Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/March 2011

Joining

How to join? Seyloren (talk) 09:57, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Just add yourself at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/March 2011#Participants. – SMasters (talk) 10:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Words

So we must count how many words we edit? Seyloren (talk) 09:53, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

We count how many words the article has before editing begins. Look here for more information on the editing process. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 13:04, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

It is done with a script. Once you have installed it, it's just one click for the word count. – SMasters (talk) 13:11, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

This is probably not the answer to Seyloren's question, which, I think, assumes a logical presumption that word count somehow relates to the difference before and after editing. In the instructions you (Torchiest) reference, it is never made very clear that only the word count before editing is required. The instructions do not explain why that should be the case even if only a few words are changed. In fact, the instructions aren't very clear at all about the procedure or the intentions of the word count tally. It appears to me that the author knew exactly what he/she was talking about, but assumed too much insight by the gamut of readers. --Peter S Strempel (talk) 23:44, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing issue

In the paragraph on reviewing other's copyedits, it says, "...and the reviewer will be assessed a penalty of 1,200 words plus the length of the article reviewed." Shouldn't that be "...and the editor will be assessed a penalty..."? Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed Thanks--Diannaa ^(Talk) 20:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Copy vio

Just my luck - the first article I decided was toothsome is a complete copy-paste violation. In this circumstance what is the priority ? Do I completely re-write a long copy-vio, or do I tag for deletion ? Acabashi (talk) 12:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

If the whole thing is a copy vio and has been such since the very beginning, you can tag it for speedy using {{db-g12}}. If you check back and find there is a good version to revert to, you can do that instead (in both cases try to figure out who inserted the copyright material and send them the appropriate template or a hand-written note). Another route is to list the item at WP:Copyright problems if you are not sure how a particular case should be handled. I personally would not attempt to re-write a total copy-paste as the resulting article would rely totally on the one source and hence would not be very good. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 21:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

dbg12-ed Keto and Kote copy vio from 2007. At least it will be one off the list. Acabashi (talk) 21:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Numbers don't tally

I counted 42 editors under the totals section, but there are only 36 names under participants. If anyone has time, can you please help add those who have forgotten to sign below? Thanks! – SMasters (talk) 02:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed --Diannaa ^(Talk) 02:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this, I'm having some computer problems today. Trying to get it fixed. Cheers. – SMasters (talk) 03:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Harco, Illinois

I am working on Harco, Illinois. I added a link, and I added a more references template, but quite frankly I do not see much copy-editing to be done. Any advice? --DThomsen8 (talk) 00:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

At a glance, I'd say to excise a lot of those names, and to replace the initials on those that remain with forenames where possible. Also perhaps consolidate the short history sections into longer combined ones, with relevant headings. Copy-editing isn't just "wikifying", it's also general qualitative improvements to the prose style of the article. Hope that helps. GRAPPLE X 00:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, too many names, and too much detail, but lacking access to the sources, I was reluctant to cut very much. I will look it over again tomorrow. --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I reorganized several sections into fewer ones, cut out some details, and moved the coal mining details to follow the lede, because that is why the town existed at all. Perhaps more cutting is in order. This work is a challenge. Other editors, take a look, please. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

---

There is a link from Wikipedia:Database reports/Articles containing overlapping coordinates to this article. I see that there are indeed two sets of coordinates, but they appear to be the same. Is this an issue? Can it be fixed? Beyond that detail, just how improved does an article have to be to have the copyedit tag removed? --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:31, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I have checked it over and it is now in good shape from a copy editing point of view. I did a few more changes, mostly punctuation; here is the diff. The coordinates appear in the info box and thus it is not necessary to list them down below as well. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:36, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I removed one set of coords but it is still appearing on the report. I expect it will drop off the list the next time the report is generated. Thank you for editing these articles and for requesting feedback on your work. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:41, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

• Actually, quite a bit more work was needed. Can I claim that towards my word count? ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:14, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Fusion Technology Center

I have done some copy-editing on Fusion Technology Center and corrected a factual error, but this is still a fairly weak article. Most of the references are in Korean. Should I remove the copy-edit tag now? Please take a look. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The weakness of the article is not a concern for this drive. It looks fine on the copy editing from a quick glance, so go ahead and remove the copy edit tag. The references tag takes care of you other concern. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice. I am getting the hang of this. --DThomsen8 (talk) 17:08, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Copyediting equaling AfD's

I've been trying to go through and do my part in some copyediting, but I've run into a number of pages that should probably be deleted, and have put a few on AfD. Anyone else noticing this too? Angryapathy (talk) 21:40, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

It depends which end of the backlog you work from. If you work on the most recently tagged articles you see more of this. But even in the oldest stuff, we still find unsourced A7's, copy vios, and other such stuff. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:54, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

What is AfD and A7? --Peter S Strempel (talk) 02:33, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

These are code for various deletion criteria. A7 is a speedy deletion criterion. AFD stands for Articles for Deletion, which is a process where the community discusses articles that have been nominated for deletion and arrive at a consensus. Articles can also be deleted using a Proposed Deletion process, whereby an article is tagged for deletion and if no one objects or removes the tag within seven days, an administrator reviews the article and makes the deletion decision. We are almost like the army or the government with all these acronyms we use! Most of them can be decyphered by searching for the term and preceding it with WP: for example, WP:AFD, WP:A7, and so on. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 19:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

HaPijamot

I did a lot of the copy edit work prior to this drive and some a couple days ago. Do you think this 2009-05 oldie is ready to come out of the copyedit tag? Raymie (t • c) 22:53, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for all the work you put into this article. It looks great. I have removed the copy edit tag. Just a few more things were needed:

• Numbers that are under ten get spelled out as a word
• The words "also", "very", and "often" were over-used in this article so I removed some instances
• The abbreviation "USA" is considered old-fashioned now; I changed it to "US"
• Minor punctuation fixes

--Diannaa ^(Talk) 19:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. The reason I stopped is because I needed someone with Hebrew experience. For instance, the reference to the Hebrew Born to Dance couldn't be completed until I found that it wasn't commonly "leer" but "lir". Also, people familiar with the show and speaking Hebrew could probably have helped better. Raymie (t • c) 14:14, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

What to do now?

I copy-edited my first article. How do I 'validate' that it was done correctly? Also, I am a little puzzled about the word count thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mikhail_Suslov&action=history

(cur | prev) 06:04, 6 March 2011 Avanu (talk | contribs) (30,242 bytes) (copy edited - cleaned up wording, etc) (undo)

(cur | prev) 07:28, 26 February 2011 Trust Is All You Need (talk | contribs) m (30,356 bytes) (→Wartime activities) (undo)

I obviously got rid of some material, which is a good thing, I think, because it streamlined the article. Is that what we're looking to do? Anyhow, newbie here, so I appreciate any feedback. Thank you. -- Avanu (talk)

Hi, Avanu, and welcome to the drive. Here is a link to the main drive page Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives, where you will find instructions on how to do the record-keeping aspect of the Drive. What we do is get a word-count of the article and award barnstars based on the number of words completed for the duration of the drive. Please have a look at the instructions and if there are any questions please let me know. For general copy editing instructions, you can have a look at the material at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/How to. I have checked over your work on the article and feel you did a good job. Thank you very much and welcome aboard. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:04, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with what Diannaa has said. I looked over your work and found that you did a lot to improve the clarity and readability of this long and difficult article. I was puzzled by the first quotation box in the Krushchev era section, though. Did Suslov write that? --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:15, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the positive comments. I'm not sure what you might mean by word-count though. If I start with a sentence like "I have a cat", and changed to "I own a cat" how do I account for such a thing? Also, I just added the the Author and Title to the Quotation templates in that article in order to clarify who said it. -- Avanu (talk) 04:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The word count is taken before you make any changes; it gives the total number of words in the article that you're going to have to read in order to do your copy editing. It doesn't matter if you add words, subtract them, or leave the total number of words unchanged. All that matters is that you fix up the problems. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 13:11, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

In-situ capping of subaqueous waste

I have improved In-situ capping of subaqueous waste in several ways, but my copy-editing has been very limited. Please take an look and tell me if there is more to be done in this rather technical article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dthomsen8 (talk • contribs)

I will make a note to check this tomorrow as I am tiring and will have to log off soon. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:16, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I went over the article. I removed over-use of the word "also"; did some improvements to the punctuation; and I added some links to technical terms. Thank you for tackling this dense and difficult article. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:43, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Undated articles for copyedit

The project page shows 4 undated articles for copyedit. How do we see them?--DThomsen8 (talk) 15:11, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Hm, good question. I don't see a way to get to that group. However, bots come around and date those tags, so the undated ones eventually get moved to the proper month. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:29, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

This is a bug of some kind. Our backlog is not the only one that has invisible articles. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/July 2010#Counter broken? --Diannaa ^(Talk) 19:54, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

That's because the sum of pages from correctly dated categories does not match the actual number of articles in the All pages cat. So the 4 articles are either tagged for copyedit with a wrong date or added directly via markup.

It's these four: Israel Arts and Science Academy, Kurds in Sweden, Kurt Adler, Àlex Ollé. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:34, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I fixed them. Three were duplicate Categories added at the bottom of the page, which were missed when the articles were copy edited and the top tags were removed. The last one was not working because it only had the month the tag was adding, so was counting as September 2010 until the new year, whereupon it started counting the month as September 2011. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 20:54, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

There are still 4 undated articles on the Project page. Perhaps there is some process which corrects this. --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:25, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Status of the 4 undated articles

• Israel Arts and Science Academy Peacock terms removed, looks OK
• Kurds in Sweden Needs minor copy-editing
• Kurt Adler Has too many quotations tag. Is that copy-editing?
• Àlex Ollé Needs more references, but is copy-edited--DThomsen8 (talk) 19:18, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

• FYI, I have culled the quotefarm at Kurt Adler. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:06, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Since none of the four undated articles are tagged for copyedit, our final total for the drive is really 3850-4=3846. Good work! --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:07, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Trivial query

I see we are sorting alpha the participants list this month. Any particular reason for this? Given the totals list just above it is sorted alpha anyway, I kind of found it interesting to have the list of participants sorted chronologically to see when people signed on, as has happened previously. Other opinions? --jjron (talk) 07:41, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I noticed a discrepancy between the boxes above, and the numbers of participants. Diannaa‎ was kind enough to search for the missing people. I suspect she arranged it alphabetically to make her job easier. – SMasters (talk) 08:22, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is what happened. There were people up above who had not signed up down below, but when I had located them all there were still discrepancies in the count, as some people had signed up down below and had not yet made their totals tally section up above. The simplest way to locate the missing information was to have the two sections sorted the same way. Sorry. BTW since I did that sorting, someone else with a strong sense of order has continued the process. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 20:00, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

'Working' tag

Can someone tell me the point of the  Working tag used in the totals list?

One random user I looked at had 18 articles listed with a Working tag, and as best I could tell they hadn't actually started copyediting any of them.

I can only guess it's there in order for people to 'call' an article, but does anyone really think we look through every other user's list for Working tags every time we select an article to copyedit?

I propose this tag be abolished as it is entirely useless. If anyone wants to indicate they've proceeded with copyediting an article, then they should be tagging the article itself with {{GOCEinuse}}, and if they haven't started on it, then it's anyone's to work on. --jjron (talk) 07:53, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Many of us use this to indicate that we have not yet included these articles in the totals below. Editors should not use it to "book" articles. It can be useful if we are doing a whole lot of short articles, and do not want to waste time adding each one up as soon as we finish. Some prefer to add up at the end of each editing session instead. The editor you mention did this in the last drive as well. We will put a note on their talk page regarding this. Thanks for highlighting it. – SMasters (talk) 08:09, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

So used more as a 'Completed but not counted' rather than a 'Work in progress' or 'I'm going to do this at some stage'. Perhaps a little misleading wording, but I can see that as a use for it – I do a similar thing offline in a spreadsheet that also generates the wikicode and the totals to paste back into the list; it makes things quick, easy, and accurate. --jjron (talk) 13:41, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I use it to record the wordcount before beginning to edit the article. Saves a few keystrokes after the fact.Lfstevens (talk) 05:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I now do that too. Also, the project page will show on the What links here tool list. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:48, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I use it to record an item that I expect to be a multi-day effort, so interested people will know why my count has not gone up for a while. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 20:15, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

They seem like fair enough uses – I just don't like this apparent use of it by some editors to 'reserve' articles. For those long articles I generally use the {{GOCEinuse}} tag on the article, mainly to alert other copyeditors that I'm working on it, but I don't usually bother tagging short articles that I'll be finished with in an hour or less. --jjron (talk) 15:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

5k+ articles

A 5,000 word plus article is worth double for the word count? I didn't think so, but I see some counting them as such. --jjron (talk) 13:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not. However, articles larger than 5K are credited for every 5K. For example, a 17K article is counted as three 5K credits. We will add this to the FAQ. Hope this clarifies. – SMasters (talk) 13:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Partial copy-edits

So I took a look at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and found that there is a copy-edit tag, but only for a few sections. So I would only count the sections that are tagged for a copy-edit, right? That being said, there are a few tweaks for the article as a whole that I have found, such as standardizing all of the English, in this case to Canadian English. Could I then count the entire article? It is a rather large one, so I just wanted to make sure I was doing correct math before I went ahead with it... -Pax85 (talk) 03:13, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

If you only worked on a section or sections, then only count the section/s. If you looked through the entire article, even though the tag is on the sections, then you can take credit for the entire article. Importantly, all copyedit tags must be removed from the article when completed. – SMasters (talk) 03:58, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

5K Leaderboard

So I noticed on the leaderboard for the 5K articles, that there are three people in one spot, but the two editors with only 1 5K article are in separate spots. I am about will finish copy-editing my first 5K+ article today. So when I put my name on the list, should I group all the users with 1 credit into one box, as was done with those who have 2 credits, which would also leave an empty space at the bottom? Or should I kick the lower of the 5K editors off the list? Thank you for the clarification! -Pax85 (talk) 17:38, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

You should group all three of your names in the fourth box, and leave the fifth empty. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 17:44, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, thank you. And thank you SMasters for answering my previous question! -Pax85 (talk) 21:04, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Number of articles

Is this the number one has edited in this month's drive, or the number altogether? Looks as if different editors may be interpreting it differently. --Stfg (talk) 00:55, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

It is only those completed for the drive, and the {{copyedit}} tag must be removed in March after the copy edit has been completed. There are penalties for incomplete work. We have a large number of new participants, and we can't discount innocent errors in reporting. Do let us know where these are and we will fix them. Thanks. – SMasters (talk) 01:16, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Looking again, I think it was just a typo, likely to be spotted next time. Certainly accidental. --Stfg (talk) 11:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Seeking advice

I've hammered Business ethics pretty hard. Still working, but the copy is down by about 20%. I have a question about references. This thing has more than I've ever seen before. One sentence has 10(!) I propose deleting all but two refs for any given point. Assuming this is a good idea, I'd appreciate your thoughts on what rule to use when removing them. Possibilities:

First 2 Maximize number of distinct sources (many sources are heavily cited) Minimize number of distinct sources (perhaps more heavily-cited sources are better sources)

Many of the refs also include extensive quotes and/or commentary. Should I keep it?

I must say that the article still seems like a jargon-laden, thinly-disguised attack on business, e.g., the fairly random and poorly formed attacks on neoliberalism. I have tried to restate the attacks in clearer language rather than removing them. Make sense?

TIA

Lfstevens (talk) 08:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Typically when that many cites are present it is the scars from and edit war or a disagreement over the content. Two or three references for each point are considered adequate. Extensive quotes in the refs are not necessary and could even set us up for copyright issues. They too may have been placed to prove a point. How to choose which of the refs are the best for each point? This is really beyond the scope of normal copy editing. I don't do this even when working on GA or FA material so I can't answer that part of your question. Perhaps your post on the article's talk page will help attract interested and knowledgeable people to the article. You might like to think about adding a maintenance tag warning readers about the one-sided POV. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 14:26, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Lfstevens (talk) 14:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Candidates for deletion

One of the articles I came to I ultimately decided was a candidate for deletion. That was after reading it, checking the edit history closely and the contributions of those editors, hunting around in Google searches for sources, reading through anything that seemed likely, preparing a detailed deletion summary, etc; in other words, despite not actually copyediting it, I would have done at least half-an-hours' work on it. I added a deletion tag and removed the copyedit tag (in order to remove it from the count of articles to be edited, and so that no one else would come to try to copyedit it).

Obviously I don't want to waste my time copyediting an article that's about to be deleted, but I have counted it in my word and article count totals. If it's ultimately not deleted, I will go back and copyedit it.

So, is this considered the right thing to do? I don't think I've seen anything in the rules on articles that are deleted. --jjron (talk) 15:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I believe the correct procedure is to leave the copy edit tag, and not add it to your list until you've actually completed the copy editing. If it is deleted, it will get removed from the list anyway. If not, you can go back and do the copy editing later, then add it to your counts. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:12, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

You can remove the {{copyedit}} tag and replace it with {{GOCEreviewed}}.

Once the issues have been resolved, the copy editing can continue. If it gets deleted then we have not wasted our time. – SMasters (talk) 05:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah thanks, that'd be the way to do it. I think leaving the copyedit tag runs too much of a risk of someone else wasting their time on it, so would rather it be (at least temporarily) gone. I'll go tag it now (that one goes on the talkpage only right?). --jjron (talk) 03:11, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Kite types – proceed with caution!

This article is part of the June 2009 backlog, and I'd been working on it for three days. The text is full of external links, which I've been patiently changing to footnotes (of which there are too many already but hey, I didn't write the article). When I tried to open two .pdf links from the same website (to see if they were "live" before reformatting them), though, my computer crashed – once yesterday and once today. I noted the first crash on the article's talk page (since it didn't seem like a fluke; my computer did not like that link). After the second crash, though, I decided to quit while I was behind and gave up. Does Wikpedia scan external links in articles for viruses? Wi2g 23:42, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning. – SMasters (talk) 05:51, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think WP scans them. I'm pretty cautious about PDF links though too and where possible try to avoid clicking through them; I have hit ones before that perhaps haven't crashed my computer, but have certainly crashed my browser. --jjron (talk) 03:18, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Word Count

Hi everybody. I started to copyedit my first article, John Mott (captain). I have completed the lead, Early life, and Early Revolutionary War sections. Diff for my edit Using the page size tool, I calculated that I had added 17 words. Is that what I put for my word count? I know that I'm not done editing yet, but it seems a little low. BurtAlert (talk) 00:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The 'word count' is the prose size of the article before you begin editing. There's instructions on the main drive page to install a tool that'll count it up for you, but your word count for this article is actually 1727 words, not 17. A bit of an improvement. :P GRAPPLE X 00:31, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! So you always use the prose size before editing even if the prose size after editing is higher? BurtAlert (talk) 00:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep. You're tallying up the number of words that you're applying the editing to - regardless of how much you add or remove, proofing 5000 words is more work than 500, after all. GRAPPLE X 00:44, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Often the net result of editing is a reduction in the word count. Also, changes or additions to references do not count in prose words.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:25, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Gotcha. Thanks again. BurtAlert (talk) 00:47, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The Drives FAQ also has a section on this; worth checking out. – SMasters (talk) 05:54, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Markus Breitschmid and Engesa

I have added italics to book titles in Markus Breitschmid as requested by Diannaa. Thanks for reminding me about this - after hours on an article you can go brain-dead and forget things. I would like a special look at what I've done on Engesa - I've been rather bold and would like a review, as I'm concerned that my "head of steam" might have gone too far. Thanks Acabashi (talk) 02:28, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Tedious but necessary. I will check out Engesa right now. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 03:21, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Huge block of text dropped in the article; promotional in tone; professionally written; almost certainly a copyright violation. You did right to remove it whether it was relevant to the subject of the article or not. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 03:30, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

• And both articles were fairly grotesquely overlinked, IMHO. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:37, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback both of you - and yes, it was my grotesque overlinking :) Acabashi (talk) 03:51, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Miguel Giménez Igualada

I logged as working on Miguel Giménez Igualada but I think there is a problem that needs resolving before copy-editing. I cross-checked with Individualist anarchism in Europe and found that the article is, in the greater part, duplicated. From looking at the history of both articles I think that Miguel Giménez Igualada was the egg and Individualist anarchism the chicken. Edits in the Individualist anarchism page by User:Eduen have made that article’s Igualada sub-section almost identical to the Igualada article… is this a merge? I have logged-off as working on this one, but left the GOCEinuse to hold back other editors until you decide what is best. Acabashi (talk) 19:38, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

• It's quite normal for spinoff articles or summary sections to be created. Sometimes editors take a biography and summarise it for another article, sometimes, they spin it off when they thing it could be developed. There are no hard and fast rules. If, in the course of your copyedit you find material in the sources that allow you to expand the article or give it greater clarity, that's what you should do. By the same token, feel free to make any necessary corrections in the related article in the event of errors. BTW, the sources look a bit duff – one points back to the article itself (and should be removed as a self-reference; one is dead, while another looks like a low-quality amateur site. I have not studied the pdf files. If you find any new sources that can be used, they should of course be incorporated. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I hit the Iaie piece a few months ago. It was/is a travesty. Eduen is obsessed with anarchy. (See Individualist anarchism's history.) Have a happier life—Pass. Lfstevens (talk) 07:43, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Link to drive

Simultaneously to the delivery of the mid-drive newsletter the link to the drive has disappeared from my watchlist screen. Nor is the link readily available through the community portal where it was previously mentioned prominently on the front page. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:12, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I guess it's just not our turn to be featured any more! If you just bookmark the WP:GOCE home page, we have a handy tab-set that offers links to all our material. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 14:30, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The Watchlist promo had an auto-timer that expired sometime on the 15th. – SMasters (talk) 14:58, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Gun Arvidssen

Can anyone tell me why the Gun Arvidssen article title appears in italics, and how I can get it to display in non-italicised style? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:00, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

For some reason, the template {{Italic title}} has been transcluded onto the page, however, I can't find it anywhere in the text. I suspect that one of the Infoboxes used in the article has automatic transclusion of this. You will need to find out which Infobox is causing this, and check the documentation of the Infobox to see how to turn the italics off. – SMasters (talk) 06:29, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Found it. It was {{Infobox book}} that was causing it. I added |italic title=no to turn it off. – SMasters (talk) 06:33, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

• Muchas gracias. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Multiple Issue Template Error

I have just determined an error in Template:Multiple issues. When using the crystal or prediction parameter, the article shows up as needing copyediting, even though no copyedit parameter exists. Discovered when trying to kill the final article listed in [[Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit from May 2009]], which was War of Ezekiel 38–39 (check the page history for my testing).

The way to fix it is to remove crystal from the multi-issue tag, and put it as the standalone {{crystal}} tag. As suggested by Chaosdruid I will report it elsewhere to try to get it fixed, but it's one to be aware of if a copyedited article with the copyedit tag removed won't go away. --jjron (talk) 13:33, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

• I've requested that the template be changed to fix that error. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Fantastic find!! Hopefully, this will drop some articles from the backlog which should not be there. I wonder if there are any other tags that are incorrectly categorized? – SMasters (talk) 02:17, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

It was the Multiple issues template itself. I checked it before and after the fix Template_talk:Multiple_issues#Incorrect_categorisation, the only two that put copyedit needed categories will be "copyedit" and "grammar".

That just leaves the "articles with no date" problem :¬) Chaosdruid (talk) 03:32, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Praxeology in economics

I have copy-edited the section Praxeology#Praxeology in economics, admittedly rather heavy material, but it is only part of the article, so I am unsure whether to say 1953 words, or maybe half that.--DThomsen8 (talk) 16:04, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

When only a section is tagged, you get credit for just the section size. To find out how much that is, you can click the edit button for the section to be copy edited. Then, preview the page without making any changes. It will show only the section you're editing, and you can use the page size tool on the preview to see how many words are in the tagged section. I checked, and that section is 1222 words, about two thirds of the article. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 03:00, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:03, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Boris Lehman

I have copy-edited this article. Boris Lehman. It also needs citations and references, but I have so far failed to find on-line original sources like newspapers or books. I have put in one link to an online national archive (Belgium). Are these sort of sources acceptable? Yellowcrocus (talk) 15:47, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

That looks like a reliable source to me. You could ask about it at the reliable sources noticeboard to get more input on it. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:00, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - I'll have a look. Yellowcrocus (talk) 16:09, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Vigili del Fuoco

This article is very long, sometimes confused, with parts coming from automatic translation. I am working on it, but I am not sure I am going the right way. Can some expert please have a look at my copy editing? Thank you.--Broletto (talk) 19:14, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but I'll have a look for you, and get back to you on your talk page...good luck. Acabashi (talk) 21:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

José Liard and William K. Boone

After 5 days I have gone as far as I can on José Liard, and want to use my time over the remaining days on other articles. I will remove it as a "working" article on the drive page, but not log Liard as completed, and won't remove the tags and GOCEinuse as I'm waiting for possible input from outside the web with a view to improving it: Talk:José Liard - call it an anal compulsion to improve. If requests for information don't reveal anything over the next week, I will add it to my tally as is.

I added to the deletion discussion for William K. Boone, here, and have been in "conversation" with the article's creator since then: here and here. I intend to go back to the article after the drive, attempt to find more on Boone, and lick the article into some shape or reduce it drastically - the creator has edited in good faith I think, but needs his hand held.

Acabashi (talk) 18:55, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, I think he has been acting in good faith. I did what I could with the article but he wasn't satisfied with the job, and replaced the ce tag I removed. Difficult to find good sources from that long ago, and in such a distant land... Good luck in your quest. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Steam

We seem to be running out of it. I need to get a few articles processed today! ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I hereby vow to do at least ten copy edits Wednesday! —Torchiest ^talk_edits 03:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I will try to do some too. I will try to do ten short ones. I have been busy with admin-stuff. They warned me this would happen... --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

• Actually, we're not doing badly overall, and will probably reach the average 700 articles each drive manages to remove from the backlog. It's just that work seems to have slowed to a trickle the last few days. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:37, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

At least we have not gone backwards! It has been a very successful drive. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:58, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I note that at least 300 articles have been tagged {{copyedit}} since the drive began. Does this mean that we have cleared almost 1,000 articles? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. That's showing the difference, so about a thousand have been copy edited. Of course, it's not all us in this drive doing it either. Amazingly, there are random people out there doing copy editing on their own. Rare, but true. :) —Torchiest ^talk_edits 13:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

This "running out of steam” might be one of a number of generic problems with Wikipedia drives that could be looked at. Being new to drives, what I ask might already happen: - is there a de-brief at the end where all signed-up editors are invited to discuss what worked for them and what could be improved? Acabashi (talk) 15:24, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Nothing official, but there's usually some discussion after a drive ends, although in my experience, there's usually more discussion on the talk page of the next upcoming drive before it starts, where concerns are expressed about how the process might be improved. There's also the main drive talk page to discuss things at any time. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:48, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I participated for the first time but have only had time to do 2 articles. I learnt a lot and appreciated the feedback from Diannaa and "Tea with Toast".Octopet (talk) 21:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

While drive slow-down does naturally happen, there may be a specific reason for this one: Spring Break. We are right in the middle of that season, with many universities taking last week (my own included) or this week off. I don't know if this could contribute to the slow-down, but it might be a factor.Pax85 (talk) 05:10, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, and I thought it was all St Patrick's Day post celebrations (and that the leprechaun got to some of us) . The decline started on St Pat's Day but hopefully we can cover some ground in this last week.Compared to past drives, we're not doing too badly. – SMasters (talk) 05:21, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

• 2011 Hong Kong Sevens (25-27 March) ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:29, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
• As I write, there are 394 newly tagged articles in March 2011 – 94 since a week ago. I don't know how that compares with previous drives, but the fact of counting all tagged articles means we are always talking in 'net' terms. If more are tagged in a given day than removed, we go backwards. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Why is the count done that way? It would seem reasonable to me to only count copy-edit tags through the end of February during the March drive, and if we do an May drive, count only through the end of April. --DThomsen8 (talk) 19:38, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

On the main copy edit drive page, the list calls the totals the amount reduced in the backlog. I believe in the first drive, we came up with a number for the total number of articles actually copy edited, by taking the reduction amount and adding the total added during that month. The only problem with that is some people are actually fixing articles in the current month, so you still won't get an accurate count. As long as the total number of tagged articles is decreasing, it's all good. A good challenge in April would be to try to prevent the total from being higher at the end of the month than it was at the beginning. Torchiest ^talk_edits 19:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

what's with the little green check mark

Someone just put a little green check mark after one of my articles. What does this mean? Herostratus (talk) 04:50, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

It means that one of our reviewers has checked your article as part of our quality control process. – SMasters (talk) 04:53, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Are we regular people supposed to or encouraged to pitch in and this? (This is how DYK works). Or just specialists? Does every article get reviewed? Herostratus (talk) 18:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Anyone can volunteer to check other editors' work by listing their name at the bottom of the page. The standard procedure is to check one article at random for every ten that a person copy edits. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 18:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Word count for lists and indents

It seems that the page tool doesn't count words in lists and indented texts. Try it on this talk page and see how little of it is counted. --Stfg (talk) 11:21, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors/Backlog_elimination_drives/FAQ#Page_size. Cheers. – SMasters (talk) 11:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Re the above: the javascript:importScript('User:Dr pda/prosesize.js'); getDocumentSize(); through the address bar has only been counting body text words - this is is all I've been totting-up. I assumed that as the formula only showed a body text count, that was all that should be added. I have done a lot of work on lists in some articles, such as Geethu Anna Jose where half my time was spent in rationalizing such and would almost triple the words score; should I go back and recalculate with a word processor? Acabashi (talk) 12:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

If something is in a table or formatted list, I don't count it. If by list, you mean a series of bullet points, with each item having a long description or piece of text, I count that. Thus:

Publication table

Title	Author	Year
Brilliant Novel	John Smith	1942
Okay Book	Mary Jones	1956
Lousy Text	Samuel Brown	1978

That table shouldn't be counted. However, a list like this:

• John Smith wrote Brilliant Novel in 1942, a tour de force in which amazing things happened to the protagonist.
• Mary Jones wrote Okay Book in 1956, which was a mediocre coming of age tale.
• Samuel Brown wrote the irredeemable Lousy Text in 1978, which was universally panned by critics.

...should be counted. Hope that helps. :) —Torchiest ^talk_edits 12:56, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

It does indeed - many thanks. I have another knotty little problem that we all must come across. We spend our valuable time in this exercise only to have someone come along (nearly straight) afterwards and mess it all up again. Normally a little tweak around a small newer edit is fine and is only a minor irritant. But some really get my goat: Stefan Lysenko. The creator, User:1blissing, who appears to have a blatant COI - I suspect being Lysenko himself (with his Bliss Cafe and Bliss Productions) - has returned and dumped a load of extraneous and duplicated links throughout the text and refs, making a complete mess the whole thing. It is at least lazy of 1blissing, but in my present state of mind over this, I feel it's almost vandalism. Acabashi (talk) 14:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. A couple of points, then:

• It's not enough merely to copy the article into a word processor; you don't have to copy in the references etc, of course, but you still need to go in and delete the TOC, pictures and file: and suchlike statements and you have to make judgements about whether a any list/table should be counted or not. (By the way, block copying copies the [Edit] links for each section, but a dummy edit prior to copying the version before the dummy edit gets rid of them so you don't need to find and delete those manually.)
• Actually, my experience has been that tables of the kind Torchiest mentioned sometimes create more work than the text itself, because you really need to go through and see if any of them have articles to link to. In three of the articles I worked on, such lists and tables were 90% of the work.

Acabashi, I sympathise. It's why I never work on BLPs.

--Stfg (talk) 14:59, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I've definitely been there too on people coming back and undoing or making a mess of a painstaking copy edit. It is definitely less likely to happen on less contentious articles though, although we'll eventually have to copy edit them all. :) As for the tables, yes, wikilinking can be a lot of work in those, but since that's still not technically part of copy editing, I don't count them. But I think common sense exceptions can be made; this is all volunteer work, after all. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 15:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the explanation, Torchiest. If others aren't counting these, I certainly won't ask for an exception for myself. Regards, --Stfg (talk) 15:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

National Panorama Competition (UK)

This was our UK Panorama - I've offered this name change as the previous was confusing and not specific enough.

I've added some refs and tidied-up the intro, my problem though is this: the article below a results table is pure promotional blather for all bands competing, complete with their web site links, and with no blue links or inline cites, and in one case blatant copy vio. My intention is to wipe-out all this spam from the article, not being inclined to waste my time on researching and tidying-up bands (in most cases non-notables), which if they are important enough should have their own articles anyway. This is a big bold move, so I would like feedback from editors, particularly our leaders. Acabashi (talk) 15:24, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree with your plan. I glanced over that, and yeah, it is some seriously hyped up promotional fluff in that article. In fact, it looks like at least one of the sections, for the band Real Steel, is almost a WP:COPYVIO from this page in places. I could see a brief summary of each year's results, but the current article state is unacceptable. I say go for it. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 17:53, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for the feedback. Ebony Steel Band is a complete steal from its web site. In this instance it would be a bit cheeky to add the 1209 words to my tally, so I’ll just the little bit that I did copy edit. There is the same complete copy vio problem with Dhimitër Pasko – but I can work with this one – just précis the raw facts. Acabashi (talk) 18:13, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Band articles are often difficult to copy-edit, and often contain peacock terms and puffery, and worse yet, copy violations. I agree with the comments above. Remove the copy violations and puffery. A shorter article will be better for the effort. --DThomsen8 (talk) 18:38, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Wesel Rail Bridge

I have the Wesel Rail Bridge listed as working, but I have decided that a complete rewrite is the proper approach, to include inline citations and other material. Right now I have a {{GCOEinuse}} tag on the article, but it will be days or weeks before I do a rewrite and replace the existing article. I suspect that I should remove the article from my list of articles, but what, if anything, should I have as a tag on the article? Of course I can say on the talk page that I am doing a complete rewrite, but what else? Advice, please. --DThomsen8 (talk) 18:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

There is an {{Under construction}} tag you can put at the top of the page, then just add notes to the talk page about your specific ideas. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 19:34, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Too late!

Gah! I just finished one last copyedit for the March drive, but when I went to log it, I discovered the drive had ended 20 minutes earlier. I guess it's actually April in UTC? Will there be an April drive I can submit this one into? Johnson487682 (talk) 01:03, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

You can set a UTC clock to show up in your preference. Our next drive is in May. Please do join us then. – SMasters (talk) 01:11, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Historical recording

I looked back at articles on previous drives and noticed that the progress tables there were 'live'. To preserve a historic record, I took a screen shot a few moments ago, and replaced the progress box with a static table for historical record. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:46, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, good work! – SMasters (talk) 02:06, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Incenting work on 09 articles

Why not give a bonus next time for working on the ancient ones?

Lfstevens (talk) 04:10, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I was just thinking that. Requested articles had a 50% bonus this time; I don't see any reason why we couldn't do the same thing next time. Alternately, we could give out a separate barnstar for most '09 copy edits in the May drive. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 05:39, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

The ancient ones are often the very hardest. I would agree with —Torchiest ^talk that a separate barnstar would be a good alternative idea. It would be less intimidating to GOCE newbies like me. --DThomsen8 (talk) 11:57, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

It would also add some variety as working on the old articles is a very different experience than drawing from the Requests page. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 14:45, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar document prepared

The Barnstars worksheet has now been completed and is ready for review. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 01:08, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations

I would like to congratulate the organisers of the drive on an efficient drive with clear objectives, good progress reports, easy-to-use participation page, successful conclusion and prompt awards. Well done! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:05, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Seconded. It was very enjoyable participating in this drive. The organisation was great, and so was the atmosphere here. --Stfg (talk) 09:27, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who participated, and thanks for your kind words. The quality of work the participants do is increasing all the time. I am very happy with the way the organisation is growing. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 14:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thirded!Octopet (talk) 17:57, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for participating! – SMasters (talk) 04:12, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Stop Eliminating Edits From New Users

Just stop. You're driving away people that legitimitly want to add to wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.41.248.125 (talk) 02:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Our work here is not to eliminate edits, but to copy edit and help improve articles. Which article are you referring to? – SMasters (talk) 04:09, 11 April 2011 (UTC)