Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Archives/2009

New focus?
Should we, the members of this project, just concentrate on fulfilling c/e requests, rather than trying to reduce the backlog? I mean, let's be honest here...we are never going to get through that backlog in less than two years...and fulfilling specific requests is more helpful to people IMHO. :) &mdash; Ed 17   for President  Vote for Ed  14:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * And not all of us are concentrating on the backlog that much either. *looks around guiltily* But there are not that many requests either. So when there are no requests, or if the requests are too big for poor newbies like me (and when we have time) we can get working on the backlogged articles. C h a m a l  talk 14:28, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I can put in requests myself too. :) About 3! :P Anyway, if anyone wants my help c/e'ing one of those requests, feel free to drop me a note on my talk page...but I'm not going to try that backlog. :) &mdash; Ed 17   for President  Vote for Ed  14:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it's possible to keep a balance between working on the backlog and accepting c/e requests. Like Chamal mentioned, we don't get many requests for c/e. I've been working on the January/February 2007 articles. The February 2007 backlog is down to only 2 articles. Woo hoo!

A note regarding the Chain Saw Massacre request: I accepted the request on EclipseSSD's talk page on October 20 but received no response as to whether or not it still needed to be copy edited. I'm currently working on the Go (game) request, so if either of you are interested in editing Chain Saw, feel free. Best,  momoricks   talk  23:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The articles we have left from Jan/Feb '07 are the really, really evil ones though. I prefer the low hanging fruit myself - schools, roads and small towns provide rich pickings Adacore (t·c) 15:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)


 * No kidding. I've been tackling those when I'm feeling particularly masochistic. The last one I did was Puget Sound environmental issues. Check it out...yucky.  mo   talk  07:40, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello guys. I used to be pretty active on this project until I took a long wikibreak for studies and work, but I thought I'd weigh in on this. This WikiProject's focus has always been the backlog and not requests, simply because requests are being handled by other project. Peer review, I believe, and also the GA and FA processes (correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I've been here). Additionally, the League of Copyeditors, which was something of a forerunning to GOCE (us), died because of requests: their focus shifted almost completely to requests, and they realized they could not handle the many requests that poured in. Yeah just my 2 cents.- Samuel  Tan  03:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Samuel. I was unaware of all of that.  momoricks   (make my day)  03:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Backlogs
Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit has a drastically different number of articles in it, including those in its subcategories, than Category:All articles needing copy edit. Which number is correct? -Drilnoth (talk) 15:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit has several subcategories, in which all of those articles in Category:All articles needing copy edit are located. In fact, Category:All articles needing copy edit is a sub category of Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit. Check there, you'll see the link. If you're referring to the table, I think it hasn't been updated since August, so the number shown there is less than what we actually have. Cheers.  C h a m a l  talk 14:05, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand the table, but then why does Category:All articles needing copy edit have about a 1,000 more articles than the count that ErwinBot85 is keeping track of at Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit? -Drilnoth (talk) 14:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Because the table at Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit is updated manually. We never managed to find a way to get ErwinBot85 to update that table for us. It's always been done by hand, editing the table's code.- Samuel  Tan  04:00, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That wasn't what I was asking about, but now I can't seem to figure out what I was asking about. :) Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 14:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The order of thing
[Moving this from above - Dan] One of the major issues I face when I dive into the backlog  is the fact that copy-editing should be one of the last fixes applied to an article. Problems like "original research", "POV", and "neutrality" discourage me from editing the articles because an entire section which I may have been working on could be deleted just like that. Take the "Islam in Burma" article, much of it needs to be completely rewritten before any copy-editing can be done. I have been running after the original author/s help but I rarely get anywhere. -- Glubbdrubb ( talk ) 11:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It's a hard problem to solve. The best way to make sure these issues are addressed so that the article will have some kind of stability is to copyedit articles toward the end of, or after, a review process, such as FAC, GAN, a wikiproject's A-rating, or WP:PR. If you review after, then neither the people in the review process nor the editors are happy, because that's just the help they were looking for during the review.  If you do it during ... when?  How can you know when the "end" of the review is coming?  If you do it at the beginning, then your stuff will certainly get edited. None of these are make-or-break problems, but I'd like to see this addressed by the community of copyeditors. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 13:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Islam in Burma is, to me, a perfect example. It simply isn't ready, as I look at it.  I wanted to give it a "Take 2 busy editors and call me in a few months." prescription.  OK, not that bad, but... it is wounded, and it isn't getting better.  I went bouncing through the old articles, and a lot of them need a good sharp editorial hatchet applied, rather than detailed copy work, at this time...or conversely they needed content with sources added.sinneed (talk) 03:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have the same problem. In a few days, I've come across articles that have been tagged copyedit, but are also tagged unreferenced or refimprove. I am tempted to remove the copy-edit tag and simply ask for references/submit for prod or afd before its re-tagged. Am I making the best judgement here? :) Bladeofgrass (talk) 23:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

A new tag?
I have no clue if this is trivially easy, terribly hard, or very dumb idea: How about a new tag that says "This article looks pretty good, but it needs just a copy-edit." Then, if it really is ready, it gets a nice coat of polish, and is all shiney. If not, whoever chewed through it might be able to tag it with things it needs and toss the ready-for-CE flag until someone adds it back later. Just a thought... I make no claim that it is a good thought. :)sinneed (talk) 03:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Interesting idea, although I'm not sure how easy it would be to get it's use standardized. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Removing copy-edit tag?
I'm just now getting comfortable making large-scale edits. My question is: After I edit a section, should I take the copy-edit tag off? AikiHawkeye (talk) 02:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Which tag? I remove after I'm done and feel it doesn't require any more copy-editing.Bladeofgrass (talk) 11:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

That's the one I was referring to. Thanks! I just didn't want to be making a faux pas. AikiHawkeye (talk) 11:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Request re. requests section
Once a request has been addressed, please remove it from the list! When I checked on article and user talk pages, the apparent backlog was just stuff that hadn't been removed. Leaving something around for a little bit in case someone else wants to further help is fine, but is it possible to have some sort of automated removal similar to the peer review pages? Recognizance (talk) 06:25, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Just dropping by...
Hey guys, just a quick note to say hi, even though I'm not sure if any of my old friends are still around! I've been very inactive on Wikipedia for quite a while due to being extremely busy with stuff. Cheers! - Samuel  Tan  05:01, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Use and Abuse of the CopyEdit Date field.
Hi everyone,

if I have performed a significant amount of copy editing on an article, would it be okay to increase the date field on the copyedit tag, by one month?

The idea is that the oldest articles would then be the ones which had received less attention. Those of us who are not yet confident enough to completely remove the copyedit tag would thereby have a way to indicate that an article has been improved, and help focus copy editors on the articles that most require improvement. I suspect that with this method, we could more efficiently collaboratively copyedit, as I know that I personally slow down the further I get from my copyedit comfort zone - I wouldn't be surprised if I could get two articles to 70% in the time that it would take me to get one article to 85%.

Another alternative would be an invisible category for our own use, with which we request that a more experienced copy editor check or do the final polishing on an article for which most of the grunt work has been achieved.

Apologies if this is explained elsewhere. I have time to question, or read, but now I must sleep! --James Chenery (talk) 14:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Reward Board challenge for Copy Editing
Hi everyone,

I posted a task up on Reward board (in the "other" section) in order to encourage people to copy edit articles from April and May 2007. You are all invited, naturally.

--James Chenery (talk) 16:48, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Date unlinking bot proposal
The community RFC about a proposal for a bot to unlink dates is now open. Please see Full-date unlinking bot and comment here. --Apoc2400 (talk) 10:36, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Articles by Category?
Hi Wikipedians, is there a way to view articles that need copy editing by category, e.g. arts, history, science, etc.? I am most interested in editing articles related to science and medicine, but have little interest in editing those related to popular culture. Craig Hicks (talk) 13:14, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

PerfectIt (computer program for easier copyediting)
I have just discovered a computer program for easier copyediting. See Intelligent Editing - Cleaner, Smarter, Better Documents. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Have you tried it and would you recommend it?--Kojozone (talk) 20:09, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I have not tried it and I am not planning to try it. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll give it a try. It has a 30 day free trial. I'll report back here and tell if it's any good.--$%MarshalN20%$ (talk) 16:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I look forward to your report. May you have a good August. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:10, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Report (1st Usage)
I used the program to copy-edit the Peru national football team article. I used it for that article because during the Featured Article Candidate Evaluation, one of the evaluators claimed that the article was in "serious need" of a "copy-edit by a native speaker." The "PerfectIt" program found only 2 copy-edit errors: 1. The full mention of CNN's full name. 2. A minor spelling error that could have been corrected by MS Word's spellcheck.

So, this means that either the Peru national football team article is good in terms of copy-edit, or the "PerfectIt" program is flawed.

If anybody here can give a quick look at the Peru national football team article and give a quick evaluation on it (try to find any copy-edit errors that should have been caught by the "PerfectIt" program), it would help see if the program actually works. I will use it a couple of times more with other articles and report what the machine gave out.--$%MarshalN20%$ (talk) 21:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Report (2nd Usage)
The second usage of the program was used for the Static Shock article. It found a series of problems. Among these were contractions, difference in repetitive words, among other things.

So far, it seems to me that this program is good for a quick copy-edit of articles who are still on a basic status. It might even be good for articles attempting to reach the GA status. However, this program should not be used for articles looking to receive a rating higher than GA status. A human editor is needed for such advanced copy-editing.--$%MarshalN20%$ (talk) 22:40, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Current Focus
On the main page we have:

"Current focus

Copyedit all of our requests, before the backlog becomes unmanageable."

On one of the archived discussion pages here, another user discusses how undertaking requests killed off the previous copy editor's group, and how in their opinion, such work falls under the remit of a different WikiProject altogether.

Ah, found it. Samuel Tan says:
 * Hello guys. I used to be pretty active on this project until I took a long wikibreak for studies and work, but I thought I'd weigh in on this. This WikiProject's focus has always been the backlog and not requests, simply because requests are being handled by other project. Peer review, I believe, and also the GA and FA processes (correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I've been here). Additionally, the League of Copyeditors, which was something of a forerunning to GOCE (us), died because of requests: their focus shifted almost completely to requests, and they realized they could not handle the many requests that poured in. Yeah just my 2 cents.- Samuel  Tan  03:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by James Chenery (talk • contribs)

Therefore, I propose that we shift the current focus from the request backlog, to the rather more pressing copy edit backlog, specifically the dusty end.

We should at least aim to clear 2007 by the end of 2009!

What do you think? --James Chenery (talk) 18:32, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the dusty end of the copy edit backlog is a good place to work. What is needed is a clear idea of when an article should be removed from the list. I have asked about a specific article Majipoor inhabitants elsewhere. If we look at an article, and don't see much to do in copy editing, then perhaps we need to decide whether to close it, or maybe add a different template instead. In any case, I think it is important to have good categories on the old requests, and project templates if clearly applicable. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:14, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Close request
I would like to close the request for Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos. Shall I just remove the request and following discussion or are these going to be archived somehow/somewhere? bamse (talk) 21:27, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Good question, and I see that the copyedit template is gone from that article. I wonder why Majipoor inhabitants has a copyedit tag, but I am reluctant to remove it right away. I added an inquiry to the talk page, though. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Searching Articles Tagged for Copy Edit
Articles requesting copy edit are currently referenced by the date they were stamped for editing. Is there a way to reference or search these articles by WikiProject or subject matter? For example, if I were a stamp collector I would obviously prefer to copy edit articles related to stamp collecting, if I were a member of WikiProject Engineering I would like to copy edit engineering articles. --Whoosit (talk) 16:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Criteria for removing copy-edit tag
Hi, I am new to this wikiproject (actually my first wikiproject) and I have gone over the guidelines on the project page. What isn't clear to me is when it is appropriate to remove the copyedit tag on an article. Should another editor go over the article or should it be up to the initial editor to make that decision? Tgv8925 (talk) 08:13, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
 * If you think the article is all right, you can remove it. The copy edit tag is only added to articles that are in desperate need of it, so taking it to an acceptable level is more than enough. You don't have to copy edit until it's FA quality (you can if you want of course :)). Articles that need improvement on that level (that is, improving an article to GA or FA status) are not tagged with the copy edit template, but you can make a request here or at an individual copy-editor's talk page. ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 11:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Looking at articles tagged in 2007, I find that some of them have been improved and expanded so much that the copyedit template or tag can be removed with very little copyediting at all. Looking at the history tells the story. Also, sometimes the problem is not copyediting at all.  There are many reasons that an article needs improvement when the spelling, grammar, and the formatting are just fine, but the content needs expansion, or correction. --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:24, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions for more efficient work, with less disruption to non-GOCE editors
I witnessed the work of one GOCE member on one article. This editor edited the article multiple days. His/her participation was disruptive, in spite of being well meaning. I think it didn't have to be nearly so disruptive. I have three complaints. (1) In one editing session lasting just a few hours, the GOCEer made close to 100 saves, most of them involving just handfuls of characters or handfuls of words. Having a tidal wave of saves makes it prohibitively difficult to track the evolution of an article's content. The GOCEer claimed that this was done because he was having computer network problems. (2) The editor messed up the content numerous times in his striving to rephrase parts of sentences. Beyond question, part of why this happened was that the subject was obscure and technical. But in other instances, this couldn't have made the difference; rather, the editor seemed to be academically unsophisticated in general. This number of content distortions went beyond the normal number of misunderstandings between multiple editors on the same article. In two years I haven't seen another case like it. (3) The editor made numerous failures of noun-verb number agreement involving the phrases with the same construction: NOUN1 OF NOUN2 VERB. He would make the verb agree in number with NOUN2 when 95 percent of the time the verb should be controlled by noun1. For example: "fans of Britney Spears are [not "is" for singular "Britney Spears"] eagerly awaiting the start of ticket sales tomorrow for her upcoming concert". The editor excused himself claiming word processing error, which happens to all of us. However, I don't believe this explanation because (a) there were several errors of this type; (b) he didn't fix them, even though he was making a huge number of edits. We would expect him to check the results of his saves, especially when he was so concerned with poor network connection. (Grammar aside: the verb only agrees with NOUN2 when NOUN1 is a mass noun quantity word like "half".)

Suggestions. (1) When network connections are a problem, you can edit offline. You can copy the whole HTML markup into a regular word processing document or into a Gmail draft message. Gmail's word processor is fairly powerful, powerful enough for this work. (2) If you're just a copy editing enthusiast, please don't choose highly academic articles to work on. (3) If other editors tell you your mastery of basic English grammar is severely faulty, please take time off to catch up on your knowledge. Dale Chock (talk) 06:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed change to banner
Can the GOCE banner be modified to avoid talk page clutter like at Talk:Ralph Bakshi? It's only the most recent copyedit that is truly relevant, so I was thinking that previous copyedits could be listed in a collapsible section. I'll sandbox some changes to show you what I mean. PC78 (talk) 11:56, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, how about this:

? -- PC78 (talk) 10:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a much better idea.--$%MarshalN20%$ (talk) 13:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sounds good. ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 13:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the purpose of this banner is to advertise the guild, so who and when it was copyedited is irrelevant. How about reducing it to one a one liner: A version of this article was copyedited by a member of the Guild of Copyeditors. Personally, I think the entire banner is just talk page spam. Bladeofgrass (talk) 14:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and implemented the above proposal as it seemed to have support. With regard to the comment made by, that's something that you guys as members of the project should decide. I've left you a stripped down version of the banner at GOCE/sandbox, which is basically the same as your current banner but without any of the user/date parameters. Regards. PC78 (talk) 01:04, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Page on Lurch
I've reviewed one of the earliest pages in the backlog, the page for Lurch (The Addams Family) and fail to see what about it requires copy editing. Maybe someone could clarify for me so I can get to work. DQweny (talk) 19:36, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There have been many useful edits since the tag was placed on the article. The main issue I have with it is its length compared to other Addams Family articles. I notice you are no longer in the Guild, but I thought I would give an opinion anyway--Diannaa (talk) 01:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Request archives
Since we have 90+ requests for collaboration or help, how about we make sure the list stays clean and current. To keep from bogging down the main page too much, how about we set up archive page(s). For example, any requests that are (arbitrary number) five months or older, we move to an uncompleted archive. Meanwhile, any completed requests we move to a different archive or just delete it. Or, instead of having archive pages, just delete the requests once they've been open for five months and people can resubmit as desired. We would then have specific requests that need some polishing while keeping it from getting out of control (just thinking of LOCE). Of course, if everyone likes it as is, I can deal. TheTito  Discuss  06:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom election reminder: voting closes 14 December
Dear colleagues

This is a reminder that voting is open until 23:59 UTC next Monday 14 December to elect new members of the Arbitration Committee. It is an opportunity for all editors with at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 to shape the composition of the peak judicial body on the English Wikipedia.

On behalf of the election coordinators.  Tony   (talk)  09:32, 8 December 2009 (UTC)