User talk:Godowsky

Contributing to Wikipedia
Thank you for your contribution to Katrine Gislinge. Given your question at that article's talk page, however, it seems that you may not understand our purpose here. In response to the note, "The domain www.katrinegislinge.dk forwards the Wikipedia page. And it seems that the present version reads much like what you would find on the homepage of an artist.", you responded, in brief, "what is the problem with that?" It may be that you meant that specifically to the first part of the note and not the second, in which case my note to you may be unnecessary. Forgive me if I am explaining what you already know.

One of Wikipedia's core policies is neutrality. We exist to neutrally document what reliable sources are saying about subjects of importance. This is one of the reasons why we strongly discourage people from "conflict of interest" editing. If you have a close connection to Ms. Gislinge, our conflict of interest guideline urges great caution, particularly with neutrality and not adding information you know to be true but cannot verify. (For more details about what, exactly, constitutes a conflict of interest, please see our conflict of interest guidelines.) This is why it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia article to read like that you would find on the homepage of an artist. An artist's homepage is designed to promote her to the public. Wikipedia is not intended for promotion.

You also make note there that Ms. Gislinge has authorized the use of material placed in the article and that, hence, there was no copyright infringement. First, the text included verbatim several reviews. Unless Ms. Gislinge authored those reviews, she may not have authority to release their copyright to Wikipedia. If those reviews were released into public domain or licensed compatibly with GFDL (Wikipedia's license), we could use them, although verbatim duplication of reviews is not within our style guidelines. We utilize limited quotes from reviews as part of summarizing critical reception.

Second, we would need external verification of Ms. Gislinge's authorization to utilize material that has been previously published on her website. We have no method in place on Wikipedia for verifying identity of contributors. Please see Donating copyrighted materials for the processes that Ms. Gislinge might follow to release text from her site for use here. However, duplication of her site will still not be appropriate for the reasons described above. We would not use text like "Katrine Gislinge’s concerts have evoked a broad spectrum of superlatives" unless we were able to cite reliable, unconnected sources that said so.

It is also inappropriate to include contact information for Ms. Gislinge's management. Wikipedia is not a resource for conducting business, and we do not include telephone numbers and contact information for that purpose.

If you have questions about this, please let me know. Alternatively, you are welcome to ask for assistance at our help desk, which is typically manned around the clock by volunteers. Thank you. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:57, 12 January 2009 (UTC)