Praticien

Welcome!

Hello, Praticien, 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:

• Introduction to Wikipedia
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article
• Simplified Manual of Style

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Epipelagic (talk) 18:00, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Praticien, you are invited to the Teahouse

Hi Praticien! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from peers and experienced editors. I hope to see you there! Rosiestep (I'm a Teahouse host) Visit the Teahouse This message was delivered automatically by your robot friend, HostBot (talk) 01:17, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Your remarks at Talk:Pollution

Hi, Praticien. Happy New Year. I know you're new here—welcome to Wikipedia, by the way—and I don't want to see you start off on the wrong foot. I posted a note at Talk:Pollution because I wanted to let you know why I reverted your addition to the article, and I didn't think what I could fit in my edit summary quite sufficed. I wasn't obliged to explain why I reverted—the burden of explanation is always on the contributor who adds material—but I thought it might be helpful to you and hoped it might lead to a constructive discussion about the content in question. Unfortunately, your reply was really a bit over the top. Musing aloud about your fellow Wikipedians' motives is rarely a good idea. If you were joking, it was in poor taste; if you were serious, then you were so completely wrong in your assumptions that it boggles the mind. Please . . . always assume good faith when you enter a discussion, and refrain from fanciful speculations about why someone reverted your edits—especially when they've just gone to the trouble of explaining precisely why. If you're willing to take my unsolicited but well-intended advice, I'd still be interested in talking about how best to incorporate information about heavily polluted sites into Wikipedia. All the best, Rivertorch (talk) 06:08, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I have not intervened so far thinking some time for reflection might assist you in adjusting to the role of editor in Wikipedia. However it appears not to be so. In general you may wish to note that it is a bad idea to claim to be what you are not. The pattern of editing over time tends to reveal the true nature of many editors. However, more significant is your assertion that I and another editor are in collusion with polluting industries. This claim is reprehensible , indefensible and patently untrue. Wikipedia deprecates editors who attack others in this or any other way. In this case you put at risk the reputation of two established editors on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. A retraction and an apology would be in order and I had hoped would have been forthcoming immediately after the response by Rivertorch's comment above.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   20:16, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Wait a minute ! I put this emoticon ;-D in my commentary. Do you know its signification ? Praticien (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I know precisely what is intended to mean. It means that if I put an " amusing" emoticon after a derogatory comment, I can hope to get away with offending people. It doesn't work. To avoid offending people, avoid using offending remarks. Simple.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   21:14, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

As I said above, if you were joking, the joke was in poor taste. If I knew you even a little bit, I'd probably have simply chalked it up to your having a bad day or a momentary lapse in judgment and simply ignored what you said. But you have no track record yet to stand on, and you made an unfortunate blunder that offended two editors. That's not a good way to begin editing Wikipedia. I'm guessing you'd like to undo the damage and quickly put this behind you. If I'm right, be advised that the wiki markup for strikethru is <s> (placed at the beginning of the text you want to strike) and </s> (placed at the end). If that's too much trouble, feel free to blank what you wrote, and I'll remove the link I placed to this discussion. (Hint: I didn't much like the speculation about health status either.) Either way, you'll be instantly forgiven (speaking for myself here) and we can move on to talking about improving the article. Deal? Rivertorch (talk) 00:15, 3 January 2013 (UTC)