Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/January 2012

Discussion for: WP:WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors/Backlog_elimination_drives/January_2012

Many lengthy articles remain to edit
I have been trying to reduce the lists for July, August and September 2010, before the drive begins, but the remaining articles are mostly large files, over 6-20 kb. Among the several dozens of articles which I edited, many required more than 100-150 simple changes for grammar, punctuation and awkward phrases. Hence, expect to spend 1-2 hours per article, if dwelling on content accuracy. If also adding a few sources, expect more than 100 changes per article. To edit faster, I think we will need to focus keenly on quickly fixing the minimal grammar errors, with the notion that "no article is perfect" because most could be slowly rewritten with broader scope and many sources. Unless a person is a fan of a topic, it would be too time-consuming to dwell on the article contents too much. -Wikid77 20:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

List of article sizes before January backlog drive
I have expanded the prior essay which lists the sizes (bytes) of all the remaining 2010 articles tagged for copy-edit (including many already fixed and untagged). The full list for April-December 2010:
 * WP:2010_articles_which_needed_copyedit (many in list were already done)

That essay lists each article name, with byte-count, and the pageview-count link to stats.grok.se (for the Sept. 2010 readership graph). Only the article sizes for September-December are live byte-counts, due to parser function {&#123;PAGESIZE:xx}} being limited to 500 uses within the essay. The byte-counts for April-August were subst'd as hard-coded numbers in the essay. I think all those articles are viewed several times per day, where most are viewed 20x times per day, but a few are seen over 1,100x times per day, such as "UK Singles Chart". I am hoping that people will check the article size, to help them schedule when to edit very-large articles, versus needing less time to edit merely "large" articles. Most articles need a lot of simple changes. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Some of the articles on the list are unattractive because the word count is low, but the changes needed are in bullet lines which are not in the word count. See Skåne Commuter Rail as an example, which I will do, but I have encountered this before. --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I would like to ask why the main list is now without dates, unlike the previous practice. --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I noticed this too, if you are talking about the thing I think you are talking about. I think I have it fixed now; please check. --Dianna (talk) 20:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Articles in need of copyediting but untagged
Am I allowed to count towards my total the article Mahaviracharita? I copyedited it in connection with my review of the article for DYK, but it was not previously tagged. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My opinion is you should get credit. Let's wait and see if any other people wish to comment. --Dianna (talk) 19:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My opinion is that one should not get credit, simply because the point of the drive is to eliminate the backlog, not just to copyedit. On the other hand, articles from the requests list are counted, so maybe you should get credit. ~ Lhynard (talk) 20:33, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The editing was done on January 4. If it came from the Request List that seems to fall within the guidelines. My opinion: let it be counted. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:30, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It didn't come from the Requests lists, and wasn't tagged. These two things are what the drive is about, so sadly I feel it shouldn't be counted. That's not a strong feeling, though, because the article was in quite a poor state till you got there, and you got it bang to rights. --Stfg (talk) 22:06, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I won't count it. The author subsequently asked me to copyedit a much longer article, Ahalya, which was on the Request List, so I have counted that one. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:57, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Ticked, but annotated
My CopyEd of Francois Colos was ticked by you and then edited further. Am I supposed to be taking any further action? Ditto another article. --Greenmaven (talk) 18:09, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If you could just make a note of the further edits that were possible as a way to learn, that would be great. No further action is required on your part. --Dianna (talk) 19:56, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I have done that. --Greenmaven (talk) 20:08, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

My motivation has been dented and I need to say why
I have not been at all happy to see that my work has been scrutinised by Dianaa more heavily than the work of other editors (> 10%), and that whatever omissions there have been in my edits have been announced in minute detail on my 'article list'.

If my editing is not up to standard I think the appropriate thing is to tell me on my Talk Page. And that could be done exactly the same way: with the 'diff' link to preserve the detail. Meantime, I am wasting mental energy on this matter, which would be much better spent on editing.

In my time zone (UTC+11), the start of the January backlog editing period began at 11 am and I wanted to have a shot at doing the most articles on the first day, because it was one of the criteria for a barnstar. I did not know on the day how much editing people in other time zones might do later.

I now wish I had not made that first day effort, and I question the Guild's wisdom in having any 'first day' activity rewarded. By the way, I worked 13 hours on January 1, and gave no less attention to my work than on later days.

Understandably, such a large article tally in one day might invite scrutiny to assure quality. Any incentive to edit a lot of articles on a particular day does risk a lowering of editing standards, especially on the first day when editors are just getting into their stride.

I am watching every article I have edited (you could not have known that) and so I would, in any case, have picked up any further editing done by the reviewers. I would have looked at their work with interest, because I like to get things right. The words "I have made additional edits" might be a more appropriate message on the 'articles list'.

I imagine others in this drive might react in the same way as I have, and become reluctant or over-cautious in their editing, so I ask you to remove the commentary in my 'articles list' and not add any similar commentary to anyone else's list.

I will look carefully at anything on my talk page and continue to monitor my 'watched articles'.

There is an old dictum in business: "Praise publicly; criticize in private". This was practiced by one of the most successful corporations in the USA; it still makes sense to me and deserves to be more widely known.

I am making this statement publicly (which is critical) because my issue is that my work has been held up to public scrutiny by other editors in this drive, when it should have been communicated to me privately.

Perhaps the reviewers could add a section to this page to describe the sorts of things editors are overlooking in this drive. This would keep it neutral and not focused on individuals. --Greenmaven (talk) 18:09, 6 January 2012 (UTC)


 * We haven't handed out an award for most articles edited in one day for a long time, but at the end of the drive I'll make sure you get one. You weren't penalized, so I don't see the problem. Four out of 32 articles you copy edited were checked for quality; while this is above 10%, it is only slightly, and isn't much of a problem. Also, Dianna never included minute details of problems in the article list; rather, she made a few further improvements to the articles and included a link to them. The reviewers are supposed to link to changes made, and doing so in the article list box saves a little time. I'm sorry you're upset; if you need, feel free to take a break. When (and if) you feel like returning, we'll be here. Kindest regards, The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 19:23, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * At the time the articles were checked it was well over 10%; but anyway that's fine. The 'minute details' are contained in the link to a diff page, where every missed comma is clear. I guess I have over-reacted. I tried to speculate (above) in a positive way that my activity on day one might reasonably have attracted more scrutiny. If first day tallies are no longer awarded, it might be a good idea to make that clear on the Guild page where the barnstars are listed. I appreciate your goodwill in offering to award me one anyway. You are right: I do need to take a break. I have been overdoing it and have come to that realisation. I wish to, and am, slowly finishing my current article. Thanks for responding to my concerns. I expect to return soon. Best wishes to all. --Greenmaven (talk) 20:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know why they haven't been handed out lately, but I'll make sure awards go out to the editors who copy edit the most articles on the first day. Glad you'll be returning; you've been a big help so far, and I'm sure you'll continue to be a big help once you return. Regards, The Utahraptor Talk/Contribs 21:15, 6 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, Jack Greenmaven. I am sorry you feel like your work was too heavily scritinised. From these posts, I assumed you were new to copy editing. Perhaps this was an incorrect assumption? When we see such a large number of articles being copy edited on one day, even the first day of the drive, it tends to set off alarm bells. We have had some problems in the past with work not being thorough enough and have even had to penalise people. Your edits were adequate, but could have been even better, so I posted a link for each one. This is the usual way that the checks are done on every drive. You do make a good point that the link to further improvements could be posted on the editor's talk page rather than the drive page; I will do it that way in the future. There had been 27 articles copy edited at the time I did the checks. The number of articles I checked was three, as I did not realise that Stfg had already checked one. That is why the count seems a little disproportionate. Sorry to have caused you any upset; that was certainly not my intent. By the way, the first day awards are always handed out; Utahraptor is incorrect in that regard. Last time it went to Wilhelmina Will. --Dianna (talk) 00:36, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Everything is clear now and I am completely satisfied after reading what everyone has said. In answer to your question, Dianaa: I have copyedited a few articles or paragraphs as part of generally working on WP, in an informal way, but never as part of a drive. Regards --Greenmaven (talk) 01:15, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for handling this matter with good grace. I hope you have regained your interest in helping out with copy edits. Regards, --Dianna (talk) 16:56, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have regained my interest and will return in a day or two, after a bit more rest. My eyes get tired because I am waiting for a cataract operation. I still expect myself to do this work to the same standard as anyone else on the drive. Regards --Greenmaven (talk) 19:50, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Please check huge article Thiruvananthapuram district
Someone please check India article "Thiruvananthapuram district" (no hurry, over the next 2 weeks). It is a famous part of southwest coastal India (pageviews: 3,100 per month), so readers will benefit if any small errors are fixed. I have just started my "Completed" list, but I worked that massive India-district article where I got "burnout" after making 445(!) small changes (here: diff-281). Large India articles still tend to be as hideous as any (multiple errors per each sentence). I know we cannot afford to spend a whole week on one article, so just scan over it (or 2nd half) some time during the next 2 weeks. I think it is acceptable now. Thanks. -Wikid77 10:27, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * More than acceptable. I considered working on this one once, and shrank away in horror :) I haven't checked your diffs, but have skim-read it to see if it reads nicely, and it does. Were it going for GA, I'd have wanted to tackle the horrendous overlinking and to make it consistent in the use or otherwise of Harvard commas, but in an article from the categories (and so awful before) these really aren't issues. Good job. --Stfg (talk) 11:22, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * So someone else has had the same issues with India articles also.... ~ Lhynard (talk) 15:12, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

No need to copy edit rubbish
Just to remind folks that we have the GOCEreviewed template. If an article has been tagged for copy editing, but really isn't worth it because of other problems like tags for notability, COI, orphan, sections still to write, etc, feel free to remove the copy edit tag from the article and add:



to the article's talk page, with your username and today's date. The best place is probably below the banners but before the archives and discussion. You don't count it in your article or word count for the drive, but you've saved yourself and the rest of us from wasting time. --Stfg (talk) 19:12, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for the reminder; while I'm happy to de-orphan or wikify in addition to copyediting, tags like and  have in the past (I regret to say) kept me moving along in search of an article less likely to be deleted :-). I also agree with Wikid's comments above about the large number of large articles; it's bogging me down too, but I still hope to attain my personal goal of 31 articles for the drive. All the best, Miniapolis (talk) 20:55, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Is Editing allowed during the proposed SOPA protest?
It is seeming now that some Wikipedia admins will "shutdown" English Wikipedia beginning 05:00, 18 January 2012 (Wednesday), as possibly a 1-day "View-source" mode with forced redirect to read a protest page and not view other pages, unless the users can force their browsers to stop at viewing an article. See:
 * http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout

The global blackout (not just U.S. users) is to protest 2 legislative bills in the U.S. Congress: "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and "Protect IP Act" (PIPA), even though U.S. President Barack Obama might easily just veto them down, as some users have claimed is highly likely (due to fears that those laws would hinder economic growth during a U.S. presidential election year).

Perhaps the best plan for WP:GOCE editors would be to choose some large articles to copy offline to edit while the enwiki databases are "shutdown" or locked against editing. It has been noted that many users who !voted for the global blackout are NOT regular editors but just readers or activists. Also, other Wikipedias can be used for editing, or in edit-preview mode, to check formatting of a markup page (except for placement of English-only images not on Wikimedia Commons).

Previously, I had thought there would be a moderate protest, as noted in my following earlier message:
 * 13 January 2012: The latest talk regarding WP:SOPA is that any protest activity will allow users to "click-through" the banners to continue viewing or editing any page, unlike the 2-day Italian Wikipedia protest blackout which redirected all edit attempts to "view source" and then displayed the Italian protest banner. Instead, a growing consensus, here on English Wikipedia, has recommended that only United States IP-address users will be shown the WP banner (on January 18?) about the proposed U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) being discussed in the U.S. Congress, and non-US users will probably see no change in Wikipedia appearance. Meanwhile, even U.S. users will be able to click-through the banner to resume viewing or editing or pages. Hence, no one should be worried that their planned edits will be blocked, because all edits are expected to be allowed as usual during the 1-day protest, even within the United States. For more details, see WP:SOPA. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Instead, if users prefer to copy some articles, to local PC storage, then those pages can be read or locally edited off-wiki, during the 1-day English Wikipedia blackout. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:39, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps disable Javascript in your browser: There has been some technical talk that the blackout banner will function using Javascript. Each editor might be able to disable Javascript, in their own browser, to at least see a "View source" copy of an article by URL option "&action=edit", during the global blackout of English Wikipedia. That could help see if someone else edited the page just before the lockout (try URL option "&action=history"), and allow a copy/paste to an offline text-editor to make proposed changes, which could be edit-previewed at Simple Wikipedia (except for infoboxes and English-WP images). -Wikid77 00:39, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Economic Democracy
I edited this long article over a 4-day period during the drive. Over the course of 28 saves, I reduced its size by about 15% to about 8000 words and added several cn's where I thought them warranted. I left a comment on the talk page about a substantive change that I recommended, but did not make. A day later another author reverted everything I had done, citing a single change to one sentence that he found erroneous and that he disagreed with my substantive proposal. I responded, describing the changes I had made, saying that I didn't do edit wars and that I would be happy to correct any errors I had introduced. The discussion continued, with the other editor asking me to just go away. I have never experienced this before and I would appreciate your thoughts. Finally, I have two questions, one relevant to the drive.
 * 1) Should I just go away?
 * 2) Should I count the article for the drive?
 * Lfstevens (talk) 21:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I will help. I am gonna start by restoring your edits. Please go ahead and count the article towards your drive totals. Whether you wish to go away or not is up to you; if you have some knowledge of the subject matter it might be a good idea to stick around and try and get the remaining content issues resolved. It's up to you though, as the other editor seems uncollaborative in attitude. I am sorry you have had this bad experience. Regards, --Dianna (talk) 19:46, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, so much. I will attempt to work with the other author and see if we can develop a modus vivendi. Lfstevens (talk) 21:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

GOCE banners and ther usage
Can I remind people that there is a banners page listing GOCE and other banners the project uses, WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors/Templates as well as instructions on their use. There is also another one here.

One thing I have noticed is that there are quite a few leaving simply without filling in any details. THere weer also a couple of pages with duplicate GOCE templates, rather than use the GOCEdone, where a list of previous editors can be hidden below the banner message.

I realise it may not be important to include those details, and having the banner there is better than not having it, but please consider adding them in future as it certainly aids other editors in ascertaining information; for example to see if a new copyedit is necessary by simply looking at the date the last one was done, rather than having to search through the talk page history to find when and by whom the banner was added. Chaosdruid (talk) 01:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Read. Understood. Cheers! Braincricket (talk) 02:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe we could insert text into the Usage section in the user documentation so that a copy-paste will substitute the username and current date, or change the template code so it does it automatically? Braincricket (talk) 02:52, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * There's no need to change GOCE to GOCEdone. They are both redirects to the same template (the one with the long name). When we encouter a GOCE, it's enough to adjust the parameters as Chaosdruid indicates, without changing the template name. --Stfg (talk) 09:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I get that. Mine was just a suggestion to guard against forgetful editors (myself included) who may use Template:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors and leave all the parameters blank, like this . In, for example, if you copy-and-paste the text from the Usage section then it will automatically include a signature because " ~ " has been pre-filled-in next to the appropriate parameter. I wasn't trying to address the use of duplicate templates instead of the "|old-user-1=" parameter. Anyway, if I run into any blank templates I will be sure to look through the talk page history and add the appropriate info as you suggested. Regards. Braincricket (talk) 09:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My suggestion may have been moot if the template is just being used like " " rather than "  ". I'm not skilled enough myself to modify the template code so that "  " automatically substitutes a username and date. Best. Braincricket (talk) 10:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm a little puzzled, and since I'm one of those that this discussion is aimed at, which I freely confess... when I type: curly bracket, curly bracket, GOCE close curly bracket, close curly bracket, space, tilde, tilde, tilde, tilde, on the talk page, leaving my username and the date I completed the copy edit behind – what am I doing wrong? Richard asr (talk) 20:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's better to place this:, which displays as this:


 * The template is placed near the top of the talk page. Additional copy edits are then placed underneath yours, but within the same template. For an example, see Talk:The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. --Dianna (talk) 21:39, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, understood. Thanks Dianna. Richard asr (talk) 08:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk page template question
Hey! I saw a talk page template somewhere that featured a drop-down area in which you could list the article's use of serial commas, national varieties of english, singular they, date formats, and other such things that need to remain consistent. Does anyone know what I am talking about? I can't remember where I saw this thing and my searches have turned up nothing. Cheers. Braincricket (talk) 07:03, 30 January 2012 (UTC)