User talk:SarahSmithLay

I've restored your edit to Sparta. I can understand another editor's wariness of the edit summary "spelling" when nothing was clearly a spelling correction, and their nervousness about inappropriate use of "would" - there are some painful examples at WP:WOULDCHUCK - but once seen in the whole paragraph, your use was appropriate and constructive; thank you. NebY (talk) 14:34, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

@NebY thank you for your comment! I see how a better edit summary would have avoided the (understandable) wariness.

Additionally, I thought i might ask an editing related question.

I was considering adding some more critical scholarship on the Sparta page. Would edits that contest earlier claims be something that would be helpful to do in (my personal) sandbox instead of directly on the live page? I havent used the sandbox before, but as many of my edits have reverted, I think it might improve my edit quality.

Looking forward to hear from you! Kind regards. SarahSmithLay (talk) 20:06, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

Glad that wariness makes sense to you now. I'll be interested to see more work on the Sparta article, which I've never tried to review though I've enjoyed reading some comparatively recent scholarship. I find my sandbox useful for testing my citations and other template use, and occasionally for multi-stage transformations of tables that would have looked awful mid-change, but by and large editors don't invite other editors to review sandbox drafts; it's largely a private space as long as you don't violate copyright or whatever.

Instead, most editing starts with WP:BOLD and often follows WP:BRD too; once you're happy, make the edit, then if reverted, discuss it on the article talk page. Sparta's not an article that requires discussion beforehand.

One tip, maybe; I've occasionally seen new editors take a copy of the article into their sandbox, edit many parts, then paste the whole changed result back in one edit. If another editor finds some problems have been introduced, they're liable to revert the whole thing. Better, I think, to make multiple edits so that some can be kept. NebY (talk) 18:24, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

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Hey Sarah (or do you prefer I use your full name/last name?),

Of course your efforts to clean up the ICC page are appreciated, but it is very difficult to review the edits you have made because they are so large.

If they were merely a large collection of small changes, this would be fine, but the edits are large and include things that can be quite controversial.

I am only getting started looking at the work that has happened to the article in the last few days, but I have identified at least one possible mistake which I will be reverting manually. I think your edits were mostly constructive, so I would rather not revert the edit this was part of, but please in the future be careful not to put too many large changes into a single edit.

I am sorry if I'm being hard on you here, but I am a bit concerned about the navigability of the edit history. Slomo666 (talk) 22:57, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Dear @Slomo666,

Thank you for your comment. Just Sarah is fine. It's not hard at all, as I completely understand your concerns given the contentious nature of the page. I must admit that I found the page quite difficult to navigate and edit. I imagine the edits on the images are helpful, and that the main issues concern moved or removed content. After publishing my edit splitting the criticism section, intended to improve clarity and readability, I realized it might have been more constructive to suggest the change on the talk page beforehand.

I recently did some similar cleanup work on UN related pages, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Please do let me know if there are any points or edit choices you’d like me to clarify or explain.

Feel free to adapt or even revert my edits if that helps preserve the navigability of the edit history. As a newer editor, I’m happy to defer to your judgment, and I can redo my edits in smaller chunks if that would be better.

Finally, I’m curious what you think about the Investigations and preliminary examinations section. It’s quite large and makes the article difficult to read. Do you think the article would be improved by making the tables initially collapsible, or by removing them and linking instead to the pages with the full lists?

Kind regard SarahSmithLay (talk) 00:03, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

You are not much newer than I am. I have a rather large number of edits in part due to the sins I committed while editing a few weeks ago, so don't assume I am much more experienced somehow.

I will warn you (Learn from my mistakes, please) though that even though I did not notice while skimming anything particularly egregious, that we are not allowed as non-EC editors (you will gain EC automatically when you've made 500+ edits and had an account over 30 days, but I lost my EC for foolish behaviour) to edit anything related to the Israel-Palestine conflict "broadly construed". (I cannot tell you what broadly means here, as I've underestimated the broadness of this broad restriction many times as you could see on my talk page)

I definitely agree with you when it comes to the Investigations and Examinations section making the article difficult to read, although I am not sure what is the best solution for it. I think collapsing parts (such as the notes?) may be a good idea, but perhaps it would be better to have this discussion on the talk page of the article. Idk.

I am a bit tired now, but I can expect people may suggest it would be better to have it in prose form, while on the other hand this is a dynamic list in practice.

Slomo666 (talk) 00:23, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Additionally, I'm curious about the spelling and capitalization of UN institutions. The article uses both the Court, and the court. The article also inconsistently United States Security Council to the UN Security Council. Are there any set rules/guidelines for this? SarahSmithLay (talk) 00:23, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

YES! You are looking for the Wikipedia:Manual of Style.

If I recall correctly, MOS:ACRO says that in general, abbreviations should not be used without first appearing next to the full name, except for common abbreviations. (you should check if UN is part of the list mentioned there, but I think we should be fine as long as we wikilink to the right UNSC article and the article shows the UN abbreviation one time prior to the instance you refer to).

Also just FYI, the ICC is NOT a UN institution (at least not in the same way as the ICJ or the General Assembly(, yet)), despite its treaty being deposited at the UN as UN members are not automatically parties. (ICJ membership is mandatory)

When it comes to Court vs court, I did look this up at one point while making a large batch of copy edits (which you may have partially undone when it comes to some comma's I think) and I think there is some guideline in one of the MOS pages, but I have forgotten where and what exactly it said. The court will likely refer to itself in its judg(e)ments as the Court, and legal documents will (I assume, I have not checked) do so as well, but I don't think Wikipedia necessarily needs to do so.

This is another example of something we should really discuss on the article talk page. (As it would also concern other editors).

Warm regards,

Slomo666 (talk) 00:38, 4 November 2025 (UTC)