 | This is an
essay on the
WP:NOTPROMO policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
Wikipedia does not allow promotion, advertising, marketing or public relations. This gets explained to a lot of new users. Some of those new users then react with "ok but how do I (spread awareness, make sure people know about it, etc)?" If you have been linked to this essay, you are probably one of them.
Synonyms are not different concepts. If your reaction to "Wikipedia is not for promotion" is to argue you were:
- "ensuring awareness" for your service, cause, website, or whatever
- "making sure people know about" your product, service, website, or whatever
- "keeping the story straight" in an article about you or someone/something you have close ties with
- "just posting facts" that everyone else thinks sound like an advertisement
...then you haven't been paying attention or you demonstrate a concerning inability to understand an extremely basic statement. This is still true if you ask us how to do those things instead of arguing about it.
If you're here because you want to make or work on an article that's about you or someone or something you have close ties with, here's what you need to know:
- WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY - Do not write a page about yourself. It's theoretically possible to, but it's very hard for someone to do so without having trouble with the rest of this list.
- WP:COI - If you have any close ties to a subject (whether it's financial, familial, friendly, unfriendly, competitive, whatever), you must not edit any article relating to that topic. You can request edits on the article's talk page and that's it. We are under no obligation to edit the article for you or the way you want. You're not allowed to waste other people's time with requests that no one is willing to fulfill.
- WP:NOLEGALTHREATS - If you threaten anyone with a lawsuit, or even just imply that there might be "consequences" (which may or may not be legal), we will, we will, block you! If we think that those "consequences" are violent, we will have the police on your ass (even if you were "joking").
- WP:PAID - If you are being compensated or are expecting any kind of compensation for your work on this site, you must disclose your employer, client, or affiliation per our terms of use.
- WP:OWN - You do not own any article about you, your company, your product, or whatever. You do not own any articles here. We may have an article about you, but it is not yours.
- WP:ILLEGIT - Do not try to pretend to be someone else. We can and will block you, as a person (not just one of your accounts, but any account you make), from editing. At that point, any action you take on any account can be reverted as if it was petty vandalism and any page you make can be deleted.
- WP:BLP - We will remove pretty much any information about living people that is not reliably sourced, positive or negative. Need us to remove something your angry ex posted about you? No problem. Want to brag about yourself? We are going to remove that, too. Ideally, if something stays in our articles, it's because that information is present elsewhere, so removing it here is a useless struggle (even if it was a struggle you could win, which you almost certainly can't).
- WP:GNG - Our standard for an article is notability, not existence. An article must cite at least three professionally-published mainstream academic or journalistic sources that are specifically about the subject but not affiliated with or dependent on it.
- WP:WIKILAWYER - We care less about technicalities than the spirit of policy. If you think you have found a loophole, whup-dee-doo.
- WP:OTHERSTUFF - Oh, you found an article that's promotional, written by the subject, or whatever? Please point it out for us so we can delete that one, too.
- WP:FREESPEECH - Wikipedia is not a governmental entity. You do not have free speech here, this is our house and we can tell you to leave at any time. That is our right to free speech, which you have no right to take away from us.
If you do not or can not agree to any of that, or are still looking for loopholes, you need to find a different site. If you are still asking "so how do I get an article about (me or my business)?" then here's the answer:
- Focus on your career or calling, or whatever it is that people are going to write about. Stay off of this site for now.
- Be so amazing at what you do that newspapers and magazines write articles about you. Keep staying off of this site.
- Be so amazing that someone with no connection to you sees those magazine and newspaper articles and decides to summarize those, creating a Wikipedia article about you or what you do. Do not get on the site just yet.
- Stay away from that article. You really do not need to get involved in any article about you, your business, or whatever.
- Go work on other articles, as long as they're not about competing or related subjects.
| This is an
essay on the
WP:NOTPROMO policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
Wikipedia does not allow promotion, advertising, marketing or public relations. This gets explained to a lot of new users. Some of those new users then react with "ok but how do I (spread awareness, make sure people know about it, etc)?" If you have been linked to this essay, you are probably one of them.
Synonyms are not different concepts. If your reaction to "Wikipedia is not for promotion" is to argue you were:
- "ensuring awareness" for your service, cause, website, or whatever
- "making sure people know about" your product, service, website, or whatever
- "keeping the story straight" in an article about you or someone/something you have close ties with
- "just posting facts" that everyone else thinks sound like an advertisement
...then you haven't been paying attention or you demonstrate a concerning inability to understand an extremely basic statement. This is still true if you ask us how to do those things instead of arguing about it.
If you're here because you want to make or work on an article that's about you or someone or something you have close ties with, here's what you need to know:
- WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY - Do not write a page about yourself. It's theoretically possible to, but it's very hard for someone to do so without having trouble with the rest of this list.
- WP:COI - If you have any close ties to a subject (whether it's financial, familial, friendly, unfriendly, competitive, whatever), you must not edit any article relating to that topic. You can request edits on the article's talk page and that's it. We are under no obligation to edit the article for you or the way you want. You're not allowed to waste other people's time with requests that no one is willing to fulfill.
- WP:NOLEGALTHREATS - If you threaten anyone with a lawsuit, or even just imply that there might be "consequences" (which may or may not be legal), we will, we will, block you! If we think that those "consequences" are violent, we will have the police on your ass (even if you were "joking").
- WP:PAID - If you are being compensated or are expecting any kind of compensation for your work on this site, you must disclose your employer, client, or affiliation per our terms of use.
- WP:OWN - You do not own any article about you, your company, your product, or whatever. You do not own any articles here. We may have an article about you, but it is not yours.
- WP:ILLEGIT - Do not try to pretend to be someone else. We can and will block you, as a person (not just one of your accounts, but any account you make), from editing. At that point, any action you take on any account can be reverted as if it was petty vandalism and any page you make can be deleted.
- WP:BLP - We will remove pretty much any information about living people that is not reliably sourced, positive or negative. Need us to remove something your angry ex posted about you? No problem. Want to brag about yourself? We are going to remove that, too. Ideally, if something stays in our articles, it's because that information is present elsewhere, so removing it here is a useless struggle (even if it was a struggle you could win, which you almost certainly can't).
- WP:GNG - Our standard for an article is notability, not existence. An article must cite at least three professionally-published mainstream academic or journalistic sources that are specifically about the subject but not affiliated with or dependent on it.
- WP:WIKILAWYER - We care less about technicalities than the spirit of policy. If you think you have found a loophole, whup-dee-doo.
- WP:OTHERSTUFF - Oh, you found an article that's promotional, written by the subject, or whatever? Please point it out for us so we can delete that one, too.
- WP:FREESPEECH - Wikipedia is not a governmental entity. You do not have free speech here, this is our house and we can tell you to leave at any time. That is our right to free speech, which you have no right to take away from us.
If you do not or can not agree to any of that, or are still looking for loopholes, you need to find a different site. If you are still asking "so how do I get an article about (me or my business)?" then here's the answer:
- Focus on your career or calling, or whatever it is that people are going to write about. Stay off of this site for now.
- Be so amazing at what you do that newspapers and magazines write articles about you. Keep staying off of this site.
- Be so amazing that someone with no connection to you sees those magazine and newspaper articles and decides to summarize those, creating a Wikipedia article about you or what you do. Do not get on the site just yet.
- Stay away from that article. You really do not need to get involved in any article about you, your business, or whatever.
- Go work on other articles, as long as they're not about competing or related subjects.