User:BDD/Mentorship/Msannakoval

Welcome, Anna! I hope this will be a fruitful experience for us both. Your experience with English and technical editing makes me suspect you'll be a pretty effective copy editor as is. Of course, Wikipedia copy editing will also involve some peculiarities of our system here, like wikitext, so that may be something you'd like to work on. I wouldn't want to spend any time "teaching" you what you already know—and as a teacher, you probably know that it's best to assess a student initially to find out what he or she knows. So besides what you've mentioned on my talk page, could you give me a quick rundown of what you know about Wikipedia and about copy editing, and what you want to learn about either one? --BDD (talk) 18:02, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi BDD. :) Thanks for starting a sandbox for us. I was wondering how that part of this process would work. I figured we'd be working on-wiki, and I have to say, that part of this does make me a little nervous. :] Teachers know that students need a safe space in which to learn. I hope this will be that. Public practice in front of an audience is not ideal, but it is what it is; transparency is important to the Wikipedia community, that much I know, and respect. :)

Since you asked, here's a quick rundown of what I know about Wikipedia and copy editing, what I'm hoping you can help me with, and what I'm worried about.

What I know about Wikipedia:

Where do I begin? There's so much to know, and I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface. But most importantly, I think, are the Wikipedia:Five_pillars.

What I know about copy editing:

Style is everything! And by that I mean the manual of style. If you don't know your style, you can't effectively edit. There's too much you could miss simply because you don't know to look for it. That said, I should probably memorize WP:MoS, shouldn't I? :) For the record, I've got extensive experience with other styles, too. In consulting, we used Chicago. In teaching, we used MLA, APA, and Turabian. And at the Foundation, we use AP.

Perhaps the best way for you to judge what I know and determine what I need to learn and practice would be for you to give me a copy editing exam. You could copy and paste a portion of a Wikipedia page that needs copyediting into the new draft namespace or here in our sandbox and I will copyedit it. You can assess my strengths and weaknesses and, with that baseline data, design a learning plan for me. Spoken like a true teacher, huh? :)

What I'm hoping you can help me with are:

Wikitext

I'm fortunate to have had good teachers, but there's always more to learn! :)

Is there a reference page for the types of wikitext copy editors most frequently encounter? You know, a tip list or a cheat sheet, of sorts. :)

The Guild

A bit of the background: how it got started, how successful has it been, who is involved, and which key contributors should I know?

How does it work? A 30,000-foot view as well as the nuts and bolts. It seems contest oriented: blitzes and drives. But is it always that way? How is it run: is there a hierarchy or are there committees? Is the work self-directed, or are tasks assigned and workload managed? Do members tend to be solitary or are there meetings/meetups?

How is Wikipedia:Cleanup related to the work of the Guild? Says: "Cleanup issues that this project covers may include page layout, wikification, spelling, grammar, typographical errors, tone, and sourcing." How is that different from what the Guild does?

How is Wikipedia:Peer_review related to the work of the Guild?

The copyediting work

How does a copy editor decide what to work on? Are there browsable categories? I can see the fun in editing random pages and articles on topics you're interested in.

Are articles prioritized for copy editing, and if so, how? i.e., most recent = most important or oldest requests get edited first?

What I'm worried about:

That this could be boring.

That this could be lonely.

Not having every nuance of the MoS memorized (and being bitten for it).

Not knowing Wikipedia terminology or wikitext well enough (and being bitten for it).

Not having a ton of time to devote to this. I work full time and I commute a long way from home. That leaves weekends for Wikipedia volunteer work. I don't want to tie you down or string you along with unrealistic expectations of my availability.

Not striking while the iron is hot. I realize it's important to learn how to do this right, but I'm also somewhat drawn to the fun of jumping in feet first!

Not making a dent. I don't have editcountitis, but I would like to see a few more notches on my belt. I want to feel like what I am doing here is helping. I want to contribute to Wikipedia.

I see that you're on holiday now. So no rush in responding to me. Enjoy your time off and away. We'll catch up later this month. :)

I had been hoping to get to participate in this month's Backlog elimination drive, the first one of the new year. If that's still possible, awesome; if not, then the next one for sure! :) (There's no blitz going on at the moment.)

Meanwhile, while you're away, I'll review How to copy edit, Help:Editing, Wikipedia:Wikitext, and Help:Cheatsheet.

Take care, and thanks again! :) Msannakoval (talk) 05:30, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, Anna. I'm pinging you in case you don't have this page on your watchlist. Do you know how to use a watchlist? I operated without one for a while, but now I find them indispensable. I'll be happy to give you a quick rundown on how to use them if you'd like. You've given me a lot to respond to, so I'm going to break my response down into sections. You may know how to format sections already, but I'll give you the nutshell version. For your first sections, enclose the titles in double equals signs (==Example==). For the first subsections under those, use triple equals signs (===Example===) and so on. Note that depending on how a page's table of contents is formatted, excessive subsections can be hard to manage. An easy way to make a line look like a section heading without showing up in the TOC is by putting a semicolon in front of it. So for example, ;Criticism in a new line will display as:

Criticism

In my earlier days of Wikipedia copy editing, I thought those were errors and converted them to traditional section headings! There's no need to do that, though. Back to your questions and such. --BDD (talk) 23:37, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

About Wikipedia

Yep, the pillars are the best summary of how Wikipedia works. That page links to some of the most important policies around here; I would especially highlight notability, verifiability, and consensus as core ideas to keep in mind. If you understand these and have the right attitude—basically, if you're willing to work with others, to accept that you may be wrong, and to keep learning, you'll do well. Most of us are pretty good about assuming good faith, even if some of us need reminders from time to time. To quote The Lion King, "There's far too much to take in here," so one good way to get oriented is to join a WikiProject that corresponds with your own interests, which will provide you with suggestions on what to work on and colleagues who can mentor you. In a way, you're already doing this through the GOCE. For a while, I avoided affiliating myself with any WikiProjects since I like to edit all over the place, but there's really no activity requirement for joining one. If you're interested in an area, go for it. One of these days, I'll go ahead and call myself a member of WikiProject Football. --BDD (talk) 23:37, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

About copy editing

Memorize the MOS? I'd certainly be impressed, but you really just need to be familiar with it generally. There are all sorts of subpages of the MOS, such as WP:FRMOS for France- and French-related topics, that you may never use. Like a paper style guide, it's often more important that you know how to look something up than it is to have every rule committed to memory. You've probably noticed that our MOS resembles others in many matters. One section that I'll especially draw your attention to is what's called WP:ENGVAR—formally, "National varieties of English." In short, just understand that while Wikipedia uses English, it doesn't use just one variety of English. You should never change from one to another just for its own sake. But if an article is supposed to be in a certain variety, or if it currently has a mix of varieties, then by all means standardize. Date formats are a similar issue.

Good idea about having a test page for you to work on. I'll see what I can find. --BDD (talk) 23:37, 28 January 2014 (UTC)