Getting Your Very Own Wikipedia Article (Or Not)
Jul 11th, 2010 by admin
I’ve never believed in beating around the bush. I’m direct. Blunt. So please don’t take offense when I tell you that you’re not noteworthy enough to have a Wikipedia article. You’re insignificant, unimportant and clearly lack the criteria for meeting such glamorous standards. You’re a small business and, frankly my entrepreneur, Wikipedia doesn’t give a damn.
Why am I telling you this? Well, a lot of small business owners write in asking how they can get their own article on Wikipedia. What are the requirements? Workarounds? And I am here to tell you that it is tough – next to impossible. Here’s why.
First off, you must meet their standards for Notability – criteria that Wikipedia uses for determining whether a topic merits its own article. Specifically from their page on Notability, “Wikipedia covers notable topics—those that have been “noticed” to a significant degree by independent sources. A topic is deemed appropriate for inclusion if it complies with WP:NOT and has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence. “
I’ve seen small businesses, those that have been in existence for decades with a ton of PR and local recognition, deleted from the masses only seconds after hitting save – because they have not been deemed notable. Basically, your business, services and/or products must have been mentioned considerably in secondary, reliable sources that are completely independent of what you have going on. Your own press releases do not count towards Notability. Nor does Aunt Emma’s comment on Facebook about how damn great your business is. Nada.
If you successfully navigate past this major roadblock, next is the issue of posting an article on something that you essentially own or operate. Ummm, you can’t. Well, you can – but you cannot get caught doing so. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say on this, “If you are worthy of inclusion in the encyclopedia, let someone else add an article for you.” But this cannot be family, friends, employees and anyone close to you or the business. It must be an independent third-party, so to speak. You are basically at the mercy of some admirer – a customer or perhaps a loyal Facebook stalker (you know you have them). Or you can say screw it, create an anonymous account and post the article yourself. Believe me, it happens every single day.
If you’ve made it past these two gigantic STOP signs, consider yourself lucky. Now comes the issue of creating an article using proper wiki markup, fancy Wikipedia lingo, borderline HTML…scary, huh? Mess up too bad and BANG! It will be flagged (or removed). So my suggestion is to learn the basics.
And the final, the most teeth clenching, mobile phone throwing-worthy obstacle are Wikipedia editors. They are a tough, take no prisoners bunch of diehard Wikipedians. They have the personalities of smiley faces drawn on pieces of cardboard and simply will not listen to you (or that independent Facebook stalker trying to create an article on your business) when begging them for mercy. They would rather roast the first edition of Webster’s than to see your insignificant business get it’s very own Wikipedia article. BUT you must respect them. They give countless hours to this little thing called Wikipedia and receive very little in return. So don’t go on the defensive if they flag something or post a rather bland message on your talk page. Remain friendly, willing to meet Wikipedia standards and be pro-active. Ask the editor what you are doing wrong and how you can fix the mistakes (or meet the site’s guidelines).
And that’s it in a nutshell.
Wikipedia article = Notability + Facebook stalker poster + proper posting + editors approval
Have questions? Shoot them over, and I will do what I can to assist. Oh, and if you think this is too much or way too complicated, consider building your reputation the easy way using a site such as Answers.com.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Babeofbusiness. Babeofbusiness said: Getting your own Wikipedia article… the ins and outs. http://fb.me/sRD7CnGL [...]