User talk:Marc Isaacs

Talk page? I assumed this would appear when I made my own page. Or maybe it will turn up now. Let's see.

Welcome![edit]

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

The Five Pillars of Wikipedia
How to edit a page
Editing, policy, conduct, and structure tutorial
Picture tutorial
How to write a great article
Naming conventions
Manual of Style
If you're ready for the complete list of Wikipedia documentation, there's also Wikipedia:Topical index.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome!

Hi Marc,

The links in the official welcome above should help you get oriented. As for your comments on your user page, your user space is considered to be "personal" and most users will not edit any part of it except your talk page unless you expressly allow it. However, and this is contentious, user space is still Wikipedia and extremely offensive material will often be deemed unacceptable and you may be asked to remove it. Feel free to drop me a line on my own talk page if you have any further questions not answered in the links above. Cheers, Banyan Tree 00:42, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks BanyanTree.

I'm mainly just feeling my away around at the moment, trying to get used to how things work here. I'm a bit cautious about editing a lot of things really.

I probably can add things (particularly interested in improving Immune_system but I get a bit put off when I see what look like arguments happening. Maybe I don't know as much as I think I do, like..

Hopefully I can just contribute time to look through my textbooks and expand on fairly innocuous articles like I have with 5-bromouracil to build my confidence a little. The more I can do without being shouted at the better :o)

Not sure this will thread as a reply. So let's hit Save page and see.

I can't say that I know much about immunology, but one of the key guidelines for Wikipedia is Be bold!, as nothing would get written if everything had to be vetted. If you want to be cautious, check the page history and talk page of the article you're looking at to see if there are any outstanding issues that older editors are working on. This is normally an issue with articles like abortion or Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I've stumbled across contentious articles in the most obscure places. (Most articles are anything but controversial though.) The nice thing about science articles is that the information is actually verifiable and you can cite your work.

As for shouting, most users are quite helpful, though you may run across the odd Wikipedian who woke up on the wrong side of bed. I would highly recommend reading the first three links in the welcome list (5 pillars, how to edit and the tutorial) when you get a chance, as it will cover 90% of the most common mistakes that new users make. But the best way to figure out what works is to take the plunge. Happy editing, Banyan Tree 05:14, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]