article itself, and on other aspects of Wikipedia, may sometimes be welcome on a talk or project page;
  • Wikipedia doesn't care what the subject of an article says about themselves, in any form or medium (except that limited uncontroversial factual information may be taken from their own published sources - see WP:PRIMARY and WP:SELFPUB).
  • Wikipedia doesn't care what the subject has said, written, published, or done, unless reported in a reliable published source;
  • Wikipedia doesn't care what a group you are affiliated to (whether religious, political, philosophical, nationalist or any other) thinks should or should not be in an article;

Promotion[edit]

  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether you think the world should be told about you;
  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether and how you want yourself to appear and be ranked in search engines;
  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether you want an article to appear in Wikipedia before some event (see DEADLINE);
  • Wikipedia doesn't care what order you think things should be mentioned in an article about you;

Comparison[edit]

  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether articles about similar subjects exist, and what they contain (except that if such articles exist and are sub-standard, Wikipedia would love somebody to attend to them: either bring them up to standard, or delete them if it is impossible to repair them);
  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether there used to be an article about you, as long as it was properly deleted according to the Deletion policy. If circumstances have changed, so that you meet the criteria for notability now, then a new article may possible despite the deletion. But the former existence of an article is not of itself of any significance.

Intention[edit]

  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether you think somebody or something is WONDERFUL!! and deserves an article;
  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether you think somebody or something is Awful, and the world should be warned against them (see RIGHTINGGREATWRONGS);
  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether somebody has tasked you to write or edit an article (see BOSS)
  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether somebody has paid you to write or edit an article (except that you must then make the declarations detailed in paid editing);
  • Wikipedia doesn't care whether you have paid somebody to write or edit an article. (Well - speaking as a Wikipedia editor, I wish you hadn't, and I'm sorry you've been scammed. I care in that way.)