" 

 Dear Mrs. Delong, 
 I'm writing regarding the creation of a Wikipedia page called ISDEIV.  I have 
 drafted the page on behalf of the International Committee of ISDEIV.  In your 
 message of today, I found a link, on which I was told: 

 "" The submission has not been accepted because it included copyrighted information, 
 which is not permitted on Wikipedia."" 

 I looked at the draft and I cannot identify what information is supposedly 
 copyrighted.  I will be happy to remove or replace it, but what section are you 
 referring to?   

 Thank you for your help, 

 Regards, 
 Andre Anders 

  
 Dear Aanders: 

 The page has now been deleted, so I am going by memory, but it seems to me that large sections of the article were cut-and-paste copies from the organization's web site, bylaws, and conference advertising.  That may not be exactly right; I've reviewed many pages since then.  You will know better than I which text was your own words and which wasn't. 

 Wikipedia can't accept text which has been published elsewhere, even by the person who originally published the text.  The reason is that once an article is created, it can be changed and added to by any of the thousands of editors, and no longer belongs to its originator.  It is then freely available to be copied by anyone. 

 Many people who submit material to Wikipedia think that it is a giant web page hosting service, where they can advertise their products and events.  Actually, though, an encyclopedia is not like that.  Each article has to be specially written by neutral editors, and not ""for"" anyone.  It's good that you declared your conflict of interest, but now if you decide to write an article in your own words, you'll have to be especially careful to be neutral, and to include citations to independent sources such as news reports, magazine articles, journals, books, etc. to support the information, not the organization's web site.  Any information that can't be independently confirmed should just be left out for now.  When you are finished, others will add and change what you have written as they come across other sources of information. 

 I hope that you find this helpful.  —  "