Welcome to Wikipedia, The Zwinky! I am Dethlock99 and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time. I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to Wikipedia! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page or by typing {{helpme}} at the bottom of this page. I love to help new users, so don't be afraid to leave a message! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Oh yeah, I almost forgot, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); that should automatically produce your username and the date after your post.
If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome!
I see that nobody has welcomed you to Wikipedia yet, so let me be the first! Thanks for helping us to try and find a non-local source for the article. Keep on editing!
Taken from WP:COI: 'There are no firm criteria to determine whether a conflict of interest exists, but there are warning signs. Adding material that appears to promote the interests or visibility of an article's author, its author's family members, employer, associates, or their business or personal interests, places the author in a conflict of interest. When editors write to promote their own interests, their contributions often show a characteristic lack of connection to anything the general reader might want to consult as a reference.' Some of the language in the article sounded too 'familiar' to me, and it seemed funny to me that there were only program listings as sources. Placing a WP:COI tag creates the opportunity for clarification or adding references and citations, which is exactly what you did. It wasn't meant to be offensive or personal; I'm sorry if it came across that way. Cheers! The Zwinky (talk) 15:41, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The reason I quickly added the links to his "employers" is to verify that he actually held those positions. Why would an opera house lie about who their Musical Director is? In the interim, they were better than having a completely unreferenced BLP. Italian goodies They don't establish notability in themselves (although with the positions he has, they would for classical artists), but notability is a separate issue. Normally before adding a COI tag, you look at the editor's contributions to see if they are a single purpose account, and you also look at the language of the article to see if it is promotional or "peacocky" in any way. That article simply stated who he was and what he did. It was a stub.
The tag didn't offend me personally, I've been editing on Wikipedia for almost 4 years. But think about a relatively new user who tries to help out by finding references for unreferenced articles, as suggested by many WikiProjects, including WikiProject Opera, and finds themselves immediately accused of having a conflict of interest. It may well be the last time they ever try to do that vital work (or any editing) here. Wikipedia has plenty of taggers, but a real shortage of editors who actually work to address the issues in the tags. Just something to think about... Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:29, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
