Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/September 2016

Entry for Sept. 2016 Drive
Hi, I'm new to the Guild and would like to enter the upcoming Drive. Unfortunately, when I click on "Create your articles list", I get directed to an edit page and my name doesn't end up on the list.

It might be a structural problem, or I might just be doing something stupid. Thanks in advance, Double Plus Ungood (talk) 17:34, 29 August 2016 (UTC) Double Plus Ungood (talk) 17:34, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * You should be able to click the button, then press Save Page on the resulting Edit screen. You do not have to change anything on the Edit screen. Just click Save. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:19, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

September drive
Hi, Can someone please let me know what the total word count and roll over words imply ? Avgr8 (talk) 18:04, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * "Rollover words" are your words left over from the previous drive. If you did not participate in the previous drive, your rollover words are zero.


 * The total word count is the total of all words in the articles you have copy-edited, prior to your edits. Instructions and a link to a word-counting script are on the drive page. You have to calculate your total manually or use an expression (look in my section to see the expression I use). – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:13, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you ! -Avgr8 (talk) 19:35, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Wordcount for non-prose items
I just did a lot of work on List of countries by rail usage, most of which was to do with tables and references. It's still far from perfect but if I keep at it then I'll lose the will to live. Anyway, there were perhaps about 190 words of prose and 330 words with headings, brief section descriptions, etc.. If I count the references I worked on too (mostly converting them from ref-link-title-ref to cite-webs with as many parameters as possible filled out), the total goes up to 700. Is that allowed? (If I could include the wordcount from the tables as well then the total would go up to about 1,840, but that gets even more dubious.) ~Baslsk~talk~ 19:52, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That article looks a lot better! Nice work. I'd say that our main focus in copy editing is on prose text, but that if you've cleaned up table text and references, especially for formatting/style, then it's fine to include them in the wordcount. What do other people think? Tdslk (talk) 22:42, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If you clean up tables, bullets, or other text that the Page Size script does not count, copy the section into a word processing application (e.g. Word or a text editor) and run a word count. Add that number to the Page Size number, record the total, and go edit the next article. Use your best judgement about what you really proofread and edited; we trust you. FWIW, I never count citation formatting as copy editing. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:04, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Interrupted while working
Hello everybody, it's great to be back for another Drive. However, I have an issue.

I was working on an article and had spent quite a bit of time already - it was a lengthy one - when I was interrupted by another editor. I decided to quietly withdraw and forego whatever edits I had made in earlier sections of the article. I have already removed it from my list of articles. Did I do the right thing? Is there a standard approach to such situations? - BroVic (talk) 08:27, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you mean by "interrupted"; did you encounter an edit conflict? Were your edits reverted? Edit conflicts are a PITA, and to minimize them I work section by section. If you're being reverted, WP:BRD comes into play and your next stop is the article talk page. This has happened to me during a drive, and in practice to save time I move on to another article. Sounds like an edit conflict, though, and the best way to avoid them is to edit in small bites and save periodically. Have fun and all the best,  Mini  apolis  14:47, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's why I thought the best thing was just to leave the article. And I WAS editing section by section as you've suggested. Now I see the importance of doing so. Thanks! - BroVic (talk) 19:50, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There's also a tag you can add to articles you're copy editing: . I use it whenever I'm working on an article that I know will take a lot of time. Tdslk (talk) 20:02, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If I think I'm going to be working on an article for a while, I check the article's history to see if it is being edited frequently. If I think that I can usually get in and out within an hour, I'll usually risk it. Section by section is best for longer articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

New Bologna Centrale Station - merge instead of copyedit?
New Bologna Centrale Station is a small offshoot of Bologna Centrale railway station, about the new station building. The article is short, has lots of issues, and is horribly out of date; it was written when the building was still in the planning stages. I wonder if it makes more sense to merge these articles rather than spend time trying to fix this article. Leschnei (talk) 23:06, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The "New Station" article is woefully out of date, and most of what it says is contained in the main article. I would merge any sourced information into the main article and then redirect the "New" article to the current one. Put a note on the talk page of the main article saying that you are doing so, and make sure to redirect the "New" article's talk page to the main article's talk page as well. Let me know if you need help with any of the technical stuff. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:17, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Jonesey95, I have merged much of the material from the "New" article to the main article. I also put a note on the talk page of the main article. I haven't blanked the "New" article because it hasn't been redirected. Could you (or someone) please help me with that? I have never done redirects before. Thanks, Leschnei (talk) 18:31, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:21, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Leschnei (talk) 00:47, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

question regarding wikilinks
I am working on List of time travel works of fiction (it will probably take me to the end of the month!). Many of the authors have several books on the list and, thus, are mentioned more than once - I assume that the same is true of directors. As the list is now, every entry in the author/director column is wikilinked, even if it has a wikilink higher up. I have left it this way because it is a very long list and it would be a pain for readers to hunt for the earlier mention to click on the link. Does this seem reasonable, or should I go through and remove duplicate wikilinks? Thanks Leschnei (talk) 22:29, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, that linking is reasonable. See MOS:DUPLINK: "Duplicate linking in lists is permissible if it significantly aids the reader. This is most often the case when the list is presenting information that could just as aptly be formatted in a table, and is expected to be parsed for particular bits of data, not read from top to bottom." – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I had missed that bit. Leschnei (talk) 11:57, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Another word count question
To determine the word count for List of time travel works of fiction, I copied the text from the lead to the end of the last table and pasted it into Word. I didn't include the issues section at the top or the references. Word says that there are 14,378 words, which seems like a lot to me, but there it is. If I have calculated things incorrectly, please let me know and I'll try again. Leschnei (talk) 14:00, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks right to me. I get 14,281, which is essentially the same as your count. Thanks for taking on this long article. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:50, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for checking. Leschnei (talk)

Last call
The September 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. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:06, 1 October 2016 (UTC)