User talk:Stevenpinker

Hello, Stevenpinker, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you are stuck, and looking for help, just type {{helpme}} and your question here on your user talk page, and someone will show up shortly to answer. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! If you have any questions, see the help pages or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!---Technopat (talk) 16:30, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings

Dear Professor Pinker, I just wanted to thank you for your recent edit to the article about yourself. I think the removal of that sentence was entirely reasonable, and I would have removed it myself if I had noticed it. But still I just wanted to note that some editors are very quick to take offense when celebrities edit their own biographies, especially when adding positive or removing negative material. Generally it is a good idea to start out by proposing removing the material on the discussion page. I would be personally interested in knowing what you think about the biography in general, as I have been somewhat involved in writing it, and have asked myself if it were to your liking (especially since I do tend to disagree with many of your views, and I have actively tried to avoid that bias showing in the article (I didnt add the sentence you removed)). If you have any suggestions for additional material or any comments on your general impression of the article please let me know. All the best, ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:15, 24 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Maunus,

Thank you for your note. Please forgive me if this is not the proper way to reply to your kind note. Can you tell me the proper way to reply? It is not :obvious to this Wikipedia novice.

Best,

Steve Pinker

You are doing it right. Usually we use a colon to indent posts that respond to another post (I have done it in your post above), you can also use three tilde signs to give your post a signature and timestamp.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:55, 24 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Maunus. Of course I agree with the wariness around letting people edit their own Wikipedia pages, and I have almost always resisted the temptation. iN this case it seemed valid on quality grounds alone: a snide offhand comment after a talk does not seem worthy in an encyclopedia entry.

I appreciate the improved quality of the page, which now includes substantive scientific material instead of just the kinds of superficial controversies that attract the attention of the media. I will soon go over it more carefully, again being mindful of the need for Wikipedia pages to be objective. Thanks, Steve.Stevenpinker (talk) 22:57, 24 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]