Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Blitzes/December 2019

I'm about to start a c/e on the second last May article tagged for an edit. Should we add June to the current blitz since it's only Wednesday? Twofingered Typist (talk) 19:45, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, yes. All the best, Miniapolis 23:25, 17 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Word count incident

I was copyediting the article Monty the Dog recently, when a huge chunk of the article was suddenly removed. Even though this has happened, does the initial word count of roughly three thousand still count, even though the word count now is roughly 500? Thanks, Thatone~~weird~~wikier Say hi 17:22, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In general, count the words that you edited. If the big block of text disappeared before you had edited it, do not count the words from the big block. If you copy-edited the big block and it subsequently disappeared, count those words, because someone in the future may revert that mass removal. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:59, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Thatoneweirdwikier: The article is about a series of children's books (which do not have individual articles), and the removed material comprises plot summaries of these books. If you were deleting the material, you should't count the words for those sections. I think in a case like this, I would probably reinstate the deleted material and copy edit it to condense it considerably (and use the full wordcount for the blitz). Editors are encouraged to follow the Bold-Revert-Discuss (WP:BRD) cycle, but be prepared to discuss the matter if the other editor disagrees, and be careful not to become engaged in an edit war.

@Tk420: as the primary author of the article, I presume you would like the plot summaries to remain in some form? Are these short children's books that could be summarized briefly, or are the plots complex enough to require more than a few sentences? – Reidgreg (talk) 18:03, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer short summaries of the plot. However, I do not have a lot of control remembering no one owns a Wikipedia article. Tk420 (talk) 20:05, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]