Slownotdumb

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Hello, Slownotdumb, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with Wiki Education; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:00, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your edits to Weapon of mass destruction

Hi Slownotdumb (talk · contribs), and welcome to Wikipedia!

Thanks for your contributions to the article Weapon of mass destruction, which was well-sourced and clearly written. I have made some changes following your edit and wanted to explain why I made them. As a community project, my opinion is only mine and feel free to be bold in making edits, including changing what I have written if you feel they would improve Wikipedia!

Weapon of mass destruction is a high-level overview article, covering a broad range of subjects and topics. The use, possession and access to chemical weapons is in this sense a sub-topic which is not central / directly related to the subject of the article. As such, it is better to only cover details on this topic briefly in this article, to provide context for readers and direct them towards a more in-depth article (Chemical weapon is the main article specifically on this topic). Within this more detailed article, there is greater room for the discussion of the development, modes of action, and history of chemical weapons. Even so, there are further articles on specific types of chemical weapons: Nerve agent, Blister agent... and even detailed articles for specific chemical weapons themselves Novichok, Mustard gas... Each being progressively more detailed and exhaustive as the scope of the article is more specific.

Because of this, I removed some parts you had added to Weapon of mass destruction which I feel are more suited for other articles:

• The mode of action of nerve agents added in [1] is relevant in the article Chemical Weapons as if one type of chemical weapons' mode of action is explained it makes sense for the same to be done for the other main types - however this would be too long in this broad article (see for example how long the section on nuclear weapons is, with no details on the different types of nuclear weapons' mode of action)
• Similarly, the history of Novichok development, their potency and rise in public awareness added in [2] is probably more relevant at Nerve agent and certainly at Novichok with more details
• The additions in [3] are similarly more likely suited for Chemical weapon, Blister agent, or Mustard gas

I also reworded the additions regarding the CWC in [4] to be less specific to create less risk of errors in case these facts change in the future (e.g., new states are created, admission or ratification changes...), and which I feel are more suited to the article on the CWC, as this allows more detail to be provided regarding what the requirements of the CWC are, the processes of the CWC to ensure destruction of stockpiles and non-development, etc., as well as why parties are not signatories, since when they have been eligible as parties, etc.

In closing, I have also removed some parts of sentences or phrases that are not in line with the Wikipedia Manual of Style, in particular wordings that introduce unsourced or unsourceable facts unnecessarily (e.g., "Although it is not common knowledge, chemical weapons...", "Terrorist groups and some governments have been using chemical weapons to disable and ground their enemies for quite some time."), short phrases or propositions that are interpel the reader (e.g., "In fact, the oldest...", "In this example, they used..."), and consistency in section hierarchy (e.g., "Where are chemical weapons today?" placed at the same level as "Chemical Weapons", when this is more relevant as a sub-topic). Feel free to link more often to other Wikipedia articles, this can be useful for readers that are interested in the topic to pursue their research, while simplifying the article for other readers by removing less directly relevant information (e.g., "...during the siege of Dura Europos, a Persian city (modern Syria)." can be replaced by "...during the siege of Dura-Europos", with the article on Dura-Europos providing greater context, and in this case it also facilitated checking the source and identifying a minor error (the source mistakenly writes 256 BC for the siege rather than 256 AD, which is attested by many more archaeological sources).

I hope you will continue to enjoy contributing to Wikipedia, and once again, welcome! Shazback (talk) 21:19, 16 May 2024 (UTC)