On any given day, I am bombarded with dozens of emails from people seeking professional help with Wikipedia pages. There are multiple reasons why people reach out to me for help. Sometimes they just don’t feel like dealing with editors, sometimes they have no clue how to navigate the site, and sometimes their article was posted yet later deleted. I am always skeptical when someone comes to me and says that their article was deleted. Fact is, most articles deleted from Wikipedia are done so for good reasons, with the majority of them being deleted as the topic simply doesn’t meet notability guidelines. However, there is a small number of articles that are deleted that I can always help with.
As stated above, most articles are deleted because they don’t meet notability guidelines. When someone tells me the topic, I can quickly discover with a simple search of Google that the article was deleted for good reason. Lack of significant coverage in reliable sources means no notability as far as Wikipedia is concerned. However, sometimes I take to Google and find an abundance of sources on the topic. This leaves me scratching my head until I receive a copy of the draft that was posted.
When an article is notable, yet deleted, it is largely the editor’s fault who wrote the article. While the topic may be notable, establishing notability for other editors is one of the top reasons why hiring a professional Wikipedia editor is often advised. The deleted drafts that I read are often full of press releases, written in promotional tone, and in no way follow any style that a seasoned Wikipedia editor can follow. As such, editors are quick to recommend the article for speedy deletion, often followed by an admin who deletes the article, all without even making a good faith attempt to verify if the topic is notable. While this can be chalked up to pure laziness on the part of the editor recommending deletion, I cannot chastise them for the recommendation when the author should have done their homework from the start.
A poorly written article in Wikipedia is like a wounded Gazelle in the midst of a Lion (Wikipedia editors) while a well-written article is likely to stand up to scrutiny and deletion attempts. Although Wikipedia articles should be written for site visitors seeking more information on the topic, you also have to consider that the article is always subject to review by other editors and as such should be written so that they can easily see the notability of the topic. Here are a few suggestions that should help you if you plan to create and post an article on your own.
Make Sure Your Topic Is Notable:
After all, there is no sense on moving forward with any Wikipedia project unless the topic meets notability guidelines. This is the building block of any Wikipedia article. If the topic isn’t notable, it really doesn’t matter who writes it or how well it is written, it will simply be recommended for deletion (maybe even by me) as it doesn’t belong in an encyclopedia. To be notable, the topic needs to have significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the topic. If you have a topic that you are unsure of, please contact me as I will take a look for no charge and advise if I feel it meets these guidelines.
Manual of Style For Wikipedia Entries:
Wikipedia is not as strict with article layout; however, you must follow somewhat close to the format that editors are used to seeing if you don’t want them to stop and tag or recommend your article get deleted. While you are writing for visitors to the site, you must also appease the thousands of editors who scroll through the encyclopedia each day looking for articles to tag or delete. There is also a writing style that you need to follow. Explaining the proper style for each type of article would take me weeks. You could read Wikipedia’s manual of style guidelines if you have some time to kill analyzing the 23,000+ word document (not including additional subcategories and pages linking to it). You could also skip that altogether and simply read up on a few articles related to your topic. For instance, if you are writing a biography, take a look at other biographies. Also, focus on the type of biography you are writing. For instance, if you are writing about an athlete, model your article after articles on athletes (and get even more specific by going to articles about athletes in the same sport). Make sure to look through several articles and follow the style that is general used throughout them all.
Referencing Your Article:
Now that you know the topic is notable and have an example of an article you will mold after, you need to keep in mind what references editors are looking for. While it may be tempting to use references such as press releases or the website dedicated to the topic, stick to the references that Wikipedia editors are used to seeing. If your topic has been a feature in the New York Times, then cite that article as opposed to a press release. Editors do not always take the time to Google the topic so they will assume that the press release is the best source (which is a bad source) and either tag the article or recommend it for deletion. Stick with the best sources and you should have no issues. Make sure that you know the proper way to add a citation as well.
For those who have not yet jumped into the world of Wikipedia and are thinking of creating an article, you need to know that there are more pitfalls and traps than a Harry Potter movie. If you are going in alone, I recommend that you first take plenty of time to research the guidelines mentioned above regarding notability, referencing, and manual of style. Without such knowledge, you are going to have a difficult (but not impossible) time of accomplishing your goals. Overall, Wikipedia can be fun if you know what you are doing, but extremely frustrating when dealing with bureaucratic editors looking to delete their next article. Have fun and good luck!
by Michael Wood – Michael Wood is an online marketing expert and owner of Legalmorning.com. He specializes in reputation and brand management, article writing, and professional Wikipedia editing. He is an expert Wikipedia editor and has helped hundreds of businesses and people post their articles to the site where they have otherwise failed. He is a regular contributor to many online publications including AllBusiness Experts, Yahoo, Business Insider, Business2Community, and Social Media Today.