SelfPedia

Origin and etymology

The term Selfpedia is a portmanteau formed from the English word self and the suffix -pedia, derived from “encyclopedia” (from the Ancient Greek paideía).

Although the term is not yet established in reference dictionaries, its usage is attested sporadically in various cultural, educational, and institutional contexts.

Documented uses include:

• the Italian cultural association SelfPedia (founded around 2017), which uses the name to designate a platform for publishing biographies and independent creative works;
• the European guidance network Euroguidance, which uses the term Selfpedia to refer to a “mini-encyclopedia” integrated into multilingual educational toolkits, defined as a structured set of contents (stories, games, cultural notions) associated with a learning pathway;
• an Austrian institutional report on voluntary engagement, in which Selfpedia is mentioned among examples of digital platforms for participation and knowledge production, alongside collaborative projects such as Wikipedia or Wheelmap.

Our definition

Within the scope of the WikiVlist project, the term Selfpedia refers to a personal encyclopedia that applies, as far as possible, a method inspired by the editorial principles of Wikipedia to subjects that do not meet the criteria of general encyclopedic notability.

A selfpedia aims to document people, projects, experiences, or individual trajectories in a structured, factual, and referenced manner, explicitly distinguishing between:

• established facts,
• sources used,
• interpretations or contextual perspectives.

The goal is neither exhaustiveness nor absolute neutrality, but rather the pursuit of the highest possible level of objectivation based on available sources, even when those sources are limited or primarily self-produced.

In this context, a selfpedia serves simultaneously as:

• a tool for personal clarification and structuring,
• a means of gaining critical distance from lived experiences,
• a publication space offering readers clear indications about the origin and status of the information presented.

This definition is specific to this project and does not claim any general terminological recognition of the term Selfpedia.

Wikis and subjectivity

Wikis are not intrinsically encyclopedic. From their inception, they were designed as tools for collective or individual writing and structuring, characterized by a high degree of editorial freedom and minimal normative constraints.

This freedom is explicitly asserted in the historical culture of the wiki, notably on the founding site WikiWikiWeb, which emphasizes that a wiki is neither limited to Wikipedia nor to a standardized body of knowledge, and that it can support open, experimental, or subjective forms of documentation.

Personal uses of wikis

Beyond collaborative or encyclopedic uses, wikis are frequently employed as personal or semi-personal tools for note-taking, reflection, and knowledge organization. Their hypertext structure and editorial flexibility encourage exploratory, evolving, and non-normative uses.

These personal uses form part of a broader continuum of digital writing and memory practices, in which technical systems serve both as tools for thinking and for publishing.

Examples of personal wikis

Public personal wikis exist in which authors use wiki technology as a medium for subjective writing and individual reflection. These projects do not seek encyclopedic neutrality, but instead assume an authorial point of view and a freely organized structure. Two examples are given below:

The consultant and author Tom Critchlow describes, in an article entitled “Building a Digital Garden”, the design and publication of his own personal wiki, which he presents as a space for evolving and interconnected notes, distinct from a chronological blog and explicitly embracing an individual perspective. This site provides an example of a personal wiki published online.

Another example of a personal or semi-personal wiki is the Lessig Wiki, associated with the academic Lawrence Lessig, which has been used as a collaborative workspace and a platform for reflection on topics related to copyright law, free culture, and other intellectual themes specific to the author.

WikiVlist approach

The project is grounded in the freedom of use inherent to wikis, while deliberately adopting a more structured and reflective approach.

In contrast to personal uses based on openly assumed subjectivity or free-form note-taking, it aims to apply an encyclopedic mode of writing to personal subjects or topics that are not admissible in a general-purpose encyclopedia. This approach relies on an explicit distinction between facts, sources, and interpretations, as well as on an organization designed for reading by third parties.

This positioning represents a deliberate editorial choice among the possible uses of wiki technology and does not claim either universality or absolute neutrality.

Methodological references

These references provide a methodological framework adapted to the context of a personal encyclopedia dealing with subjects that do not meet general encyclopedic notability criteria.

The main references used are as follows:

• The Five Pillars of Wikipedia — in particular the pursuit of a factual tone, encyclopedic structuring of content, and the distinction between facts and interpretations.
• Neutral point of view — considered here as a methodological objective to strive for, rather than an absolute requirement.
• Citing sources — applied whenever possible, with explicit identification of the status of sources, including when they are self-produced.
• No original research — a principle adapted to the project’s context, which assumes the production of original content while seeking to make its factual and documentary bases explicit.

The adaptation of these principles aims to provide readers with clear indications regarding the nature of the content presented, its mode of production, and its limitations, in a spirit of editorial transparency.