Guide hub Wikipedia without the myths: which route you're actually on

Money doesn't buy anything on Wikipedia, and most people learn that last. Every route runs on independent sources and on disclosure, handled by volunteers who've never heard of you. There are four jobs people actually come here for: a page for a person, a page for a company, a fix for an error in an existing article, and a citation or link added to one. Each has its own guide, and this page says which one's yours.

What no route does

None of them involves paying for the outcome. The guides explain why a paid placement can't count as a source and why a link can't be bought into an existing article. What you can do is check your sources, disclose who's paying, and post requests the way the volunteers expect them.

What it costs you

The routes themselves are free. Time is the cost: an afternoon to check your sources and write the request, then a wait that runs from a day to several months while a volunteer gets to it.

What stops every route

Coverage that doesn't exist yet. If independent sources haven't written about the subject in depth, no draft, no writer and no fee changes the answer, so the source check always comes first.

You want a page about a person

Start with the sources, not the draft. Independent coverage in depth decides it, and for a person a major award or an entry in a national biographical dictionary can stand in. If it's there, the free route is called Articles for Creation, and the guide walks through it, including the disclosure you post before you edit anything. Read how to get a Wikipedia page created.

You want a page about a company

There's nothing to apply for. A draft gets written by somebody who discloses who's paying them, then it waits in a volunteer queue, and the outcome turns on the coverage that already exists about the company. Test the sources before you write a word. The company guide shows how.

There's an error in an article about you

Don't fix it yourself. Editing an article about you, your employer or your client is the one move that gets the correction refused. You disclose the connection and post a request on the Talk page for an unconnected volunteer to act on, and the edit-request guide has the click path and the wording.

You want a citation or link added

You can't add it, and nobody can sell you one. The only route into an article that already exists is a request on its Talk page, and your source has to be independent and secondary. If it's the piece you paid to publish, this stops there. The citation guide covers exactly what to post.

Every guide on this topic

How to correct an error in your Wikipedia article. You shouldn't edit your own Wikipedia article. Disclose the connection, then post an edit COI request on the Talk page. The click path and wording.

How to get a citation or link added to a Wikipedia article you don't control. You can't buy a link into an existing Wikipedia article. The one route is a disclosed edit request on its talk page, and here's exactly what to post.

How to get a Wikipedia page created: the sources decide, not you. The Articles for Creation route step by step: the notability gate that decides it, the paid disclosure you post before editing, and the wait.

How to get a Wikipedia page for your company: the sources decide, not the draft. Wikipedia has nothing to apply for. Test your company against the source rules first, disclose who is paying you, then draft and submit through AfC.

Do the source check yourself. Send us the rest.

The source check is free and it's the only step that decides anything, so run it today. When the coverage clears the bar and you'd rather hand the rest over, our Wikipedia Page Creation and Citations service is $3,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a company, and $399 for work on an existing article. We research the coverage first, disclose our involvement the way the Terms of Use require, and if the research says the subject doesn't qualify, the page-creation fee is refunded.

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Written by Drew Chapin, who ran all of this on his own name first.