Wikipedia talk:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/Archive 2

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Archive This page is an archive. Do not edit the contents of this page. Direct any additional comments to the current talk page.

Contents

Barnstar design for consideration

Pigman mentioned your request for a project barnstar. We talked it over and, with his feedback, I put this one together. Whatcha think?

I didn't know what basic text and box format we'd want, so I just did the graphic part. --Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 03:56, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I like that, a lot! I don't have a lot of time today, but I will try to figure out the text. I do, however, leave the box format to your discretion.

On a side note, I'm kind of busy today so don't take it the wrong way if I'm not quick to respond. For anyone here that isn't in the United States, excuse this minor bit of americentricism (is that a word?), but Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Plus, after seven days off, I'm back to work tommorow. I have a broadband connection for my laptop, so I contribute whenever I have time to, which still adds up to a few hours a day. However, when I'm working, the times that i'm online are extremely unpredictable.Trusilver 18:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

So glad you like it! Do you think there's too much orange on the barnstar? I wanted it to harmonize with the red delete mark, yet still carry a touch of the rust from the original barnstar. As I upped the saturation it looks a bit more flamey on my laptop screen than it did on the big monitor we use for graphics. I vascillate on whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. --Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 19:50, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I suppose we will call this "The Copyeditor's Barnstar". The text that I'm thinking about, and understand this is the first thing off the top of my head and to be in no way considered the final word on anything, is:
This Copyeditor's Barnstar is awarded for distinguished efforts in Copyediting.
I don't know... comments? Trusilver 05:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and I think that it looks fantastic just the way it is, I definitely like the color of the star. Trusilver 05:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
That's really pretty. The text is pretty awesome too, although I have my own suggestion:
The Copyeditor's Barnstar is awarded for excellent achievments in Copyediting.
It's basically the same as Trusilver's, but mine has different wording (of course). Comments? Kyo cat¿Qué tal?•meow! 22:12, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
How about, The Copyeditor's Barnstar is awarded for excellence in Copyediting.? Rintrah 04:15, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to go with Rintrah's on this. Trusilver 07:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Me too. Kyo cat¿Qué tal?•meow! 19:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

So...

The template on the template page would be something like this:

The Copyeditor's Barnstar
{{{1}}}


When used per the instructions in the listing below, the 1 is filled in with the text provided by the user presenting the award. Below is the format used for listing barnstars on the barnstar page.

Image What to type Description
{{subst:The Copyeditor's Barnstar|message ~~~~}} The Copyeditor's Barnstar

The Copyeditor's Barnstar is awarded for excellence in Copyediting.

speling grammer, and punctuacion are, important!
Spelling, grammar and punctuation are important.

This award was suggested by Trusilver; it was designed by Kathryn NicDhàna with input from members of the League of Copyeditors. It was introduced on date, year.

If this looks good we can tidy it up and add it to the awards and/or barnstars page (or do we have to formally submit it?). Also, I'd suggest adding a brief sentence or two after our main blurb, for users who may not understand exactly what copyediting is. Something like, "Grammar, spelling and punctuation are important!" ;-) ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 23:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

And here's a test run, done by simply following the directions in the table above:

The Copyeditor's Barnstar
Hereby awarded to The League of Copyeditors, for their amazing work copyediting even the most intense gibberish to be found on Wikipedia. ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 04:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I think we'd have to submit this through Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals. I like it though! Gzkn 03:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Everything you have created, Kathryn, has been brilliant. I like it, too. Rintrah 04:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Wow...that's very creative! You have wonderful talent, Kathryn. ¡Felíz año nuevo! --Tohru Honda13Sign here! 04:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, thank you :-) Looking through the link provided by Gzkn, I'm thinking we might have more success submitting it as a Wikipedia:WikiProject awards. I think some people might think that, for general use, it overlaps too much with the general Editor's Barnstar. I'll see if we can submit it in general, with Project award as backup. This is another reason why I want a bit of additional text in the explanation. How about:
speling grammer, and punctuacion are, important!
Spelling, grammar and punctuation are important.
~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 18:26, 31 December 2006 (UTC) ;-)
I like that wone, lets' go with it cuz we hav enothing to loose. Raymond Arritt 18:43, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've submitted it! Go here and vote your support: Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/New Proposals#Copyeditor's Barnstar ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 00:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

A slap on our faces

The several editors who have put effort into Mythology (see Talk:Mythology#"take your complaints to talk") will likely be interested to know that some other editor has undone all our collective efforts because he feels that we don't know toot about the subject and he feels that we should have read the entire talk pages before we did anything.

I don't believe that a copyeditor necessarily needs to be conversant with all the history of an article to effectively clean it up, even though I would agree it wouldn't hurt.

What do the rest of you think?--JAXHERE | Talk 18:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

  • It seems like a lot has taken place since I last looked at this article. What was the problem? We only copyedited it; it's not like we wrote a bunch of new info... I don't think we need to worry about the talk page history unless an article is currently under dispute. That guy obviously has a huge chip on his shoulder. IrisWings 20:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe you're right IrisWings, about the chip, but it's rather discouraging to put a considerable effort into an article and then have someone come along and just wipe it out, don't you think? --JAXHERE | Talk 14:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree. I don't understand why it was reverted. I don't think it was anything having to do with us, however; it seems like the contributors there have a long-standing dispute. We wasted our time, and now the article needs to be copyedited again, but at least it wasn't personal to us. IrisWings 22:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I copy-edited the page yesterday, but I am replying here without bothering to check the history of the revert you that you refer to, because I'm more interested in general lessons than specific incidents. I think that simple cleanup, such as rephrasing to tighten prose, and correcting grammar, tone and format, can be done without knowing the history of the page. But moving sentences, dividing into subsections and such may (rarely) run the risk of going against the structure decided in the talk page by people who may know more about the subject or plan to add new material. With new material, it may be better to structure the article as it is before our copy-edit. -Pgan002 00:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Proofreading status

In case you're wondering, I sub-sectioned the proofreading status, in an attempt to make the page slightly easier to manage. In particular, it should make it easier to find and move recently proofread articles into the completed section.

We may need to even start archiving the status, as the page is beginning to approach 32K. --Sigma 7 23:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Audit of completed articles for message box?

I recently looked at some of the earlier articles edited by the League, and noticed that several talk pages do not have the "This article has been copyedited by the League of Copyeditors" message box. Does anyone have an objection to me going through and adding the box to any article on the "done" list that does not have it? Galena11 23:52, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Some of the ones I've edited, such as Yaoi, have been subsequently besmirched by other contributors. Maybe you should make sure the articles still look nice before you add it. Other than that, I think it's okay. :) IrisWings 05:46, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I would agree - although to make things a bit easier, you may want to have a template that makes adding that box easier (and take up less space). Even if there is a template, it's not used on the main page. --Sigma 7 12:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Good point on doing a "re-review" before giving it the seal of approval. I've been adding a "+WPLoC Message Box" edit summary on the talk pages for the articles I've done final proofreads on, so that the date is recorded. I assume that users would know that the edit is valid as of that date? Or should we put text to that effect in the message? I also agree that doing a template and making this easier to add would be great, but I'm a bit of a noob and don't know how to make the message box a template. Help? Galena11 20:42, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I confess; I have offended. I was deterred by the effort of opening the edit tab and then copy-and-pasting the code for the LoC box. Please do not put me in a sack with dogs and snakes and throw me into the river Tiber. I shall be better in future; I promise. Do please make a simple template for the LoC box to spare me the onerous duty of copy-pasting. Thank you. Rintrah 14:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I've gone thru the first part of the list (ending at X-Ray Specs) and added the template. I included today's date and/or the original edit date, if known. I'll finish going thru the rest later.Galena11 05:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

What to do with red links

I am relatively new to wiki-world and was wondering what the protocol is for red links when copyediting? Should you leave them, in the hopes that someone will write an article and the link will someday go "live"? Or should you delete the link and just leave the text? Thanks! Galena11 17:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I leave them when they seem noteworthy. I've purposely redlinked several things in the hopes that articles would be written eventually. IrisWings 20:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
That sounds about right to me. Thanks for the guidance! Galena11 21:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed revisions to project page

I have really enjoyed being a part of this project, but I confess that its taken a bit of effort for me to catch on. I've read the talk page and that helped a lot, and thought we could put some of those ideas on the main page. I propose the following changes—what do you all think? Galena11 01:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

<proposed changes>

  • Keep only the past two week's completed articles in the list on the project page. Archive all previously-completed articles on a subpage. (NOTE: This has been done--see note at bottom.)
  • In the "Mission Objectives," add a 4th bullet to more closely reflect the goal of excellence that was discussed on the talk pages (see "Proofreading"). The new objective could read, "To assure excellence by copyediting, then proofreading, each article in the backlog." or something along that line?
  • Make the following changes to the "Current to-do-list" section. I made the message box template (I learned something today!) and figured out how to automatically add month and year, but I think a date would be valuable and I can't figure out a less clunky way to get it in there. Help?

<proposed changes to Current to do list section>

1. Patrol the copyedit backlog
  • Copyedit any article on the list.
  • Remove the copyedit tag ({{copyedit}}).
  • Post the article below in the "articles ready for final proofread" section.
2. Recruit new members so that we can better tackle the ever growing number of articles in need of copyediting.
3. Ensure accuracy by proofreading each article after it receives a copyedit from a League member (particularly when the article is lengthy or difficult).
4. Lend your expertise to the group by searching through the "articles requiring assistance from other editors" list to see if you can provide help on the current difficulty being experienced with that copyedit.
===If you are the proofreader of a copyedited article===
Please insert the template {{WP LoCE|{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}} at the top of each discussion page for the articles you process.

The template should display as follows:

This article, or a portion of it, was copyedited by the League of Copyeditors. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

</proposed changes>

<vote>
Sounds good Rintrah 09:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Support --JAXHERE | Talk 14:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds great to me; all for it. I would like to suggest tough that the box we leave after we eddited it be a little more discrete. Brisbane2000 20:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
More discrete, how? What would you suggest? Galena11 20:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
This sounds great. Go for it. Yeah, how discrete? --Tohru Honda13Sign here! 22:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
What I mean is that it could perhaps be smaller in size; like the size of our LoC userbox. But it seems I stand allone on this; my housem8 also thinks the size is fine :P --Brisbane2000 00:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree, more discrete is better. Reduce the icon, shorten the text, reduce the fontsize and make the backround color more like the default color of the page background. The new text could read: "This article, or part of it, was copy-edited by the League of Copyeditors. We invite you to join our project and see a list of open tasks." -Pgan002 00:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
</vote>
  • I went ahead and created the subpage for the completed articles--I won't make the other changes until more people have the chance to weigh in, or until January 1, whichever comes first.Galena11 21:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I wonder if we can get a bot to do the archiving for us. Perhaps we could get Werdnabot to somehow do this? Gzkn 02:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • OOOH, wouldn't that be lovely? I haven't the foggiest idea how to go about doing that, but if someone can point me in the right direction, I'll look into it. Galena11 10:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • These changes (except for the bot idea) have been made. I also added instructions for how to do final proofreads. Thanks for your input, everyone! Galena11 10:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I've left a message at User_talk:Werdna about the bot thing. I'll try to catch him on IRC too. Gzkn 14:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Fantastic, thanks Gzkn! Galena11 03:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

A slap on our faces, part 2

Rintrah, all your hard work on "1990s fads and trends" looks like it was for naught. It has, from all appearances, been reverted back to what it was before we did a copy edit. It's back on the backlog list, as well. What should we do in this instance? Galena11 17:38, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the page I had edited through, but found nothing of which you speak—I thus thought your comment strange. Then I looked on the backlog and saw that article was indeed there. I realised, though, the article I worked on is in fact 1990s fads and trends in North America; the article on the backlog is an earlier version of it. The latter article poorly describes its subject matter—it is a pitiable shadow of the other one. I think we should make the ugly one redirect to the better one. Rintrah 23:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah, that explains it! Sorry for causing any distress. I agree that it should redirect to your lovely, shiny article. *smile* Galena11 20:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't go that far. I didn't make it so good that I actually want to read it myself. I just wanted to stop the reader from dashing his brains out on the computer monitor, as I nearly did when I was editing it. :) Rintrah 23:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I prodded it. If the proposal stands unopposed, the article will die on its own accord. Lets hope it does; so it will no longer terrify visitors of the backlog. After all, we don't want to discourage tourism to the backlog. Rintrah 09:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
We certainly don't want to discourage them--we need all the help we can get! *grin* Galena11 22:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Bad articles on the backlog are rewarding for a newbie like me. When stumbling around with not too much idea of what you are doing, it's great to be able to make a contribution by fixing spelling, capitalization, or a few commas. Somewhere else I wrote, "...nice to be able to rest my ego gently on some existing skills while I quietly try to pick up a few new ones." I looked at a some articles on your list and thought, "sheesh!" these are better than the ones I find just browsing around.--Joesydney 10:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Arrrghhhhh! Blerrrrrrr! Raaaaaaaaaa! Someone deleted the better version of 1990s fads and trends in North America and replaced it with that nightmare; the one that digusted me so much I edited it until I no longer detested it. We've been slapped, comrades; slapped hard. Rintrah 10:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I fixed it. It is ok now. Rintrah 05:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I know that the backlog is our ever-growing enemy, but do you all mind if I add a few more articles to it? I've recently joined a new WikiProject, a Digimon Wikiproject, and one of things in the to-do lists says that almost all Digimon articles need copyedit (thats what drew me into the project, not just because it's one of my favorite anime). No, I will not put 1000 more articles to the backlog. Most of the ones I've copy-edited are extremely short, and I'm pretty capable of handling those. I'll only put a copyedit tag on larger articles that give me trouble (none yet, but considering). Thanks! Boy, I love this WikiProject ^_~ --Tohru Honda13Sign here! 00:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

That's fine. Although we whine about the size of the backlog, we try to be Stoic philosophers. <whine> Doesss it haveee to beee sooo big?! Ohhwwww. It's not fair. </whine> Rintrah 08:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello from the land of WP:FAC!

Greetings! Never knew this project existed until now. Count me in! I often review articles at WP:FAC (and occasionally at WP:FAR), and one of the most common requests is a copy-edit to push an article over the hump to FA quality. What do you think of making a separate heading under "Proofreading status" for "Articles on FAC/FAR in need of copyedit" or something similar? Or would it be unnecessary? Gzkn 02:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Most definitely! League members will be happy to kick candidates into FA status. You're in. So welcome. Our principal aim now is to nuke the backlog to make it disappear. Rintrah 13:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Shall I add this new section when I make the proposed changes listed above? Galena11 22:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Done. You can make the proposed changes whenever you're ready. Rintrah 02:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
"Our principal aim now is to nuke the backlog to make it disappear." I have requested a bot that will remove the cleanup tags from all pages that contain one. In the meantime, we have to manually go through each article in the backlog and remove the tags. Alright, bad joke. -Pgan002 00:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

My recent copy-edit of the text at the top

This page is a good move indeed. However, I thought that the claims made at the top were too ambitious ("we will ...", etc). The danger is that, without caveats, people might be more ready to complain or speak poorly if their pet article is not treated promptly, or at all. I hope you don't mind my softening a few of the statements at the top: I think it's safer, and that it's not a substantive change in the aims and processses of the page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 04:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

I don't mind some changes; but I disagree with others, including:
  • Adding "We will attempt to..." — It makes us sound like inept amateurs.
  • Changing "copyedit" to "copy-edit" everywhere — "copyedit" is a neologism (specifically, a back formation); either spelling is correct[1]. We are using "copyedit" contrary to its conventional definition, for we don't prepare articles for publication (the American Heritage dictionary has a definition even further removed from our use of the word). The word is more elegant without a hyphen, and its form has not been firmly established, as I have just outlined.
  • Adding "lexical choice" — "word" sounds much better. Leave "lexical" for academic papers.
  • "aim to manage" — This is too vague and sounds a little dull. While "eliminate the backlog" is hyperbolic, it is more motivating and sounds better. I don't think anyone will complain if we don't achieve "elimination".
Writing the page too cautiously makes it too vague and uninspiring. Keep it in its original spirit. Rintrah 05:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Good points that I've implemented, except that I'm still unsure about "copy-edit". In any case, some of the occurrences of this item were already hyphenated before I got to them. Suggest that we research this a little. Tony 08:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I created a version I am happy with. As for your other point, I am sure you will find both spellings are acceptable, but I would guess that "copyedit" is more common in recent times. If you read through texts from centuries ago to the modern age, you will see how history favours the gobbling of the hyphen for commonly used words. Rintrah 09:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe the Chicago Manual of Style uses "copyedit" (my manuals are at work; if this is still up for debate, I won't be able to check until Tuesday). It is also the first spelling listed on dictionary.com, merriam-webster online, and is the form used throughout wikipedia. I say we stick with it. Galena11 09:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

members' areas of interest/expertise?

I wonder why members haven't been encouraged to provide their areas of special interest or expertise in the list. Granted that good copy-editors are capable of dealing with most or all topics that are unfamiliar to them, some people will be readier than others to work on, for example, pop culture/pokemon type articles, while others might leap at the chance to fix text on genetics. Listing areas would indicate the spread of expertise as well as who's good at copy-editing per se. It would possibly raise the utility and status of the League in the project, and encourage new recruits. Tony 08:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not so sure. I would agree to a section for professional copyeditors (which, incidentally, would not include me). But assigning editors to interests groups is better left to a group like The Cleanup Taskforce. To me, it suggests an inefficient regimenting of the group. The best practice is to copyedit articles of whatever designation, and add the "expert" or "verify" tag for any danger of distortion in the process of copyediting. This is the practice I have undertaken. We generally edit articles outside our expertise, often considerably so, like articles on sociology, geographical, foreign pop-culture, military, and technology.
Anyway, if an article is written well, it should be comprehensible to the general reader. This is what we, as general readers and editors, are trying to achieve. We usually just choose articles we could be bothered doing. Rintrah 10:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, Rintrah. I consider myself a jack of many trades and master of none, so I don't really have an area of particular interest. In fact, one of the things I like best about the League is that I read (and edit) at least one article every day that I normally wouldn't have looked at. I would hate to feel limited or contrained to only editing the things I've declared an interest in. I suggest that we could do an optional "areas of interest/expertise" heading on members' user pages, which could also be helpful if you are looking for help editing a particular topic. Galena11 10:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
That's a good suggestion. Perhaps we should we note that on the main page. Rintrah 10:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Done--I added it to the "current to do" section as step 5. Galena11 21:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Striking out the article name

Do we have to? :) Don't want to seem like a lazy bum (which I am), but it just seems needless since we're moving them to a new section anyway. Gzkn 14:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

  • This may seem silly to you, but "striking out the article name" somehow provides a great deal of satisfaction to me. I could suggest making it optional but I won't, because inconsistencies just lead to chaos; chaos leads to anarchy; anarchy leads to misery and misery leads to "the Dark Side". (yuk, never mind me) --Brisbane2000 15:33, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • With you, I agree. The ways of the Dark Side, we must not follow. Rintrah 22:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! :p Gzkn 02:19, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "I, am your father." Woops. Sorry about that. I'm not a dude! Juss tryin' to be funny...and failed:P --Tohru Honda13Sign here! 06:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Off the matter of discussion, all of you are wandering. The way of the dark side, ignoring wikipedia policy is. Rintrah 06:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Dark times I see ahead... Strike out, we must! (IMHO) | AndonicO Talk | Sign Here 01:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Tracking our progress

I added the articles in need of copyedit category to Dragons_flight's nifty category tracker thing. See User:Dragons_flight/Category_tracker#Cleanup. This should allow us to see how we're doing, and whether we're making any progress on the backlog. It updates every day.

Oh, and Werdnabot won't be able to archive the stuff for us. It was a longshot anyway, since it's only used for talk pages. Gzkn 08:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

967? Easy! If 15 editors do the number I've done since joining the League, without more articles being added, the number will become zero! Rintrah 09:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into Werdnabot, Gzkn. Guess we'll just have to manage the archive the "old-fashioned way". :o) Galena11 18:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Created and added "In Progress" template to project page

While editing "femslash", I realized that the lovely "in progress" message box (as mentioned above in previous talk sections) on its talk page didn't have a template. I've made one now. :o) I hope it wasn't out of line for me to add it directly to the project page. It seemed reasonable to add it to the "Current To Do" section of the project page, as a companion to the other template. I suggest its use when an editor cannot complete an edit or must do it in stages. However, I wonder if we want to put it on all articles that have been copyedited but not proofread? This would alert users that some of the edits are being done under the aupices of the League. Thoughts? Galena11 21:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought we were going to go with a different color for "in progress" than for "done". If folks don't like the green above (I think I'd like a lighter green), how about another color? ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 23:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Maybe this?

This article is currently being copyedited by the League of Copyeditors. If you have any thoughts or concerns, please post them to the discussion page for review by League members.

I took the color from the templates for "major edit in progress" here: Wikipedia:Template_messages/Maintenance ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 23:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I like the green; that works for me. I'll change the template. Galena11 02:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I second your motion. Rintrah 02:59, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Germany

Nice job by someone; I've withdrawn my objection to the nomination. I'd love to refer lots of FACs to you, but that would swamp you. I'd be inclined to take on only FACs that have shown to make the grade in all, or almost all, other respects, and for which attempts have already been made to improve the text. Might be a way of "rationing" your excellent input there, and preventing nominations to FAC just to get priority copyediting? Tony 01:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Should a new section be created for the FACs Tony, and others perhaps, adds? | AndonicO Talk | Sign Here 01:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • RE:AndonicO: There is already a section titled "Copyedit requests for Featured Article Candidates and Featured Article Reviews" on this page. :) Unless you're talking about something else...
  • RE:Tony1: Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Those that meet all the WIAFA criteria except 1a would probably be the best one's for the league to take care of. Gzkn 01:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

RE:RE:AndonicO: Oops, I didn't notice that, sorry. (Of all idiocies...) | AndonicO Talk | Sign Here 01:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

You beat me to it—edit conflict. Here's what I wrote a few minutes ago:

Perhaps, depending on what your colleagues think. Doing so might make it easier to answer basic questions about requests; i.e.,:
  • Are all of the other FA criteria satisfied, or likely to be satisfied, during the nomination process?
  • Have reasonable attempts already been made during the nomination to improve the prose?

After all, nominations to FAC are supposed to be in good order beforehand. Ahem [clears throat loudly] ....

If nominators know that they are the requirements, it would (a) prevent your service being abused, (b) focus your efforts on candidates that are most likely to get a star, and (c) provide motiviation for the main contributors to do as much as possible before asking you. I often ask them to search for copyediting help among those who are interested in the topic.

The FAR/C room involves exactly the same issues, although the process is a little different (first a review period, then, if insufficient progress has been made, they're moved to the chopping-block area). There, SandyGeorgia, Marskell and Joel put in a lot of effort to make the system function. No reason not to intermingle FAR/C nominations with FACs here, provided they're tagged as belonging to one of the three categories (FAC, FAR or FARC). Interested to know what you all think. Tony 01:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Now for my rant - I'm disappointed in Germany (in terms of article structure, not prose), especially since Raul keeps touting the German Wiki FA numbers at us. And, the fact is, very few articles come to FAC with their basic structure in place, which is why I rarely read them until I've put them through the WP:RS (Reliable sources), WP:CITE (Citing sources), WP:FN (Footnotes), WP:V (Verifiability), WP:GTL (Guide to layout), WP:MOS (Manual of style), WP:MSH (headings), WP:SS (Summary style), WP:LENGTH (Article size), WP:EL (External links), WP:NOT (What WP is not), WP:LEAD (Lead) and a few other wringers. I wish a few more reviewers would do that as well, and then we could turn them over to you folks, knowing that your efforts at making the prose shine will be well used, and that the rest of the article structure is in good shape. I've been shocked lately at how many random checks have turned up deceptive referencing. Too many of them are just plain sloppy, and making them read purdy won't help if the facts aren't verifiable - and every time a sloppy FAC slips through, some future nominator says, "well, look at so-and-so, and it's an FA". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm nearly ready to move this one into the "request for proofread" section. I haven't been able to finish off the copyedit because our internet connection has been very flaky of late, but it should only be another day or two. Raymond Arritt 02:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice list, Sandy. I'm keeping a record of those links. Tony 02:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Adding "done" template to project page?

I would love to add your spiffy "done" template to the instructions for proofreading. Gzkn, may I have your permission to do so? Group: Any objections? Galena11 20:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course! I stole the idea from someone else while perusing the FAC page anyway. Just add {{done}}! Gzkn 00:32, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks muchly!  :o) I've added it to the instructions. Galena11 04:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Created Monthly Archive Subpages

Because we have so many new editors (Welcome!) and are doing many more copyedits than we did in previous months, I created subpages in the archive for each month. I've moved all of November and December's completed articles to these subpages. The main archive page should still be used for any articles completed more than two weeks ago, but only in the current month. We may also want to consider moving completed articles to the archive weekly, rather than biweekly. Thoughts? Galena11 21:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

That's actually a good idea...I was thinking about creating monthly archives too! I wouldn't have any objections to archiving weekly either. Gzkn 00:34, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Definition of "copyedit"--what is expected?

I need a little clarification on our agreed definition of "copyedit." Our project page states: "The League edits these articles to improve style (including grammar, punctuation and diction) and formatting (including capitalization and wikification)." I've understood this to mean that I should do standard editing practices plus add tags where necessary, format with headings, etc. Should I also analyze/verify/validate references? Is there anything else I'm not doing that I should? Where does the copyedit end and "cleanup" begin? Galena11 20:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

It probably doesn't falls under the definition of "copyedit", although I often do general cleanup sometimes in conjunction with my copyedit. It all depends on my interest level. User:SandyGeorgia is a resident "reference expert", so she probably finds it easy to scan and fix the refs, which I find remarkable. :) Gzkn 00:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Right, it's just something I do (when possible), but not really part of copyedit. I was raising a different point - which is that I wonder if efforts are well spent on copyediting articles which are referenced entirely to non-reliable sources or, in the case of two I did yesterday, basically translation copyvios. I was also concerned that, when copyediting only one section and then labeling an article as CE'd by the LoCE, it wouldn't reflect well on the LoCE if the rest of the article is poorly written. I'm still feeling my way around this Project, but I guess my personal conclusion is that I'd not like to spend time CEing articles whose content may later be deleted because of a copyvio or text based on unreliable sources. Hope that clears up what my concerns were. On the other hand, I do think it is good to try to hit general problems in articles, like incorrect headings per WP:MOS, WP:GTL, WP:MSH and WP:DATE - I do feel that some of that goes into a general ce. (Also, on one of your ce's, you had inserted ref tags which bombed out all the refs, which is why I got involved fixing the refs on that article, and then realized most of the article - not just the section requesting ce - was a mess. I was just concerned that it would be embarrassing to say the LoCE had ce's it, when a ce of only one section was requested, and the part we hadn't ce'd was bad, but Gzkn solved that by clarifying in the template.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I think that the change to the template is a good way to address that valid concern. I'm still feeling my way around wikipedia--not just this project--so I appreciate the help and clarification. Thanks! Galena11 18:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Referencing is my thing, Galena, so drop me a note if you ever have a question. I keep poking around in the copedit backlog, searching for something I can help out on, but finding articles with bigger problems than ce - I have a really hard time mustering up the effort to ce an article which is based on unreliable sources, or a copyvio, or not notable, or a translation copyvio (even though I did one of those) - some of these articles should really be deleted, but who has the time for the whole AfD thing, which is Greek to me, still. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I think that fact-checking and copy-editing are usually mutually beneficial. If most of the structure and facts in an article are correct, then the copy-editing work is useful, and only some sentences need to be modified to correct for facts. Also, good structure and tight prose make it easier to check the facts, by making it clearer what facts need to be checked. Do you all agree? -Pgan002 00:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Good prose makes the reader care; and knowing the facts, instead of pretending, makes writing good prose easier. We would save considerable time if contributors did not, all too often, abandon articles in wretchedness; so perhaps, then, we should refer those articles to their respective wikiprojects. Rintrah 13:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, good point. Template:Expert-subject kind of serves the purpose of refering articles to wikiprojects; I've used it a few times already. BuddingJournalist 14:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps. I advocate, however, cajoling project members to salvage articles in their jurisdiction, rather than letting them rot in the backlog. By so doing, we would not have to hack up and prettify so many articles, from an almost infinite number. Let others deal with the many unspeakable horrors in the backlog, if they can. Rintrah 15:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, talking to experts and members of respective projects would help. But so would making easy prose and structure improvements, because it makes those experts and project members care, and makes their work easier. -Pgan002 01:09, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Enter the Wu-Tang

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) has already undergone minor copy-edits, but it needs one right now as it is a featured article candidate. Thakns.Noahdabomb3 17:32, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Archive

Isn't it time to archive this page? It is 99 kilobytes long. Rintrah 09:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Yup. :) Gzkn 11:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Rintrah, your user talk page has a groovy archive icon/box. Could we replicate that here? Should we use it on the project page as well? Galena11 16:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

For your pleasure, if you wish to use it: {{Archive box|[[/Archive 1]]}} (from Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page). Rintrah 19:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

In Progress template color changed

Hi all, Just wanted to let you know that I noticed a color change of our In Progress template. I went back and changed it to the green we'd agreed to use, thinking Raul654 had just gotten overzealous. However, that change got reverted with this edit summary:

rv - it was specifically decided during the talk page standarization process for *all* of wikipedia, that all talk page templates would use this scheme. Individual wikiprojects do not get to override

Thanks! Galena11 23:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah didn't know that before. Learn something new everyday... Gzkn 00:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

A change to Template:copyedit

Hello all. I thought it was about time to update the {{copyedit}} template to bring it in line with other cleanup templates. Thus, I was bold and added a date parameter to the template. This has the following affects:

  • Articles tagged with {{copyedit|date=Month Year}} will be categorized in Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit from Month Year. For example, {{copyedit|date=January 2007}} puts the article in Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit from January 2007.
  • The "needing copy edit from Month Year" categories are subcategories of Category:Articles needing copy edit by month, which makes for easy browsing.
  • Articles that are tagged with a date no longer get put in Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit. Instead, there's a separate Category:All articles needing copy edit.
  • I put in a request for User:SmackBot to start dating {{copyedit}} tags as it currently does with other cleanup templates.
  • This makes {{copyedit}} consistent with the other cleanup templates. Moving forward, it will allow a way to prioritize copy editing (very old requests first). It's also useful to find out whether articles that were tagged a long time ago are still in need of a copy edit. Sometimes, an article has been totally revamped and someone just forgot to take off the {{copyedit}} tag. This will also allow us to check whether the most recently tagged articles are indeed in need of a copy edit or just adding needlessly to the backlog (I came across an article with {{copyedit}} that consisted of two sentences recently). Let me know your thoughts. Gzkn 06:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I think this is fantastic! It will be really helpful to know what's oldest. One thought: do you think we should alter the project page to list these categories in addition to the "backlog" link? Galena11 16:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I approve heartily! Rintrah 20:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Nice work! As it is, the process is a little more complicated than it should be (see comments under "Roll call", below). Anything that can make things more automatic is great. Raymond Arritt 19:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Roll Call

Because we already have a large list of members, I recommend that we initiate a monthly roll call. Members who do not sign the roll call by the beginning of the next one will be removed from the active member list. That way, we have an up-to-date display of active participants; not just a list of people who copyedit articles on occasion, who will be noted as being available but inactive. Thoughts? — Deckiller 17:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't remove them. If we should have a roll call, those who respond "yes" should indicate active status, and everyone else, inactive or busy. Rintrah 17:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Rintrah. I'm an unpaid volunteer and if someone insists that I answer to a roll call on a regular basis I resist. You want me to sign in: pay me; otherwise accept my contribution as, if, and when I'm able to make it. I almost feel that the extra work of putting an article on a list at the project page, adding a league template on a talk page, then coming over here again to move the listed item from a to do list to a "done" list or a "ready for final proofing" cuts down the available time I have to do edits (see my contributions if you doubt me). I do a lot more than just what I own up to here, but I'll be darned if I will answer to a roll call unless I'm given a darn good reason to do so. --JAXHERE | Talk 18:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
What he said. Raymond Arritt 18:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • No need to get all offensive, I clarified what I was saying. — Deckiller 19:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
We should leave it up to editors to specify whether they're active. Perhaps there should be a separate page for editors willing to cater to individual copyedit requests. In any case, a roll call would discourage many editors. Rintrah 19:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
A sepereate page for editors interested in taking requests could definitely help out here without having to resort to a roll call. I never knew people were so offended by roll calls; I've participated in them and used them in several projects. But yes, the "copyeditors for hire" page will really help save people time when they're looking for someone. On this page, we can even have "interests" or "specialties" so that people can actually pinpoint who is best for the article (although it might be best to keep this to the userpage). — Deckiller 19:48, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Galena has addressed this. We discussed the idea with Tony and ended up settling on what we have now; that is, the optional step of stating interests on userpage. I think we should preserve the original spirit of the League. Rintrah 19:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I propose this compromise: each editor states how many articles he or she has done (since joining the League). Thus. by looking at the numbers beside each name, a passer-by can get an idea of how active each editor is. This scheme would also motivate members without enforcing discipline on them, or regimenting them. I would also recommend there be some note indicating this number isn't an absolute measure of the copyeditor's worth. Rintrah 08:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
That would work, except I doubt many have counted. I certainly haven't. Gzkn 08:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, many articles don't count. But we are playing roulette; sometimes we get lucky! Rintrah 09:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Sorry. I misread your comment. I am willing to go back into the archives and count mine; and others', too, if they are lazy. It's just an idea. I am not worried if it is rejected. Rintrah 09:13, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I was over emphatic about my opposition to a roll call, but I would like to clarify one point that perhaps some people are forgetting: Our primary objective is to get rid of the backlog of edits needed.

I think we are complicating the issue and being counterproductive with anything that adds to the effort that needs to be done until the backlog is eliminated. What I think we need to do is for each person who is registered to go away and complete 10 edits from the backlog and only return here when that is done or to list a particularly difficult edit in the section requesting help.

Once we get rid of the backlog then we can start diddling around with pats on our backs and any other things which we might want to do in this league, but first let's get rid of the backlog! --JAXHERE | Talk 17:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

  • I see your point, Jaxhere. I think that counting how many articles we've all done is a bit unnecessary and almost makes this into a competition, which is silly. I admit to being distracted from our original mission with the addition of the FAC edit requests, and will make more of an effort to work on the backlog. However, there are some editors here who are probably better suited to working on the FACs than I am because they are more experienced in terms of Wikipedia and its standards, which are important all of the time (of course) but especially for FACs. I don't think we should discourage League members from editing FACs if that's where they can offer the most value. So, perhaps there could be a list of editors at the top of the FAC section who are willing to spend the extra time and effort on FACs, and the rest of us can focus on the backlog? Galena11 18:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • You're right. I got a little carried away. Your idea could work. Let's banish the idea of roll calls. Rintrah 22:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

No roll call for me - I help when I can, but I'm not adding my name to the Project, since I don't consider myself a good copyeditor, and really do more cleanup than ce. I'm afraid that adding my name to the list will result in talk page requests to ce articles. I don't like roll calls - people should remove themselves. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


Proofreading system

Why not just cross out the items when they're done, instead of moving them down to another section? That might save a bit of effort. — Deckiller 19:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, but the present system is tidier. Rintrah 19:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Another idea is to base it off of the charts on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Final_Fantasy/To_do#Articles_to_be_merged. — Deckiller 19:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I like the chart format; but I still think articles should be moved below. Cleanliness is next to fordliness. Rintrah 19:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
OOOOH, kudos on the literary reference! Galena11 16:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Finished copyedit requests for FAC/FAR

What should we do with them? I've been just removing them so far. Should they be archived instead? Or moved down to the "Articles proofread" section? Or perhaps they're in need of a proofread, and should be at "Articles ready for final proofread"? This last option might be a bit much, since FAC/FAR articles are usually quite well-written already and lengthy (thus proofreaders might not have the time to look at them before they're promoted/kept). I do think that those articles we copyedit should feature the LoCE tag on their talk page. Perhaps a short sentence in the instructions saying so? Thoughts? Gzkn 09:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Move them to "Proofread". For the reasons above, we should assume the copyeditor is also the proofreader. If we had more active members, we could refer them to "Articles ready for proofread" instead.Rintrah 09:08, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Okee doke. I'll move Enter the Wu Tang and put on the tag. Galena11 16:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Articles in urgent need of a quick look

Is this section really needed? I haven't seen much use of it in my limited time here, and I feel that "Articles requiring assistance from other editors" would serve its purpose just fine. Those who feel the issue is urgent and in need of a quick look can just indicate as such. The directions are also a bit harsh and prejudiced: "uninformed, unnecessary disputes" and "amount of time wasted on WP in unnecessary disputes". That may or may not be the case in every listing. Depends on the circumstances. Finally, I feel that the section somewhat duplicates WP:RFC, which is more adept at resolving disputes. We should just concentrate on copy-editing! Thoughts? Gzkn 09:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

We can delete it now, and pull it out its coffin if it's needed again. I agree with your reasons. Rintrah 09:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Galena11 17:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Okie dokie. I'm going to be bold a remove it. Gzkn 02:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Hehe. I couldn't help myself editing your formatting. Rintrah 03:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

What to do when articles are tagged "likely to be deleted"?

While trolling the backlog, I clicked on Christine Kunkler and noticed it had the "notability" tag. Should we bother to copyedit articles like this one, that appear as though they are targeted for deletion? Galena11 05:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

When I come across an article that has a speedy, prod or afd tag, I usually just leave it alone and move on. No point in copy-editing something that is likely to be deleted. Sometimes I even tag articles as such while patrolling the backlog. In this case though, the "notability" tag is not as strong as an actual deletion notice. Google suggests that she's somewhat notable in Germany, although I can't say for certain. I'd still just move on to a different article. Let someone fluent in German decide whether she's actually notable before doing too much work (unless you know that she is notable, in which case you're free to remove the "notability" tag and improve the article). On another note, why do people feel machine translations of German Wikipedia articles make for acceptable English articles? Gzkn 06:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Since we are not experts on most of the subjects concerned in such articles, our time is better spent on editing articles that will most likely survive. I'd even say that if there is a reasonable concern of notability or threat of deletion, I would suggest removing the cleanup or copyedit tags until those are resolved. -Pgan002 00:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Maserati MC12

Hi, I have been working Maserati MC12 up to FA standard, but because I'm the only major contributer, I have written the whole article except for a few lines. I miss my own errors so my copyedits are limited, so can I add it to the list of articles needing copyediting? Thanks. James086Talk | Contribs 12:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course! Feel free to add it to the "Articles requiring assistance from other editors". Gzkn 13:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I just wasn't sure. I added it to the bottom of the list. James086Talk | Contribs 02:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Computer-translated poorly-translated articles

I'm looking at an article called Alagoinha. It seems to be translated by a computer or a grade-school student. Some of the information is useable. But when you correct mistakes, you run the risk of compounding mistakes that the translator may have made. Should you chop out anything that's questionable? -- and reduce the size article by about 80 percent. Or forward it to the translation project? I hestitate to do this, just because someone who speaks Portugese thought this should be translated doesn't mean that people who speak English are clamouring to read about it. Or just nominate it for deletion? Puddytang 01:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I hate editing those...I'm always afraid that I will make more mistakes in correcting the grammar. I never understood why people thought computer-translated articles were helpful at all to anyone. Perhaps forward it to the translation project? However, in my opinion, an understandable stub is much better than a long article in badly translated English that no one understands. I doubt anyone will cry foul over stubbing an article like that. Gzkn 02:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Gzkn. Rintrah 04:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I also agree. Galena11 17:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I also quite dislike articles written by computers—I know this doesn't directly relate to the subject under discussion. Some bot whose contributions wikipedia has deigned to accept has written articles almost entirely consisting of statistics; it writes two non-demographical sentences and then puts mindless, stupid statistics into a paragraph about Demographics. Rintrah 09:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I came across this doozy of a line while looking at Antofagasta, Chile: "Previously to the poblamiento of the place, Juan Lopez, who is considered the first inhabitant of the city, settled in the sector of White Rock, today known like the Chimba, where the mineral extraction began of precarious way." BuddingJournalist 09:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't see any problema with that sentence. Could tú a point it out to me? Rintrah 07:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
It has dos lenguas, anda on quite a bit, muchos tiempos, grammar pobre and usage mas pobre, and follows the precarious way to wisdom. Other than that, it's fine.Unimaginative Username 06:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Special projects

Discussions related to The Beatles have brought up a possible need for copyeditors to monitor some of the most popular articles on WP (see at village pump). What seems to happen is that because the subjects are widely popular, they attract a lot of contributors (which is good) which often results in a breakdown of organization and introduction of errors (which is not so good). Maybe specific copyeditors could take on some high-profile articles as special projects, doing a copyedit every week or so to prevent errors from mounting up. I've decided to take on The Beatles as such an ongoing project. Raymond Arritt 20:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

That argument is bunk and resulted because they're disappointed at the failure of an FAC candidacy - a situation which could have been entirely avoided by first running the article through peer review, since it wasn't nearly ready for WP:FAC. As an example of what's wrong with the argument, see recent high-profile articles like Barack Obama and Gerald Ford - highly edited, recently on the main page, and both came through fine because of committed and involved editors who are also good writers. The Beatles Project needs better copyediting in general - the "high profile" argument is a straw man. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, if there isn't a general need then I'll withdraw my proposal. I'll stay involved as "copyeditor-in-residence" for The Beatles and related articles. They have a group of editors who are committed to fact checking but less so to style and writing, and who disappointingly don't even seem to think it's important. Raymond Arritt 20:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Methinks you've hit the nail on the head. But there are so many Projects who need to develop a corp of copyeditors - in that sense, they're not at all unique. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Small problem

I'm having trouble with just three sentences in the George Butler article. Here they are:

Butler followed that up the next year with another documentary about Shackleton's expedition. Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure is narrated by the actor Kevin Spacey and at 40 minutes in length is 57 minutes shorter than the The Endurance. It is more of a brief summary of the events which focuses on the heroism of the crew of Shackleton's expedition.

They seem really choppy to me and if I put them like this they become run-on sentences:

Butler followed that up the next year with another documentary about Shackleton's expedition entitled Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure. Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure is narrated by the actor Kevin Spacey and at 40 minutes in length is 57 minutes shorter than the The Endurance and is a more of a brief summary of the events which focuses on the heroism of the crew of Shackleton's expedition.

If I separate them into smaller sentences the problem becomes much worse. As thoughts seem finished in one sentence and then get resurrected in the next sentence. Tell me what you think maybe they sound fine to you and I'm just overthinking it or maybe you can write some good prose for the section. Quadzilla99 22:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


How about:
  • Butler followed that up the next year with a documentary about the heroism of the crew in Shackleton's expedition entitled Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure. It is narrated by the actor Kevin Spacey and at 40 minutes in length is 57 minutes shorter than the The Endurance.
Trishm 23:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
    • You can remove the 40 minutes in length part; only one of the two is necessary. If Kevin Spacey is linked, you can probably remove "the actor". "The following year, Butler released a..." can also work. — Deckiller 23:32, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Deckiller that "followed that up the next year with a" is probably unnecessarily wordy. Since Shackleton is discussed earlier, you can probably just leave it as "the crew's heroism" without further explanation. My suggestion:
  • "The following year, Butler released a documentary, Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, which recounts the crew's heroism. Narrated by Kevin Spacey, the film is 57 minutes shorter than The Endurance." BuddingJournalist 00:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I like it. I also like the commas bookending Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure; I was beginning to think that I'm too comma happy :) — Deckiller 00:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Rejoice!

Pop the champagne! As of 06:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC), the "A" articles have been cleared in the backlog! BuddingJournalist 06:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Well done, my friend. Please clone yourself many times, if you can, so we can eliminate the entire backlog. Rintrah 07:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
And of course, an hour later, someone tags the whole Asian American article as needing copy-edit. Argh. BuddingJournalist 07:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:LoCE template on talk pages

I just came across this template on Talk:Germany, and I'm somewhat confused. What exactly is the point of putting the template on talk pages? It tells me that the article has been copyedited by someone on some day.. Hooray, I guess. Oh, and it of course tells me (like pretty much all talk page templates do nowadays) that I should visit the project page to get more information. Now, I can understand the template's usefulness when the "In Progress" parameter is used, but the talk page addition just looks like a cheap ad to me. "Someone improved this article once. Oh, and visit our project!". So, could the template please be removed from talk pages? --Conti|✉ 15:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Refrain from sarcasm, please. You are an administrator: you should know better.
Yes, the template's purpose to draw attention to the League, because we want more participating members, and it tells editors whom they can contact if they have concerns about copyediting. The template is better than a "cheap ad"; the League, like every other volunteer group here, is not selling anything. The template doesn't command you to visit the page, just as links don't command you to look at every linked page; in fact, the template reads, "if you would like to participate, please visit the project page," not "visit the page, now!"
If you want the template removed, advance a sensible argument instead of a diatribe, and that way, people might take you more seriously. Rintrah 19:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, that was probably a bit too much sarcasm. I've just been a bit annoyed at too many talk page templates lately. Well, the most obvious point is that article talk pages are for talking about the respective articles, and not for mentioning the existence of WikiProjects. I am certainly not saying that this project isn't useful, just that there should be a good reason (article grading, stating that an article belongs to a certain project, etc.) to put such a template on a talk page. "This article has been copyedited" is, IMHO, not a good reason. --Conti|✉ 20:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I doubt this will completely solve your problem, but it might help. With all talk page templates there is (should be) an option to shrink them. Putting "small=yes" should shrink them otherwise the template needs to be corrected. {{example talk page template|small=yes}} That would make it a small box on the right which allows the text (discussions) to slide up next to the templates. James086Talk 12:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, yes, that's a different issue. The "small" parameter is certainly very useful on such templates, but my point is that the template itself (when used on talk pages) is not helpful for the reader and presents no information that is relevant to that article. Making it smaller doesn't change that. --Conti|✉ 16:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I propose this compromise: The template is added to the bottom of the page, in its own section, for articles receiving no more than a moderate copyedit; but, for hideous articles receiving major copyedits, or small articles receiving little traffic, the template is added to the top of the page.
I think it is fair to say the article has been copyedited by the League, but I can understand your objection to a template being piled on other talk page templates. Although the League isn't relevant to articles' subject matter, it is relevant to wikipedia, and needs to be advertised somewhere. And although talk pages shouldn't turn into general, internet discussion boards, they don't necessarily need to be treated as sacred spaces, and they're certainly not as important as the article space itself. Rintrah 17:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
The biggest problem that I have with the template is that "being copyedited" is not a permanent status. It might take a week or a month or more, and the article might be in need of copyediting once again, but the article's talk page will still say "This article was copyedited". So here's another idea: Remove the template after a certain time, or when a number of edits have been made to the article since it was copyedited. That way, people still notice the project, but the template won't stay on the talk pages forever. --Conti|✉ 17:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Ok. I am happy with that. Rintrah 17:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I have a question about how to accomplish the maintenance involved in the solution proposed above. It is obviously too labor-intensive to ask a League member to do, and besides, it would take League members' already-limited time away from the purpose of the project. I am not wise enough in the ways of Wiki to know exactly how to do this, but is there a way to add a "This page was copyedited on <date>" message to the template and then create a bot to strip out templates once they reach a certain expiration period (which may vary based on edit rate/traffic)? Is there another easy way to accomplish this? Galena11 18:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think it's fair if Bot does this. If we can't write a script for a bot, we could just mark the date and those who think the template too old can delete it, when appropriate. Rintrah 19:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I've asked Random832 for help with modifying the template. Galena11 21:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. What about a compromise where instead of placing the League template at the top of article talk pages, we instead place it as another comment. This would take care of any clutter concerns, and we wouldn't have to go through all the trouble of programming a bot to remove templates. I think I'm going to have a go at modifying the template, too, to include some more information. I'll mock one up at my Sandbox; in the meantime, what do you all think of this idea? BuddingJournalist 01:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, I have modified the template accordingly (without any use of my Sandbox...look Mom, no hands!). Anyway, the date now actually shows up in the text. There are also two new parameters, one for the copyeditor(s) and one for the proofer. I've mocked up samples at Talk:Midget submarine and Talk:Humbert de Romans. To use the new parameters, the first copyeditor should paste the following on the talk page: {{WP LoCE|{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}|~~~~}}. The proofer needs to go to the talk page and edit the comment. S/he should see something like {{WP LoCE|February 2007|[[User:Rintrah|Rintrah]] 09:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)}}. The proofer needs to add their signature as another parameter. This is accomplished by adding |~~~~ before the two closing curly braces (after the "(UTC)") like so: {{WP LoCE|February 2007|[[User:Rintrah|Rintrah]] 09:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)|~~~~}}. Questions/concerns/comments? BuddingJournalist 02:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
By the way, this all looks much more complicated than it actually is :) BuddingJournalist 02:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I can probably still modify it so you can just do {{subst:WP:LoCE}}, if you want. --Random832(tc) 02:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, neat! I think we'd want to keep WP:LoCE for the actual template though, not the substitued one, right? Otherwise that would mess up the templates already on the pages. Or am I wrong? BuddingJournalist 03:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I think the new template is fantastic, but for the sake of ease of use, maybe we should look into the subst. option. Either way, thank you Budding and Random for your help and good work! Galena11 15:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Proofreading status split

I recommend we split the proofreading status sections to a subpage, sort of like a "to do" subpage seen on other Wikiprojects. That way, the main page doesn't have the tasks listed on it, so it just explains the project, its goals, members, and so on. It will make navigation a bit easier, especially as the project grows. If I'm not being clear, I'll demonstrate by creating the subpage. — Deckiller 13:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's a basic example: Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/proofreading. — Deckiller 13:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that is a good idea. You have my approval. Rintrah 14:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Okay, all set; if people begin objecting, we can always move it back. — Deckiller 15:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Nice! I like it. BuddingJournalist 02:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Rintrah 15:30, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It threw me a bit when I came back after a couple of weeks away and didn't see the list! But I like it. :o) Galena11 18:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Participation drive?

What about starting a copy-editing participation drive? I was envisioning a goal of at least one copy-edit and one proofread a week for the remainder of February from each of our members (that is, each member would pick at least one article from the backlog to copy-edit, and a different one from the ready for final proofread section to proof every week). This is fairly doable I think. We could drop a friendly note to each of the editors in the Members section. Obviously it wouldn't be mandatory. But even if only half our members meet the goal, it would still drastically boost our output. What do y'all think? BuddingJournalist 13:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. I support it. Rintrah 13:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good. Ther'sa need for some kind of boost. How about a "Copyeditof the day", too? --SidiLemine 17:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah, no. We are a group of volunteers, not a sporting league or business. Rintrah 17:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I've added an Announcements section for the participation drive. Let me know what you think. BuddingJournalist 01:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
And the talk message template I'm planning to send out is here: User:BuddingJournalist/Sandbox. Let me know if the wording is OK. I'll start sending it out later today after some feedback. BuddingJournalist 01:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't mean to be negative here, but... I don't think this is such a good idea. I agree with Rintrah, we're volunteers. As volunteers, we should do it....well, ourselves, maybe? just my opinion...cheers. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong. It is an okay idea. — ♥Tohru Honda13♥ 02:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I think Rintrah was responding to SidiLemine's idea. Obviously the participation drive would be voluntary. It's just a way of setting an attainable goal for members. BuddingJournalist 02:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh...>.< Excuse me! I just got kinda...well, confused. But I do still have reaaally minor ifs. Then again, you've brought up a great idea. Cheers! Again, excuse me. — ♥Tohru Honda13♥ 02:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, informing people is more tedious than I thought it would be. I'm taking a break and going back to copy-editing for a bit. I'd be grateful if others could help inform users (I left off at User:Espoo). Just paste the following on user talk pages: {{subst:User:BuddingJournalist/Sandbox}} ~~~~ Many thanks! BuddingJournalist 08:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I spammed everyone up to Skrshawk, and unwittingly duplicated the heading. Now, I think it's time to have a manwich. Rintrah 09:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I've done everyone up to SidLemine. I'll let someone else do the rest. Rintrah 16:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I spammed everyone else. Thanks for your help, Rintrah! BuddingJournalist 01:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

We need someone to go out into the Wikipedia wilderness and recruit people. Could we advertise on the Community Portal? Perhaps awarding a barnstar to users for achieving a certain number of articles would increase productivity? Rintrah 05:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I posted a short bit on the Wikipedia:Community Portal. I think our best bet in attracting more members is just to be on the lookout for good copy-editors. When we come across one, we should drop a personal note advertising the league. BuddingJournalist 08:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry I couldn't help you give out the messages. When you mean personal notes, you mean that I can inform my Wikipals about the league and the participation drive? Oh, and I do stand corrected: This is a great idea. Cheers, — ♥Tohru Honda13♥ 02:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Sure, if you think they might be interested. Or if you come across random users who are doing good copy-editing work all by their lonesome, invite them to the league! BuddingJournalist 02:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thinking "laterally", two other things that could help the backlog, and the quality of articles in general:

  1. Edumakate the WP masses about good writing. This can be done by conversing with people on talk pages of articles we edit perhaps. I recently saw someone's talk page with copy-editing exercises for tightening prose. There is also a need for editors to be more precise with the meaning of their sentences: there is currently a lot of ambiguity and wording that conveys the wrong meaning.
  2. Recruit school teachers to have students copy-edit articles, as a way to learn to write well. The teacher or student would choose an article, and the student would copy-edit it at her pace. If the teacher approves the final version, the student would be encouraged to replace the WP version (or merge with it if it has changed). This can be pitched as an intrinsic reward of contributing to a big, worthwhile project, Wikipedia.

-Pgan002 00:21, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

RE: 1) I found Tony1's guide and exercises amazing — in particular, his redundancy exercises.
RE: 2) That would certainly be a great idea. Also, I wonder if there's some online forum where professional copyeditors gather to mingle and talk grammar things. Might be worth spamming them. BuddingJournalist 03:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

How to handle outdated/static articles?

I've noticed that there are several articles in the "articles needing help from other editors" section that are pretty old and that we can't really do anything more with. For example, Management review has been copyedited as much as we can (the date on the project page is Dec. 28) , but there has also been no additional work done on the article to warrant us going back and looking at it. Should we move articles like this to the "done" section? Galena11 15:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I just noticed that the article has gotten a new copyedit tag, although it doesn't appear any major changes or new content has been added. So, this might be a weird example.  :o) But my question about how to handle this type of situation still stands. Galena11 15:07, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the tag is same but it was updated in January. I have moved the article down.
As to your question, I suggest we archive articles in this section more than a month old. We should also probably delete articles more than three months old in the archives, when it comes to that time. Rintrah 15:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
  • So, should there be a separate archive for these, or should we just move em to the "proofread" section and archive them with everything else? Galena11 23:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Look at the article first to see what it is; if it has a copyedit tag, delete this article from the list (someone will eventually look at it); it not, move it "Proofread" and mark as incomplete (I'll leave that up to someone to standardise). We should probably rename Proofread to accomodate this new process. Rintrah 00:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

How to handle articles that badly need references.

As part of Feb's participation drive, I am looking at I, Claudius (which is quite interesting, by the way). The trouble with it, beyond copyedit problems, is that there is barely a citation in sight, and it really needs a lot more references. I have done some copyedit work on it, but I feel reluctant to put it up for proofreading, because it is still so far from prime time.


There are two ways to go that I can see:

  1. copyedit anyway, put in a cite tag, put up for proofreading, and move on, ending up with lovely prose on a largely unreferenced document with our name on it.
  2. make a tag saying that the lack of sources must be addressed before copyediting can continue.


In short, should articles reach a standard of sourcing BEFORE copyediting? Do we deal with the sourcing? Do we ignore sourcing issues, other than noting them? I would be reluctant to put our tag on a virtually unsourced article. What are thoughts of other LoCE members? Trishm 07:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

If the text seems valid, I usually just copy-edit anyway, marking the article with {{fact}}, {{verify}} and {{unsourced}} where appropriate. However, in some cases, when a) I have reason to doubt the validity of the text, or large sections of the article seem to be original research, and b) a general copy-edit is not likely to solve the text's problems, I'll remove the copy-edit tag and make a post on the talk page with my concerns. Copy-editors shouldn't be called upon to polish unsourced speculation or essays, which seems to be the case with I, Claudius. When in doubt, just ask for sources and move on to another article. Copy-editing isn't going to be very helpful if the text is going to be deleted or rewritten later (which is why I'm liberal in my replacement of the copy-edit tag with {{rewrite}} or {{expert}}). In your case, I'd suggest putting the expert tag on the article, and request sources on the talk page. Anyway, that's my two cents. BuddingJournalist 08:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
That sounds like good advice, I'll take it. Cheers,Trishm 09:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
When certain unsourced text seems particularly dubious, I delete it and copyedit the rest of the article. I think BuddingJournalist's advice is sound. Rintrah 09:32, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I do a fair amount of deleting, too. BuddingJournalist 12:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Enormous backlog

Given the enormous size of the backlog, are we going to have to resort to hack work to get through it? Rintrah 09:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Hack as in cut all the unsourced/awkward nonsense? — Deckiller 09:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Maybe "hack" as in write a computer program to do it for us :-) -Pgan002 22:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

New section?

How about a new section: Articles partially copyedited? I often don't feel like doing a whole article if it is too big. With this new section, a copyeditor can specify how much has been copyedited (for instance, up to section X), and other copyeditors can finish the rest. I think this section might help for large articles no one wants to do.

Perhaps we could also request help from wikiprojects responsible for the shoddy articles. This might lighten our burden somewhat. Rintrah 02:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea! I'm one of those copy-editors with short attention spans, so this would help me tackle the large ones. Perhaps an "in progress" section? Also, what do you think about making the FAC/FAR heading a bit smaller, so that it's a subhead of Articles requiring assistance from other editors? On further thought, perhaps we should restructure the page like so:
  • ==Outside requests==
  • ===FACs and FARs===
  • ==Backlog status==
  • ===In progress=== (Or some other name)
  • ===Ready for final proofread===
  • ===Proofread complete===

This would separate the backlog stuff from the outside requests, and make it easier to move articles down in the backlog stuff. What do you think? BuddingJournalist 03:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I've made use of my new section. Rintrah 05:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Recruitment

Maybe we could recruit people from the cleanup taskforce. I remember seeing many editors who stated they could copyedit. They might join us if we plead our case. Rintrah 04:54, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea. I've also noticed other projects use the edit summary for recruitment. I'll start inserting "Copy-edited for the [[WP:LoCE|League of Copyeditors]]" in my edit summaries for league work. BuddingJournalist 06:26, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Good idea. Perhaps we should add this to the main project page. Rintrah 06:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps we should put "[[WP:LoCE|LoCE]] copyedit: explanation" in our edit summaries. Rintrah 06:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I like that. BuddingJournalist 07:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Look at all the members of The Cleanup Taskforce who copyedit—there are so many of them. Let's abduct them. Rintrah 07:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Damn, apparently most of them are inactive. BuddingJournalist 07:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
We should contact the active ones, then. Rintrah 07:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Sandbox duly updated. BuddingJournalist 07:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
All Y Done BuddingJournalist 07:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey there, I am one of the CT members who has been "abducted" ;). Seems like an interesting endeavor, I'll join and do what I can! :) –Dvandersluis 16:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. Great to have you. I'm pleased you have taken your adduction so well. :) Welcome. Rintrah 17:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
The page of the Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce says its goal includes "cleanup" and "editorial issues". Those sound a lot like copy-editing. I suggest that we deleniate the work of the two projects, so that anyone who does copy-editing can communicate in one place. Of course, any person can participate in both projects at the same time. -Pgan002 23:01, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I have decided to withdraw from the LoCE after proofreading one article. While I enjoyed that task, finding another suitable article has been a challenge in its own right. I will be concentrating my efforts on articles related to Greater Binghamton, a familiar subject. Good luck to LoCE. I may return after gaining more experience. Cheesebox 10:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Major changes

Because of the new parameters I added to the WP:LoCE template, and some discussion above, I modified the instructions to the project and proofreading pages. The LoCE tag should now go at the bottom of talk pages as a new comment. Let me know what you think or if anything is confusing. Feel free to change my wording too. BuddingJournalist 06:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Is it not possible to make the parameters automatically filled in?
  • What is the purpose of having a month and year, when they are part of the personal signature?
  • May I suggest that we change the wording, to make it more to the point and so less distracting:
This article, or part of it, was copyedited by the League of Copyeditors. We invite you to join our project at the project page.

-Pgan002 23:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The parameters are automatically filled in (the subst:date stuff auto-fills the current month date). There was some discussion that the month/year would be helpful for a bot, but I think placing the template on the bottom of the discussion page renders that moot. It's now largely useful for the old templates that don't have the sigs. And feel free to change the wording if you want! BuddingJournalist 03:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
How can I change the wording? -Pgan002 19:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Using tags differently....

The conversation above, about advertising the league, and wanting our tags to be meaningful to the article got me thinking...

Is it possible, do you think, to use the LoCE tags on the talk page to keep track of what needs to be done on an article, until we have finished the copyedit? That would make it much more visible to the rest of wikipedia what we do, and perhaps encourage people to join. If this is possible, it might be possible to do away with the manual sub-page edits on the project pages.

I'm thinking along the lines of a copy edit tag level 1, 2, etc.

It might be an idea also to make it a precondition of copyediting that the article is sourced properly. Otherwise, it is probably a waste of resources. It doesn't look to me like the backlog is getting any smaller, despite the valiant efforts made by the team.Trishm 08:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

If you want to know if the backlog is getting smaller, count the number we've done this month, and then count the number tagged in February. I am almost certain the latter is greater. According to User:Dragons flight/Category tracker, the number of articles has been growing by +7.1 per day, on average. We're not going to get through the backlog unless 1) we have many more active members, or 2) we relegate responsibilty for certain individual articles to other projects, like Wikiproject India for Indian articles. Trusilver founded the League to clear backlog; it seemed quite ambitious at the time, and it still is. Rintrah 10:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, the recent flurry of activity has succeeded in reducing the backlog somewhat. See the history of Template:Copyedit progress, which I update regularly from Dragon flight's Category tracker. On February 5, the backlog had 1161 articles remaining. By yesterday, it was down to 1098. So we reduced the backlog by 63 articles in three days. If we kept that up, in the average month, we'd reduce it by 630 articles, which isn't bad at all. The category tracker was started a while ago, according to this talk page, and I'm willing to bet that the activity before a week or so ago in clearing the backlog was nowhere near what it is now; probably why the average is +7.1. I do agree though, that we need to recruit more members and be more proactive in removing copyedit tags from articles that don't merit them. BuddingJournalist 11:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to belittle our efforts. Any thoughts about using the copyedit tag to both track and advertise us, though?Trishm 12:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I misread the information. Sorry. Rintrah 13:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I get it now. We've cleared many recently but the trend is still negative overall. Yes, we do need to do more recruiting and removing tags. Rintrah 13:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, hopefully the recent spike in activity marks a turning point in our fight against the backlog. The backlog's down to 1087. Whoo!
In reply to Trishm's question: you could probably just add an optional parameter to Template:WP:LoCE:In Progress to display a to-do list. If you're unsure about template code, I can get around to it tomorrow. I don't think this would be able to replace the manual subpage stuff though. I'm unclear about the copyedit level idea you mentioned. Could you elaborate a bit more on that? BuddingJournalist 13:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Putting the archive back on

I noticed today that somehow the links to the archive got lost when we split the "tasks" page out. I've added them back in as a box at the top of the Proofread Complete section. Galena11 22:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Whoops. That was my fault! I must have cut the instructions somehow when I was rearranging stuff. Thanks for taking care of it; I like the box! BuddingJournalist 00:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)