Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Membership/News/2011 Annual Report

Report by Dianna, SMasters, and The Utahraptor | 31 December 2011 2011 Year-End Report 

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors! We have had a busy year and have made steady progress in our task of reducing the copy edit backlog. Many thanks to those who participated in our copy edit drives, helped out with requests, or participated in discussions.

Membership
The Guild's membership has grown from 503 in December 2010 to 764 in December 2011. This is an increase of 261, or 51%. This compares favorably with 2010, when there were 176 new members. We'd like to welcome all of our new members to the Guild!

Requests page
Records were kept through the end of September of the number of requests received on the Requests page. 587 requests were received in that period, for an average of 65 requests per month. The busiest month for requests in 2011 was July, with 89 requests. There are currently 62 articles awaiting copy edit on the Requests page. An experimental Potential Featured Articles requests page was added in September, and it looks like it will become a permanent Guild page. The Requests page archives, begun in September 2010, were discontinued in September of this year, as maintenance was too time-consuming for the few that were managing the page. Archiving might resume in the new year.

Coordinators elections
Coordinators elections were introduced at the end of 2010 as a way to formalize the structure of the Guild and to ensure a supply of incoming new leaders and ideas. Our first tranche of coordinators served from January to June 2011, and the second from July to December. Our third tranche, elected in December 2011, is as follows:


 * Lead coordinator: The Utahraptor
 * Assistant coodinators: Dianna, Stfg, Dank, and Sp33dyphil

Elections will be held again in June, so please keep the Guild in mind when looking for ways to expand your Wikipedia participation. We are open to fresh leadership and fresh input.

Backlog elimination drives
At the beginning of the year, there were 5,151 articles in the copy edit backlog, and we managed to eliminate some 1,000 articles from the backlog over the course of the year. There are currently about 4,100 articles in the backlog.


 * January 2011 drive : This was our first drive of the year. Out of 54 people who signed up, 40 participated. 633 articles were eliminated from the backlog.
 * March 2011 drive : This was our most successful drive of the year! 99 people signed up for the drive, and of these, 70 copy edited at least one article. By the end of this drive, we had fewer than 500 articles remaining from 2009.
 * May 2011 drive : Out of 63 people who signed up for this drive, 45 participated. 421 articles were removed from the queue during the course of this drive.
 * July 2011 drive : 50 people signed up for this drive, and of these, 39 participated. 338 articles were removed from the queue during this drive.
 * September 2011 drive : 58 people signed up for this drive, and of these, 42 participated. An exceptionally large number of articles were tagged for copy edit that month, but we still managed to reduce the backlog by 146 articles.
 * November 2011 drive : During this drive, we reduced the backlog by 232 articles. We were successful in our goal of clearing the oldest three months—March, April, and May 2010—from the queue.

Plans for 2012
The Guild's new lead coordinator, The Utahraptor, has many new ideas and plans for the Guild for 2012. These include:


 * Continuing our Backlog elimination drives and increasing the number of participants
 * Getting the mentorship program in full swing
 * Possibly reinstating 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

Come join us at the Guild and participate in our rewarding activities. We look forward to your company.