User talk:Stephen Conrad

Adolfo Müller-Ury
Please note that you cannot link to your own userpage from a wikipedia article, doing so is considered promotional-- Jac 16888 Talk 01:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

January 2012
This edit to Samuel_Coleridge-Taylor seems non-constructive. Please use the sandbox for test edits if needed. Thank you. Span (talk) 12:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My mistake. I have reverted. Sorry Span (talk) 15:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Antoine Seilern
Hi. I'm afraid the Antoine Seilern article you contributed to has parts which are very closely paraphrased from the Dictionary of Art Historians. This can be a problem under both our copyright policies and our guideline on plagiarism. While facts are not copyrightable, creative elements of presentation – including both structure and language – are. For an example of close paraphrasing, consider the following: The source says:
 * Seilern enrolled at Vienna University studying under Karl Maria Swoboda, Julius Schlosser, and Hans Sedlmayr. Seiler's collecting had blossomed on a grand scale, advised by Ludwig Burchard and Wilde. His Rubens' paintings included "Landscape by Moonlight" (onced owned by Sir Joshua Reynolds), numerous Rubens's drawings and modelli, and Tiepolos. Seilern completed his Ph.D. in 1939 with a dissertation on the Venetian influences on Rubens's ceiling paintings. Seiler's (sole) British citizenship and the annexation of Austria by the Nazi's the year before, both enabled and forced Seilern to return to England in 1939 together with his considerable art and book collection.

The article says:
 * Seilern soon enrolled at Vienna University to study the history of art under Karl Maria Swoboda, Julius Schlosser and Hans Sedlmayr. Seilern wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Venetian influences on the ceiling paintings of Sir Peter Paul Rubens which he completed in 1939. [... ] Meanwhile Seilern had started to collect seriously, and was being advised by the great Rubens scholar Ludwig Burchard and Wilde. His Rubens' paintings soon included Landscape by Moonlight (which was once the possession of Sir Joshua Reynolds), numerous paintings, drawings, copies and modelli also by Rubens, as well as oil sketches by Tiepolo, and other masters. [... ] Seilern's British citizenship and the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, both persuaded Seilern to return to England in 1939, bringing with him his already large art collection and his library.

This is an example; there are other passages that similarly follow quite closely. As a website that is widely read and reused, Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously to protect the interests of the holders of copyright as well as those of the Wikimedia Foundation and our reusers. Wikipedia's copyright policies require that the content we take from non-free sources, aside from brief and clearly marked quotations, be rewritten from scratch. So that we can be sure it does not constitute a derivative work, this article should be revised to separate it further from its source. The essay Close paraphrasing contains some suggestions for rewriting that may help avoid these issues. The article Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches also contains some suggestions for reusing material from sources that may be helpful, beginning under "Avoiding plagiarism". Please let me know if you have questions about this. (end of pro forma text) Hi, I'm sorry about this. I see the intention to create good article on Seilern, but I believe it is far too close to (what appears to me to be) the original. To be honest, I was (and am) not entirely sure if I was right to tag the article as a close paraphrase, so I'm going to ask for an expert opinion on that. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:20, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I have read your post on my user page about my possible paraphrasing of copyrighted material in this article. I agreed to write the article on Count Antoine Seilern after the Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, Deborah Swallow, told me that a member of the Seilern family was dismayed that there was no Wikipedia article on their uncle who was a major benefactor to the Institute, and had asked them repeatedly to get this written. I had researched Antoine Seilern as a result of the work I had done of the artist Adolfo Muller-Ury's relationship with the Seilern family and the article I had published in 2003 in which discussed some of this. I had no intention to paraphrase anything, as I amalgamated all my sources and pretty well re-wrote it all before I uploaded it, but some facts and names and usages are inevitably going to be similar as they were facts and names and usages that were the "sources" for the Dictionary of Art Historians, namely Braham, Farr, Byam Shaw and Blunt. I understand that neither Helen Braham (who was once Seilern's assistant, and whose published work is fundamental for facts) at the Courtauld, nor the Seilern family member, are unhappy with what I wrote, except that the latter would like more detail! However, and this is important, I never completed the article with all the specifics of Count Antoine's collection owing to the disappearance of my library into storage which would have enabled me to make more changes to the text. I am hoping to read through the entire article again shortly and make some changes and minor corrections.


 * That's all great. I thought I detected expert and possibly intimate knowledge of the subject (what would appear to be the correct burial place, purchased by his brother if I am not mistaken, rather than Aspang as Farr's biography in the DNB suggests, for example). Obviously it would be a good thing if the article could be developed further. I'd be happy to assist with that, within my very limited capabilities, and without access to a research library. But in any case, whatever is written here needs to be sourced (or at least capable of being sourced) to reliable published work; and whatever is written here must be clearly distinguishable from any and every one of those sources, and indeed from sources that may not be reliable, such as that "Dictionary". However the existing close paraphrasing came about (and the expert on copyright matters that I asked to look at it did see "close following"), it needs to be removed. If it's OK with you, I will try to do some of that in the days to come, unless you get there first. It'd be particularly useful if you'd check from time to time to see if I have inadvertently introduced errors of fact. How is your German? - the de.wikipedia article on Seilern is no more than a stub. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks for this. I have made a number of changes that I hope will be acceptable by going through the list in the report and changing words and rewriting where possible, though I could not understand why the computer disliked a common phrase like 'to the National Gallery'. I tried to put in a footnote, too, but am mystified by the process of getting it completely right despite looking at examples elsewhere! I will deal very shortly with some of the lists of names of artists by being specific, as the member of the Seilern family very much wanted.

PS. I translated the whole of Adolfo Muller-Ury into German at enormous effort some time ago but the entire article was removed from the German Wikipedia. The problem seemed to me to be that it did not like me NOT translating surnames like 'Steel' or American words meaning something else, and untranslatable expressions in English being retained, and as I never kept a copy of my translation after I had posted it on the German site. German-speaking relations offered to translate this also, but I said there was no point if Wikipedia would not accept that some words in English must stay in English veen in the German site. If you were to send me the deleted article by email at stephenjconrad2@aol.co.uk I could ask my German speaking cousins. Consequently, I decline to translate the Seilern article! I will ask the Seilern family member, however, to look at what I have written when I have added more details and he returns from abroad.


 * I saw that you had made some changes, thank you; I've added a few images. Stuff like formatting the footnotes I can easily do. Just a thought: would you or the Seilern family or the Courtauld like to upload a better image of Seilern than the one I was able to find? That would probably improve the visual impact of the page. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:11, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I noticed you had made changes to the Bibliography by getting all the titles of his 7 volume catalogue and giving it a section called Publications, which looks much better - I would have got round to that when I had my books back from storage! I have added a few things today which should break up more of the apparent "close following" to which Wikipedia objected, and a couple of footnotes for you to check to see if they are OK. I will try to make more in the next few days. SC

Hi again, I added a footnote to the page but I can't seem to get it to format. Please could you take a look at it. Thank you. SC

Hi, I decided to add a section on the Count's personality and did a little editing this morning. Hope you approve! And, in that connexion it would be great if you could take away the horrid notice at the top of the page as it surely no longer applies! Best thanks, SC
 * Hi, there! You know, we could move this conversation to the talk page of the article, since that is what is about. But for now, I'll reply here. I saw that you've added a lot more detail, and that must be good. My problem is that as I read the article, I find myself saying "that's from the Dictionary of Art Historians"; "that's from Byam Shaw's obituary". I shouldn't be able to recognise the text of other sources so readily. The article has to be written in your (or our?) own words. The template, the "horrid notice", is not a badge of shame, it's just a marker that more attention is needed to this aspect; and sorry, but I think it still belongs there. In general, anything that is added to the article needs to be sourced; adding some more references would add to credibility (you can just add in with the appropriate reference name every few sentences or so).  Mostly, Wikipedia tries to use plain English, though I personally always have trouble with that; but perhaps instead of "eschewed" we could say "did not use", and so on? Dennis Farr's DNB entry on Seilern may not be entirely factually correct, but his is more or less the tone we should be aiming at - encyclopaedic! By the way, I left a message at the German wikipedia "embassy" about reinstating the Adolfo Müller-Ury article there, and adding to the one on Seilern; we'll see what they do. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:22, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I much appreciate all your trouble. But I cannot help thinking that Wikipedia is being a little pedantic in the light of the considerable additions and changes we have both made. I guess you ran the report again? There are only so many ways of saying something factual, in chronological order, about the life of a person who has been written about fairly frequently, and as I said up above, the DoAH simply lifted facts from the sources I put at the bottom of the initial article I created and we have both pulled them about now quite a lot. I cannot access Farr's notice, but he would have sourced his DNB from JBS too, and of course Braham, and merely rewritten it. I think it's acceptable and you alas don't, so I better leave the page for a while now and allow you to rewrite those parts which you feel still echo the DNB and JBS as you think fit. I have told the member of the Seilern family who started me off with this that considerable changes have been made since I first uploaded the article, and he has asked me to Skype him. I shall let you know if he does not like anything! Oh, and I am grateful to you for speaking with the wikipedia German language people, and maybe they will see that the article is OK in the light of the English one which is now even bigger than at that time - they won't find anything written there anywhere else, as this is based on original research undertaken by me since 1984 and barely published anywhere.... I shall come back to Seilern in a few weeks. SJC
 * I've removed the tag after reviewing the report. The great bulk of correspondences noted are references, names and titles of works. University and early adult life etc is an especially tricky area to word in an original manner, & I don't think there is a problem now. A good piece - I'd previously read the Braham & this seems to cover all main points, except perhaps a little more mention of key pieces, and overall assessment of the importance of the collection. It would be nice to add/repeat a section to Courtauld Gallery with this, which I have recently done with Thomas Gambier Parry and his collection. You didn't mention Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (Bruegel), his only painting with its own article (I've added a pic). Johnbod (talk) 22:25, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
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WP:SELFCITE on Adolfo Müller-Ury
You would seem to have, on several occasions, engaged in self-citation on the Adolfo Müller-Ury page. Perhaps you should raise references to your own work or links to it on the Talk page before incorporating them into the article, as is recommended by the policy WP:SELFCITE. Agricolae (talk) 12:09, 1 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi, I do not think that adding the URL for the Muller-Ury website (I have spent 30 years researching) can be considered SELFCITE. Website URLs are commonplace all over Wikipedia. The entire Wikipedia entry is in any case MY WORK AND BASED ON MY RESEARCH. The Wikipedia entry was four inaccurate lines when I started increasing the information there in 2006. I am therefore perfectly happy to delete the entire work I have done on the Wikipedia entry if the moderators are unable to accept that as a legitimate, qualified and published art historian this work that I have added to the Wikipedia is actually my copyright and that of the Muller-Ury Stiftung in Switzerland.Stephen Conrad (talk)


 * You clearly know a lot about this subject and have done a lot of work on it, but nonetheless directing people to your personally-compiled web page is self-serving, which is what SELFCITE is specifically intended to avoid. That you say the entire Wikipedia entry, largely written by you as editor, is in turn based on your research IS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM.  This has nothing to do with your qualifications as an art historian - it has to do with you being the one who decided you are the best source to cite, and perhaps even whether we perhaps have issue with WP:NOR if you are using Wikipedia as a medium for publication of your personal original research.  The SELFCITE policy recommends raising sources in which you have a vested interest on the Talk page and letting someone uninvolved decide whether or not those sources are worth citing, to avoid the potential for self-promotion via Wikipedia, and the same applies to adding links to your own web page.  Everyone thinks their own work merits broad public attention, but they are not the most unbiased of assessors.  The important question is whether someone other than the web page's creator thinks it is worthy of the attention of Wikipedia readers. Agricolae (talk) 13:02, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi again, Thank you for your answer to mine, but it is precisely why I have stopped adding to the artist's Wikipedia entry and decided to create the research website whose URL you have this afternoon deleted. It really is too pedantic, because, as I have tried to explain when editing other pages (I created the Wikipedia entries for Gertrude Colburn, Willis Steell and Emma Marcy Raymond as a result of my work on Muller-Ury - none of which was previously in the public domain) as there is as yet no authoritative published source apart from the often somewhat inaccurate articles I list and the one I published in the BAJ, how can anyone at Wikipedia, or anyone else for that matter, say what on Muller-Ury is worth citing? They have not spent 30 years sifting accurate fact from the fictions as I have done. Nobody else is qualified to decide upon this matter and Wikipedia needs to accept that there will be instances when there is nothing published and an art historian or researcher like myself steps in to fill the gap. I should be delighted if you would read the entire content of the new Muller-Ury website and prove to me that I have something wrong. I am sure I have, but my work there is far more accurate than even the Wikipedia entry (my sources are all cited in the individual entries to his pictures, but the chapters of my biography in progress will be properly footnoted). I think it is naive of Wikipedia to believe that there are entries which have no bias; I know of one art dealer who has written Wikipedia entries as a means to promote artists' works in his stock. I doubt that any moderator would know this and if I revealed who it was they would have to delete swathes of "biased" entries and not just a URL directing interested parties to the most up-to-date source of information.Stephen Conrad (talk) 15:13, 1 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia was never intended to be a venue to publish or promote new research. It is not about whether it is wrong or not, self-published material is considered unreliable (not the same as untrue) by default because it has not undergone a formal process of independent review.  Again, everybody thinks their own research is wonderful.  Not everyone is right and Wikipedia uses independent review as a way of helping distinguish quality work from just 'something someone put on a web page' (and you and I both know that there is a lot of material people put on their own web page that is not reliable).  The policy, then, is that self-published material is not considered acceptable.  There is a second reason for this as well.  How do I put this politely?  Authors tend to lose perspective - they tend to think every minute detail about their subject is noteworthy.  Editors generally are working with a limited space, and as such, tend to constrain the excesses of their authors.  The other reason Wikipedia uses sources that have undergone independent editorial review is to be sure pages don't descend into the level of triviality that would appear were only the judgment of enthusiasts at play.  The operating rule is that if you want to get your research onto Wikipedia, get it published then add it to Wikipedia based on the publication, or more precisely, to avoid Conflict of Interest let someone else add it to Wikipedia.
 * What you describe the art dealer doing is clearly a violation of Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia is not so naive as to think this doesn't happen, but tell a police officer that since people drive in excess of the posted limit when nobody is looking they should therefor eliminate all speed limits, and see how far that argument gets you.  Without these policies, that way lies chaos - I could just as well write material in that article based on 30 seconds of my own original research that would most assuredly not be accurate, but since Wikipedia does not recognize editor expertise (after all, anyone can claim anything over the internet), my original research would have just as much right to be there as yours.  WP:NOR bars generation of content based on original research no matter who writes it or how long they have been doing that research.
 * Also, this is the second time you have mentioned 'moderators'. There is no such thing on Wikipedia, not in the decade plus that you have been active here. Look, I know where you are coming from here - I myself am an expert at a few things that I have researched for 30 years, but I also have a bit of perspective about it and even though I cringe at some of the material I find at Wikipedia, just blatantly ignoring any rules I don't like is not the way to go about addressing it. Agricolae (talk) 01:07, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Your arguments are, alas, why I largely stopped adding to Wikipedia. It does not matter what you call yourself, but what else are you except a Wikipedia checker/guardian/moderator/rule insister? You can argue all you like whether original research is being published correctly on Wikipedia, but in the case of Muller-Ury you should try reading the website whose URL you deleted and you will find extensive references to all statements made in the catalogue entries to the pictures, and photographs of documents and other sources. Some time ago I added a large number of footnote references to Wikipedia text to try to prove to the anonymous guys at Wikipedia that what I had written there was published and valid, but if you are all so anxious about my edits and the validity of my research why not revert the whole entry to the four inaccurate lines I found there in 2006? That is the implication of what you seem to want from this online encyclopedia. But believe me almost all of the original research I have given away in www.muller-ury.com is based on extensive checking of facts; for example, the French Benezit artist's Encyclopedia entry on the artist - which you would like to call a published source as peer-checked - was where I started in 1984 and I found it had errors and both art dictionaries Thieme-Becker and Vollmer are full of errors in their entries and they were published in the artist's lifetime. So, what is better here? Reference to my website, an academic website that has already received compliments from a researcher and some scholars in less than its first week since I went live, or to argue that putting the URL on Wikipedia is unacceptable if I do it myself? You could have been more practocal and read through a couple of the major entries on say Woodrow Wilson and Kaiser Wilhelm II and decided it this was suitable for citation before you deleted the URL? Stephen Conrad (talk) 17:35, 6 May 2019 (UTC)