Try making an entry on Wikipedia for yourself today. If you are famous enough to be on Wikipedia, you’d already be there. More likely, you entry will be immediately deleted for being not notable, etc. In fact, this happened to Wikinomics, the first time it was posted. Results of the trial is shown below.

At the time, the noble guardians at Wikipedia decided that Wikinomics was not yet a notable term and voted to delete the post. Since then, it has become a pretty good entry.

If you do try to add a questionable entry, you should hope that it doesn’t make the front page. If that happens, you will certainly raise the ire of Wikicritics. This has happened twice in the past two weeks. This guy (pictured below) basically posted his resume online and has feverishly defended it against critics. Many people don’t think the fact that Darren Heitner won a local video game contest as a child and played on his high school volleyball team is encyclopedic.

Update: Darren Heitner post now deleted.

From the discussion:

winning a nintendo contest and winning a few childhood contests now a poster now makes someone notable enough to get a wikipedia page? This page was SEVERELY changed from it’s original intent…first it was all about his “blog” and his agency, then when he realized he wasn’t notable enough for a wikipedia, he changed it to articles about his childhood? No I say! Delete this garbage! What makes this person more notable than anyone else? Everyone has some sort of childhood achievements, everyone placed or won something in their life, does that mean they deserve a wikipedia entry? I won bowling leagues when I was a little, do I deserve a wikipedia page too? Give me a break!

Another example is Ernest Emerson. He is a former Navy SEAL, martial arts expert, and knife manufacturer. Basically, you wouldn’t make fun of him in person, but you might on his discussion board. Wikipedians thought it should be removed, but were a little embarrassed that it even made the front page:

I do not think it prudent to have an AfD notice on a main page-featured article, so I removed the AfD notice and temporarily closed the AfD. Personally, I am not interested in arguing the merits of the article. My only issue right now is the fact that a main page article is going to have a deletion notice on it. Frankly, this looks terrible. This article has had featured status since March and I see no reason why we must discuss its possible deletion right now. However, Albatross feels strongly that the AfD should go forward immediately. If a third party agrees, I won’t have a problem with the AfD going back up. But nothing could be accomplished in the next 11 hours or so; this page is, in all likelihood, going to stay on the main page for the rest of the day, and the deletion discussion will continue for a few days. So I say please wait a few hours to start the debate, for the sake of the thousands of people who will view this page today.

Moral of the story…if you try a vanity site, keep that baby off the front page.