User talk:Cris Baczek

September 2011
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used as a platform for advertising or promotion, and doing so is contrary to the goals of this project. Because Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Beloved Freak  15:47, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Welcome!

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About links and conflict of interest
I hope that the links above will help you to find your way around Wikipedia and get to know our policies and guidelines. External links should be added to articles on a case-by-case basis by editors familiar with the article in question, who can decide whether or not a particular link is appropriate in that situation. The links that you added have two problems that I noticed. Firstly, many (if not most) of the article you added links to already have examples of the artists' work. Some have several pictures included. For artists whose work is in the public domain, there are likely to be further example on Wikimedia commons, for which a standard link can be provided. Since Wikipedia is not a link directory, there is little obvious use in adding links to images on museum pages, just to sho "an example".

Secondly, it took me about 2 seconds to discover that you have a connection to the museum in question. Please be aware of the guideline on conflicts of interest. If you really think that links to your museum should be included in an article, please start a discussion on the article talkpage. Please ask if you have any questions, and please don't be discouraged from helping out. It's not uncommon for new editors to start out by adding links, it seems like a good way to start getting your feet wet, and many new editors run foul of the conflict of interest guideline at first. -- Beloved Freak  16:00, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Hello, I believe the links I'm adding are within Wikipedia's guidelines. The guideline page outlines this occasion for posting links:
 * 1) Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues,[2] amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons. I work for the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and in order to comply with our copyrights to specific artworks and to provide access to specific works we are connecting records about artists and their works from our website to Wikipedia. The University of Utah, our parent organization, asks us to keep all information on our website as it is easiest to update and add information to our database and have people access it through links than it is to seek out all of the places where we can contribute information and then change facts and images should they be incorrect. We uphold the highest academic standards and want to make sure that any information we push out is controlled for quality and accuracy. As for the conflict of interest, yes I work for the Museum. Our motivations are to comply with University copyright restrictions while contributing to the academic integrity of Wikipedia. I hope that I'm understanding the guidelines correctly and complying. Please clarify if I am not. Thank youCris Baczek (talk) 16:15, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * First of all, I'm glad you are here trying to improve Wikipedia. If there's one thing we need more of it's academic/expert contributors. I understand that priority of your museum (and by extension the university) will differ from that of Wikipedia. From your point of view, adding your links to articles is the most practical way of helping people access the information on your website via Wikipedia. From our point of view, it's not necessarily ideal. There may be article that would be improved by such a link, but certainly not all will. We really do try to keep external links to a minimum. If we add yours to all the relevant articles, why not every other museum or organisation that has a connection? What we try to aim for, is to only include links that provide value beyond what would be in the article if it was as well-developed as possible. Take for example, the link you added to Hyacinthe Rigaud: I can't see anything on your page that couldn't theoretically be added to the article. Given that there are already 7 images in the article, why would we need a link to an external website with another image and a minimal amount of information? There is also a link to the Wikimedia commons, where there are more than 100 further examples of his work. It's not that there's anything wrong with your website, it's just not (in that case) necessary.


 * I'm not sure about your copyright concerns. Aren't many (most?) of the images you're linking to in the public domain anyway? As far as the conflict of interest goes, it seems from your comments above that the museum and university have good reason for wanting the links to be added. Therefore, since you work for them, it's not really appropriate for you to make the decision to include them or not. As I say, each article may have slightly different requirements. I strongly urge you not to just keep adding these links, but to discuss addition of them on relevant talkpages. You can also get more advice at the external links noticeboard. I hope this helps, -- Beloved Freak  16:40, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * i for one don't consider adding an EL to rise to the level of self promotion. (perhaps some like DGG would disagree) it's not like he added to the lead. readers might want to know where they can see the work, even the minor reduced scaled works. i would say group those together with a view of migrating to commons, source.  Slowking4 : 7@1|x 18:06, 21 September 2011 (UTC)


 * We have special pages for museum professionals that explain these matters in more detail (others commenting above please note for future reference). Try GLAM getting started. The links I saw were not appropriate - for example you put your link at the top of many sections, above frankly far more useful links. At Anthony Van Dyck you link to one portrait that is, as you say, merely a copy "after" Van Dyck, not even by the artist himself. Imagine if every museum in the world took this approach!  Among the things Wikipedia is not is a repository of links.  Links to works by modern artists that are in copyright are more likely to be useful, or where your collection is genuinely among the strongest there are. You could also, have other museums have done, suggest links to be vetted by someone at the Visual Arts Project. Or maybe approach one of the GLAM representatives in the US. I've reinstated the Mahonri Young & Maynard Dixon links, & no doubt others could be. But once people see a number of inappropriate links, they will be likely to revert all of them.  Johnbod (talk) 19:33, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Jan Verkolje
Because Chris added a link to Jan Verkolje my attention was drawn to this lemma. Then I noticed a lot of unclear text and information from a book that is almost threehundred years old, which was taken as truth. I started to check Dutch archives on Verkolje, added and changed quite a few sentences. I also added pictures at Johan de la Faille which I wrote a year ago and pictures I had not noticed they were uploaded in the meanttime. I my point of view the information from museums is usefull and should not be regarded as spam. With some effort they can be added into the text. Every bit helps to make the lemmas more usefull. I am not very fond of people who do not add, just delete without checking the content of the lemma. Greetings from Amsterdam.Taksen (talk) 21:54, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that anyone has mentioned spam. Just because a website contains useful information, does not mean that a link to it necessarily should be added to an article. If we wanted to, we could very quickly accumulate an extensive link directory. The content of several of the webpages were checked before I reverted, and I decided to revert the lot because I felt that they should be considered individually. Perhaps not every editor would agree that reverting them all is the best way to deal with this, but I know I'm not the only editor who would revert all links added en-masse by an employee of the organisation whose link is being added. Anyway, I am pleased that Johnbod has already evaluated a couple in the context of the articles and finding them valuable, added them back. Some of the links may be appropriate, many of them are not. -- Beloved Freak  22:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Did you ever check Thieme-Becker where every lemma is filled with information on paintings in different museums all over the world? Not very readible but usefull. Taksen (talk) 22:18, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry I must be missing something, but why would I check Thieme-Becker? -- Beloved Freak  22:26, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Because we don't want to die stupid.Taksen (talk) 06:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

2 cents
Contact User:Belovedfreak directly on his talk page here User talk:Belovedfreak or ask these editors to advise you - User talk:MER-C or User talk:Beetstra...Modernist (talk) 16:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've re-added relevant links to Utah, the western frontier, the Mormons, and in cases where the works and links seems apropos...Modernist (talk) 22:52, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Vincent van der Vinne
Hi, thanks for your recent additions to Vincent van der Vinne. What a great pic at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts! Do you have any more info on it from the museum? Could you maybe upload this to Commons? That way it could be linked to the page. If the only info you have is from a Museum guide book or something I think that's OK too, since the Museum is a reliable source. Jane (talk) 08:09, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oops! I see now that you added a bunch of links to paintings. All of them good and welcome, as far as I am concerned! Especially to Bartholomäus Bruyn (II)! Could you upload that one to Commons also? Thanks, Jane (talk) 08:30, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jane, We are currently working on getting the University of Utah to let us upload images from our collection to Commons. Even though the work is in the public domain our dissemination of it is pretty tightly controlled. Go to the UMFA's website and fill out the Reproduction's Request form for the time being if you need the image. As for adding additional content, I've been told by Wiki editors that posting information generated by the museum I work for is a conflict of interest. I don't have the time to post information just to have it taken down. But I will look for what we have on the Vinne piece and send it on.Cris Baczek (talk) 14:17, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, conflict of interest is difficult, but museums are different than other commercial enterprises, in my humble opinion. thanks for the pdf and if I had more time I would help you. Maybe the museum would allow you to release low res images? Jane (talk) 18:15, 18 October 2011 (UTC)