After a post here mentioned it, I went to WP:COI and WP:AUTO. These two articles seem to promote the view that you're not supposed to edit an article about yourself. However, WP:BLP seems to suggest that you can to remove libel or unsourced material, and it's a common refrain to complaints about Wikipedia, "why didn't you just fix the article yourself?" It just isn't consistent to both expect people to fix the article about themselves, and expect them not to, at the same time. It's true, of course, that neither WP:AUTO nor WP:COI are absolute prohibitions, but they discourage it in *such* strong terms that anyone who comes to Wikipedia with a complaint about an article about themselves and stumbles across either guideline, will think that fixing the article isn't allowed. The subtlety that "strongly discouraged" doesn't mean "prohibited", or that even a new user is permitted to violate a guideline, is something they'll completely miss. How can this be fixed? I complained on the COI talk page and nobody seems to care. And I suspect just editing the guidelines myself would be reverted within the hour.

On Tue, 3 Apr 2007, Oldak Quill wrote: So a newcomer sees 20 paragraphs about how you're not supposed to edit your own article, and then a sentence saying otherwise. I don't think that'll work unless you make the exemption prominent enough that it doesn't seem like an afterthought to anyone reading the page. And that I don't think is possible. Ideally, we should soften the language that implies a near-absolute prohibition, but nobody will stand for that.

Most rules have exemptions. If that takes anyone off guard by our rules having exemptions, I'd be surprised. Just make it clear by placing it near the top or giving it a section header.

I don't think much good will come from telling people to fix libel in their own articles. Because a) They shouldn't have to b) It will quickly get confused and sound like you can change *anything* in your own articles c) It will probably cause an argument, especially because it will always be a newcomer who doesn't understand wikipedia, and things will end badly. It's much better the existing way, where libelees complain to OTRS or something, and something with a clue handles it.

Letting people fix it themselves, though, has one advantage: it's removed *immediately*, not when some volunteer gets around to it. Moreover, figuring out who to complain to is itself something that newcomers may find difficult to do.

A valid criticism. I boldly added a Nutshell to AUTO: [ This page in a nutshell: Avoid writing or editing an article about yourself, other than to correct errors of fact ] Hopefully that will help move things in the direction of forwards.