Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:36, 9 July 2023

Revision as of 01:36, 15 August 2023

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Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so its articles are about their subjects; they are <em>not</em> about the articles themselves. This means that even if an article itself becomes famous, that article should not report this about itself.

For example, a discussion of [[Stephen Colbert (character)|Stephen Colbert's]]'s call for vandalism of the [[Elephant]] article might be appropriately mentioned in the article on ''[[The Colbert Report]]'', but not in the article on elephants, because elephants have nothing to do with Stephen Colbert. Protests regarding depictions of Muhammad in Wikipedia's [[Muhammad]] article are <em>not</em> addressed in that article (which is about the prophet Muhammad), but rather in the article [[Depictions of Muhammad]].

A mention of Wikipedia by a notable person is unlikely to justify a mention in their Wikipedia article; such a mention would have to reflect its [[WP:DUE|importance in the person's overall body of work]]. For example, a radio host mentioning that he read his Wikipedia biography is not normally an important event in his overall career. On the other hand, the media attention surrounding [[John Seigenthaler#Wikipedia biography incident|John Seigenthaler]]'s Wikipedia entry is now a [[Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident|notable event]] in his public life.