Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Archives/2010

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Video Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Archives/2010

Proposal: pages for collaboration requests and members list

The list of collaborative requests and list of members both make the front page for this project lengthy. Should we consider moving them to their own pages and adding a navigation menu to the top? mheart (talk) 20:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Matthew C. Clarke 21:12, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be easy enough to add links for each page on the right panel. For example, I could put them below the discussion link. Along with that (or instead), we could move the links out of the "Announcements" section and add a "Quick links" section below the announcements. Is that enough or do we want something else? TheTito ^Discuss 23:59, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The main page has been like that since the GoCE was created. It would be a good idea to seperate the requests and members list.--The Taerkasten (talk) 20:36, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. I also spruced up the requests page some, too. TheTito ^Discuss 10:24, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Maps Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Archives/2010

Assistance needed in last stretch of FAC of International Space Station

Tony has raised some small prose issues ( like Noun plus -ing, dreadful sciency telegram habit of omitting "the" ) in the latest FAC of International Space Station, that require expert copy editing and have not been marked as issues by previous copy editors. If anyone can be of any assistance so that this very important and often Main page linked article can reach FAC after 3 years of work. Much appreciated. --TheDJ (talk o contribs) 11:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

With more time would consider tackling this project; but the article is long and the problems pervasive. Must pass. Sorry. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

September 2007 category = empty

After copy editing the last two articles in Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit from September 2007, the category is now empty. (Yay!) Please let me know what (if anything) needs to be done with the empty category page. --Tea with toast (talk) 16:00, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

When the category is empty a bot deletes it automatically. I have updated the project page to reflect your hard work. Good job, Tea with Toast! There were some difficult ones in there that needed a lot of work. By the way I removed the brackets from your mention of the empty category! It caused this talk page to be added to the category. Regards, --Diannaa (talk) 17:00, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

October 2007

Just been having a little look at some of the articles on the October 07 to-do list. I've taken two of them off - Final Fantasy Tactics Characters and Alternate Versions of Robin - because actually there was nothing really wrong with the text: the articles had other issues (particularly the former, which is spectactularly over-detailed) but the actual clarity of the copy was fine. The Final Fantasy article was quite heavy going to read, but that's a function of the sheer length and amount of detail included, rather than the quality of prose. Brickie (talk) 14:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I've seen similar articles when I've been working on the backlog. The tags are no longer appropriate because editors have been working on them for 2+ years, but the tags just haven't been removed. Thus, the backlog is artificially inflated. TheTito ^Discuss 22:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Duas Caras

Just went through the entire article, but I'm a bit nervous about removing the tag. I never watched the show, I only corrected grammar and made it coherent. I didn't add citations, but surely the one he has is enough. A TV show is a TV show, surely? Can someone look it over and tell me I should leave the guild? (Or did I do a decent job?) Thanks. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 17:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I like the fact that the article is a little shorter now. The plot summary was too long, and you have corrected that. I see there were some punctuation errors that needed fixing. Character names should not be in italics. Common words like "orphan" and "prostitute" do not need to be linked (everyone knows what they mean). Less common words such as "carioca" should be linked. Please don't leave the Guild! We need all helpers and you did a good job. If you don't remove the tag someone else will check the article again and do further edits (or no edits, if no more work is needed). I am removing the tag, though the article could still use the attention of someone who actually saw the show. Good luck and happy editing! --Diannaa ^TALK 04:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Just making sure I'm not doing anything wrong. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 02:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

src: 1.bp.blogspot.com

Bijbehara Massacre

I saw the Bijbehara Massacre article listed at CAT:COPY and thought I'd take a stab at it as a way to introduce myself. I had no prior knowledge of this incident, so I felt I could approach it with an unbiased eye. It was practically illegible and the sourcing was terrible. I did a lot of rewriting, added sources and reworked all the sections. So, I think it still needs copyediting and sourcing help, but at least it's now in a better state, such that others can perhaps more easily help out. --Panda609 (talk) 19:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Dhaka Residential Model College

I received a copy edit request recently on my talk page from Tanweer, a contributor to Dhaka Residential Model College. I have just finished a complete edit of the article, and would appreciate any feedback. Thanks! -- S Masters (talk) 15:22, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I would like to thank SMasters for his effective and splendid copy-edit. But I don't know why you haven't edited the introduction of the article. If you think that it's okay, than I've nothing to say. Thanks a lot! -- Tanweer (talk) 16:28, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I did edit the introduction, you can see the changes here. You can see the complete edit here. :) -- S Masters (talk) 16:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, than ok. Thanks for your co-operation. I'm going to nominate it for good article. -- Tanweer (talk) 18:54, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Good luck with that :) By the way, you might want to look at the layout for some of the pictures. Many have moved since the major edit and some adjustments are required to make it fit better. -- S Masters (talk) 06:17, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

src: 4.bp.blogspot.com

Hello

Hello,

I am interested in joining. Although I am new to Wikipedia, as I created my account earlier this evening, I have an excellent grasp of the English language and I'm willing to put time into research. The only problem being that I have to work around school, and being in band means that ineligability is not an option. I hope you can have me working for you, and if not then thanks for taking the time to read my message.

Sincerely,

--Pvt. Michael J. Caboose 03:47, 28 March 2010 (UTC) --Preceding unsigned comment added by Caboose282 (talk o contribs)

Welcome Michael, thanks for joining us! As you are just starting out, I suggest you look through our project pages and check out the "how to copyedit" help pages. Also, familiarize yourself with the Manual of Style. Perhaps you can start by working on some of the shorter articles in the backlog. That would be a great help to us. Let us know if you're stuck with anything. Cheers. -- S Masters (talk) 06:19, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

And don't worry about when you can and cannot edit. Help, whenever you can offer it, is appreciated. TheTito ^Discuss 08:07, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Articles to double-check

•  Done Traffic flow by Benedoceridebes (talk) 23:48, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this. Remember to add new sections to talk pages at the bottom, not the top. Keep up the good work! :-) -- S Masters (talk) 03:21, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

•  Done The Politically Incorrect Guide - this is my first full-fledged attempt at a copy edit for the GOCE. I would appreciate someone double-checking before removing the copy edit request. Thanks! Dtgriffith (talk) 04:52, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

It's great! Welcome to the project. You can have the honour and satisfying task of tag removal --Diannaa ^TALK 05:42, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I had a look at your edit here and it looks good to me. You should remove the {{copyedit}} tag from the article now. You should also add the {{GOCE}} tag on the article's talk page. If you want to include your name on this badge of honor, look at the instructions (under parameters) at Template:GOCE. Good job, well done! :-) -- S Masters (talk) 09:29, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both, I appreciate the feedback. I am very happy to participate in reducing the back log as time permits. Dtgriffith (talk) 20:23, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

•  Done I have just worked through an article from the December 2007 backlog, Westchester-Putnam Council. This was a challenge to copy-edit - it lacks verifiable statements and contained some confusing language. I am wondering if I should stop here and tag it with another template for cleanup - any recommendations? Is it appropriate to remove the GOCE request until further clean-up has been made? Thanks. Dtgriffith (talk) 23:27, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes, I do that. I have no choice but to give up as the copy is completely unworkable - no references to check, badly written that it makes no sense whatsoever (unless you are an expert on the topic), etc. So, I know where you are coming from. I would just leave it but you should leave the copyedit tag there in case the article is improved along the way. You can also leave a note on the article's talk page to say that you tried to edit it, but it can't continue unless other improvements are made to the copy. And yes, go ahead and slap a cleanup tag on it. Keep up the good work! :-) -- S Masters (talk) 06:12, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your recommendation. Will do. On to the next one.... Dtgriffith (talk) 17:15, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I noticed the Done checkmark placed next to my entry about Westchester-Putnam Council - does this imply it was reviewed and is considered complete? I left the Copyedit request on the article as recommended, though I don't believe there is much more than can be done until the article has been better developed. Dtgriffith (talk) 16:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I just meant to imply that your question had been addressed, and that we are moving on. I agree that the tag should stay for now Diannaa ^TALK 21:47, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Got it, thanks! Dtgriffith (talk) 22:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

src: 4.bp.blogspot.com

GOCE Strategies

I believe that we should come up with some set strategies for GOCE. I have started to go through the backlog, and have started editing short articles that can be completed quickly, so that they can be removed from the list. Some articles only need minor editing as they have been edited over the years. As such, the backlog may be slightly artificially inflated. If more people can help with this, we can at least reduce the numbers in the backlog. In the meantime, I have also started editing longer articles on the main request page, and using  Done to indicate when they have been completed. The small visual should help show that work is being done in GOCE. Please let me know your comments, thoughts, suggestions, etc. Thanks! -- S Masters (talk) 13:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

When I started in October 2009, there were about 7,975 articles in the backlog so we are actually losing ground. I too often try to pick out shorter ones that can be done in a half hour or less. Short biographies and articles about towns in India are the ones that I can accomplish quickly. But the longer more complex articles are more satisfying to do. I wonder how many people are actually active in working from this list? --Diannaa ^TALK 04:36, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Went through a few today. In some cases the tags are no longer necessary; in some cases the article can be fixed fairly quickly; then there are some articles that will have to wait in the list because multiple problems that require more time. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks for your replies. At least we now know that there are a few of us here that are active, and are working towards reducing the backlog. Keep up the good work and nice to meet you. :-) -- S Masters (talk) 03:01, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion - In reviewing the backlog I have come across several articles that need major attention in other areas before any copyediting can be properly performed. I am wondering if there is a strategy we can devise to tag or categorize such articles so other copyeditors know to revisit them after the major issues have been addressed - maybe a new category for GOCE-assessed articles? As I am still learning all of the nuances within Wikipedia I am not sure what the best way to approach such an idea would be. Any thoughts? Dtgriffith (talk) 16:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your very good suggestion. I have found my experience to be very much like yours, and I agree that we should do something about it. Currently, we are relying solely on the {{copyedit}} tag to lead us to articles in the backlog. As you have mentioned, there are many articles that are in such a state that it is not possible to copy edit unless other cleanup occurs beforehand. In addition, I sometimes wonder if I am wasting my time editing articles which seem doomed to be queued for deletion. A new form of tagging (on the talk page) seems to be a good idea. It is something that other WikiProjects use. This has the added advantage of being able to display these pages in a graded table on our project pages. However, we can't use the standard form of classes and rating for importance as it will not really tell us where the article stands as far as copy editing is concerned. Does anyone know if we can have our own customized evaluation in a template? If yes, does anyone have any suggestions what our assessment system should be like? In addition, I would like to put our members in a category. This will help in terms of giving more visibility to our project, and we can also have a page where all members appear automatically, as soon as they put our tag on their user page. The problem I see is that the name of the Guild is long, and having a category called "WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors members" is quite a mouthful. Any suggestions as to how we can shorten this? Does anyone know the naming conventions for this? Not sure if we can drop the word "members" to say "WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors" or "WikiProject Copy Editors". We really need a lot more members to help us with this project. We should be more generous in rewarding those who work hard for us (more barnstars?), and maybe we can also run some contests to create some excitement (and therefore gain new members). Any thoughts? -- S Masters (talk) 02:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, SMasters. Looks like we are on the same page regarding the assessment idea. I would keep the category concept fairly simple: the article has been reviewed by a copyeditor and has been deemed not editable until the other identified issues have been addressed. I am not sure a ranking system would be necessary, though I am open to the idea as long as it does not become too convoluted. Your other suggestions on building awareness are all good ideas, not yet sure how to implement everything. Lets see what other responses appear. Dtgriffith (talk) 03:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we could place a featurette in the WP:Wikipedia Signpost. Another suggestion that has been made repeatedly is to sort the items needing copy edit by subject matter. Not sure if this is possible, but it might speed up the work as people would know more readily which articles to choose. Diannaa ^TALK 23:04, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I have created Category:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors members, which will automatically list anyone who has the {{User Copy Edit}} tag on their user page. -- S Masters (talk) 04:49, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Have added another two barnstars for the project. Will put something on the bounty page a bit later. -- S Masters (talk) 09:42, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: Procedures and/or Guidelines - When I first came across this Guild and signed-up I was unsure if there were specific policies for removal of the Copyedit request tags when an article has been completed. It seems that this is left to the editor's own discretion, and a review is available to those who request it. I suggest establishing a simple set of guidelines to clarify this topic on the Project page, it will help new editors feel less confused or overwhelmed. I am happy to begin drafting something if everyone agrees to pursue this. Thanks. -- Dtgriffith (talk) 12:44, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Good suggestion. Diannaa ^TALK 13:57, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. You may also want to take a look at WP:BOLD when formatting your guide. -- S Masters (talk) 14:35, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both. I will start drafting something on a user page and link it here when ready for review. I am not sure how quickly I will turn this around, but I will start soon. -- Dtgriffith (talk) 17:07, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Copy editing challenge

You can participate in a copy edit challenge, as posted on the Reward board.

• Offeror: S Masters (talk)
• Date offered: 15:37, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
• Request: Help clear the backlog of the Guild of Copy Editors at its request page, or the backlog section. You must complete a full copy edit and remove the {{copyedit}} tag. Open to everyone (you do not need to be a member of GOCE).
• Reward:

Request page

• 3 articles - Modest Barnstar
• 6 articles - Copy editor's Barnstar
• 10 articles - The prestigious Guild of Copy Editors' Award

Backlog section

• 10 articles - Modest Barnstar
• 20 articles - Copy editor's Barnstar
• 30 articles - The prestigious Guild of Copy Editors' Award

If you want to mix and match, 3 articles in the backlog = 1 article on the request page. If you have any questions or have completed the challenge, leave a note on my talk page.

• Limit on rewards: Up to 3 per individual; 30 in total.
• Expires: December 31, 2010

src: pbs.twimg.com

Top 10 reasons to join the Guide of Copy Editors

Hello fellow editors, I want to put a Top 10 list on the project page to give people some reasons to join us. I have drafted a list. I'm sure not everyone will agree on every point, so I'm posting it here first for discussion and changes before I put it on the main page. Appreciate any comments or suggestions.

Top 10 reasons to join the Guide of Copy Editors:

Thanks. -- S Masters (talk) 07:54, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Overall it looks good, I especially like #1, #5 and #10. Point #6 should be reworded as it makes the idea of receiving gratitude and praise seem inauthentic. I suggest something like, "feel a sense of accomplishment for aiding those asking for help." Dtgriffith (talk) 16:57, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback! I will incorporate your suggestion. Any other comments from anyone else? If not, I will put this on the project page in the next day or so. Cheers. -- S Masters (talk) 03:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't like #3... it's way to editcountitis-y. --Ed (talk o majestic titan) 21:59, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide some alternatives? Thanks. -- S Masters (talk) 07:02, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

What about for #3: "Gain a significant amount of Wikipedia editing experience." --Preceding unsigned comment added by Dtgriffith (talk o contribs) 12:25, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I like it! -- S Masters (talk) 03:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Battle of Kursk

I have revised a couple of passages of this page but it looks a little premature given the state of the article. Is there a wiki policy on writing in sentences?Keith-264 (talk) 15:13, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Bulleted lists are ok as long as they are all the same format (either all sentences or all sentence fragments as per WP:MoS. I will make that section into conplete sentences. Copy edits will be finished tonight sometime. Thanks for your contributions to this article. Diannaa ^TALK 02:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Articles to double-check

If you have finished copy-editing an article and would like it to be approved by the GOCE, post the link and your signature here. Thank you!

•  Done Hi! I'm new to editing Wikipedia and to the GOCE. I just worked through the Routing and History sections of California_State_Route_56 and would like feedback before removing the copy editing tag. Kristin.sweeney (talk) 03:13, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi! Welcome. I have removed the Done tag for now; that implies your request has been dealt with. One of us will get it checked for you soon. Thanks for your help on the project!! Regards, Diannaa ^TALK 03:25, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Kristin.sweeney, welcome to GOCE. Thanks for helping out! :-) -- S Masters (talk) 04:54, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Kristin, I think your edits are great. Please take the honour of removing the copy edit tag. See you around the wiki Diannaa ^TALK 02:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

• Philip L. White First copy-edit (only joined yesterday) so I very much doubt its perfect. I have not made any dramatic changes just tidied up grammar and spelling - not sure how far I should go. Would really like some feedback (even if negative!) on it. Thanks Jamioe (talk) 19:03, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Although I still have not given this article a thorough going-over I just want to let you know I gave it a quick review and it still needs a large amount of work in the copy-editing dept, as well as the structure. Encyclopedic articles should not say "according to so-and-so" We should be able to say firmly and without a doubt that we are presenting the facts, especially in our biographies. The article contains too many quotations; at least some of these should be paraphrased. Etc. Diannaa ^TALK 19:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• I just finished a second pass of a major copy edit for Quicksilver (novel). This has been a work in progress for a few sporadic weeks. I would appreciate getting a second opinion before deciding it is complete as I feel I am too close to the article to make this determination. Thanks. - dtgriffith (talk) 02:11, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done I found a few punctuation and spelling corrections, not much :). Diannaa ^TALK 02:28, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Diannaa, thanks so much for your additional edits and review. Much appreciated! - dtgriffith (talk) 13:06, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

It was interesting. I think I am gonna read Cryptonomicon. :) Diannaa ^TALK 03:55, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drive/May 2010

I'm currently in the middle of participating in Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN backlog elimination drives/April 2010. At the rate they are going, they're going to completely clear their backlog before the month is out. I hereby volunteer to put the time in to get a similar backlog elimination drive going for GOCE. We'll offer a tiered system of awards, culminating with a single award for the person who does the most copyedits. Let's see if we can gain some ground on the backlog with this. ?or?f? ^Talk! 15:03, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds great! I'm in. Can you help organize this? -- S Masters (talk) 03:30, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I can organize the whole thing if we've got consensus to go ahead with it. Can you muster some more support? ?or?f? ^Talk! 14:48, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, let me alert a few of our more active members. You've got me hooked on the GAN elimination drive! Can we wait and launch this in May? That will also give us some time to get things organized. Thanks for your help. -- S Masters (talk) 16:32, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea. You have my support.Dtgriffith (talk) 12:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, May 1 is a good starting date, because it will take me a few days to get the drive setup page coded right, and then we need a good 10 to 14 days to promote it. Will get started on it either tomorrow or the next day. ?or?f? ^Talk! 14:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Had some extra time open up, so here is the rough: User:Noraft/Sandbox/2 I'd like to have a volunteer or two review that and suggest necessary changes. Once we get it looking good, we'll move it here. Also, I'm going to need help writing the calculations for the Progress section. Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN backlog elimination drives/April 2010 has it set out very nicely, but I can't duplicate it. Anyone know how to adapt that to what we're doing here? ?or?f? ^Talk! 16:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a good start. I am planning on writing up some basic guidelines to help new users get started. There was a short discussion on this in a Suggestions section that seems to have disappeared, I suppose it's being archived. I will get to the guidelines this week, hopefully we can incorporate them on the Project page and the Elimination Drive page. Sorry, I cannot help with the programming. - Dtgriffith (talk) 17:27, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice work! It looks good so far. One thing I'm concerned about is that there are two categories that need copyediting. In addition to articles tagged with {{copyedit}}, there are many outstanding articles in the Request section that we need done. The long list at the Request section has not helped the credibility of the Guild, as many who come asking for help do not get any. The articles on the Request page also tend to be longer and usually takes more time. I'm wondering if we should have two categories of entries. Any thoughts? -- S Masters (talk) 06:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I thought about that a bit. My thinking is that any article which is copyedited improves the encyclopedia, whether it was requested or not. In that respect, all articles are equal. Now, that said, a lot of the copyediting requests are because people who aren't expert users of written English are trying to get their articles through GAN and FAC. I think it is good karma to do the requests first, but I think just stating that will be enough. Will answer the length issue below. ?or?f? ^Talk! 12:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Should direct requests for copyedits be included in the Drive? I am currently working on a longer article that was requested directly on my Talk page. - Dtgriffith (talk) 15:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

In addition, having done many copyedits in the last few months, there is the fact that some articles are very short and can be done in a few minutes, while others can take many hours. I'm wondering if anyone can achieve the high numbers in the award scheme. Also, there is the matter of fairness. If person A spends four hours to do just one article while person B spends the same amount of time, but does 20. -- S Masters (talk) 06:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

This is a problem over at GAN, in my opinion. I have a solution, though. We can award one "point" for every 400 words of text copyedited (rounding to the nearest hundred). So to win the Superior Scribe, you'd have to copyedit 40,000 words in the month, or the equivalent of half a novel. If nobody wins it, we adjust downward for the next drive. Think that will work? ?or?f? ^Talk! 12:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

In terms of the calculations, the GAN elimination drive uses a bot. I can't program, perhaps someone there can help? If not, I am happy to help tabulate the results if you need me. I also noticed that for the GAN elimination drive, they sent out a notice on talk pages to their members and potentially interested parties, about 5 days or a week before the drive began. Here is an example. We have over 200 editors happily displaying a GOCE on their talk pages listed at Category:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors members, plus others listed on the members page but do not display GOCE tags. Is there a bot that can do this or do we have to do it all manually? This is starting to get exciting! :-) -- S Masters (talk) 06:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to get the guy over there who programmed that bot to talk to me, but I think he's missing me on his talk page. Will try again soon to get his attention. I can use AutoWikiBrowser to notify 200 people of something in less than half an hour, so no problem there. ?or?f? ^Talk! 12:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. OK, all sounds good. How do we count the words? Is there a script for that? Alternatively, we can categorize using the number of sections in the article. Articles with <5; <10; <15 sections, etc. -- S Masters (talk) 12:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding article size and edit count, because there are so many variables involved I agree with establishing a few categories defining article length in ranges. Counting edits can be problematic since an 'edit' could apply to only one word change or apply to several within a section. Furthermore, how would counting words apply if you delete more words than you add during a copyedit? - Dtgriffith (talk) 15:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to counting edits, just total length of the articles. You edit a 1000 word article, you get two points. There may be a rush to do the ones that don't require much work first, but that's okay! They're still out of the queue. So as the contest goes on, and the easy ones dry up, people will have to tackle the progressively harder ones. Its still a level playing field. And SMasters, yes there is an automated tool for word counts. Check this out: User talk:Dr_pda/prosesize.js. ?or?f? ^Talk! 17:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

---

The copyediting backlog elimination drive page is ready, I think. Please review it at User:Noraft/Sandbox/2. If there is a consensus that it is ready, I'll move it into place and we can start promoting it. ?or?f? ^Talk! 16:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Overall it's looking good. I caught a few things:

• Basic Guidelines #1 - I would include easy step-by-step instructions on using the prosesize.js script. It apparently has to be used with a monobook.js script which I am not at all familiar with. I can only imagine how confused anyone not tech-savvy will be - we don't want them to feel discouraged and turn away from participating. The install instructions can have their own section at the bottom of the page. Also, if that user page you referred to suddenly becomes unavailable we will want the script and install info readily accessible.
• Basic Guidelines #2 - "Log completed articles here" should be revised to refer to the Running Total section. As for removal of the GOCE tag, we need new editors to feel confident that they can remove it. Therefore, we should include a "request for the article to be double-checked by another editor" section of the Elimination Drive page to keep everything in one place. Also, there are instances when the article is in such bad shape the more clean-up has to be performed before a copyedit can be completed.
• Review section - you have a typo showing as "copedits". Are you okay with anyone making fixes like this to your user page?

Awesome that you are doing this! - Dtgriffith (talk) 17:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

If we still want, I went and typed up (hopefully simple) instructions on installing the script at User:TheTito/Rough BTS. If something needs to be corrected or simplified further, feel free to go at it. Otherwise, this looks great to me Noraft. TheTito ^Discuss 20:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I fixed #1 and #2 above. Yeah, I've opened that page up for editing, so feel free to make fixes to do whatever you'd like to improve it. I think we're just about ready to move it over to WP:GOCE... ?or?f? ^Talk! 04:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Just a few more small things. I was wondering if it's too much to ask for a small promo for GOCE? Although the drive is open to all, and it's not necessary to be a member or any requirements join GOCE, nevertheless, some editors might be interested in joining. There are some benefits, such as being able to display the {{GOCEinuse}} tag as well as have their name on the talk page after they complete the edit through the {{GOCE}} tag. It would be very good if we are able to increase the amount of editors willing to help with copyediting in the long run, beyond the one month drive. Something along the lines of: "The drive is open to all, and you do not need to be a member of GOCE to participate. However, you may want to consider joining as membership has its benefits. Please visit to the GOCE page for more information." (or something along those lines). In addition, there is nothing to point out the Requests page, so participants may miss it completely. Otherwise, it all looks good to me. Great work! In terms of checking, it will be extremely time consuming to double check every single article, and it might even be counter productive as that time could be used to copy edit more articles. Perhaps the copy about leaving questions on the talk's drive page could be expanded to include copy edit related questions. Alternatively, they can go to the Guild's talk page for such help.-- S Masters (talk) 05:37, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• I only intended the double-check idea for those not confident with removing the Copyedit tag for a particular article, not for everything. If you feel it's too much then we can skip it.
• We still need a method to address articles that have been reviewed and cannot be copyedited because of other poor conditions outside the GOCE scope. Any further ideas on creating a new tag for such a thing? I don't know the proper protocol to follow to create one. We could call it GOCEreviewed or GOCEassessed.

This is coming together beautifully! - Dtgriffith (talk) 13:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

A promo spot is a good idea. Go ahead and add it. Regarding quality control, for an activity like this, you don't double check all the articles. You spot check, and if you find a bad one, you start checking other articles that editor has worked on. ?or?f? ^Talk! 15:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding a tag for articles that can't be copyedited because of other issues, I'd call it {{CEdenied}} and have it say something like "A request for this article to be copyedited was submitted at /Requests, however the request has been denied as the article has issues which make copyediting inappropriate at this time." You could set the template up with a checklist so it actually states what the issue is. ?or?f? ^Talk! 15:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Noraft, sounds like a great idea. I am happy to create the template. I just need to learn the proper protocol to follow for template creation. Any suggestions on where to start? - Dtgriffith (talk) 17:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I like the tag idea, but I have found that the problem is not with Requests, as they are 99% OK, many of them trying to go for GA or FA. The problem is with the general copyedit tag, which is on thousands of articles. So I would not use the word "request" in there, as it is not so much a request, but a report of a problem/issue. And the word "denied" is perhaps not so suitable. Something like "copyediting is not possible at this time, until these issues are fixed", followed by a checklist, would be better. -- S Masters (talk) 03:20, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Here are some ideas: CEnotpossible, CEissues, GOCEassessed, CEundoable, CEreviewed. Let me know your thoughts. I have begun researching template creation, it's fairly simple. I'll work on this over the weekend if we get a general consensus on the tag name. - Dtgriffith (talk) 04:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

---

Outdented for readability Okay, so if we're not worried about Requests, then there's nothing to Deny. I didn't realize you were talking about the general copyedit tag. Problem is, even if a copyedit isn't appropriate or possible, the article STILL needs one, so the copyedit tag is still appropriate. I think you'd need a tag that acknowledged that a copyedit is needed, but that other issues needed to be fixed first. You know there's a template wrapper for articles with multiple issues. Maybe that's all we need. Dunno. ?or?f? ^Talk! 05:07, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the original concept is getting lost and confused (on my part as well), no problem. The idea is not to replace a copy edit tag, it's to inform other editors that a GOCE member has assessed the article and determined a major copy edit is not appropriate due to other problems. The goal is to make the Backlog elimination more efficient. I will start a new section very soon presenting the concept in-full and to gain feedback. - Dtgriffith (talk) 00:47, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the elimination drive, I'd like to set Sunday as the day we move it into the WikiProject and start promoting it, so please get any changes you want to make in by then. ?or?f? ^Talk! 05:07, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Backlog Elimination Drive is Active

At Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/May 2010. Please promote it at WP:GOCE. I'm a little busy right now and will do some promoting later. ?or?f? ^Talk! 10:03, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I have promoted the Drive on WP:GOCE under Announcements. Dtgriffith (talk) 12:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed tag: articles with copy edit requests deemed unfit

The goal is to create a tag to add to a {{copy edit}} tagged article or its talk page to help make the backlog elimination more efficient. This new tag would immediately notify other GOCE members that the article has already been reviewed by another member and determined it unfit for a major copy edit due to other outstanding issues. The original {{copy edit}} tag would remain in place. This is not intended to deny a copy edit request, rather to notify others that a major copy edit will be performed once other cleanup measures have been taken.

I suggest using the tag name GOCEreviewed. Text could read as follows:

A member of the Guild of Copy Editors has reviewed this article and determined a major copy edit cannot be performed at this time. Once the article has been cleaned-up as specified by other tags, a major copy edit will be conducted.

Please provide feedback and suggested changes. If everybody comes to an agreed format I will be happy to set up the template. Thanks! Dtgriffith (talk) 01:52, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. :-) -- S Masters (talk) 03:09, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and created the new tag Template:GOCEreviewed, I did not want to see this disappear into the archives as there have been no responses since the 17th. I have temporarily commented-out the category inclusion for this template so it is not inadvertently found and used prior to GOCE approval. Please review and give your approval or disapproval. It would be ideal to make this available for usage before the May Drive begins. Thanks. Dtgriffith (talk) 21:32, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I had replied to this but must have messed/missed somehow. I think there is a problem with this part: Once the article has been cleaned up as specified by other tags, a major copy edit will be conducted. How will anyone know when the other tags have been cleaned up? I think it's better to say something along the lines of "You should remove this tag when all issues (except copyediting) have been resolved." In any case, this is a temporary tag and there should be something about its removal, like the {{GOCEinuse}} tag. Any thoughts? -- S Masters (talk) 03:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

That is a very good point. Your suggestion is good though I think it needs a second step. When the tag is removed GOCE needs to be notified that the article is ready, either automatically or by a post made here on the Talk page. I want to keep this as simple as possible. Any other suggestions? Dtgriffith (talk) 04:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not a programmer so I have no idea if a bot can do this. Perhaps the copy can ask for the {{GOCEreviewed}} tag to be removed when all issues have been resolved, and replaced with another tag. It is possible to link a template to a category list, like what I've done for the {{User Copy Edit}} tag. I made a new category and everyone that has the membership tag on their talk page automatically gets listed in that category. This is the closest solution I would have as a non-programmer. However, would this be making things even more complicated? And would a whole new category make things a lot worse for GOCE as we would probably end up with two huge backlog lists rather than one? Remember that a lot of the articles that cannot be copy edited are really unworkable. They are badly written, poorly sourced, and many are stubs that may never move beyond that stage. Creating a whole new category for these will only ensure that this list remains large, with little possibility of it shrinking. We are alerted to an article that needs work though the {{copyedit}} tag. We quickly check to see if there's a {{GOCEreviewed}} tag on the talk page. If there is, we leave it. If there isn't, we work on it. I think that is simple enough. -- S Masters (talk) 04:45, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with all of your points, a new category would become burdensome. What do you think of revising the tag to read the following:

A member of the Guild of Copy Editors has reviewed this article and determined a major copy edit cannot be performed at this time. Once this article has been cleaned up as specified by other tags, please remove this tag and feel free to notify the Guild of Copy Editors that the article is ready. - Dtgriffith (talk) 12:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm just wondering if we need to be alerted. If the tag is removed, it will return the article to a regular {{copyedit}} state, and we will get to it at some stage. Asking for an alert may crowd the Request page, which is normally queued by active editors who are trying for GA or FA, and therefore more urgent or time sensitive. Also, while we have the tag up, we might as well run some membership promo copy on it, like on the {{GOCE}} tag. -- S Masters (talk) 19:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I took your concern and suggestion into consideration and revised the text as follows:

A member of the Guild of Copy Editors has reviewed this article and determined a major copy edit cannot be performed or completed at this time due to issues specified by other tags found on this article. Once this article has been cleaned up and improved, please remove this tag. The Guild welcomes all editors with a good grasp of English to help in the drive to improve articles. Visit our project page if you're interested in joining!

Let me know what you think. - dtgriffith (talk) 01:32, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

A member of the Guild of Copy Editors has reviewed this article and determined a major copy edit cannot be performed or completed is inappropriate at this time due to the issues specified by the other tags found on this article. Once this article has been cleaned up and improved these issues have been addressed and the related tags have been cleared, please remove this tag. The Guild welcomes all editors with a good grasp of English to help in the drive to improve articles. Visit our project page if you're interested in joining!

I think Noraft has got this. I'd be happy to go with that. :-) -- S Masters (talk) 04:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, to make it easier to copy, here it is in plaintext: A member of the Guild of Copy Editors has reviewed this article and determined a major copy edit is inappropriate at this time due to the issues specified by the other tags found on this article. Once these issues have been addressed and the related tags have been cleared, please remove this tag. The Guild welcomes all editors with a good grasp of English. Visit our project page if you're interested in joining! ?or?f? ^Talk! 12:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

This works. I will apply it to the template and activate it. Thank you for collaborating on this! - dtgriffith (talk) 22:39, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this, folks - I've been in a few situations before where I could certainly have used it. I think what I've usually done is remove the copyedit tag and put a note in the discussion page to say "Please put the copyedit tag back once you've fixed all the other issues". But this is better. Brickie (talk) 12:18, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I seem to have unwatched this page inadvertently so missed the above discussion. A quick question: is the new message intended to be yet another big box at the top of the page? If so, I prefer to see the multiple issues box remain. Normally I don't allow other issues to impede the work of cleaning up prose. An article can be copy-edited and if necessary the clean-up tags will remain, without of course the copy-edit needed tag. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 12:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is a box for the Talk page. It does not replace anything, rather, it serves as a notice to other editors that the article was found unworkable for copy edit due to other major problems. I had found several poorly composed articles in the backlog prior to creating this tag that would not benefit whatsoever from a major copy edit because of their poor condition. After bringing this subject up it was noted by other editors that they had encountered this problem too. Only use it if you feel it is necessary. - dtgriffith (talk) 17:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps this isn't the time to have this conversation, but there are many articles that are unfixable for a variety of reasons. In my view, some of these articles are candidates for deletion. If the article multiple issues, I've found the multiple issue box does the job. To some extent prose can always be fixed, if not, then the article might be candidate for deletion. Can you point me to an article where this box is being used. I'm not convinced that problem articles need yet another box. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 18:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Westchester-Putnam Council is an article I worked a lot on found in the backlog, but because it is largely incomplete in various areas, a full copy edit cannot be completed - it would be a wasted effort as the poor content will likely be rewritten. Yes, the article has multiple issues, but it's absolutely savable and does not warrant deletion. Since my copy edit and follow-up suggestions, other editors have begun to develop it further. Once it reaches a better condition as identified by some of the issues I will complete the full copy edit. There are other articles in far worse shape which I would have to dig for and I don't have the time to do right now. Maybe another editor who agreed on this tag can chime in. Also check the Talk archives from the past few months, you will see discussions that lead to this. dtgriffith (talk) 21:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I've worked on a number of those Council articles and generally they're fixable. As was explained to me when I began as a copy-editor, our task is to fix the language in the article and then move on. If I become interested in the article I tend to stay with it until it is in good shape, but truly that's my perogative. I'm not convinced that another box will result in anything, but another box on the page. Generally the articles in the back of the backlog have had eyes on them, and most of us have made the detemination not to work on them for a variety of reasons. Keeping the copyedit tag on the front page achieves one goal, but I'm unclear what is achieved with a box on the talkpage. The Westchester-Putnam Council looks fine from a language point-of-view. What I do in these case is delete copyediting from the major issues box, and move on to the next article. Also, I apologize for coming to this conversation late: I must have inadvertently unwatched when I was housecleaning the watchlist. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

At the bottom of this archive page you will see the discussion that lead to the {{copy edit}} tag remaining intact on the Westchester-Putnam Council page - I was advised not to remove it. As I have learned in my professional life, which seems to be a rule of thumb here as well, you cannot effectively perform a major copy edit on poorly composed material. Please look through the archives from March and April, you will see other discussions that lead to the creation of this tag. The few people who got involved have supported it through various rewrites and made contributions. If anyone had objected along the way, we would not have pursued it to this point. dtgriffith (talk) 00:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that. In fact at that point I still had the page watched. Didn't realize as a result a new box would be developed. At any rate, you're correct to remind me that I wasn't involved and thus I'll let it be. Sorry. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:04, 30 April 2010 (UTC) +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I apologize for restarting a conversation that apparently finished and achieved consensus. Perhaps my comments should be capped? I'm happy to do so, if you agree. In the meantime, I've removed myself from the GOCE list. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:09, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Once the copy edit drive takes place, I'm sure you will find articles where you end up scratching your head wondering what on earth the copy is saying, as many of us have. I came across a few new articles of politicians/towns/villages in India or Pakistan that left me stumped. In such cases, it is simply not possible to copy edit the article at all as we have no idea what each sentence is trying to say. The language is so bad that a lot of clarification is required. In cases like that, this new tag would be perfect. - S Masters (talk) 03:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I've looked at hundreds of articles in the backlog and do understand that some are difficult. Nonetheless, the backlog is being cleared month by month. I question the tag for two reasons. Many of these articles haven't been touched in years. If we pass them by, but add yet another tag, what have we achieved? Also, a new category will be necessary for the newly tagged articles. Has that been considered? Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 11:09, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

The Westchester-Putnam Council article was not what ultimately lead to this tag being created, it was one of my own examples that I could easily grab. Yes, we considered a category and decided against it. The value is simple, rather than 100 copy editors all review the same article with the intent to copy edit and determine it's not doable, this tag serves as a notice so those same 100 copy editors can move onto another article quickly using their time more efficiently. This was born as an effort to help GOCE members clear out the backlog. The end result is simple, if we find the tag does not work out after a few months we can abandon it, however if editors find it a useful tool then great, we keep using it. Where's the harm? dtgriffith (talk) 14:04, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

My fear is that if an article is tagged as is currently proposed, the article will languish in the backlog indefinitely. Newer editors will come along, see the tag, and leave the article without improvement. The editor who originally tagged it will forget and move on. The article will sit in the backlog. The editor who created the article is long gone. The article is tagged as inappropriate for a copyedit. Without a category of those articles tagged, the GOCE won't know which have been tagged and which not. With 8000+ articles in the backlog, and without a category to separate those tagged as inappropriate for copyediting, it's very difficult to know whether the new tag is works without trawling through the thousands of articles in the backlog. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:38, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

The tag does not limit other improvements, and if they are completed, the tag can be removed. We can easily create a page that will list all of these pages, however, we currently do not want to have yet another backlog to worry about. When the time is right, we can create this page and reassess each article. I understand your concerns but the tag is necessary to help us save time at this stage. We can change this once the situation becomes more manageable. - S Masters (talk) 08:22, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Bad bot?

MiszaBot II has archived threads from this to March and April archives, but they are not appearing in the archive box for some reason. Example: April. Why is it not producing links to the archive? Diannaa ^TALK 15:07, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Unable to solve the mystery of the misbehaving bot, I have added a second archive box so we can now access the material. We can add more months on the bottom as time goes on. Diannaa ^TALK 18:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I just looked at the bot and checked to confirm all details were accurate and following the specs of its creator. Cannot figure it out. Dtgriffith (talk) 02:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Moi aussi. I also ran a test archive box on a Different talk page and the box stopped listing months at the end of Dec, same as our box. I suspect it is halfway between a Millenium glitch and a 2012 apocalyptic scenario hence I gave up. I was unable to find any other pages that used a month-by-month auto-box exactly like ours despite hunting for a while, so I do not know if this is a widespread problem or not. Diannaa ^TALK 03:25, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed update to Copy Edit Guidelines

Please see my proposed draft at the following link: User:Dtgriffith/CEGuideDraft. I have copied over the existing "Copy editing" section of the Project page and added new subsections: "GOCEreviewed tag" and "Removal of copy edit tag". I determined both topics are related to each other as well as to the new Backlog Elimination drive beginning on May 1st. Please feel free to review, edit and help develop these new proposed guidelines.

Please note: the GOCEreviewed section and references will only be published if there is an agreed consensus here at the Guild to move forward with it.

Let's make this happen quickly as the Backlog Elimination Drive is about to be published and promoted on the project page. I am thinking of a deadline around April 25th. Thanks. Dtgriffith (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I have checked it over and can think of no improvements. Diannaa ^TALK 16:20, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

This has been posted for almost a week and close to being archived. Does anyone have any further feedback on this proposal? Dtgriffith (talk) 12:19, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen the original, but this version looks okay to me. Go for it. ?or?f? ^Talk! 15:43, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The original is currently on the live Project page. I will wait until the 25th as originally planned in case anyone else wants to contribute, especially since it makes reference to the GOCEreviewed tag we are still working out. Thanks! - Dtgriffith (talk) 16:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I have added these new sections to the Copy Edit guidelines on the Project page. Thank you for your help. I believe this will be very helpful to newcomers. - dtgriffith (talk) 23:03, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Question/concern regarding elimination drive

I just noticed that the article Westchester-Putnam Council was copy edited by another editor and marked as complete. The notes I made about the article requiring further development on the Talk page before a final copy edit could be completed were apparently disregarded. As recommended here at GOCE for this reason, the {{copy edit}} tag was left intact and I had even applied the new {{GOCEreviewed}} tag. I am concerned that some editors are going to burn through these edits only to build their numbers, not giving proper care to previous work performed or the discussions about the articles. Any thoughts? dtgriffith (talk) 03:25, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that comes under the "spot review" clause on the drive page. If you see this happening, notify the editor and ask them to follow-up. If they choose not to follow up, form a consensus with me and SMasters and we'll tell them they need to either (1) follow up; (2) clearly articulate why the previous comments are no longer valid; or (3) or forfeit the credit. ?or?f? ^Talk! 04:04, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I would agree if the suggestions on the talkpage were in regards to language of MoS issues, but they address improvement issues, which is not under our purview, unless our purview has changed since I've been involved with the GOCE. The edits made to that particular article improve the prose and the formatting of the article, so in my view, it would be wrong to ask them to forfeit the credit.Truthkeeper88 (talk) 04:09, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I have no personal interest in seeing anyone forfeit credit. You consider this a valid finalization of a major copy edit and I accept that. However, this should have been conveyed to me when I previously asked how far should I go with this particular article in regards to the {{copy edit}} tag requirements. I could have easily finalized the article as the other editor did, but that seemed inappropriate. This opens up a larger question for me where I am seeing two POVs on GOCE: 1. are we only responsible for grammar, spelling and conforming articles to the Manual of Style; or 2. are we responsible for taking a more holistic approach that includes the improvement of an article's language and its communication? The second concept applies in my professional life. What do you all recommend? dtgriffith (talk) 05:02, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Personally I tend to take the holistic approach, but with the expectation that the originator/s or the article may be long gone, so I stay with an article until it's properly cited, developed, etc. Unfortunately such an approach takes a great deal of time. Generally we are responsible for fixing prose and MoS errors. In a drive such as this, I believe that's all that can be expected. If individual editors find articles they want to work on once the drive is done, that of course, would be fine. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 05:31, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Truthkeeper88, I appreciate your feedback and advise. dtgriffith (talk) 05:47, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Truthkeeper. When I joined the Guild in October 09, there were only 7900 items in the backlog. Also it might be worthwhile when making the choice as to how much time to spend on an article to look at article traffic statistics. Compare Westchester-Putnam Council to Pune. Both are lengthy time consuming articles to edit, but one is plainly more valuable to our readers than the other. Diannaa ^TALK 05:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that if the article has been copyedited, the tag can be removed. If the suggestions are for other sorts of development, then that's not linked to copyediting, so we have no interest (as GOCE) there. ?or?f? ^Talk! 07:42, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I believe that the scope for GOCE is very clear -- to address the {{copyedit}} tag. When you click on the tag, it takes you to WP:COPYEDIT. That is the work that I will do to ensure that I can get rid of the tag. After that, my job as far as GOCE is concerned, is complete. My job is not to get it to GA or FA status, or raise it beyond a stub. If I have a particular interest in an article, I might do more, but that is in my personal capacity and not in terms of my work for GOCE. There are many article where I have no personal interest whatsoever, but as long as I have fixed it, I remove the tag and move on. - S Masters (talk) 08:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, all, for your valuable insight. dtgriffith (talk) 14:34, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Guide lines needed

• Could a member please point me to the usage guidelines for members using "GOCEinuse" template (flag). Please use (talkback) or answer on my talk. Thank you Mlpearc MESSAGE 15:25, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

You can use the tag if you are going to edit the article (or section) in a major way. It helps to stop edit conflicts while you're working. When you have finished, remember to remove it. If I start a major edit but have to stop for a long period of time, say overnight, I will remove it and put it back when I work on it again. As you're a member, don't forget to add:

{{GOCE|user=YourName|date=XX Month 2010}} ...on the article's talk page when you finish. It helps prevent repeated work by other members and is also a nice ad for GOCE and yourself. - S Masters (talk) 09:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you for this information, just what I was looking for. Cheers Mlpearc MESSAGE 13:12, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

GOCE flag up for deletion

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 May 22#Template:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors

Mlpearc pull my chain Trib's 00:33, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. Will put in my 2 cents soon. - S Masters (talk) 05:31, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

TFD closed with "no consensus". It has been recommended for discussion at the Village Pump for its significance to the community and possible merge with Article History. The next chapter begins, I suppose. dtgriffith (talk) 13:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

New chart

I found the daily charting of progress to be a valuable prompt to keep at it and propose a weekly chart be added to the home page to give editors a quick glimpse at our progress. Here is a simple chart we can add to the page in a week or so, once the backlog elimination drive graphs are removed. Comments? Improvements? Diannaa ^TALK 05:49, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I really like the idea. How long do you think we should go back with the totals? Obviously, we want enough rows to get perspective, but not so many that it clutters up the project page. I'd say the last five to ten weeks might be best, then just rotate them out as we progress. Torchiest ^talk/_contribs 12:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it is a good idea. Showing no more than the last 10 weeks should be sufficient, though it could be good to have any milestones (such as a significant change) and the starting number/date notated. dtgriffith (talk) 14:32, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I thought too: put about a 10-week roll. We could also add a monthly chart showing about 6 months; that would not take up much space. --Diannaa ^TALK 19:50, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Here is what the monthly chart would look like. We could put both, or just the monthly one. People can compare the chart with the daily data to plan their workload so the backlog keeps its happy downward trend. --Diannaa ^TALK 01:07, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I am not adverse to showing both charts. I am wondering if there is an automated chart out there that can continuously track all data and only show the basic stuff from your examples above. Something like Google Analytics, but not nearly as comprehensive. Maybe this is overkill, I don't know what exists on other WikiProjects' pages. dtgriffith (talk) 01:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I think having both would be fine. I'm also pleased to note that we weren't losing ground too badly before the May drive, and in fact had a green month without any drive whatsoever. I find that quite encouraging. We should be able to tread water, as it were, until the next drive, when we push down to a lower plateau. Torchiest ^talk/_contribs 04:55, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Request for help

I have just carried out a major edit on the Apostles of Linnaeus page in response to a special request. As a newbie I would appreciate it if some more experienced editors could take a look and provide feedback, advise etc. etc. so that I can learn from any mistakes.

I have contacted the originator directly, informed them of the copy edit and requested a few fact checks.

--SciHound (talk) 08:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello SciHound, I think the article looks fantastic. I just read the introduction. It was simple and easy to read. It's a fine article. Davtra (talk) 08:04, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Blush! Thanks. If you have any more heavily scientific articles that others fear, don't hesitate to throw a pointer my way. I do this stuff for a living and can't get enough! --SciHound (talk) 17:00, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Emergency copyedit needed!

Anyone who can copyedit in a journalistic style is urged to take a quick look at: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-06-07/Special_story_2. The paper is going to go out in less than 24 hours, and I just wrote this story. It needs work. ?or?f? ^Talk! 01:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thought I bring this up here. I have MLA, 6th edition, and section 5.8.2 is for a sound recording. Perhaps the edition is wrong? At any rate, should be fixed. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 12:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that up. That's what happens when you research these things on the net sometimes. I deleted it from the article, which is now taking fire on its talk page for basically not being notable. LOL. ?or?f? ^Talk! 13:35, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The GOCEreviewed tag

If a copy editor places this tag in the talk page, it cannot remove the {{copyedit}} tag as per instructions:

The tag {{copy edit}} should not be removed from the article in this case. This is not to be used as an attempt to deny copy edits. You should watch the article and make your copy editing contributions when you feel other clean-up measures have been sufficiently performed.

I joined the guild a few days ago. I've found articles with outstanding issues (for example, notability and clean-up issues), so the {{GOCEreviewed}} tag was applied. And now I have to watch them? If I tagged 100 articles, I really don't want to keep track and watch them. I think the {{GOCEreviewed}} template should display the copy-editor's username and also tell editors to notify the copy editor once the major issues have been resolved.

The placement of {{GOCEreviewed}} tag means the article was denied for a copy edit, is it not? I think the {{copyedit}} should be removed. Once the issues have been resolved, editors may tag the article again. Davtra (talk) 04:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The tag was more intended for garbled, unintelligible articles and so far has been lightly used. If you do not feel an article is ready for a copy edit, it is OK to simply move on to another article. You are not obligated to place the tag or watch the article if you view a page and decide not to edit it. I hope this helps explain the intent of this new tag. Diannaa ^TALK 05:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I would like to further clarify that this tag is in no way a denial to copy edit, it simply means it cannot be immediately performed because of the article's poor condition. dtgriffith (talk) 12:16, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Diannaa and dtgriffith, thanks for the clarification. Thanks, Davtra (talk) 01:06, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Timing

I actually have more time now than I will in July. I didn't hear about this in May, so I'd like to get started for the drive. Enigma^msg 03:22, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

We'd love your help! However we can't credit you for the drive...BUT, tell you what: I'll award you a barnstar for however much you get done between now and July 1. Fair? The encyclopedia gets improved, GOCE keeps the number of copyedit tags in check, and you get a barnstar. Everyone wins. Do me a favor and edit articles from 2008, as that moves us toward our overall goal of clearing 2008. Thanks! ?or?f? ^Talk! 04:16, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

You can keep a running tally on my talk page of your article completions. Copy the code from the drive page. ?or?f? ^Talk! 04:17, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

OK. Enigma^msg 04:22, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

July Backlog Elimination Drive Marketing Report

Esteemed GOCE colleagues, I'm pleased to report that marketing for the July drive is going well, with almost 40 editors signed up and still two and a half weeks to go. This is more editors than we had actively participate in the last drive. Also, as an added bonus User:Jimbo Wales has signed up and lent his support via a tweet about the drive. This should help raise our profile. In addition, an article in the Wikipedia Signpost is due out in a couple days which should also provide good exposure. I think we're on track to hit 60 active participants in the next drive, and that clearing all of 2008 in this drive is an achievable goal.

I need the help of all editors reading this report, however. Please go into your other WikiProjects and advertise this drive. Do it by mentioning it is a good way to get a barnstar. I've added 20 participants myself that way. ?or?f? ^Talk! 02:17, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

This is all great news. I have just put up a simple announcement on the only other project I am part of right now, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Connecticut. I will do the same on my user page - you never know. dtgriffith (talk) 01:59, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

First attempt at copyediting needs a check please

Hi all

Can someone check my edits please on the article Ukrainian Exchange.

It would be my first under my new Guild membership and so need an experienced eye to make sure I did things fairly correctly and within MOS and MOSNUM

I am still unclear on the usage of comma after years. I thought I found something about it yesterday but cannot find that link again in MOS and MOSNUM as they tend to only show examples out of sentence and not it's usage in sentences.

• Incorrect: On the 12 July, 2009 the
• Correct: On the 12 July, 2009, the

Is that correct ?

thanks...Chaosdruid (talk)

Hello and welcome to the guild. I'm new as well. In regards to your question (as per Manual of Style (dates and numbers)), if the month is before day (July 12, 2009), a comma is required after the year. If the day is before month (12 July 2009), a comma is not required after the year Thanks, Davtra (talk) 07:10, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, remove the article the from in front of the date. Torchiest ^talk/_contribs 12:38, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Unexpected Ai

To be honest most of the text of the article looks like copyvio

The opening para and closing are lifted directly off the official website page 1 and page 4 of the biography section (nice animation on their site though!).

THere is not much info available outside the B13 website and I am not sure how to proceed with that one.

Chaosdruid (talk) 08:03, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Remember that you're a Wikipedian first, copyeditor second (or third or whatever). Copyright violations should be removed immediately. In fact, you're perfectly justified in removing any unsourced material you find, although that's not the approach everyone uses or recommends. ?or?f? ^Talk! 08:35, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Yup - I immediately tagged it as copyvio and reported it after removing the copyedit tag and replacing with "too many problems for editing now"

Chaosdruid (talk) 10:25, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Copyeditor's Barnstar retouch

I proposed a retouch on {{The Copyeditor's Barnstar}} some time ago and as it is in GOCE scope and was originally selected by GOCE members, would there be some more opinions, please? I advertised it before, but it never got more participants, so this may be the best place. It will be needed to re-update proposed backlog elimination awards before July to not reuse design elements, should CE barnstar be changed. --  HELLKNOWZ  ?TALK 16:27, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Category:Lists of popular pages by WikiProject

You may wish to refer to the new category Category:Lists of popular pages by WikiProject.--Wavelength (talk) 21:15, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

July Backlog Elimination Drive Planning

Structure

Current structure is basically the same. I've made some changes, outlined in the next section. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Changes

Since the most efficient form of government is a dictatorship, I'm going to make changes unilaterally unless challenged. If you find a change to be problematic, just say why, and we'll all discuss it and form consensus. If I don't hear from you about a change, I assume you agree, or at least acquiesce. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Dropping Requests

As there are too few requests to give out an award on now, I'm dropping requests from the leaderboard. They will not be tracked nor awarded this time. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

What about an award for putting up most interesting/diverse requests that get actually completed? I expect to see a list of "most-wanted" when I visit GOCE page. And maintaining it with interesting articles can be awarded accordingly. Just a thought. --  Hellknowz  ?talk  01:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Adding "Leaderboard Award"

I am extending the leaderboard to top 5 and adding an award for anyone who makes the top five in either total articles or total words. This is to enhance the contest for the more competitive-minded, and push them to excel. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Regulating Claims

I've added language regulating use of Doing... and  Working so that one must immediate begin copyediting after placing these tags. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Awards

I've raised the bar for awards slightly. Also, I'm planning on making them cumulative with past drives. That is, if you got 20,000 words in the last drive and 40,000 words in this one, you qualify for the award at 60,000. For those who have already surpassed the top level, they'll loop. So someone with 120,000 cumulative words will qualify for the 100,000 award and a second 20,000 award. The purpose for this is to encourage returners. Folks who had their eye on an award and didn't quite make it will have a second chance. Others who would like the Caretaker's Star but will never have that much time in a single month will be able to get to it over time. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

The awards/barnstars are probably the most motivational aspect of this push. I suggest adding couple new designs for more specialized contributions, e.g. "Gamecruft cleaner" or alike. --  Hellknowz  ?talk  01:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Are there any good ideas/suggestions for barnstars to increase variety? I can attempt my hand at designing one or two. --  Hellknowz  ?talk  23:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I created my own barnstar that I handed out after the first drive: The 10k Copyedit Barnstar. It was for editing individual articles of greater than 10,000 words. Some variations on that idea could be good, such as editing the most articles over a certain size, such as 5,000 words, or the largest average article size. Torchiest ^talk/_contribs 23:58, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Funny, I just proposed to update that very copyedit barnstar. I suppose it can be easily modified to reflect different numbers/details. One idea I have is to have a stack of books around the barnstar for .. well, something :) --  Hellknowz  ?talk  00:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I think these are great ideas! I'd love to add these kinds of barnstars to the drive. Add it to the awards page. I'll make a spot for it now. ?or?f? ^Talk! 07:17, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I can't seem to find an awards page. Can the current (May's) barnstars be redesgined to have completely unique stars for this project only? Would a GOCE symbolic/label be appropriate? Should a colour theme be followed? Anywhere I can look for reference? And finally, any cool ideas? --  HELLKNOWZ  ?TALK 18:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I added the new awards here, and began a discussion of them here. Torchiest ^talk/_contribs 20:05, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Marketing

We're getting some mentions in the The Signpost, which is good, but not good enough. I've been thinking about marketing efforts, outlined below. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

You can advertise in the newsletters of specific projects. The talk pages get enough requests as it is. But delivered newsletters are usually read more enthusiastically. --  Hellknowz  ?talk  01:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Are there any specific projects one would recommend? ?or?f? ^Talk! 15:51, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on which projects have backlogs and how big. --  HELLKNOWZ  ?TALK 16:02, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

New Editors

I think if we contacted new editors and said "Hi, I noticed you were new. You know, Wikipedia editors who make significant contributions get these nifty things called barnstars, and you can get one by helping to copyedit articles..." we'd pull some new people into both the drive and the GOCE. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

This seems like a well-intentioned call-out, but I fear new editors are not the most qualified folk. The articles needing copyedits are best handled by editors who know their way around. If I were to jump into copyediting with my first edits, I suspect I would have left a lot of mess behind without realising it. --  Hellknowz  ?talk  01:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. I think people know whether or not they have a good command of English coming in. I was an experienced copyeditor when I had zero edits (just not on Wikipedia), and others are too. Identifying those people and pulling them into the project before they get involved with other things is key. I don't think excluding new people is ever a good policy. Even if they don't have the hang of wikiformatting, know the five pillars, or whatever, all that can be taught fairly quickly by providing a couple links in the welcome email we send out. ?or?f? ^Talk! 10:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, you did not specify before that you would look for people who already seem good writers. And I was indeed talking mostly about style, formatting, policies, and such. Sorry, I'm a bit unaware of GOCE scope, I though it was expected to cleanup syntax/style to WP standards? Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposing the idea, just pointing things out from a different direction. --  Hellknowz  ?talk  12:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

No problem. GOCE mostly works on regular copyediting: grammar, spelling, punctuation. They also do "light" Manual of Style compliance, but all it takes to do that is to read the MoS and refer back to it from time to time. GOCE has always been very open to inexperienced copyeditors, encouraging them to join GOCE to find a mentor and build their skills. ?or?f? ^Talk! 13:27, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

WikiProjects

We could go to pretty much every WikiProject out there and say "Hey, now you can get barnstars for copyediting articles within your own project." The trick is, most WikiProjects will only have a few articles requiring copyedit, so after all those ones are done, copyeditors we recruit this way will likely turn to the general pile... ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Recruitment Incentives

I've been thinking about ways to encourage current participants to get new participants to sign up. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Awards

I've been thinking about adding a special award for someone who brings in other active participants. It could increase in magnitude or stature the more participants one brings in. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I would be cautious about too many editors trying to win the "find participant" barnstar. Advertising is profitable, too much advertising is pure annoying/damaging. I am exaggerating of course, but editors all spamming same large-traffic avenues should be discouraged. --  Hellknowz  ?talk  01:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not talking about giving people license to spam. I'm talking about motivating people to activate their personal networks and ask their friends and colleagues to come in with them. ?or?f? ^Talk! 10:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought you primarily meant "more participants from within WP". This is what I exaggerated about the spam part. I assumed you would seek more experienced editors. Drafting people from outside WP is a life-long goal as it is. --  Hellknowz  ?talk  12:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I meant friends and colleagues in Wikipedia. I have a half dozen editors I work with regularly or have helped on projects. If I had a project I was trying to get more participation going in, I could ask them to help out, and they'd be more likely to do so if I asked, than they would if they saw something in The Signpost or on a WikiProject talk page. So I'm talking about encouraging people to do that. ?or?f? ^Talk! 13:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I have a couple more award ideas.

1. I think we should give an award to the person who copyedits the most articles on the first day of the drive. The purpose of this award is to get everybody going on day 1. Last drive we had people sign up, but never actually copyedit a single article.
2. I think we should give a Most Prolific Newcomer Award to the editor with the highest number of copyedits who joined the GOCE in the last month. This is to encourage new signups. I will mention it in The Signpost article before it goes out. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:47, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Teams?

It has occurred to me, that in the spirit of friendly competition, we could allow participants to form groups or teams, and then issue a group or team award at the end, to the team with the highest totals. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Seems interesting and group members can certainly motivate each other. How will teams find/arrange themselves? Are GOCE members on IRC or will there be a sub-page devoted to this? --  Hellknowz  ?talk  01:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Teams could be useful; could break up the workload for long articles. Davtra (talk) 11:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I like this idea. We always have some monster articles sitting in the backlog and if the formation of teams is what is needed, great. I think a subpage would be easiest where it lists each team with its members. We could have a link on the BED (backlog elimination drive) page and a link on our main page. Should we limit the number of participants per team? TheTito ^Discuss 19:14, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Wait a second...if we have teams, it will still have to be one editor getting credit for editing one article. Accounting for team editing of articles is going to be impossible. So teams may help each other, but only one editor can claim credit for a given article. ?or?f? ^Talk! 23:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a maximum of three or four per group?Davtra (talk) 22:53, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I see where you're going with that...that's one way to do it, or say no maximum but divide the total contributions by the members to get a per-member score. ?or?f? ^Talk! 06:36, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

That's a good thought: divide the contributions and/or word total amongst the group. TheTito ^Discuss 09:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to have time to organize teams for this drive. If anyone would like to, I'd be happy to make them the team coordinator, and we can work together to roll it out in a coordinated way. Be advised this job will require posting messages on 60+ talk pages to start with, then following up individually with those that respond. ?or?f? ^Talk! 09:45, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Copy Editors' Backlog Drive with a Note From Jimbo

Don't forget to drop by and read the article on GOCE's backlog drive in the current issue of Wikipedia Signpost - featuring interviews with noraft, Diannaa, Jimbo Wales and myself. ;-) - S Masters (talk) 05:48, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• I like it Davtra (talk) 06:56, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm gonna have to put on my sunglasses due to the blinding light all of our stars are emitting. TheTito ^Discuss 09:08, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Very nice to see this drive gaining attention. Every little bit helps! dtgriffith (talk) 16:25, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Undated article backlog category

I just realized that the 36 articles currently in the undated category can have their {{copy edit}} tags corrected to appear in their proper months. In some cases, it's just a syntax error made by the editor who added the tag. Would anyone be against me going through and correcting those tags so we no longer have an "undated" category? This will provide more realistic numbers for what articles from 2008 we have to tackle for the next Drive. dtgriffith (talk) 16:24, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought these were the most recently tagged articles, and that a bot would come along and date them soon enough. The ones I checkd all had the tag added in the last three days. Diannaa ^TALK 19:42, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I have not gone through everything, but this is an example of what I found that lead me to this subject. I see some were added fairly recently without the date attribute. To make matters simple, I will just fix any of the tags with syntax errors like the example. dtgriffith (talk) 21:18, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I get it. Diannaa ^TALK 22:59, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I have been going through the articles one at a time. Quite a few are very short or have a section identified for copy edit that is minimal, so I have been clearing the articles out as I go. I am making it my personal goal to clear out as much as I can for this category over the next week. dtgriffith (talk) 01:06, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

During the May drive, this category was reduced to a single digit at one point, so the majority of articles in it are from late May and June. ?or?f? ^Talk! 07:40, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Tags

Hi

Just to clarify, do any of the copy edit tags go on the article page, or are they all supposed to be put on talk pages ?

thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 09:47, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

• {{copyedit}} only goes on article pages.
• {{GOCEinuse}} only goes on article pages.
• {{GOCEeffort}} only goes on category pages.
• {{GOCE}} only goes on talk pages.
• {{GOCEreviewed}} only goes on talk pages.

Hope that is helpful. ?or?f? ^Talk! 21:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Perfect - I had a snide comment from someone who said I was using a banner as an ad and he removed it - I just wanted to make sure i wasn't wrong lol

When you say category pages - can you clarify what you mean by that ?

Chaosdruid (talk) 22:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I think a category page is like this: Category:Space_plasmas (unless I'm wrong). Davtra (talk) 04:45, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

You are not wrong. ?or?f? ^Talk! 05:56, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Why would anyone want to put a tag (GOCEeffort) that says "This page is now receiving the attention of the Guild of Copy Editors" onto anything other than the article page - especially a cat list ?

I could understand it if it was on the chat page and said "this article" but it says "this page"

Chaosdruid (talk) 04:07, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Quick check request

Hi all

I have just had a go at Biositemap and wondered if someone could spare the time to go through it and give it a quick check

My water wings are coming off after the next article but for now I still need someone to look over my shoulder :¬)

thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 21:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

A couple puncutation things were missed and a spelling error. Please place the citation after a punctuation mark, not before. We do not like to see external links embedded in the article text (though this is not strictly a copy-edit thing, it does come under WP:MoS). Headers should not have capitalisation (except for the first word). Now the positive things: good division and organisation. The lead is the correct size for the amount of material presented. Nice to have you aboard :-)) --Diannaa ^TALK 01:16, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Save our ships

We could use some help copyediting the A-class ship articles from time to time if anyone is interested. I don't know how or if this would fit in with your July copyediting drive, but I don't see why not. We're a collegial group, and the work isn't that hard, especially if you cheat by taking a peek at our recently promoted FAs (check the history). - Dank (push to talk) 02:55, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Dank. I have bookmarked this page and will help, but probably only a little until the drive is over. --Diannaa ^TALK 03:21, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks much. - Dank (push to talk) 11:48, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Copy editing

Hi

Are we supposed to fix refs while we are copyediting ?

Should we add cn and others while copyediting ?

thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 00:11, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

It depends. Typically we focus mostly on our main job, which is the copy edit itself. I would not add a lot of {{fact}} tags to articles but perhaps a general {{refimprove}}. It's a personal choice based on how much time you want to devote to the page as to how much extra work you want to do. --Diannaa ^TALK 03:12, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

K - so just copy edit then with some extras is prob how I will play it from now on

Thx for the reply Chaosdruid (talk) 03:35, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Diannaa, that reply is helpful for me as I work on the first article I plunged into during the backlog elimination drive. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

More advice: Especially during the drives, we focus mainly on our primary function of copy editing, in order to reduce the backlog as much as possible during our event. Other times of year you might like to do more on each article, or on ones of particular interest. Items you are reviewing for people that are applying for GA and FA status will require meticulous attention to all aspects of the article (copy edit, format footnotes, etc) but often there will be other folks looking after locating the actual citations and adding them to the article. If you run across one during the drive that you wish to work on further, you could bookmark it and do it after the completion of the drive, to narrow your focus during the event itself. --Diannaa ^TALK

Is TheFreeDictionary.com a reliable source for spelling?

I saw an article (just before I joined the backlog elimination drive) in which a bizarre spelling was linked to TheFreeDictionary.com. Aren't there better sources for all Wikipedians to use to check spelling, even if we confine ourselves to online sources? (As a former professional editor and translator, I have all the most authoritative print dictionaries and other reference books used in editorial offices in my home office.) I don't want to get into an edit war on that article, but I have actually seen a link off-Wiki in which people laugh at that particular article because of that bizarre spelling, so I think it should be fixed. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:39, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

That dictionary uses data from other dictionaries, and it's free. I'm not sure if it's a reliable source for spelling. I think it mainly uses American English. The reliable online dictionaries that I have seen require payment, for example, Oxford Dictionaries and Australian Macquarie Dictionary.  Davtra  ^(talk) 07:22, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Out of interest, what is the word with the bizarre spelling? We want a laugh too! How does Wiktionary spell it? Personally, I do not conside TheFreeDictionary.com reliable. I would use a more traditional source. - S Masters (talk) 09:09, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

www.merriam-webster.com is reliable for American spelling; they usually have the words, although you have to pay for the unabridged version. Personally I use a Webster's New World Dictionary CD-ROM, since WNWD is the preferred desk reference per AP Stylebook. - Dank (push to talk) 12:46, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I just found http://www.oxforddictionaries.com. It looks good.  Davtra  ^(talk) 02:16, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Vellore

Hi

I started on the Vellore page but am a little stuck at the tourism section

Most of it reads like a tourist guide, including phrases such as "and the prison is well worth a visit", and I am not quite sure on which should be left in and which should be taken out

Advice anyone please ?

Chaosdruid (talk) 01:18, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I would change it to read "the prison is a tourist destination." I try to find and remove value judgements such as "of particular note", "especially interesting", etc. But when doing articles about India if they say it's holy or "especially holy" I respectfully leave it in. --Diannaa ^TALK 03:16, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I will try that - maybe tomorrow as that article demanded a rather large amount of little corrections Chaosdruid (talk) 03:37, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

"well worth a visit" is -- believe it or not -- a violation of WP:NPOV. Wikipedia can never grant itself an editorial voice on any topic. o Ling.Nut 10:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

You can't even say the Taj Mahal is beautiful unless you have a reliable source. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 23:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Pages with many alsos

As requested at the village pump, I have created a list of pages that contain many times the word "also", if anyone here is interested. Svick (talk) 15:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps another drive for an off month? dtgriffith ^[talk] 22:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, it intrigues me. It would also be a change of pace form the norm. Also, it would draw eyes to articles that don't have the c/e tag on them. I like it. Just from glancing, there are at least three articles where 10% of the words are also. Dang. TheTito ^Discuss 20:47, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, one is Category:See also templates, another is a WikiProject, and the few others over 10% are lists that contain many "See also:" LOL. Maybe something to look at after our drive ends. - S Masters (talk) 21:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Rosetta Stone article copy editor request

Hello there:

Another user and I have been working steadily on the Rosetta Stone article for just over the past month, and in its Peer Review it was suggested that I ask the Guild to give it a copy edit pass. We are trying to get it to Featured Article status, so having several other sets of eyes scrutinizing the content would be much appreciated! Cheers! Captmondo (talk) 01:24, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi there! I have copied your request over to our Requests page and hopefully one of us will get started on it in the next few days. Regards, --Diannaa ^(Talk) 03:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Captmondo (talk) 10:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

hello

• Hey, I thought this wikiproject was dead/defunct. When did it come back to life? o Ling.Nut 10:55, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

We are alive and kicking. You must be thinking of the now defunct League of Copyeditors. - S Masters (talk) 19:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, the ill-fated LOCE. Man, those backlogs were killer. TheTito ^Discuss 21:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

OK. I'll join. Cheers... o Ling.Nut 02:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Warning!

So, I was in the middle of copy editing yet another 10,000-word article, but I pressed backspace when my cursor was not in the edit box and, consequently, lost all of my progress, which was about 6,000 words, or six hours in. I'm not very motivated to copy edit at all anymore, so I would just like to warn and remind everyone to PREVIEW and / or SAVE your progress when copy editing, as the omission of this habit could lead to a nasty and very grim result, followed by a ten-minute sobbing moment in the corner of the room you are in (not really, but I was close to that point).

I'll probably push myself to complete another three or four 5k articles in the next eight days, but otherwise, the drive is over for me. Guess I could work on my actual book instead, hehe. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 02:46, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I duplicated that problem using Microsoft Explorer. But when I tried it on Firefox, I was able to recover my edits using the right arrow at the upper left corner. Art LaPella (talk) 06:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Well the problem doesn't occur in Google Chrome, if I left the page into a new page; I can simply press "back" and my text will be intact, due to the cache saving my progress. But the cache seems to think I want everything erased if my error is to go back a page instead of forward. It seems odd, so it might have been an isolated case (i.e.: I did something wrong, can't think what though), or maybe it's just something the developers haven't thought of for Chrome. I personally don't like Firefox at all. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 16:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Aw, that's no good. I'm getting into the habit of saving after every paragraph.  Davtra  ^(talk) 06:51, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

So sorry you had this bad experience. I found that when I switched to Vector, and go to preferences, editing, there is a box to tick off that says "Warn me when I leave an edit page with unsaved changes". In Vector, this feature actually worked and can save you; in Mono it seems not to be working. I switched back to Mono because I could not get the WP:AutoEd to work in the Vector skin. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 15:27, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know that feature existed. I go check it off now, but I'm not a fan of Vector at all, so I'll have to try my luck with Mono. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 16:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Second Set of Eyes

Hey, everybody. I've been mostly off-Wiki for a long time, and I was hoping somebody could double check my first couple of copy edit attempts before I go on through the backlog. It's been a -very- long time. WWCO is the one I'm concerned about, but I did also work through Gatchaman (OVA). If somebody has a few minutes, I'd appreciate another set of eyes. --Moralis (talk) 20:30, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Had a quick look through - as is late will recheck tomorrow :¬) Chaosdruid (talk) 02:37, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Head-up Display

I'm not new to copy-editing but I'm new to doing it for Wikipedia, so I would like someone to check if my copy-editing job was good. Oh, and here's the link. Head-up display. --Preceding unsigned comment added by Anon423 (talk o contribs) 04:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

What It's Really Like To Be A Copy Editor

Hardworking copy editors might want to take a short entertainment break by reading "What It's Really Like To Be A Copy Editor", by Lori Fradkin, a former New York magazine copy editor whose travails are all too familiar. ? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:49, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, it was a good read and I enjoyed it. I guess we all have quite a few things in common when it comes to spotting errors. :-) - S Masters (talk) 10:02, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Very entertaining - thanks! dtgriffith ^[talk] 13:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Tools of the guild?

I just saw the new section posted about possible new editing tools, and that reminded me to post here about what sources we use as we proofread. What dictionaries do you generally have at hand as you proofread? What style manuals or usage guides? I always have the Merriam-Webster Third New International unabridged, Ninth New College, and New Biographical dictionaries at hand as I edit, as well as the American Heritage Dictionary. I have the Oxford English Dictionary (first edition with supplement) in the microprint edition nearby. I have the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Libel Manual and Style Guide and a large variety of general books (often undergraduate textbooks) on English usage, style, and clear writing. My local public library system has a wonderful policy of allowing many other dictionaries and reference books to circulate out to patrons' homes, so I have many of those at hand as I work on special editing projects. What sources do you usually rely on as you proofread? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 12:57, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm new to the Guild, but I've been doing gnome-style copy editing here for a while, and I generally rely on my professional experience as a writer as my guide. Sure, I have dictionaries, grammar guides and style guides, but I tend to think that if you need to consult one of those to resolve a grammatical ambiguity or conflict, then it is usually better to recast a sentence to avoid it entirely. (PS: I wouldn't be so pedantic anywhere other than here, but it should be "patrons'", not "patron's" - I hope you'll forgive me for mentioning it). Best regards. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll edit my typo. Thanks. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:43, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I have Webster's College Edition and I use the Wikipedia style manual WP:MoS. For high level linking and referencing layout techniques I use feature articles like Indiana class battleship and Barack Obama as a guide. I have a collection of links to various online resources such as WP:Reflinks on my home page. This is typically enough to see an article through to WP:GA status but beyond that level, professional help is typically required (I am merely an interested civilian). There is a great set of exercises and advice at User:Tony1/How to improve your writing. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 16:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Diannaa, for the tips, especially the links to articles that show examples of much development according to the Wikipedia Manual of Style. I know you are much more experienced at Wikipedia copyediting than I am, so I appreciate the pointers. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 22:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Copyediting list pages

Except for the lead section, List articles seem not to need copyediting. Is there a simplified method for copyediting lists? I was looking at the July 2008 backlog and opened up the List of composers for the classical guitar (nationality). This particular page has a 2-sentence lead and a list of names... the only thing we could look at is the date format and capitalization in section headers. Am I right? Thanks! Paulmnguyen (talk) 21:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Make sure they're alphabetized correctly too? (I've spent quite a bit of time alphabetizing lists myself). -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Many of that list's hyphens should be dashes according to WP:DASH, although with that many hyphens to change, some kind of automated editing would help. Art LaPella (talk) 22:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Many articles are amenable to a treatment like

1. copy entire article text into a text editor on your computer
2. edit text off-line with whatever editing tools you have on your computer
3. paste back corrected text into Wikipedia edit field for article (or for section)

I've done this a few times already. It's one of the more convenient ways to add a lot of sources to an article that is badly in need of sources, which is the usual case I encounter in the subjects I watch the most. Right now on my computer I have the current text of half a dozen Wikipedia articles stored as separate text-editor files for offline editing. I paste in new revisions as I have opportunity to make them. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 22:47, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding copy editing lists, I have worked on a few that appeared okay at first, but turned out to contain punctuation and grammatical errors. Just look carefully rather than make broad assumptions. dtgriffith ^[talk] 23:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Please be careful when editing off-line that there have been no other edits to the article before you paste your version in, or someone's work will be lost. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 23:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, all! Good suggestions all around. User:WeijiBaikeBianji's post led to another question, though - what tools do you use to reconcile your "cached" editing copy with the latest version of the article (which may have been updated since you created your editing copy)? I would use a RCS tool, personally, if that were my workflow.

I was going to ask about locking an article against edits once one user opened it for editing. Apparently that is not the case because there were 2 more contributions to this section while I was responding. Paulmnguyen (talk) 23:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I've copy-edited lists a couple of times by taking them out to a word processor and back, and what I've done is finish my work, then check the history of the article for new changes and update my copy with them - and only put my new text back after I've included all new changes in it. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:47, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I am not a fan of editing in an external app, it's far too easy to lose contributions from others. dtgriffith ^[talk] 02:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll answer my question about concurrent editing - Help:EC. Thanks for the lively discussion. Paulmnguyen (talk) 05:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Copy-edit requested at Mary of Austria, Queen of Hungary

Hi! At Talk:Mary of Austria, Queen of Hungary/GA1, the reviewer suggested an "inquire at WP:GOCE". I suppose that means asking you for copy-editing :) The reviewer noticed "missing articles and similar errors". I am not a native speaker of English, so I cannot spot those errors myself. I also do not understand all the differences between American and British English - which is why the article uses both (which is not good). I would truly appreciate your help with tracing the errors and converting American English to British English or vice versa (whichever the copy-editor favours). The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (talk) 13:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I have copied this to the Requests page. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 14:43, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (talk) 11:20, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for interface innovations for copy editors

Hi folks. Just joined the copy editing project. I have an idea for an innovation to the user interface that may be of interest. This is the first place I'm mentioning it, but the plan is to put the idea up at the Village pump, Idea Lab if we get consensus here that it is worth pursuing.

The problem I want to solve is that of the copy-edited article where no edits were required. I will sometimes read through an entire article and find no problems with it. Since I have made no changes, there is no record that anyone has had a meaningful interaction with the article. Yet something palpable did just happen; wouldn't it be good if that were recorded?

I notice that the Guild has templates that can be placed on talk pages. That would be one way of signalling that a proof-read has been done in the absence of any edits being made. However, I hope my proposal will be more powerful than that.

My idea is to have a button or link (I'll use the term prooflink from here on in to refer to the concept but please don't think that I have given nomenclature much thought) that can be clicked and will then leave a record in the article history. Clicking prooflink should have an associated edit summary. The exact wording of what such an edit summary should say we can discuss and I'm open to all suggestions. Let's say it could be "Article has been proofread - no issues discovered" or "Proofreading complete - no edits".

The location and availability of prooflink can also be discussed. At the moment we have access to a number of "gadgets" via our preferences. This could be one of them so that it doesn't appear on a user's interface by default. I feel the most sensible home for it would be a tab near the 'edit' tab or similar in nature to the 'watch/unwatch' icon (I use the Vector skin, if you are using a different one your user experience may be very different, perhaps not even showing tabs).

Does this sound like a desirable innovation? If so, I have more ideas which would increase its power...

We all have different skills. Some of us will be all-rounders but some of us may not be anywhere near as confident with grammar as we are with spelling. So we could consider having prooflink not just as a button/link that one either presses or does not press but gives you a range of options as a dialog box (see example of a dialog box used by another gadget, right); the user ticks all the boxes that apply.

Everything is up for grabs, but to get the ball rolling, here's a rough first pass at what the dialog box could offer:

• Spelling checked.
• Grammar checked.
• Readability checked.
• Wikifications checked.
• ...?

You check the boxes of everything that applies and then an automated edit summary will appear in the article history; eg "proofread: spelling, wikifications checked" or "proofread: spelling, grammar checked" or perhaps even "proofread: spelling checked. But wikifications, readability, grammar NOT checked".

Looking even further ahead it would then be possible to extract dates of the last use of prooflink on an article and generate reports of articles that have not been given a once over.

What do you guys think? --bodnotbod (talk) 12:45, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

This is a good concept, proofing is a valid point to consider. Editors can easily enter on the Talk page that they have proofed an article, but it's completely voluntary and self-motivated. I feel it is worth pursuing, though I am not nearly as well versed with the Wiki-Universe as other editors here to know if it would be redundant to some other tool or how the masses will respond. dtgriffith ^[talk] 20:26, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, in the absence of much feedback, aside from Mr Griffith's favourable response, I have now gone ahead and put this idea forward at the Ideas Lab; I suggest people go there if they wish to comment on the idea now. --bodnotbod (talk) 10:49, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:SHIPS

Okay, now I'm begging :) The bottleneck for ship articles these days is the Good Article nomination page, so I'm going to focus there, and generally, it's a bad idea for one person to do the reviews at two different levels, so I'm backing off from our A-class review process for now, at WP:SHIPA. We really need a copyeditor or 3 to drop in from time to time. It's light and rewarding work in many ways ... it's a congenial group, we're particularly friendly towards anyone who knows style guides (MOS, AP Stylebook, Chicago, whatever ... bring it on!), we're pretty good about linking terms that readers aren't familiar with, and we've got a long list of recent A-class reviews that you can use as a "go-by" if you like. (And you can feel free to carve up any sentences you find that are as long as that one!) I'll be happy to devote some time copyediting and reviewing at your favorite wikiproject if anyone likes it enough to become a "regular" there. - Dank (push to talk) 15:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Dank. I was involved in getting Indiana class battleship up to GA status and was so impressed with your copy edits when it was being reviewed for A class. Now the article is FA and is a great example of how wonderful Wikipedia can be. I am kinda between projects right now so I will check over some of the GA nominees and try to help keep things moving. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 15:53, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Fantastic, and thank you. - Dank (push to talk) 19:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I have ordered some style guides from Amazon and will hopefully be able to help with the higher level reviews as time goes on, once I gets me some book-learnin'. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 20:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

After you get some of that-there book lernin, drop on by an' sat a spell, take yer shoes off. - Dank (push to talk) 03:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Recursive link

I find that my thoughts about WP become somewhat unclear by finding that the article links to itself, even if maybe as a device to get the reader to a specified point in the article.--SilasW (talk) 10:36, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Help please

Can I please get some help with the requests page? Some of the stuff has been posted for nearly three weeks. I will tackle the Family Guy if I have to, but I just can't do the ones that involve chain saws. Thanks. Regards, --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:45, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Doing that one. - Dank (push to talk) 13:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Can someone check my edits?

I am fairly new to Wikipedia and copy editing and was hoping that someone could look over my edits and let me know if my work was good enough to remove the copy editing needed tag. Two articles and diffs with my edits: Golem [1] [2] Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff [3] [4]. Thanks and hopefully this is the right place to post this. --Deutschgirl (talk) 23:12, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

This is the perfect place to post to get reviews of your copy edits. Thnak you for your interest. The Golem article needed a couple of punctuation and spelling fixes but was quite close to perfect. The van 't Hoff article needed a few more fixes but was still quite good. It was mostly punctuation that was needing wee improvements. I have copy edited both articles so you can see what I found that got missed. On the whole a very nice job! Regards, --Diannaa ^(Talk) 03:08, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking over my work. I went ahead and and removed the tags. Hopefully that was ok. --Deutschgirl (talk) 21:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Help

Hello all, i apologize if this is not the correct place to request help but i need ASAP someone to do a copy edit on Kesha discography. It will literally take you 5 minutes. Ive been told there are still copy edit issues but ive tried to correct it like 10 times. Punctuation is not my strong suit so if someone could go in and make corrections that would be great. Thanks alot :) - (CK)Lakeshade - talk2me - 20:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

No worries, we have a requests page but I saw your note and have done some copy edits. Hopefully it is now adequate to pass. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 22:26, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

GOCEreviewed Template upgrade

Are we considering "upgrading" or migrating our {{Template:GOCEreviewed}} to the {{WPBannerMeta}} system, like the main {{Template:GOCE}}? I'd be willing to do the work to make that happen. I just feel that it's even more important for subsequent editors of an article for which the copy edit was postponed to be able to contact the "willing" editor that stamped it thus when such a time should arise as would render a copy edit appropriate. This is more easily done using visible content contained within the tag than scouring talk page history to locate the editor. The date field would also be appropriate, for obvious reasons. I do not foresee a need for the past reviews to be listed, as is nice in the standard GOCE tag.

Any input much appreciated! There must be thousands of those tags out there, though, so I do not want to break anything with my experimentations (I'll be sandbox-ing my trials). -Paulmnguyen (talk) 17:22, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, what about creating Category:Articles reviewed by the Guild of Copy Editors? -Paulmnguyen (talk) 17:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I've created Template:GOCEreviewed/sandbox and it is ready for any review. Please also review the accompanying documentation. I have a few permutations of parameters displayed in my sandbox. Thanks! -Paulmnguyen (talk) 20:53, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

It looks good, and I like the idea of removing the copyedit tag while the article isn't suitable for copyediting. However, that first sentence seems like a bit of a run-on to me. Could it be tightened up or split? // ?macwhiz (talk) 20:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I split it after the point where the date would fall, and added emphasis to stress the essential meaning of the tag. Do I have a go ahead to replace the live version? -Paulmnguyen (talk) 00:20, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Support the update. ?or?f? ^Talk! 01:32, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Support. I like it! // ?macwhiz (talk) 04:20, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. The new reviewed template is now live. Please add your username and the date as you see fit, should an article require the GOCEreviewed mark. -Paulmnguyen (talk) 13:56, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to Paulmnguyen for doing this. It's a definite improvement. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 14:06, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I have been away for awhile due to medical issues and other important real life stuff. Nice to see a brainstorm of mine - the GOCEreviewed template - take on a life of its own. Thanks! dtgriffith ^[talk] 23:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Is it worth doing?

I like the aim of improving prose, but Wikipedia has endemic problems. Better off getting the kids to do good schoolwork and the adults to write blogs or even scholarship. --Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.156.232 (talk) 01:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

This guy's signature was not "worth doing" ... that speaks volumes of "scholarship." (IMHO) I cannot argue, however, with the necessity to "[get] the kids to do good schoolwork" - that would make our jobs here at GOCE both easier (because of higher quality original content) and more meaningful (since our changes would be understood more deeply by our better-educated readers). Keep up the good work, all. Anyone had a look at the fundraising banner propositions? Some are great; others bear a hilarious resemblance to this comment. I think GOCE is in a great place to make the Free Encyclopedia also comprehensible and not grammatically offensive. (again, IMHO) -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 02:13, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Is it worth doing? I used to spend a lot of time playing computer games. This is just as absorbing an activity and it is a lot more worthwhile. Our work will be a legacy that will be available free to everyone, for the foreseeable future. Worth doing? Hellz yeah. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:27, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Somehow, I just can't picture you sitting around and playing computer games for hours! LOL :-) - S Masters (talk) 04:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Given how often the kids turn to Wikipedia for their schoolwork nowadays, for better or worse, making Wikipedia better is getting them to do better schoolwork. // ?macwhiz (talk) 12:30, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls guys. --  HELLKNOWZ  ?TALK 12:36, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" OK, back to work. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 17:05, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm going back and forth at the moment. Thoughts:

• The articles remaining in the pool are by definition of fairly low interest to the WP audience. (Otherwise someone would have fixed them already.)
• Worse, as we pick away at the backlog, we (I) tend to pick the articles that are of relatively greater interest, lowering the "average" interest level of the remainder. (The rest of you have done much better at sucking it up and attacking the bottom of the pile than me.) Worse still, a lot of the low hanging fruit (the really short articles along with the >5k articles) have also been knocked off.
• Many untagged articles that I come across are often little better than those on our list, making me think that my time might be better spent on messed up articles that actually interest me.
• We killed <800 in May, >1200 in July, and it looks like we're heading for 8-900 this time. New articles are coming in at around 400/mo. The math isn't looking so hot. If our goal is to make the biggest impact on WP, we really need a way to focus on the highest-traffic pieces in our queue, such as they are. Maybe a category for "Low traffic articles needing copyediting" that we could use with catscan? Eliminating the backlog is looking like a tall order. Lfstevens (talk) 00:02, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The highest traffic articles are sometimes the largest articles. Pune is a good example (1000 views per day). I did this one in May. This was very worthwhile to do. It still looks to be in good shape, though I did not watch-list it. Compare to Himmatpura (a random example, averaging 10 views per day.) I am not saying these articles should not be copy-edited, though.

We will probably always have a backlog, but I will try not to get down-hearted or give up. We are making very good progress, as the backlog peaked in January 2010 at over 8000 articles. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 02:37, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

@Lfstevens: I like the analytic way you're thinking. I do want to point out that actually, in May, over 1000 articles were copyedited by drive participants. However, about 250 new articles were tagged during May. Similarly in July over 1600 articles were copyedited during the drive. For September we'll top 1000 again. And we're chopping about 6 months off the backlog each time. I think that's good. However, I do agree that there is a pattern to article selection for copyediting. Short articles tend to go before longer ones. This is one of the reasons we created incentives for editing longer articles. I agree that the world would be better served if the highest trafficked articles were copyedited first, but I worry that segregating less popular articles will create a kind of oubliette effect: they will languish and be forgotten. Maybe improving them will increase their traffic levels. I don't know, but I'm glad you started this discussion. Very good points and I look forward to discussing more. ?or?f? ^Talk! 04:38, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's an idea. How about focusing on the most recent rather than the oldest tags? That way we look more responsive, and on average are working on more active articles. (Somebody just took the time to tag it.) The amount of time a piece has gone without activity is a positive indicator of its lack of importance. @Noraft: Thanks for your kind words. Some articles belong in the oubliette, and a reasonable if imperfect way to identify them is that none of our dedicated members is willing to touch them without some combination of anti-nausea and anti-sleep medications. I'm sure your #s are better than mine. But if we're adding 400/mo, and deleting 600 per month (1200/2), then I calculate 28 months to clear the backlog, assuming that recruits replace burnouts. Seems like a stretch. Still, I like the idea of clearing the prior month or two of new tags at the outset of each drive. We can use whatever strength remains to look deeper into the past. Lfstevens (talk) 07:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I just don't understand how anyone can think that improving a Wikipedia article can ever not be worth doing. Even if only 10 people a month read an article, if I spend a few hours improving it, that's 120 people I will have helped over the course of a year. It's also important to remember that articles are being copy edited all the time by people who read them, not just by our GOCE drives. The usual background of copy editing combined with our drives is knocking off tagged articles faster than they're added, so we're clearly winning. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:20, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not arguing against editing articles. I'm trying to figure out have the biggest possible impact. I'd say that purpose is served by upgrading an article that gets 10,000 hits/day before one that gets 10. Lfstevens (talk) 15:13, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Many of the WikiProject talk pages now include links to special pages of view counts for the pages in each project, and those are very valuable for seeing what the largest number of visitors see when they visit Wikipedia. We might as well clean up the entryway before cleaning up the closets in the back rooms. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 01:03, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Awards for non-drive copyedits

Hi.. I really like how you get barnstars for specific number of articles/words and so on during the Backlog Drives. But what do you get for copyediting outside the drives? Nothing?
If so, would it not be an idea to make some awards for these occasions? Skibden (talk) 22:13, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I often receive a barnstar when I help someone get their article promoted. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 00:51, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Anyone can award a barnstar to anyone else any time they think they deserve it - there are really no rules :-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Planning for next drive

• Is everybody up to go for another drive in November, or should we wait till January?
• Goals, targets proposed?

--Diannaa ^(Talk) 19:32, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• Yep. I'm up for it - can't really think of any suggestions about targets right now though. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• Go! WikiCopter ^{Formerly AirplanePro} 19:41, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
• Novemeber - my midterms are in January and holidays are in December! Derild4921? 19:46, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• Not looking good for me I can only promise token participation in November. Good luck with it, and I hope you choose as one goal that no articles tagged that month get out alive. That'll make the group look responsive ("I just tagged that yesterday. You guys are awesome!") and hit articles that someone cares about now, before doing stuff that is "so 2009". I'm all about caring... Lfstevens (talk) 19:52, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Some of the most recently tagged articles end up getting deleted anyway. It is usually not that hard to tell though which ones will not get speedied or AFD'd and focus on those. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 23:53, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Both Lfstevens's and Diannaa's points about recently tagged articles are interesting. I like that idea, bearing in mind what Diannaa said. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 00:59, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
• Somewhat- I haven't participated a lot in this round, but I will sign up for the November drive if there will be one. --Slon02 (talk) 21:04, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• Ready I'll probably be able to participate more in November than I did this month, so I'll be looking forward to it. The Utahraptor^{Talk to me}/_{Contributions} 21:18, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• December's holidays and January's exams for most people. November is the best bet, then resume in February. (not that I edited a single article, geez, where did the time go...) --  HELLKNOWZ  ?TALK 22:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
  • H3llkn0wz, you were one of those behind-the-scenes people who contributed organizationally. Thanks! --Diannaa ^(Talk) 23:51, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

• Yes. November is much better than December, when everyone is on holiday mode. We have to keep going, or we will fall behind (due to new articles being tagged every month). If we stop, our earlier efforts could be in vain. - S Masters (talk) 01:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
• Sure, I could get into this...whatever the month. Queenmomcat (talk) 01:40, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• Possibly. Still have a lot of real life events taking precedence over my WP participation. I will sign up closer to the start time if it looks realistic for me to get involved. Even then, it may have to be on a small scale, however, a little is better than nothing. Keep up the great work everyone! dtgriffith ^[talk] 13:33, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Potential plan

• What say we go with November and February
• Head honcho: Diannaa, assisted by SMasters and one more volunteer
• Focus for November: The oldest three months (Jan, Feb March 2009) and the newest three months (Aug, Sept, Oct, and Nov 2010).
  • I'd replace August with November itself. Lfstevens (talk) 01:31, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Ah so desu. Hai! --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:57, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
• Overall target: get the backlog under 5000 articles ( an approximate 10% reduction). I want to have a more modest target the further along we go, as the articles remaining in the pile get to be the most difficult and unappealing ones to edit.
• In order to help keep the Requests page from getting backlogged, I would like to offer double word-count for these articles. Note though if someone is striving for FA or even GA a higher level of copy editing skill is required to meet the needs of the posting user. Thoughts? --Diannaa ^(Talk) 23:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Encouraging copy-edits on the GA and FA candidates is a very good idea. That fits the overall Wikipedia policy goal of encouraging the production of more featured articles according to today's tougher standards. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 00:59, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support Lfstevens (talk) 01:31, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

**Support. Sounds like a good plan. - S Masters (talk) 01:19, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support for everything and November.

Comments I am not sure about February. I know January is a busy month for most, but skipping a month will throw the remaining year out, plus we end up with a December drive problem. I say we vote for just one month for now, and deal with the Jan/Feb problem closer to that time. Why do we have to decide that so far in advance anyway? - S Masters (talk) 03:12, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

• • Support, and can I volunteer as a co-coordinator? I could probably do more for the November drive than I did the September drive. The Utahraptor^{Talk to me}/_{Contributions} 02:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Support nomination of Utahraptor as co-coordinator. Thanks --Diannaa ^(Talk) 05:33, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Support Derild4921? 19:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Support, see no issues as you've been active throughout.--  HELLKNOWZ  ?TALK 19:31, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Support: No problems with me. - S Masters (talk) 03:14, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support plan as well. Derild4921? 19:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support, great idea.--  HELLKNOWZ  ?TALK 19:31, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support the plan - it all sounds good. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The November Drive page is now ready. You can sign up here. - S Masters (talk) 04:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

What's a good way to keep track of self between drives?

I appreciate the efforts of the drive organizers. I find that every time you organize a copy-editing backlog elimination drive, the point-of-view-pushers that mess up most of the articles on my watch list become more active, and I find my Wikipedia time being consumed by pointless debates on article talk pages rather than by article edits. So I think I'm going to stop being tricked by those time-wasters, and just start doing more bold article edits, including Guild copy-edits, when I have time (whether there is a drive going on or not). Just to keep track of myself, would I be able to use the GOCE Article list template in my own user space to log in when I attend to copy-editing of articles? As noted earlier in talk here, I'm especially driven to better source articles on the topics for which I have good sources, but I also enjoy copy-editing, and copy-editing helps me see a greater variety of subjects here on Wikipedia. To all of you here, keep up the good work. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 00:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I just tested this in my user space and it works fine. Thank you for your upbeat remarks. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing stopping you from having the GOCE Article list template in your own user space. Go for it if it helps. - S Masters (talk) 23:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Worst ever Wiki project

Proposal to have a record page for the Requests page

Currently, on the Requests page, we just delete the articles that we have worked on. We do not have any records anywhere of the work that we have done. I propose a page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Completed Requests, where we can put all the articles that we have worked on, arranged by months, together with the name of the editor that worked on the article. We can even give out a barnstar to the top editor each month to encourage editors to work on the Requests page. But that is a side idea. The main thing is that the Guild does a lot of good work, but it can't be easily seen. A visitor, especially a first time visitor, will be able to see our body of work in an instant with a page like this. Perhaps a few of us can go through the history and backdate this list. What do you all think? - S Masters (talk) 15:59, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Adding the {{GOCE}} tag to the Talk page of a copy edited article puts it in Category:Articles copy edited by the Guild of Copy Editors, so I don't think there's a need to keep a separate list. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

That cat lists all articles that are tagged, and are not necessarily from the requests page. Not all editors add the {{GOCE}} tag. - S Masters (talk) 00:39, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Support I agree with the concept of the record of satisfying requests. It keeps us accountable and encourages others to engage us when needed. Have you considered auto-archiving? I don't know how it works, but we can just let satisfied requests get stale and fall into the archive. It may become difficult for editors to see which requests have yet to be satisfied (unless we use the template like on AfDs, etc. that marks the discussion (in our case, a request) as closed and puts a different-colored background on that block). I guess if the auto-archiver reads timestamps on signatures on the page content, we could drop completed ones into another section of the page, but that would be basically as much work as moving them to a separate page. I always leave my finished requests on the page, I guess so that another editor who is interested might take yet another look. I also notify the requester directly, and the next day you or Diannaa usually pulls the completed ones down. -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 00:54, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

With respect to awarding requests copyeditors, I am somewhat indifferent. I appreciate a barnstar here and there from appreciative editors. I just don't see that being an incredible incentive for this one. -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 01:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I first thought of this because of this incident. Because our current policy of deleting the entire entry from the Requests page, visitors may not realise that we do indeed clear a sizable amount of Requests each month. As for the awards, it is only one per month, similar to a "worker of the month" kind of award. I just think it's a nice way to say thanks for all the hard work someone puts in, and encourages participation. It's not like we are going around handing out awards to all and sundry. I'm not sure how auto-archive works, and it may make the page extremely long and messy. We encourage any discussions to take place on the article's talk page and not on the Requests page. - S Masters (talk) 02:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

So if we're going to do this, we should probably start making pages titled like "Completed Requests from (Month) (Year)" (for requests made late in the month that are cleared the following month, they should be archived based on the date of the request). We should also make a template that can link all those 'completed' pages and transclude it on all of them and the main Requests page, right? What about starting a category to contain all the requests pages - only if that means that it updates that navigational element automatically. I think that as far as going back to create this history, we just have to look for negative edits to the Requests page that are of a significant length so as to indicate actual removal of requests - can catscan filter the history like that? -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 14:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't thinking of anything that complicated. We don't have that many articles to archive. I thought of doing something simple, like a single page (that may later be archived), that list the completed Requests by months. I also think that we should not crowd the Requests page. Maybe just a simple link - "Completed requests". Just my 2 cents. - S Masters (talk) 14:35, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

We could try it and see what happens. I like the auto-archiving idea: We can make an auto archive that has whatever parameters we like. Items lately have not been sitting on the page for longer than a month, so perhaps that would be a good limit to use. We could assign a person to keep an eye on the list to make sure no requests are archived without being copy edited first. Barnstars might prompt more people to participate in helping out on the requests page. Having a record would make it simpler to monitor repeat requests and to see who to contact for advice when an article re-appears on the list. We have had several of these lately --Diannaa ^(Talk) 16:52, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

• I support this idea. We could use MiszaBot II for this archiving task. How long do you think MiszaBot should wait before archiving? Personally I think it should archive at least once a month. The Utahraptor^{Talk to me}/_{Contributions} 17:17, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem with a bot is, how will the bot know which articles have been done and which have not? This will mean that the Requests page will be a lot longer, and possibly confusing, than usual. The editor that completes the articles normally removes the article from the page anyway, they can just spare another minute to add in on the Completed page. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a bot, but I'm not sure if it will be practical or even workable for this purpose. - S Masters (talk) 17:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

One more thing, I was originally thinking that this be put in some sort of table format, rather than an archive of the request. - S Masters (talk) 18:00, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The bot won't know, which is why I think we should have a couple volunteers watch the request page and complete tasks as soon as they can. And we could set the bot to archive requests two weeks old, or even a month old (in my opinion the latter would be better than the former). You see, the bot doesn't archive several things all at once; it bases what it archives off of what date the request was submitted, what date the last reply to the request was, etc. The Utahraptor^{Talk to me}/_{Contributions} 18:09, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

• Weak support: I like the general idea of having a readily viewable history, but I'm not sure I'm in love with any of the proposals yet. I'd prefer something highly automated, on general principles. The idea of adding a resolved tag to the request on the requests page, and then having it autoarchived, seems reasonable. An alternative might be to add a parameter to the {{GOCE}} template to flag the article as having been requested; the template could then dump it into a new category for completed requests, as well. Either way, we'd need editors handling such requests to tag either the article or the request appropriately. I don't think it's necessary to hand out automatic barnstars, though. Statistics might be nice... // ?macwhiz (talk) 21:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

"Resolved" tags are used at WP:Ear, but completed requests are manually archived. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 21:53, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Some quick notes. An editor needs to remove the Request from the page after a copyedit has been completed. I'm sure not many will mind spending another minute to record their achievement in the proposed Completed Requests page. The barnstars are not automatic - they are only given to the top editor (the highest Requests cleared) for a particular month, i.e. only 12 are given out in a year. - S Masters (talk) 00:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Support original proposal to begin a 'completed requests' workflow, manually creating an archive each month (by date of request). Here is how I see how we might proceed. I proposed that the pages be named in the form "Completed requests from (month) (year)"; should this be acceptable, would these go under Requests/ or at the WP:GOCE/ level? I think we would want to create a transcluded box that links our request archive together; the box would appear on the requests page as well as on all of the archive pages. I also agree that we should create this archive beginning now (new policy could be described at top of requests page) and retroactively (how far back, I'm not sure... not before 2010? Page has been around since July 2008). Some volunteers would have to dig through the history to create this log. Maybe just go back a couple of months, like July or August 2010. Was the first backlog elim drive in May? Maybe go back to April, then? Anyway, those are my thoughts. It doesn't look like many of us are crazy about the barnstar part of the initial post. I sense that a few of the prominent copyeditors are in favor of having a record of the regular work we do, so I'd like to help push this idea forward. -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 00:42, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I actually am warming up to the idea of a simple wiki table. A volunteer or the completing editor could add the article to the table and a whole year's worth of tasks could be stored on one archive page without taking up hardly any space. It's no problem to manually archive; we are already manually removing completed tasks anyway. It could look like this:

--Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:20, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, that's a pretty concise way of doing it, on a single page, right? Would we also want a link in the table to the old version of the discussion just before it was removed? Or do editors discuss on the article's talk page... maybe a link to that could be included? Or a notes column that may or may not be used for any such references? We can use the 'Remarks' column for that. -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 20:25, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I have put up a couple of om boxes to see if anyone else wants to comment on this proposal. Yea, we could put any links we feel are relevant in the remarks column. What about a column for the original requestor's name, too? That might come in handy. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Awesome. Yes, original requestor is a good one to list. Was thinking about the date of the request, but I guess the month and year is sufficient; the history of the requests page will be there... I'm ready to kick this thing off and start back-filling our records. Any more support for the idea? -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 01:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• I support the idea in general, and think Dianaa's simple wiki table execution of the idea will work just fine. Bobnorwal (talk) 19:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I have gone ahead with the archiving idea and have collected information on October's requests to get us started. Now that it's done, I'm no longer sure one page will support one year's worth of material. We can make smaller pages, if it gets to be over 100k or so. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 21:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. Someone has changed the copy on the guidelines to say that editors are to archive completed edits, but it doesn't say where. Will it not be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Completed Requests? I like the idea of putting in the name of the requesting editor. Can we also have a sign and date stamp for our copyeditors, so that we can easily sign off on the table with our usual ~~~~? - S Masters (talk) 23:58, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I changed the wording on the Requests banner to refer to the archive, which is listed below; I have linked it directly to Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests/2010 Archive. I guess we can consolidate the date/editor columns to a single 'Completed' column so that you can just sign it... doesn't allow sorting by completion date, though... and signatures that begin with punctuation will not sort according to the first alphanumeric character, as one sorting the table may desire... -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 00:55, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

It will group each user's requests or contributions in one place, so sorting will still be functional for our purposes. There is an archive folder on the page (near the table of contents). --Diannaa ^(Talk) 02:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... "Date copy edit started" - I'm wondering if it's better to say "Date copy editing competed". Some of us slap the {{GOCEinuse}} tag on and we only go back to the Requests page to remove the entry (and from now, to place it on the Completed page). If it is not completed, it will remain on the Requests page anyway. Someone may attempt to start but may stop for whatever reason, and the article may lay in limbo. Also, this is more work as we have to put working tags on the Requests page, put an entry into the Completed page, and then come back to update it all. With a "Date completed" column, we only need to put a tag on the article (any visiting GOCE member will know that someone is already working on the article), and just do the admin parts (i.e. remove from Requests and transfer into Completed) once. - S Masters (talk) 03:04, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a good idea. If the edit is not going to be completed, that could be noted somehow too. I will not go back and collect the info for October, though. We only had the one that was never completed (British Pakistanis). We can start again afresh in November and implement it then --Diannaa ^(Talk) 03:50, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

That sounds good. And thanks for all the hard work! - S Masters (talk) 13:53, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Edits

How is it that the number of edits is known? I installed the page size application, yet am i suppose to input the word count manually? Also if I finish copy-editing a page do I manually input it???

Also is it ok that I have begun to edit articles, really only one Hato Mayor del Rey. I removed the {copyedit} tag and added {GOCE} to the talk page, is that accurate??? Thx in advance, sorry for all the questions I'm new to the guild. --El Mayimbe (talk) 04:57, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for helping out! It is not the number of edits that we track during copy edit drives, but the size of the article (counted in words). The Page Size script will give you the number of words in the readable prose section of the article (excluding text in tables and lists, etc). You should record the number of words present in the article before you begin working (you can get it out of the history later, if need be) and report this article length during drives. Follow the instructions on the main drive page.

Thanks for taking initiative to edit articles. I looked over the article you mentioned, and, while your contributions significantly improved the article, it still needs work. We recommend that when you first begin copy editing, you leave the {{copyedit}} banner on top of the article and ask for a second opinion here before closing it out. You can also add your name and the date that you copyedited the article to the {{GOCE}} talk page tag. We welcome you and we are glad that you are willing to help improve the quality of information presented on Wikipedia. Take care! -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 20:23, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I corrected some things. Please check out the diff to see what else I changed. Also, you should mark all copyedit revisions as "minor edit" and provide an edit summary that describes your changes (this can be brief, like "copyedit" or the abbreviation "ce")--it helps other editors to know what kind of edit was made. -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 20:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the information and for the help on the page. --El Mayimbe (talk) 00:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Tabs

I decided to try out tab pages. One of the main reasons is to make it a lot easier to find the Requests page (by having it right at the top). What do you all think? Like/Dislike? - S Masters (talk) 13:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that's a very elegant and useful way to do the page. Nice! -Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 16:44, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

It looks great - I like it so much I've stolen it for my own User page :-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:50, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree! :). Derild4921? 16:59, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I love it, and the blue goes with our other branding. Super excellent --Diannaa ^(Talk) 19:54, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

OK great, I'm glad it's to everyone's liking. - S Masters (talk) 06:26, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Double-Checking

I have copy-edited Head-up display and Hyperlink, but need someone to check them, as I am unsure of my abilities. --Preceding unsigned comment added by Anon423 (talk o contribs) 21:43, 17 October 2010 (UTC) Also Attacker class escort carrier.--Anon423 (talk) 00:29, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Both of these were very well done. Please go ahead and do the honour of removing the copy edit tag. I have a couple suggestions: For work that is going to WP:GA nomination, you will need additional familiarity with dashes: em-dashes and en-dashes and hyphens and their uses. See WP:MoS#Dashes. If the author is taking their article to WP:FA, you will need to be intimately conversant with the proper use of commas as per the Chicago Manual of Style or other similar high level editing resource. Good luck, and a sincere welcome to the team. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 00:57, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I had a quick look at Attack Carrier as well and everything there is going well. You might like to try watch-listing one of these as Jim takes it through the GA review process. A very enlightening experience. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I have removed the tags from all three articles.--Anon423 (talk) 01:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I need to call in more help. ZootFly has this weird yellow section -- quoted? -- that I did my best to improve, but I'm not quite sure what to do with it. Is all OK?--Anon423 (talk) 02:05, 7 November 2010 (UTC) Oh, and Zim_(Invader_Zim). Do I remove the tag, since it has so many other issues?--Anon423 (talk) 02:29, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure about the yellow section, but I've removed the yellow. Could've been there for a reason; if so, I'll probably be notified. I've restored the yellow because it signifies that the entire paragraph needs a citation. Other than that things look pretty good. Go ahead and remove the tags from ZootFly and Zim. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 02:32, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

FIFO vs. LIFO

I highly suggest that we focus on a "first in, first out" method of removing the copy-edit backlog (i.e. focus on the backlog from 2009 before shifting to 2010). Usually, articles neglected for the longest time are in the roughest shape; after all, nobody wants to touch them. That's where we come in. -- Deckiller 23:05, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the way I like to do it too. Then you can be pretty sure too that your work will not get AFD'd or speedied out from under you. :/ --Diannaa ^(Talk) 00:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. Although many people are afraid to touch them because they are either overlong or in bad shape, they usually have enough notability and stability under them--they have stood the test of time. -- Deckiller 00:31, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the old ones also have the added benefit that they are neglected. Being less active, there's less chance of someone touching off an edit war because they don't like it when we get our virtual red pens out and go weedwhacking. Wish I could do more of them this drive, but it's the busy season for me in real life... // ?macwhiz (talk) 03:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I'm barely back after an off-and-on Wikibreak lasting years. --Deckiller (t-c-l) 12:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I suppose an opponent is needed. The old ones are NOT generally notable, and NOT interesting to a broad audience. Otherwise, somebody would have picked them up. New entrants are generally the opposite, plus they have the advantage that someone just recently thought they needed help. Therefore, fixing them not only improves WP, but also increases the perception that we are responsive to requestors. If you think that the new ones are less notable than the old ones, you haven't looked at the respectivelists. LIFO is the right rule for us to follow. Imagine if we exited November with no articles remaining in the November queue! Lfstevens (talk) 19:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, you touch on the other benefit of FIFO: nominating articles for deletion that do not demonstrate notability. If the article is deleted, no copy-editing would be required. A split-half method may be appropriate; some users focus on newer entries, while others channel their efforts into sifting through the backlog. --Deckiller (t-c-l) 22:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The Great Backlog Drive

Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 22:56, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Should we, as a Guild, be a participating WikiProject to this project?

• Support - I see no harm in us doing this. It will give us better exposure to the wider Wikipedia community. - SMasters (talk) 15:41, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Great idea which we already have been doing for a while now! Derild4921? 17:58, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support Lfstevens (talk) 20:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 21:22, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:14, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Sounds like a logical step to me -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:32, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
• Late Support - We are trying to remove the copyediting backlog. Reaper Eternal (talk) 03:27, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• OK, it looks like we are not likely to get any objections. I will go ahead and register us. - SMasters (talk) 09:33, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

What if an article needs sorting?

I can think of a few popular 80's and 90's TV and movie articles which I believe are severe need of this project how does one nominate? Dwanyewest (talk) 10:30, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Add the {{copyedit}} tag to the top of the article or section needing a copy edit, and a member of the Guild will eventually be around to perform a copy edit. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 14:50, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

sign me up

How do I "join"? TCO (talk) 20:12, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors#Quick links. "Feel free to add your name to the list here. Add {{User Copy Edit}} to your userpage! This will automatically add you to Category:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors members." Goodvac (talk) 22:06, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Done.TCO (talk) 22:23, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to participate!

Hello! As you may be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is gearing up for our annual fundraiser. We want to hit our goal, and hit it as soon as possible, so that we can focus on Wikipedia's tenth anniversary (January 15) and on our new project, the Contribution Team.

I'm posting across WikiProjects to engage you, the community, in working to build Wikipedia not only through financial donations, but also through collaboration in building content. You can find more information in Philippe Beaudette's memo to the communities here.

Please visit the Contribution Team page and the Fundraising page to find out how you can help us support and spread free knowledge. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE 13:42, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

GOCEreviewed template enhancement?

Would it be useful for the GOCEreviewed template to take an optional argument "reason", where the specific reason why the article couldn't be copy-edited can be explained? This might help other editors resolve the issue in question. // ?macwhiz (talk) 18:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no harm. What do you suggest? - SMasters (talk) 13:11, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

January 2011 drive

Hi, I have setup the page for the January 2011 drive. We will need it ready to go once the elections are over and the new coordinators decide what to do with the drive in terms of its coordinators. Having the new Guild coordinators and calling the drive coordinators the same will make it very confusing, as the drive coordinators may or may not be the same people. It will be up to the new coordinators what they want to do. In the meantime, please help to check the page and make any copyedit improvements. Please do not make any major changes without discussing it here first. Thanks! - SMasters (talk) 13:51, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

It looks good to me. I'm also willing to help with reviewing others' copyedits again. Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:28, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I have made it clearer that Requests page items will not count double this time. Otherwise all good to go. Reaper, I will help do checking again as well. --

Urgent request

Dear colleagues, I wonder whether a good copy-editor would be available to run through the last bit of a substantial article in the upcoming edition of The Signpost's report on the Paris GLAM conference, due to be added, in English, by our French correspondent around UTC 20:00-21:00 tonight. I have done the existing text, but will be asleep when the completion arrives. Please let the Managing Editor, HaeB know if someone can help out. Publication is due soon after that time. Thanks in advance.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-12-13/Rencontres_Wikimédia

Tony (talk) 11:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll look at this for you now Tony. - SMasters (talk) 11:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've given it a once over and made some very minor changes. If anyone else wants to give it another once over, please do so. Obviously I'm not able to help with any expansion, but it looks good to go. - SMasters (talk) 12:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll give it another set of eyes. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I copyedited it, mainly fixing spelling errors. However, I am going to let HaeB know about all the comments in the article unless Smasters has already done so. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, edit conflict. I have not gone through the comments with HaeB. If you can that would be great. Thanks! - SMasters (talk) 15:42, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Please note that I have looked at the existing material, but the material to be added by the French correspondent around UTC 20:00-21:00 is the one that needs a good copyedit. Unfortunately, I will not be around at that time, so anyone available at that time, please help look at the new material. Do leave a note for HaeB when done. Thanks! - SMasters (talk) 15:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey folks, I am the, er, "French correspondent" (or so it appears ;-). Thanks a lot for the (very needed) copyedit! I jsut finished the last bit of it, so if you have some spare time to go through it before publication, that would be great. Thanks in advance, Jean-Fred (talk) 20:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Going through it now. (now done) Reaper Eternal (talk) 21:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot :-) Jean-Fred (talk) 00:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I have made a final run through now as well. - SMasters (talk) 02:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for helping out, good work everyone! By the way, skillful copyeditors always welcome to polish Signpost stories before a new issue comes out - check Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom#Article_status on Sundays and Mondays for those stories that are marked as "Needs copyedit". Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I finished something in December

I finished Painted turtle from NOV in DEC. Is there anything I should to to "take credit" or is that only for drives. I already marked "done" on the request bullet itself a while ago.TCO (talk) 21:16, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

We don't "take credit" for articles except during drives. You can, however, add the template {{GOCE|User=xxx}} to the talk page of the article in question. Reaper Eternal (talk) 00:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

In addition to using the template {{GOCE|User=xxx|date=Month Day, Year}} (don't forget the date), your name will be listed on the archive page. Thanks for helping! - SMasters (talk) 01:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

What archive page? Reaper Eternal (talk) 01:58, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, the requests page archive (which should have been named /Archives/2010 instead of the current format - should we change it?). - SMasters (talk) 02:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes we should. Please go ahead. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, done. - SMasters (talk) 05:31, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

In a few hours you will be the boss and won't have to listen to me any more, haahahaha. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 20:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully, you know me long enough to know that I usually work on consensus here. :-) - SMasters (talk) 22:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

You can be our Dinkum Thinkum. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 23:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Oooops?

If I may :

• In Goals and scope: category of articles needing a copy edit.   -> copy-edit
  
• In Current focus: To promptly fulfill special requests. ?  Or, "To fulfill special requests promptly", as Latinists might say?
  
• Oh, and in "GOCEreviewed" (ibid)  -> GOCE-reviewed. It's an article name, too. Tut,tut.
  
• Then again, elsewhere, "copyedit-section"  -> copy-edit section
  

There's a great quote in one of the old grammarian's books (I'd greatly appreciate anyone who could track it down again for me), along the lines of:
"Those who take hyphens seriously are surely destined to go mad."
Heehee!

Memethuzla (talk) 15:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely, thanks for the help. The days when (short) split infinitives are decried even in formal writing are gone (in AmEng, I don't try to follow BritEng), if you trust Chicago (and I do). "To promptly fulfill" is fine. Webster's New World prefers "copy-edit"; Merriam-Webster prefers "copyedit". - Dank (push to talk) 12:40, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

To be sure. "To artificially inseminate" sounds right to me, too.

Link to guidelines does not function

Section Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors#Copy editing does not exist so guidelines have to be elsewhere, right? Just my 2 wikicents. --Biblbroks (talk) 02:06, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the alert. We moved it to a new tab but forgot to correct the link below. It has now been fixed. Cheers. - SMasters (talk) 02:23, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

New standing request

... and I'll add this to the requests page, too. Per discussion here, we're now asking that articles submitted for a MILHIST A-class review meet at least the standard of our new copyediting checklist. Many of you will have no trouble picking out and fixing the items on the checklist ... feel free to suggest changes to the list or ask for help, I'm happy to work with anyone who wants to learn. Then pick any article at our A-class review where where no one has mentioned checklist compliance yet, and give it a whack. If you're good at it, don't be shy about asking the nominators for help with your favorite projects in exchange. - Dank (push to talk) 02:13, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll be busy tomorrow, and Monday I'll be working on getting an article to GA status, but once I get the time, I'll have a look at this. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 03:36, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Dank, it has been moved here. - SMasters (talk) 14:07, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Source of the article : Wikipedia