The month-long November copy editing drive began on Friday, 1 November, at 00:00 UTC, and will end on Saturday, 30 November, at 23:59 UTC. Sign up now!
On this page, you can request that the Guild of Copy Editors copy-edit specific articles.
Instructions for requesters
To make a request, remove any existing {{copy edit}} tags from the article, then click this button and follow the instructions:
Manual instructions (if the button doesn't work)
To make a request, add your article, using the following format, to the bottom of this page:
===[[Articlename]]===
Your comments ~~~~
Please remove any existing {{copy edit}} tags from the article to avoid edit conflicts during the copy edit.
Please note:
No request by an unregistered editor will be accepted unless the IP has done significant work on the article. Drive-by IP requests already on the list may be declined by any editor.
The average waiting time is two or so months. Please be patient and feel free to improve your requested article while you wait.
If you plan to nominate the article for good article, A-class or featured article status, please wait until the copy edit is complete before nominating it.
Having your article copy edited by our team does not guarantee that the prose will be considered acceptable during any of the above reviews.
You may have up to two open requests at any one time. This is enforced so that every request can have a fair chance of being fulfilled within a reasonable period.
unstable, undergoing rapid development, the venue for an ongoing edit war, or otherwise not yet suitable for copy editing.
Instructions for copy editors
Once you have accepted a request, it may be helpful to add a section to the article's Talk page explaining that you will be copy-editing the article and that other editors are welcome to post questions and comments for you while you are doing so. Remember to add another note when you are done.
Please ensure that you are familiar with the Wikipedia Manual of Style and the expectations for editing for the GOCE outlined in our Step by Step guide. The simplified Manual of Style is here. A number of national varieties of English are present throughout the encyclopedia, and no one variety is preferred. Keep spelling and date formatting consistent within an article.
When you accept a request, place an indented {{Working}} template immediately beneath the request and sign your post with four tildes (~~~~) so other copy editors know not to accept it.
Accept only one request at a time.
Articles that are potential Featured Article candidates should be handled by experienced editors.
If you have accepted a request but cannot fulfill it for any reason, please amend it with either:
a note of the sections you have completed so someone else can complete the copy edit, or;
a suitable template: {{Not done}}, {{Partly done}}, or Abandoned (not a template!). Please make a good-faith effort to complete a copyedit; excessive use of the "Partly done" template does little (or nothing) to reduce the backlog.
If the article is unstable, experiencing rapid development, an ongoing edit war or apparent ownership issues, open a discussion on Requests talk to inform project coordinators.
Acceptances that appear to have been abandoned will be checked after a reasonable period, usually one week after the timestamp. In cases of complete inactivity we will ask for an update on your talk page. If no response is received within one further week, the {{Working}} template will be removed so other editors may complete the copy edit.
When you have completed a request, add the template {{Done}} below the request and sign your post with four tildes (~~~~) and a bot will archive it in about 24 hours. In limited circumstances (breakdowns etc.), you can add the details of the request to the archive page then remove the request here by blanking the subsection. Do not delete the original request without archiving it.
Please consider adding the templates {{GOCE|user={{subst:REVISIONUSER}}|date={{subst:date}}}} on the talk page of articles you have copy edited and {{GOCEtb|article=Insert article name|sign=~~~~}} to the talk page of the requester.
Instructions for coordinators
Stale requests marked as "Working": Acceptances that appear to have been abandoned should be checked for activity after a reasonable period, usually one week after the timestamp. In cases of complete inactivity, a coordinator should ask for an update on the copy editor's talk page. Write "Asked X for update on talk page" below the "Working" line on the Requests page. If no response is received within one further week, the {{Working}} template should be removed so that other editors may complete the copy edit.
Quality control: Articles from the Requests page that are completed by newer editors should be reviewed for quality by a coordinator, time permitting. The top priority is to review articles that are FA candidates; the second priority, GA and DYK candidates.
