Wikipedia:Fix my article FAQ

As the subject of an article, you may find inaccuracies in it that you want fixed as soon as possible. It may seem straightforward to register a new account and make the changes yourself, or ask other editors to do so. However, this is often not the best way to do it. To understand this, you should know a bit about how Wikipedia works.


 * Problem: Anyone can register for an account, including people with bad intentions. You can say you didn't marry someone or you were born in 1968 not 1958, and you are certainly the person to know that. We ought to take your word for it because why would anyone lie? The problem is: sometimes people do lie. Vandals have been known to make strings of edits where they simply alter a few figures in articles, whether out of pure petulance or to make us a less effective competitor against their product.


 * Solution: We're not in a good position to make sure a new account is you - but as a notable person, you probably already have online or offline outlets for your thoughts that people do know are you. This ties into a concept called WP:reliable sources. A fresh Wikipedia account that says it is you isn't really reliable, but your own website, press release, or widely followed Twitter account certainly is. Note that if you write a comment about someone else, we can't use a mere press release or website comment you make as a source for our information about that person; it has to be something that has been through a reliable publication process. However, even a "self-published primary source" like your Twitter feed is sufficient to document many types of ordinary biographical information that is strictly about yourself. It may also be usable to impeach an erroneous source, so that editors demand more proof than a single publication.


 * Tip: be careful about giving information by reference. If you use your Twitter feed to say "I am User:Joe Bloggs on Wikipedia; please incorporate my changes", a day or six months from now you may well wonder what comments on User talk:Joe Bloggs people could be reading. It is best and simplest to use your known publication outlet to release a single, self-contained, carefully written statement that covers the facts you want to have acknowledged. Remember, if you are vague we may still be paranoid about vandals: if you write "please make the changes I want to my Wikipedia article" without even saying you are User:Joe Bloggs, then we still may be afraid to assume that user name is actually you. After all, what if you had simply emailed your suggested changes to someone, but after you made that comment some clever vandal created the account to masquerade under your name? Any crazy thing you can think of, someone has probably tried to do at some point—that's the downside of an encyclopedia anyone can edit.


 * However: as article subject you should not have to put up with mistakes and unfounded abuse. Our articles on WP:conflict of interest acknowledge safe harbor for people who want to get rid of made-up claims that have no published source. You can also feel free to correct a claim when the source cited is right, but the Wikipedia editor made some mistake, like typing "1958" when he read "1968". It is better to work with Wikipedia editors on this, since you don't want to have to do this all the time, and to avoid any suspicion that you are getting rid of true information so your article sounds more positive. It can be hard to approach writing about possibly bitter personal issues with the detachment necessary to avoid making self-serving changes or insufficiently sourced allegations against others. Whether a statement is by or about you, accuracy and sourcing in biographies is supposed to take a very high priority - see "WP:BLP"

The bottom line: as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia summarizes a collection of other sources, and relies on them to be accurate. To fix an error in what Wikipedia says, you need to either show that there is no valid source for this error, or else you need to create a new source that disputes the sources we currently have.