User talk:Softshoe

Welcome and thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test on the page Fannie Flagg worked, and it has been reverted or removed. However, if you would like to experiment further, please use the sandbox instead. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. —Angr (talk) 18:57, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to Fannie Flagg, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear constructive, and has been reverted. Please make use of the sandbox if you'd like to experiment with test edits. Thank you. Siawase (talk) 21:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Fannie Flagg
Hi, Softshoe, and welcome to Wikipedia. I saw your edit summary at Fannie Flagg where you state you are her publicist. I've contributed to some of Flagg's book articles and I wrote Birmingham campaign, where Flagg is mentioned. Fairly often, editors will come on Wikipedia claiming to be lawyers and threatening legal action if material is in an article. I'm going to assume for now you are who you say you are, but it's impossible for me to know.

That said, the issue of sexuality for some public figures is complex. We often see issues as very black and white: if a woman has a relationship with another woman, it makes her a lesbian even if she doesn't consider herself such. Brown, of course, has stated that she was in a relationship with Flagg, and in fact Flagg was the love of her life. I don't quite know how Flagg identifies or labels herself if she does at all. However, unless everything Rita Mae Brown has stated about her relationship with Flagg can be proven to be unreliable (i.e. Brown has been sued in court for libel or defamation, or the publisher has publicly stated the book is incorrect), the source is still reliable to use about Brown and Flagg's relationship. If Flagg has never declared herself to be open or out, there is room to word this so it is still accurate, and that would reflect that Brown has written that she and Flagg were in a romantic relationship for several years. However Flagg identifies, labels herself, or her out or in status should come from her. If she has not addressed this in a reliable source: newspaper, interview, or such, then it should not be mentioned in the article.

Otherwise, what can I do to get you to submit an image of Flagg for Wikipedia? You would have to release it into the public domain or under the GNU Free Documentation License, which I am happy to explain. Thanks. --Moni3 (talk) 13:03, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Another avenue to pursue is to add a source which contradicts Brown. E.g. "Flagg denies and rejects assertions that she is a lesbian." But you need a source for that. Lionel (talk) 02:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC)