User talk:Miles Quest

Welcome!
Hi Miles Quest! I noticed your contributions and wanted to welcome you to the Wikipedia community. I hope you like it here and decide to stay.

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Happy editing!  Esowteric +  Talk  +  Breadcrumbs   12:26, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

A lengthy welcome
Hi Miles Quest. I hope you don't mind if I share some of my thoughts on starting out as a new editor on Wikipedia: If I could get editors in your situation to follow just one piece of advice, it would be this: Learn Wikipedia by working only on non-contentious topics until you have a feel for the normal editing process and the policies that usually come up when editing casually. You'll find editing to be fun, easy, and rewarding. The rare disputes are resolved quickly and easily.

Working on biographical information about living persons is far more difficult. Wikipedia's Biographies of living persons policy requires strict adherence to multiple content policies, and applies to all information about living persons including talk pages.

If you have a relationship with the topics you want to edit, then you will need to review Wikipedia's Conflict of interest policy, which may require you to disclose your relationship and restrict your editing depending upon how you are affiliated with the subject matter. Regardless, editing in a manner that promotes an entity or viewpoint over others can appear to be detrimental to the purpose of Wikipedia and the neutrality required in articles.

Some topic areas within Wikipedia have special editing restrictions that apply to all editors. It's best to avoid these topics until you are extremely familiar with all relevant policies and guidelines.

If you work from reliable, independent sources, you shouldn't go far wrong. WP:RSP and WP:RSN are helpful in determining if a source is reliable.

I hope you find some useful information in all this, and welcome again. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 15:31, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Courtesy notice - sanctions for pseudoscience
--Hipal/Ronz (talk) 16:30, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Banned?
To respond to your comment: You are not at this time banned from anything. If you have been previously banned or blocked, then this account will be as well. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 17:39, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Hipal for the explanation, that's really helpful. And I see you campaign against wikipedia bullying so that's good to know and emboldens me to stay on a bit longer. I'll keep learning about the protocols - thanks for your advice and cheers Miles Quest (talk) 10:10, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Sheldrake
Hi Miles, welcome to Wikipedia. I regret that some of your first impressions on this place have come from your attempt to engage folks in discussion on the Rupert Sheldrake talk page. Alas, incivility and dismissiveness are par for the course there as I know from personal experience. I admire your attempts to engage in a reasonable discussion and your openness to learning more about Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. I think you will find that you are a welcome contributor on other topics. Hope to see you around. HappyWanderer15 (talk) 02:48, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi HappyWanderer15 thank you very much for this message. I only just saw it because I kind of gave up on wikipedia after such a strange opening experience as you mentioned. I am sorry to hear you have had similar such experiences. It certainly seems as if, for reasons I still don't understand, there are some very aggressive folks policing that page. I was also surprised that these editors were not just unhappy outliers but instead seemed (at first glance) to be in charge of wikipedia. However, as you say, it turns out there are many editors on wikipedia who believe in civil debate and fair editing. Your message has really encouraged me and so maybe I will try some editing again. I have lots to learn but people are being very helpful like yourself. Thank you again, really appreciate it, and see you around on wikipedia - Miles Quest (talk) 08:36, 12 January 2021 (UTC)Miles Quest