User talk:Barry Vesser

Hello, Barry Vesser, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. 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! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Jytdog (talk) 16:54, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
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Edit to glyphosate
Hi Barry - you made this edit to the Glyphosate article, which has been reverted. If you read the article a bit more, you will see that there are separate sections for the toxicity of glyphosate per se, and for various formulations. You added information about the toxicity of POEA (a surfactant used in glyphosate formulations) to the section on the toxicity of glyphosate -- wrong place! Also, the information you added is already in the article, in the section on surfactants. Finally, we don't source any science-based content on press releases, which are not reliable sources. All Wikipedia content should be based on what we call reliable "secondary sources", not on "primary sources." With regard to scientific publications, papers in which scientist publish their research, where they describe their experiments and the results, are considered "primary sources." From time to time, scientists read all the "primary sources" and try to fit them together -- these are called "reviews" - they are secondary sources and are great for sourcing Wikipedia content. Statements by major scientific bodies - which include regulators - are also considered secondary sources. Please see WP:SCIRS for more information on this, and please see WP:MEDRS for anything health-related. I am sorry if this all seems really complicated. But since WP is indeed an "encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and is a radical democracy, we do need policies and guidelines to provide a rational basis for working together, and over the years, the community has developed a pretty sophisticated set of policies, guidelines and practices to make all this work - it takes some time to get your feet down on this foundation so you can work productively. Good luck! Jytdog (talk) 17:02, 15 June 2014 (UTC)