User:The Utahraptor/Plans for the Guild of Copy Editors

As the GOCE's new lead coordinator, I have decided to prepare a statement detailing my plans for the Guild. I was planning on having this out last Thursday or Friday (January 5 or 6), but a couple things came up that I had to take care of.

My plans for the GOCE, as outlined in our 2011 end-of-year newsletter, are:


 * Continuing our Backlog elimination drives and increasing the number of participants
 * Getting the mentorship program in full swing
 * Reinstating the Requests page archives, and adding archives to the FAC Requests page
 * Improving the Requests page archival process
 * Improving newsletter development and delivery
 * Improving the means by which exact membership numbers are determined

I will detail my plans in the order presented in the newsletter, starting with my plans for our Backlog elimination drives. In addition, I will describe a few minor ideas I have for the Guild.

Backlog elimination drives
The Guild's Backlog elimination drives were begun in May of 2010 as a means to reduce the size of the copy edit backlog, which, at that time, contained over 8,000 articles. Our May drive was successful; 37 editors signed up for this drive, and 760 articles were removed from the backlog that month. Our next drive, in July of 2010, was our most successful; 103 editors signed up for this drive, and over 1,200 articles were removed from the backlog. From July 2010 to about March 2011, participation began to slowly decline. It increased in the March drive, but decreased in each successive drive.

The decrease in participation isn't what's most concerning. What's most concerning is the number of articles eliminated from the backlog. From May 2010 to November 2010, 3,349 articles were removed from the backlog; yet from January 2011 to November 2011, only 1,329 articles had been eliminated from the backlog. This decrease in the number of articles copy edited could be due to the fact that the Guild has become more notable in the past year, and more people are turning to the Guild for help. What we need to do is encourage our current participants to work harder, and possibly recruit some new participants.

I've watchlisted the Guild's sign-up page, and almost every day I see at least one editor sign up for the Guild. We could instate something like a "welcoming committee" that welcomes these newly signed up editors to the Guild with the Guild of Copy Editors Welcome. The welcome could be changed to emphasize our Backlog elimination drives more, or the welcomer could add a more personal note on the drives.