How to create a Wikipedia article about a person — and why articles get deleted

Two conditions without which an article won’t survive

Condition 1 — notability. Wikipedia describes only people whose activity has confirmed public significance. The criterion is not “well known in their circle” but formal: there must be significant coverage in independent authoritative sources about the person — not interviews, not press releases, not their own columns, but materials in which independent outlets write about them.

Condition 2 — sources for every statement.

Every fact in the article must rest on a verifiable independent source. A statement without a source is removed; an article made up of such statements is deleted entirely.

Everything else — style, formatting, structure — is secondary: articles die on these two conditions.

A Wikipedia article about a person is created under two conditions: meeting the notability criteria and having independent authoritative sources for every statement; articles without them are deleted by the community, and workaround methods lead to blocks.

How the Ukrainian Wikipedia lives — and why it matters

Wikipedia is written not by editorial offices but by a community of volunteers with its own procedures.

New articles are reviewed by patrollers; doubtful ones are put up for deletion discussion, where arguments are weighed for a week or more — and only arguments based on rules and sources work, not emotions or status. The history of every edit is public and permanent: workaround methods (anonymous users, paid accounts without disclosure) are not just risky — they leave a trace that stays visible forever. A conflict of interest is not prohibited — it must be declared: this is the legitimate way to work on an article about yourself.

If someone else’s article about you already exists and it is unfair: an account with a declared interest → well-argued edit proposals on the talk page, with sources for every point; direct edits to your own article — only uncontroversial facts (a date, a position), and also transparently. Sourced negative content is almost impossible to remove — but this is exactly how balance and fair presentation are defended.

Why articles get deleted: typical scenarios

An article “about oneself” from a new account without disclosure of interest.

Advertising instead of an encyclopaedia (“a leading expert”, “a successful entrepreneur”). Imitation sources: press releases and paid publications on junk sites, which the community recognises instantly. Re-creating a deleted article head-on — after which the title can be protected from creation altogether. Each of these scenarios is worse than having no article: the trail of deletions is public.

What you can do yourself — and where the limit is

Assessing your base of sources and honestly answering the question of notability is something you can and should do on your own.

Writing a neutral text with sources is harder, but doable. The limit lies further on: understanding the community’s unwritten standards, working with discussions and patrollers, and above all building the notability foundation itself when it is lacking: that is already the territory of systematic work on public visibility, your personal brand and media publications, not wiki editing.

If an article is your goal

Start with an honest notability audit: it shows whether the foundation is ready and what exactly needs to be built if it isn’t.

We carry it out within Wikipedia’s rules — and say “it’s too early” just as directly as “we can start”. Wikipedia article: how we work →