Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Blitzes/August 2018

How do we do a word count of the articles we are working on? TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 22:10, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Tim. Thanks for your question. There is a word counting script that can do this for you. It can be installed by following the directions here. Let us know if you have any problems getting it to work. Cheers, Tdslk (talk) 22:38, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I added the script, and despite the warning that there was an error, it seems to work now. However, I can't get my article total to say 1. You can see my struggles with the page revision history. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 23:09, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, there's no script that updates running totals of the words and articles we edit during a drive; it has to be done manually. I updated yours as an example. Let me know if that makes sense to you. Cheers, Tdslk (talk) 01:27, 21 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - that makes sense. I thought this was some kind of automated count. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:33, 21 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Word count

What is the reason for putting the word count down when we have an article marked as working? If I'm following the instructions correctly, I just overwrite that number when I mark the article copy edit as completed - seems a waste of time to put the initial count down since nobody can see that number unless they go through the history to see what number I put down first. What am I missing? TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 22:15, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tim, the official word count for an article for drives and blitzes is that of the version before one starts editing, not at the end, although it's not a big deal since the two numbers are usually similar. You don't have to write the number down when you mark an article for working; I always get the number when I'm done by finding the last version before my edits under the "History" tab. Does that answer your question? Regards, Tdslk (talk) 23:09, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ah-ha - yes. That was confusing. Thanks. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 23:19, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]