Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Newsletters/December 2017

sorry about our edit conflict while taking up some work for the coordinators. I do find it's a little amusing though, that not being coordinators ourselves we weren't very coordinated. (What did we expect?)

The script I mentioned on Jonesey's talk page was about something else. The data I used came from the drive and blitz pages, their barnstar pages, occasional bits from their talk pages, and historical versions of the requests page (in order to get the number of requests for target months at the beginning and end of editing challenges). When a drive's goals included the backlog and a month of requests, I added both of these for the total target articles (in  if you want to check).

I put more focus on the actual number of articles copy edited rather than the reduction in backlog or requests (I felt this better showed the work done, as the incoming tags and requests can hide this progress against the tag/request backlog). The barnstar pages give the official results for the blitz or drive, since that's what we're talking about. If people were completing requests or old articles without participating in the blitz or drive, I didn't include them or their articles as part of the blitz or drive. (More comprehensive data can be presented in the annual report.) I believe this accounts for most of the discrepancies with our numbers.

For the prose, mine was quite dry and statistical as I wanted to get it done quickly and was leaving it to the actual coordinators to punch it up with a little personality as they felt best represented them. Maybe I'm too accustomed to cutting promotional material from articles, but with an already long newsletter I feel the numbers speak for themselves and we don't have to say which was a "great success" or "enormous success". I likewise felt that things which apply to every blitz/drive don't need to be mentioned.

July was the standout month so I did give it special mention. Good catch on December being added partway through July's drive! (I missed that on the talk page.) I've added that, some of your intro and what you wrote for the coordinator elections. (You can check the diff for specifics.) I'm happy with it. Anything you want changed? – Reidgreg (talk) 14:53, 15 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Reidgreg, it was true for me too: my thought in writing my draft was that I'd get the facts in and let the coordinators adjust as necessary.


 * I just made a few edits, primarily to vary the wording for the three drives that set new lows for the backlog—this typically isn't a problem because the typical newsletter covers one or maybe two drives. I also thought that the bold header for the two Coordinator Elections paragraphs needed to be varied, so I added the year; I didn't think it would be confusing since the opening sentence explains that it's really for half a year.


 * The one thing that has been lost—and I took it from the December 2016 newsletter text, which I used as my template—is the mention of the backlog articles that were copyedited but not listed on the page. December 2016 included in the writeup for the November 2016 drive, Officially, 14 editors recorded copy edits to 200 articles (over 312,000 words), but over 600 articles, usually quick fixes and short articles, were not recorded on the drive page. The "but" section refers primarily to the work every May and November by Lfstevens (listed on his user page) that concentrates on these types on the more recent (even current) months. (This year, when the September 2017 drive started very slowly, the same work was done to over 100 articles to help kickstart the momentum.) I'd like Jonesey95's thoughts on whether this info should be included; my feeling is that if you don't mention the over 500 extra articles in November, it doesn't make sense that in a month that saw 159 articles edited, we set a new record low of 997, down from 1363.


 * If the graph at the beginning isn't updated by Jonesey95, I wouldn't include it, as the data is over a year old and doesn't show the further drop in 2017. If it is included, the code placing it on the page needs to be adjusted; right now, the first two lines of text show up before the graph, and the second line is actually running over the top of the image. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:06, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I have updated the graph. I will take a look at the prose in a bit. Thanks so much for putting this together! – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:29, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Great! Changes look good!  Thanks! – Reidgreg (talk) 17:51, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Proofed and sent. Nice work, everyone. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:05, 23 December 2017 (UTC)