Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/November 2015

The sign-up button
It seems to have been better with the old style. See Template:REVISIONUSER -- it returns the last contributor to the article. Hence, Relentlessly changed the section title to, and I just changed the name "Relentlessly" to "Eman235". Any thoughts on how to fix that? Eman 235 / talk 14:15, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see what you are trying to show us. When I look at the page after the edit made by, I see a new section at the bottom of the drive page with that editor's name, followed by the article counts. When I look at the page after your edit, I see a new section at the bottom of the drive page with your name, followed by the article counts.


 * I do see that the page diffs make it look like you added text above your user name, but that's just because the diff software can't tell the difference between text being inserted into an existing page and that same text being appended after a line of new text. Here's an example edit to the September drive page that shows the same effect. The diff software can't tell whether text has been appended or inserted. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:38, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I was confused by this. When I pressed the button, I got your name, Jonesey95, in the section heading box. I changed it to and hit save, hoping that would make it work! I didn't get  but your actual signature. Confusing! Relentlessly (talk) 18:56, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, now I see. Yeah, that doesn't work. I'll take a look. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:00, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I put it back the way it was but left the ugly text entry box hidden, since you have access to it on the following page. It looks like there is no magic word for "CURRENTUSER". – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:12, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

If anyone wants to display links to their user and talk pages but not a signature, replace the three tildes with (and Jonesey, I'm sorry if my suggestion caused any trouble). All the best,  Mini  apolis  13:23, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I would love to work on this project but...
I can't figure out the instructions. Put O here and mark article as completed, etc etc. Is there a sample somewhere I can look at? I don't begin to understand how this works. Thank you. Rissa, Guild of Copy Editors (talk) 22:42, 27 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Check out an archived drive and see if that helps. Eman 235 / talk  00:47, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * ... and there's a sample entry (markup and display) in the "Totals" section of the drive page. All the best,  Mini  apolis  13:30, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Bonus words
I'm slightly confused about word totals with the drive. Do I add the *O and *R bonus words to the "Total words" myself, or do I just include the actual number of words copyedited? Relentlessly (talk) 11:49, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * From the instructions: "Do not add the 50% bonus for Requests or Oldest articles—a coordinator will apply the bonuses after the drive is over."


 * You just list the number of words in each article and total those words. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:01, 2 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Not sure how I missed that. Relentlessly (talk) 13:05, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Question
Hi. Is the total word count before or after you finish copy editing? Thanks, Myrtle. Myrtlegroggins (talk) 02:26, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It's the total of editable words in the article 'before you start copy-editing. If you've already started working, just open the article's 'history' page (top of page in tabs or links, depending on your skin), select the version immediately before your first edit, click on the date (not 'cur' or 'prev'), run the Javascript word-counter and use that figure. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 02:50, 7 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Excellent! Cheers for that :-) Myrtle. Myrtlegroggins (talk) 07:56, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

German Renaissance
How can I encourage the GOCE to copyedit German Renaissance, without putting it on the requests page? It is tagged with an AfD, but so far three editors have said Keep. 1968 words.--DThomsen8 (talk) 23:55, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * You can add copy edit to the article and it might get done eventually. Some regular copy-editors might be happy to c/e it by request. If it survives AfD and is stable, and there are no edit wars or ongoing development occurring there's no reason it shouldn't go on REQ. Messy prose and being tagged isn't a reason for deletion anyway; the major criterion for inclusion is notability. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 00:32, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Mid-November update
We're having a solid November. We are halfway through the month at this point, and here's what we've done:


 * We have removed 557 articles from the 2,557-article backlog that existed at the start of the month (208 articles have been added so far in November, which makes our gains look less impressive). That's 22% of the backlog in just 15 days!
 * We have removed 79 of the 231 articles from the three oldest backlog months. Since we do drives every two months, in order to break even we have to eliminate two old months with each drive. Let's focus on June and July for the next two weeks!
 * Our Requests page is at just 18 articles, the lowest level I've seen in many years.

Keep up the great work, everyone! Your lead coordinator appreciates all of you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:59, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * By the way, our all-time best end-of-month backlog count is 1,974 articles. We are definitely within reach of that number this month. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:45, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Less than one day left in this drive
Get those last few edits in! We are at an all-time low backlog count, and we have just 17 articles left in our oldest month. Great work, everyone! – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:18, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Leaderboard has six rows now?
I just updated my leaderboard stats and noticed the leaderboard has six rows, after I deleted one thinking there should only be five. It seems to have originated in this edit diff. I've been busy copy-editing for the last few days and didn't notice the change and I probably missed the talkpage discussion; it doesn't bother me but it would've been nice to have known. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 10:15, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Nice catch. I fixed it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks; I wasn't sure it wasn't a GOCE change. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 00:44, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Last call
The November 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.

Barnstars will be distributed in the next few days. Thanks to everyone who participated. We had a record-breaking month! – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:28, 1 December 2015 (UTC)


 * This was my first drive and I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you for organising and thank you for barnstars, Myrtle.  Myrtlegroggins (talk) 21:27, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help Myrtlegroggins, I'm glad to hear that. I hope we'll see you at future drives and blitzes. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 21:34, 7 December 2015 (UTC)