Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/March 2017

signup button doesn't

 * To sign up for the drive, click the button below. This will create a subsection in the Totals section where you will record your copy edits.

It didn't. I had to open Lfstevens's section and manually copy it, paste the copy in after theirs, and edit it to my userid & links.

--Thnidu (talk) 11:33, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Strange. It works for me. Has it worked for you in the past? Does it work if you log out? If so, it could be something that you have customized. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:30, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Worked for me too. In edit mode, I always change the three tildes in the header to user0 (learned that from Torchiest) so it doesn't display my signature. All the best,  Mini  apolis  15:21, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a way to insert something like into the header. WP does not appear to have a way to retrieve the user name of the editor who is editing a given page right now. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:28, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I remember having a problem the very first time I signed-up for a blitz, and also having to copy & paste (which was no big deal). I'm guessing it was a temporary problem (possibly an incompatible or buggy script running in my browser), as the inputbox has been working for me the last few times. – Reidgreg (talk) 22:18, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I may have found what Jonesey was looking for. seems to do the job.   returns the user name in plain text, then  links it to user and talk pages.  But I don't know that'd work any better than ~~~.  I'm probably missing something. Reidgreg (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I think I tried this and it didn't work for me. See HELP:MAGICWORDS, note c: "This shows the last user to edit the page. There is no way to show the user viewing the page due to technical issues." – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:53, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Three tildes returns a signature, often (as in my case) different from the user-talk link and undesirable in a TOC or section header. I've never had a problem just substituting the tildes with user0; some things are easier to work around than to fix. All the best,  Mini  apolis  15:03, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Word count & credit
Hi! I'm slightly confused about a section of the rules. It says:

Drive participants can earn barnstar awards based on the number of articles—and the word counts of the articles—they copy edit.

Does "word counts of the articles" mean that the copy editor gets credit for how many words the article had, or that the copy editor gets credit for how many words they changed?

Thanks! Noah Kastin (talk) 02:04, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The word count of the article is its length before you begin the copyedit. All the best,  Mini  apolis  02:36, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * So, for example, editing an article with 300 words in total would earn 300 words for the editor, even if they only changed 7 words in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noah Kastin (talk • contribs) 02:47, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes. Sometimes I will take credit for fewer words if there is really nothing that needed to be done, but if you spend the time to proofread a 300-word article and make a few changes, by all means take credit for all of the prose that you proofread and edited. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:56, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for the clarification! Noah Kastin (talk) 04:49, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * BTW, there is a word count script you can use. I believe it omits the table of contents, references, and essentially anything on the page generated by a template (or wikicode?). If an article has extensive tables requiring copyediting, you may have to add a bit to the total. Reidgreg (talk) 14:11, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Reidgreg, can I have some further instructions on the word count script? I am a little confused on how you use it. Thanks, Txmormon97 (talk) 14:55, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Instructions are here. For bullet lists and tables (which are not picked up by the script), copy and paste them into a word processor and add their word counts to your "base". All the best,  Mini  apolis  18:25, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you Txmormon97 (talk) 20:37, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Do non-Oldest/Request articles count?
Hi! Do articles which are not either from the Requests list, or the Oldest list (tagged April, May, or June 2016) count for the drive? Thanks! Noah Kastin (talk) 04:34, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Definitely! If you edit an article tagged in, for example, December 2016, add it to your list of Completed articles along with a word count for the article, then remove the "copy edit" template from the article and keep on rolling.


 * The "*O" and "*R" notations are for old (April–June) articles and requests, respectively, which get extra credit in the drives. All tagged articles count though. Thanks for editing! – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:46, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Article credit after changes
Hi! I made some changes to this article: Technology in Star Wars. Intending to copy edit it thoroughly, I removed the "copy edit" tag in the edit after I copy edited the article. After I made my edits, some more edits were made, which seemed to manually revert some of what I had done. Now, the article seems to, once again, need copy editing.

Should I move the article from the "Completed" section to the "Working" section of my article list on the drive until the article needs no copy editing done, or should I keep it in the "Completed" section, as I think it needed no copy editing when I finished with it?

Thanks! Noah Kastin (talk) 04:11, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello, and welcome to the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, even if they are not very good at maintaining nice readable prose! (A bit of frustrated dry humor there, in case it doesn't come across.)


 * To preserve your sanity, I recommend that you avoid adding articles to your watchlist after copy-editing them. You'll just make yourself crazy playing Whac-A-Mole. Do your copy-edit, give the article a final proofread, mark it Completed in your section of the drive page, and move on. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:22, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
 * What Jonesey said. Not watchlisting articles I've worked on saves me untold aggravation. All the best,  Mini  apolis  23:17, 12 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I hear you. I'm new enough to this that I feel I benefit from watchlisting, either to see how my ce is received or if there's anything I missed.  But yeah, I hear you.  The 18k article I did at the beginning of the drive (which I'd pared down to 11k words) has since had 25 edits (and counting) by an IP editor, ignoring the notes I'd left on the article's talk page as well as the editor's talk page.  I suppose I should start the Responding to a failure to discuss process, and maybe in two or three weeks I'll be able to get the article back to where it was. – Reidgreg (talk) 14:42, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Mas Isman
Mas Isman is a short article (57 words) for copywriting grammar and tense.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 18:10, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Do articles without "copy edit" or related tags count for the drive?
Noah Kastin (talk) 03:47, 14 March 2017 (UTC)


 * For reference: The reason I asked is that I was about to copy edit Fairphone 2 (which I have now done), so if articles without "copy edit" tags do count, it would have gone on my Working list. (Now, it would go on my Completed list). Noah Kastin (talk) 04:19, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The point of the drives is to reduce the size of the backlog of tagged articles. You are welcome to copy-edit any article you want, but only tagged articles and Requests count for the drive. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:58, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know! Noah Kastin (talk) 00:45, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Prose size question (Maxwell Lord)
Hi! I am currently working on copy editing the article Maxwell Lord. This article has a large list in it, and I am not sure how to figure out the word count in it. To indicate this, I have added a > sign before the word count of the rest of the article in my Working section. If anyone can figure out how to calculate the list size, please let me know. Thanks! Noah Kastin (talk) 08:01, 16 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The > sign has now been changed to a ≥ sign, in both the article word count and my total word count (as I have now finished copy editing the article). This has been done just in case it is decided that the list counts as 0 words, in which case > would be inaccurate. Noah Kastin (talk) 10:53, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Copy and paste the list to Microsoft Word or another fancy text editor with a word count feature. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:01, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, ! I will do that. Noah Kastin (talk) 13:05, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I have now copied the list (from before I started editing the page) into a word processor, revealing that the list was 558 words long. I have also updated the Maxwell Lord word count and my total word count, adding 558 to each. Thanks again,, for the tip! Noah Kastin (talk) 13:14, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

April 2016 complete!
Just noticed that all of the articles tagged in April 2016 with Template:Copy edit or similar templates have been fully copy edited! Thanks to everyone who made this happen! Noah Kastin (talk) 03:43, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Great job, everyone! We have only eleven months in the backlog, the lowest I have ever seen it. I think we can knock out at least one more month (May 2016) by the end of March. That's only four (challenging) articles per day. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:46, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Word count rounding
Hi! I noticed that has made the word count of Microsoft Mobile 5000, listed as being rounded up from 4990. Should it be listed as 4990 or 5000? Also, does this have any effect on the completed word counts on other completed pages (for example, if word counts should usually be rounded) or Dhtwiki's listing on 5k+ articles? Thanks! Noah Kastin (talk) 03:47, 20 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I decided to take 10 extra words to give myself credit for a 5k article, where I might have done so by adding the number of words in references worked on (I just assume I did enough of that) or of infobox items and other miscellany that I'm apt to review and change in the course of any copy-editing that I do (can't recall offhand how much I did on that article). I usually just take the output of the Page size script, but this time I must have been beset with barnstar hunger. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:21, 20 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clearing that up, ! I'll make sure that your article counts for 5000 words on the leaderboard. Thanks again! Noah Kastin (talk) 05:56, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Zord complete
Hi, ! Thanks for all of the copy editing you've done!

I noticed that the article that you're working on, Zord, has been copy edited and had its copy edit tag removed. Therefore, you might want to remove the article from your working list (unless, of course, it counts if you started working on it before the copy edit tag was removed).

Thanks again!

Noah Kastin (talk) 03:59, 20 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I actually took the copyedit template off (or rather, placed it in comments) when I began working on the article. This has been my practice for a while, based on the advice of the senior copyeditors here, so that it doesn't show in the "articles needing copyedit" categories and avoids potential edit conflicts from other copyeditors.  It's a long article and I'll probably need at least another couple days as I'm able to find time.  Thanks for the attention. – Reidgreg (talk) 22:57, 20 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks,, for letting me know! That makes sense for long copy edits. Thanks again! Noah Kastin (talk) 01:20, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Articles not marked "Completed" or "Working"
Hi, ! Thanks for copy editing so many articles!

I noticed that none of the articles on your list are marked either or. If you could mark all of them with either or , that would help a lot! (I assumed on all of them, but I could be wrong.)

Thanks again! Noah Kastin (talk) 06:43, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ Overlooked this instruction! They are indeed all completed and now marked as such. (Thank goodness for search and replace!) Twofingered Typist (talk) 12:18, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you,, for marking your articles! Now we'll know when an article is Complete or not, which will be very helpful! Thanks again! Noah Kastin (talk) 01:22, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Article count: Counting blank slots
Hi, ! Thanks for your amazing copy editing efforts!

I noticed that your article count seems to include the empty Completed and Working slots. However, I think that the article count is just supposed to include articles which have been thoroughly copy edited (or Completed), and not the empty template slots.

If you would change your article count to reflect this, I would greatly appreciate that!

Thanks again for all of your amazing copy edits!

Noah Kastin (talk) 05:27, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Actually, Noah, if you look at my list again you'll notice that one older article, and one GOCE request article both have word counts in excess of 5000 words; they each count as two, I believe, in which case the totals are correct. Twofingered Typist (talk) 12:03, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * , I believe note 2 on the leaderboard was only meant to apply to 5k articles. So an 18000-word article would count as three when calculating 5k articles, but only as one for total articles – and one for oldest articles, if old.  (I rather like that system, because some leaderboard categories favour big articles while other categories favour smaller articles.)  No worries, though, you're still at the top no matter how you add it! – Reidgreg (talk) 13:11, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Reidgreg is correct. In any event, we run a script at the end of the drive that calculates everyone's leaderboard position based on the actual recorded articles that are marked as "Completed" and marked with *O or *R as appropriate. So there is less reason to be concerned about individual editors' self-calculated numbers. As long as each editor marks each article in his or her list according to the instructions, the script will calculate everything correctly. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:14, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I see that I misread that note - I apologise. I have amended the appropriate totals accordingly. I appreciate your vigilance! And, btw, where I end up on the leaderboard is of no interest to me. That is not why I edit WP articles. Regards, Twofingered Typist (talk) 13:33, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks,, , and for getting everything all straightened out! Noah Kastin (talk) 05:48, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Lexa discography word count
Hi! Just wanted to mention that, in the word count for Lexa discography, I am counting 18 words of headings, as I am copy editing those too. Noah Kastin (talk) 10:45, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * This is an anomaly, as I usually do not copy edit headings (and so usually do not count heading word count in my article word count). Noah Kastin (talk) 11:17, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The long list I just finished had over a hundred section headers and some needed italics or had inappropriate linking that I had to move to hatnotes. Overcapitalization is a frequent mistake with headers, and I've seen other MOS problems (ampersands, numeros, hyphen/dash mistakes, etc).  It usually doesn't significantly impact the wordcount, but the article you mention is really small. – Reidgreg (talk) 17:42, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi, ! Thanks for the feedback!
 * By the way: Does this impact the Lexa discography word count? Also, should headings usually be counted or not be counted?
 * Thanks again!
 * Noah Kastin (talk) 04:27, 23 March 2017 (UTC)


 * You can count everything that you copyedit (using the article's word count before you started). Normally, that would be the prose, which I believe is what the script counts.  But you might also copyedit the section headings, picture captions, text that appears in tables, and template-generated text.  You're entitled to count those words in your total for the article if you copyedit them.  It isn't often a big proportion of the word count unless the article has extensive tables in need of copyedit – or, like Lexa discography, has a small prose count.
 * I wouldn't normally count headers (or tables or captions) unless they needed work, or perhaps if you had to take the time to investigate them (eg: whether an animal's name was in a scientific form that required italics). But I personally tend to round-down my counts to even numbers, so that it's simpler to check my totals. Reidgreg (talk) 12:47, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the answer, ! This should help a lot for future word counts. Thanks again! Noah Kastin (talk) 04:30, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Zimbabwean Dollar
Hi, ! Thank you for cleaning up the Zimbabwean Dollar article!

I noticed that you tagged it with *O. I think that *O is only supposed to be applied to articles with copy edit tags from March 2016, April 2016, May 2016, or June 2016. However, Zimbabwean Dollar seems to have been tagged in July 2016 (see this edit). Therefore, *O should probably be removed from Zimbabwean Dollar.

If you have no objections, I will remove *O from Zimbabwean Dollar. If you do have a problem with *O being removed from Zimbabwean Dollar, please let me know.

Again, thank you so much for editing Zimbabwean Dollar! It was a nightmare when I last edited it; thank you for freeing it from its nightmarish state!

Noah Kastin (talk) 10:29, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * By the way,, I just edited the Zimbabwean dollar page (this edit). Editing it showed that the page is much shorter and less chewy than it was before (as evidenced by being easier to edit). So, once again, great job cleaning up Zimbabwean Dollar! Noah Kastin (talk) 10:58, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * My mistake. I will remove the tag now. Thanks Stingray Trainer (talk) 18:11, 29 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Noah Kastin (talk) 04:53, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Removing copy edit tags while articles are unclear
Hi! I just copy edited Tere Mere Beech as much as I could. However, there are large portions of it which are unclear or ambiguous. I have currently tagged these with Template:Clarify, Template:Clarify span, or Template:Relevance inline.

Does this article count as having been copy edited, and should I remove the copy edit tag from it?

Thanks!

Noah Kastin (talk) 04:34, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes to both. All the best,  Mini  apolis  13:23, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

May 2016 complete!
Savor this moment: there are only 10 months of articles in the backlog. Great work! – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:09, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Now we have to get to work on the ginormous request page :-). All the best,  Mini  apolis  23:29, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * No kidding. It's gotten long. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:58, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Last call
The March copy editing drive has ended. Please make any final edits to your article lists and the leaderboard (it is not updated automatically) in the next 24 hours or so. It is OK to edit your section of the page, and the leaderboard, even though the page is archived.

If you have a minute, please ensure that your section conforms to the instructions on the drive page, which are repeated here:


 * Properly completed records look like this in the edit window:
 * and like this on the rendered page:
 * and like this on the rendered page:

Parenthetical comments come between the article name and the word count. No extra bold or italics, please. Having things formatted properly makes calculating the barnstars much easier for your volunteer coordinators.

Barnstars will be distributed in the next few days. Thanks to everyone who participated. We eliminated the two oldest months and almost got rid of a third! We ended the month with our fourth-lowest total backlog count ever, down by about one-sixth from this time last year. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:44, 1 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Darn, I'm causing problems again. Would it be okay if I piped the italics?  Such as, List of Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates story arcs or On the Trail of the Golden Owl – Reidgreg (talk) 13:26, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Italics inside or around the article-name brackets don't break the script. What I find somewhat consistently is people putting bold marks around the *O, like *O. The script fails to recognize those articles as old and undercounts them. Maybe someone could take a look at the instructions on the Drive page to see if simplifying or clarifying them (preferably making them shorter, not longer) could lead editors to format their entries correctly.


 * To be clear, all of the problems I find in the "Completed" article records take me about twenty minutes to clean up each month, far less time than it would take to calculate all of the barnstar totals manually (trust me, I've done it manually, and it's terrible). I'd much rather have editors focus on copy-editing real articles than spend extra time worrying about formatting the drive page. So it's not a big deal, but if tidying the instructions would help editors record their work more consistently, that would help me.


 * The template text that is used to create a new drive is at Template:GOCE-new-drive-page, so any editing of the instructions should happen there. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:54, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and made a couple changes:
 * The *O and *R were bold in the instruction part, though non-bold in the examples. I changed them to plain green text, consistent with the rest of the instructions. (However, they are a little thin and don't stand out as well, so this may not be an improvement.)
 * I repeated this change on the main drive page.
 * At the end of the "lead", following the link to the main drive page, I linked to the FAQ page. (I noticed a few things there which come up regularly on the talk pages.)
 * I didn't see a lot to simplify or clarify. (There was a "working on on the  line" that looks a little weird, but the symmetry and repetition is good for this how-to section.) Feel free to revert my changes. – Reidgreg (talk) 12:09, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. We'll try that next time to see if it works any better. I had never stumbled over that "working on on" before; it was quite awkward, though grammatically correct. I fixed it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:48, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

5k article count on leaderboard
My 5k article count on the leaderboard was changed from 4 to 3. Why was that? My article list shows four articles of that size: Steampunk (6005), Military history of Japan (5204), Microsoft Mobile (5000), and Visa history of Russia (9482). Dhtwiki (talk) 21:35, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * . I blame the script that calculates barnstars (it's very fussy), but I should have checked the output more diligently. I found and fixed a few other errors in the script's output, but I must have missed yours somehow. I apologize. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:05, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:10, 4 April 2017 (UTC)