Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/May 2012

Copyediting with few or no changes

What should be done with articles marked for copyediting but with few or no changes needed? I encountered some in the March 2012 drive, and I am finding more now as part of my preparation for the May 2012 drive. --DThomsen8 (talk) 02:19, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

In the past, I've just made a judgment call. If there is really practically nothing to be changed, just remove the tag and make the handful of changes, if any, required and don't give yourself credit for anything. I don't think we'd be able to come up with a hard and fast rule for the number of changes per number of words necessary to "count" enough for credit. Unless someone has a more specific idea? —Torchiest ^talk_edits 00:47, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Having thought about it, I am thinking of giving myself credit for an article, and no words, which puts me on the article count leader list, but not getting words towards a barnstar. That would be minimalist credit but a specific idea. --DThomsen8 (talk) 00:57, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that's a good approach. No words, but after all, you've taken the trouble to check through the article to know that nothing needs doing. Torchiest is right. The counts are at best approximations to the amount of effort involved. Thank you both. --Stfg (talk) 08:56, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. That sounds like a great compromise. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 13:34, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Then we are agreed, there is a bit of effort, and better yet, we reduce the number of articles awaiting copy-editing. I will be ready with some to do on May Day. --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:29, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

• Did List of Presidents of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation and

Timothy Francis Donovan Aaron with 0 words credit, as an agreed procedure above. --DThomsen8 (talk) 02:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Would it be fair to likewise claim article credit (but not word credit) for articles that the copyeditor tags for CSD or sends to AfD? Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 00:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

No credit at all, I would say, until either the article is deleted after the tag for Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, or the article is deleted after the WP:AfD discussion is finished. Either of those processes might not be completed until after the monthly drive is completed. During this drive, I did a copy-edit on Mithila (Nepal) during an AfD, which recently ended with a KEEP. I took full credit as part of the drive. I did the copy-edit, and did other improvements, seeking to have the article kept, but of course that might not have happened. --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I've noticed that Greenmaven has done this (0 word credit but article # credit) for articles rejected for copyedit (as in {{GOCEreviewed}}). Is this OK? If so, I'll need to locate ones I've tagged with this during this drive (I did quite a few earlier, particularly after Catscan was available again; these were mostly ones that were correctly tagged with "notability" and lacked any references). Allens (talk | contribs) 17:08, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

If a person invests their time in reviewing the article during the drive, perhaps they should get credit for it in some way. -- Dianna (talk) 19:06, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

No—Greenmaven has not "done this" (see User:Allens above). I left them in my list of articles (annotated for the record) because they (4 of them) were put in the list when I began to CE them. If you check, you will see that I am claiming four less than are in my list—only the ones I have CE'd. There may be a case for some credit because a fair bit of work may have been done before one suspects a copvio for example. I think we should discuss incentives generally, after the drive. --Greenmaven (talk) 00:33, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Overall, I think that most of the work is in reading an article, and thinking through the changes needed, especially if you do additional not-strictly-ce work on the way through (wikifying etc). The actual keying in of the changes is a lesser task. If you get a fairly clean article, you have been lucky. Other articles will need more work and this will average out after a while. I have begun looking at the article history before I begin, to make sure no one else is working on it. In this way I found an article someone in the drive had CE'd but had forgotten to remove the CE tag. The article count is such an imprecise measure that I would favour adding reviewed articles to the article count, if we do anything at all. The word count is the more accurate of the two metrics. --Greenmaven (talk) 00:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I misunderstood; if people prefer, I'll likewise remove the GOCEreviewed articles from my total. (BTW, if it was copyedited by Uploadvirus, he doesn't generally remove copyedit tags because he would prefer it to be reviewed by another GOCE member. I've done so for several of his articles.) Allens (talk | contribs) 02:51, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

With respect Uploadvirus, I don't think it's helpful not to remove the CE tags. We have reviewers to check our work, and either tidy them up, or ask us to re-edit them. We must have confidence in the Guild member's work. Having a second person check our work on every article just results in one less (probably worse) article remaining unchecked. I hope more editors chip in over the question of whether to credit reviewed articles. If so, by what means? --Greenmaven (talk) 07:46, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

BTW, we're talking about GOCEreviewed articles, right, not work by the reviewers (although that should be rewarded also IMO - I'm biased on this, of course ;-})? The terminology is unfortunately confusing. Allens (talk | contribs) 08:23, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, GOCEreviewed articles, not work by reviewers, for now. I agree with Greenmaven about the need to review incentives after the drive, and with the need to remove the tag from any article for which the word count is claimed. --Stfg (talk) 08:59, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, since a couple of people are agreeing on discussing this after the drive, not now, I've removed the GOCEreviewed ones from my total # of articles. Allens (talk | contribs) 09:13, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Signing up

My username is ChromaNebula (talk) , which begins with C. How do I add myself to the list? ChromaNebula (talk) 00:37, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Just copy the text in the blue box, and paste it in the appropriate place alphabetically. --DThomsen8 (talk) 00:59, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The place to put it is right after the line that says ====C====. Thanks for joining us. --Stfg (talk) 08:53, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

If you are not comfortable about doing the joining, I could do it for you. --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:31, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Joining done for you, go ahead with copyediting. --DThomsen8 (talk) 02:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

A "silly reason" prize

I will give a barnstar to the editor who, while copy editing an article for the drive, finds and records here the most amusing instance of a word like, because, since, as or suchlike, where the alleged reason is absurd. Please append them to the numbered list below and sign each one. Have fun! --Stfg (talk) 14:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

1. "It had eaten recently because deer had been found in its stomach." from Onza. --Stfg (talk) 14:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Wot, no takers? Oh well. Wikipedia must be well free of non sequiturs then. --Stfg (talk) 09:05, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Copyediting question of the fortnight

So I'm back, and rather than kick up a hornet's nest at the MOS, I thought I'd ask a general style question here (as I did last drive). This time it's two unrelated clauses, joined by "and". For example:

After graduating from college, Livitup spent the summer traveling throughout France, and in 2010 he returned to the United States and started applying for jobs.

What gets me about constructions like this is that the two aren't really connected things. He travelled. He returned and applied for jobs. Two independent events, two independent sentences. I'll recast these things, but that usually means tearing up a whole paragraph, in order to avoid choppy sentences. Thoughts? Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 18:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Genius! --Stfg (talk) 08:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I suppose that I make choppy sentences instead of rewriting everything. --DThomsen8 (talk) 11:24, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Being bold: how about After graduating from college, Livitup spent the summer traveling throughout France; in 2010 he returned to the United States and started applying for jobs. Watch me get shot down. --Greenmaven (talk) 01:40, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Remove copyedit tag or no?

Hello! I'm brand new to this guild, and fairly new to Wikipedia style, though I've been editing for ten years or so on an occasional basis. My question is about the suggestion that the copyedit tag be removed only if someone has confidence in their own abilities. I'm a professional freelance copyeditor, and quite knowledgeable when it comes to grammar, how styles vary, different forms of English, etc. On the other hand, my knowledge of Wiki style (and especially layout) is so-so. I'm wondering, since this drive requires that we remove the tag to get credit, what I should do. Do I link every article here and ask for proofreading before counting towards my total? I imagine this would create a lot of work for others! Avory (talk) 16:52, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for joining us! You can remove a tag whenever you're comfortable doing so, and it doesn't require approval from anyone else, but if you want someone to look at one for the sake of wiki layout issues, don't hesitate to ask. Just pop a request here and someone will take a look. Rgds, --Stfg (talk) 19:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

FAC articles

Did we agree on a policy for editing FAC articles, or articles attempting to reach FAC article status? I seem to recall a suggestion that only approved and experienced copy-editors would be welcome to edit such articles. Can we get some comment from the mandarins please? --Greenmaven (talk) 08:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

We hope for a very high standard of writing at that level, and for familiarity with the MoS (not knowing it off by heart, but at least knowing what it covers and where to look when you can't remember). There has never been a system for approving people to do this, and of course nobody has a mandate to tell anyone what they may or may not edit. At present we depend on people to take a realistic view of their own abilities. I've been wondering for a while if it would be feasible to offer people some sort of advice on the level at which they could work best. If we do anything like that, we need to remember that professional copy editors and academics occasionally show up here and we shouldn't discourage them from jumping right in. It would be very interesting to learn people's opinions about this. --Stfg (talk) 08:52, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Dianna's million

Yesterday Dianna completed her 1567th article copy edited on a GOCE drive, and in doing so brought her total word count over all GOCE drives to 1,002,169. For this exceptional achievement, her fellow coordinators, Dank and Stfg, have added her name to the GOCE Hall of Fame. Congratulations, Dianna, and thanks for all your copy editing and your leadership, example, and frequent assistance to all of us. --Stfg (talk) 21:07, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! What a nice surprise and a big honour. On to my second million ... :) --Dianna (talk) 23:34, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Mithila (Nepal) (2936)

I am copy-editing Mithila (Nepal) (2936) as tagged, but after I am finished I would request that a British English speaker review it for any inadvertent Americanisms. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Will do, provided it survives its AfD (which looks probable). Please let me know when it's ready. --Stfg (talk) 16:42, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

How can I improve the tone to avoid the NPOV objections? I am thinking about deleting some material, but it is not easy for me to see what to do. --DThomsen8 (talk) 11:20, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I've commented on your talk page. --Stfg (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Total

I have edited and copy0edited an article with 17k+ article (which took 1 hour and gave me an epic headache) so at least can I have the 10k banester.--Deathlaser :  Chat  16:28, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Two points:

1. All barnstars are given out about a week after the end of the drive, which would be about a month from today in this case.
2. Your copy edit of 2012 CR Vasco da Gama season did not really fix any of the issues with that article, and in fact, the changes you made actually introduced a couple new errors by creating sentence fragments.

I appreciate your obvious enthusiasm for Wikipedia, but perhaps copy editing is not something you should be attempting just yet, at least not on such a massive article. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I also send my regards to Deathlaser, and hope he will continue to contribute to this worthy project. That said, I echo the comments of Torchiest, but would also state that I encourage you in the beginning to search around to find articles (a) that are much shorter and simpler, and/or (b) for which you have some special level of expertise with the material, and/or (c) that don't have such obvious and severe challenges as that one. This will let you grow into the task, and help everyone else out a lot more too! Happy editing! P.S. - Just as a mildly relevant analogy, I did Georgy Zhukov yesterday, which was about 12K words, and it required multiple revisits and some 16 hours I think! Big articles CAN BE ROUGH! Also I had to come back and fix my own post! :-O Very best regards:Cliff (a/k/a "Uploadvirus") (talk) 12:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Beijing city fortifications

The Beijing city fortifications article is tagged for copyediting, as of April, 2007. I have asked user:Joe Decker why he took that date, when the request is now, May, 2012, because it is important for our May drive statistics. The article is huge, and does need extensive copyediting and other work. --DThomsen8 (talk) 00:16, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I am starting some clean-up and reducing the over-linking as a preliminary step. I can start working on the prose in the next day or two if no one beats me to it. -- Dianna (talk) 04:37, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

BTW, It looks like the reason it was down as April 2007 is that the "copyedit" is a more specific version of "cleanup", which it was tagged with in April 2007. I took care of an instance like this in the March drive, IIRC. Allens (talk | contribs) 10:47, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

That's right. He changed the tag without changing the date, as people sometimes do. I always put a note on their talk pages asking them to change the date, and have changed the date of that one myself. --Stfg (talk) 11:48, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

It's unfortunate the article was mis-tagged, as it's interesting, and would have been dealt with long ago if the proper tag had been in place. Instead it's been languishing virtually unchanged and unimproved for five years. -- Dianna (talk) 14:58, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

How is this one going to be handled? Is Diannaa going to take it on? Any other bidders? --Greenmaven (talk) 15:32, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Dianna has it. She has marked it as {{Working}} in her section of the drive page. --Stfg (talk) 18:00, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Good for Dianna! It will be a long and difficult job, and now we have our best copy-editor doing it. --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:42, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

It's finished, and will likely win me the award for largest single article done during this drive. Certainly it is one of the most time consuming copy edits I've ever done. I am now primary contributor on the article, with 20 edits! C'est formidable. -- Dianna (talk) 04:20, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Template:Fixcaps fixes ALL-CAPS PARAGRAPHS

Many people have asked for easier, simplified editing, but not in ways to help us with massive copy-editing tasks. So, in thinking about ways to solve major copy-edit headaches, I remembered the horror of articles which contain WHOLE SECTIONS OF ALL-CAPS PARAGRAPHS to be rewritten. Now, this day, welcome new Template:Fixcaps, which converts text to lowercase letters and can properly re-capitalize a title with prepositions and articles (a/an/the) as lowercase. The trick involves putting a slash "/" before each capitalized sentence or name, etc. The most obvious example:

• {{fixcaps|GonE wiTH tHE /WINd}} → Gone with the Wind

The template looks for an added slash "/" to capitalize the next word (or town name), but knows that prepositions remain lowercase. The real example would be those articles with CAPS-LOCK STUCK TO ENTER TEXT, as in the following text:

• {{fixcaps|THE ''/TIMES OF /INDIA'' REPORTED MANY CASES OF UNREST IN BOTH EARLY AND LATE YEARS OF THE /BRITISH /RAJ, INTO THE 20TH CENTURY. /DURING THAT PERIOD, WHEN}} [[Kolkata]] {{fixcaps|(CITY) WAS ALSO KNOWN AS /"/CALCUTTA", THE COMPUTER TELETYPES DISPLAYED TEXT IN ALL-CAPS UPPERCASE FONT, AND NO LOWERCASE LETTERS WERE SEEN IN COMPUTER DOCUMENTS.}} →
  The Times of India reported many cases of unrest in both early and late years of the British Raj, into the 20th century. During that period, when Kolkata (city) was also known as "Calcutta", the computer teletypes displayed text in all-caps uppercase font, and no lowercase letters were seen in computer documents.

There might not be many of those ALL-CAPS articles left to copy-edit, but when there are, then {{Fixcaps}} can be used to help fix the all-caps text within 1 minute. The intention is to copy-paste the reformatted text back into an article. Template:Fixcaps is very new, and has some bugs, but at least it shows the potential to create some extra copy-editing tools to help. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Yay! Thank you, Wikid77, for an ingenious solution to a very annoying problem. --Stfg (talk) 09:23, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

P.S. In the example above, and also in the John Doe example on the template page, you put a slash before an opening double-quote, but not before a closing one, and I couldn't see why. Is there some rule about it? --Stfg (talk) 19:39, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

• Double-slash around open-quote and parenthesis: Due to limitations in scanning the text, Template:Fixcaps tends to add an extra space after every word or phrase, but not after a single quotation mark in slashes (/"/) or a left-parenthesis coded as "/(/" with double-slash notation. That limitation can be considered a "bug" in the sense that extra spaces will appear in the displayed text, unless the double-slash notation is used for the open-quote and opening left-parenthesis where a capital letter follows. Double-slashes are not needed for quoting a lowercase "word" (or apostrophes with 'word'), only use double-slash for a capital letter after the quotation mark or "(". -Wikid77 (talk) 21:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

In cases like this I tend to learn cookbook formulae rather than programmatic rules, so please would you check whether I've undertood this? I think you said that {{fixcaps|/"/XYZ"}} generates "Xyz" and {{fixcaps|"XYZ"}} generates "xyz" (and similar for parentheses). Or am I missing it? --Stfg (talk) 23:31, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Silly me. I should have tried it in a sandbox first. Which I now have, and find that {{fixcaps|"XYZ"}} does indeed generate "xyz", but {{fixcaps|/"/XYZ"}} actually generates "Xyz", with a space before the opening quote. Is this as intended? --Stfg (talk) 15:40, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• Also allows "/+" or "/^" to force case: Now exact letter case can be forced. In general, at the start of the text, there is no need to put a leading "/". For example, just use {{fixcaps|"/XYZ"}} to get "Xyz" . Examples of new options:

· Lower case: {{fixcaps|+ALL LOWERCASE}} → all lowercase

· Exact case: {{fixcaps|^EXact CASE as ENTERed}} → EXact CASE as ENTERed

· Combined: {{fixcaps|HUBBLE/SPACE/TELESCOPE/^(HST)/+IS A/^NASA/+PROJECT.}} → Hubble Space Telescope (HST) IS A NASA PROJECT.

Sorry for the delay in replies. I was working to add other options which would answer your concerns. Thanks for discussing these issues, as that has speeded the improvements to retain all-caps words such as "UN" or "NASA" in the text. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:14, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

{{fixcaps|^VERY/+NEAT!}}! Thanks. --Stfg (talk) 08:51, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

• Expanded to allow 8 parameters or 16 lines: Template:Fixcaps has been expanded (on 24 May 2012) to allow 8 parameters (such as one for each sentence) to handle large paragraphs in a single {{fixcaps}}. An obvious example:

• {{subst:fixcaps|LONG SENTENCE 1.|LONG SENTENCE 2.|senTENCE /THREE.|SENtenCE 4.|SENTENCE 5/HERE.|SENTENCE 6.|SENTENCE 7.|SENTENCE 8 as /^LIMIT.}} →
  Long sentence 1. Long sentence 2. Sentence Three. Sentence 4. Sentence 5 Here. Sentence 6. Sentence 7. Sentence 8 as LIMIT.

Another typical use, of all 8 parameters, might be a list of 8 book titles, to be formatted in a single {{fixcaps}}. The goal was to make Fixcaps able to handle a larger paragraph (up to 16 lines or more) as a single operation, with wp:Subst. For longer text, use multiple {fixcaps}. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:05, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Script/Program to fix overlinking

As it happens, I am somewhat of a Perl programmer, and I've worked up a program/script to remove overlinking (defined as too-close links) automatically. It's meant for 5000+ word articles with lots of overlinking - the ones in which a script to just spot duplicate links still leaves one with lots of work. It automatically takes into account that links in the lead and captions can be duplicated in the text (and it also ignores links inside templates). It isn't perfect (for one thing, if one link's to a redirect that goes to the same place as another link, it won't spot it; for another, it won't treat links in the External links section as different) and may require a manual preview before saving the results (as with all editing scripts). More problematically, it isn't (currently or for the near future) nearly as easy to use as, say, Reflinks. First, you have to download the Perl program and have Perl running locally (plus possibly modify the program for your local system). Second, to run it you need to make a local text-file copy of the page (copied from an entire-page edit buffer), possibly modify the script for particular settings (like how much "distance" - number of == sections - to consider enough not to be overlinking and any words to create links for), run the script on it, paste back in the new version, then preview the result. (Using {{GOCEinuse}} for the time between download and upload is advisable to avoid edit conflicts.) I can provide a copy of the script someplace (any preferences?) and/or (when time permits) run it on request. Allens (talk | contribs) 12:58, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for that notice. I guess much of the overlinking has been left in some articles, where for many articles, about 10 more major wikilinks are needed, rather than fewer. In some cases, it might be easier to remove almost all wikilinks, and then rethink which links logically need to be re-added, for each particular article's topic. The worst cases I have seen, in copy-edit articles, treat the text as dictionary-lookup linking, where every 3-syllable word gets wikilinked. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

• Well, if adjusted for it, this script/program will remove all but one copy of each wikilink, which would make it much easier to remove any of the remainder that shouldn't be there. (I say "if adjusted for it" because the script/program is really designed for cases of very long articles, for which a second link in the main text - if far enough away from the first link - may be considered OK.) Allens (talk | contribs) 21:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Peer review

I've been asked to participate in a peer review of a good article. Since I plan to copyedit the article (and it's a 6K :-)), should it count toward my total even though it's neither part of the backlog nor on the Requests page? Since it's undergoing peer review I can't use the {{GOCEinuse}} tag, though; anyone should be free to improve the article. All the best, Miniapolis (talk) 01:57, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't have any objection to that. --Stfg (talk) 08:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback; hate to say it, but that makes the difference between my giving the article a thorough copyedit and a once-over (so I could return to the drive :-)). All the best, Miniapolis (talk) 13:19, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

You could tag it with the {{GOCEeffort}} template instead. It shows one of us is handling the article, but does not preclude others from editing it in the meantime. -- Dianna (talk) 14:02, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Diannaa; I didn't know about that tag! All the best, Miniapolis (talk) 13:19, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Claiming the May 2012 record for longest and craziest sentence...

"In July-August, 2004, for appreciation of Italian Expedition and Delegates arrived Pakistan for celebration of K2 Golden Jubilee ceremony Alpine Club of Pakistan Islamabad marked an Pak_Italy friendship expedition headed by Hayatullah Khan Durrani founder of CAAB as chief of the Pakistan National mountaineering team and Malik Abdul Rahim Baabai as (Manager) to represent Pakistan in 1st climbed of Golden Jubilee ceremony of K2 mount at Concordia and K2 base camp on 30-31 July 2004 organized by the Government of Italy under the leadership of Italian federal Minister Gianni Alemanno Gerygory Alimano followed by Lino Lacedellithe first mountaineer on earth who climbed K2 in 1953..on the eve of this great ceremony Mehar Dill Khan Baabai of Chiltan Adventurers Association Balochistan was world's first 12 year mountaineer who reached to the K2 base. "

--Greenmaven (talk) 11:54, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

• Looks like they forgot some commas, periods, and the grammar! Thanks for posting that; I think I will use it as an example in some Help pages about how to simplify long text. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:13, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Great! I am glad it will be useful. Let me know where to look for the help page, when you have used the quotation. --Greenmaven (talk) 01:19, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Could people take a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Templates?

As the subject says regarding Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Templates, which I doubt most people have watchlisted; this is on the {{GOCE}} template. I also did some copyediting (:-}) to the Templates page itself. Allens (talk | contribs) 17:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Cleaning up copyright violations

I just cleaned up copyright violations in one article; someone else (not of GOCE) had spotted that it might have a problem but not done anything other than a warning tag. For future reference for everyone, once you've confirmed that it's a clear copyright violation case, if you can clean it up (either paraphrasing sufficiently or - as in this case, given subject-specific matter that I'm not familiar with - removal of the copyrighted material), the proper sequence of events is as follows:

1. Clean it.
2. Go to the article history and figure out what the range of revision IDs is that had the copyrighted material in it, by putting your mouse on the article revision links and noting the number at the end.
3. Put a tag of {{copyvio-revdel}} on the article, for which you'll need a URL or other reference (if another reference, discuss it on the talk page) and the range you figured out above. This will ask for an admin to effectively hide all versions of the article that contained copyrighted material.
4. Place a tag, with subst and the URL, of {{cclean}} on the talk page.
5. If the user isn't a long-since-changed-IP, go to their talk page and, if they're not a repeat offender, place a copyright warning there ({{uw-copyright}}). If they are a repeat offender, report this to WP:ANI.

-- Allens (talk | contribs) 09:29, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Allen. I didn't know about {{copyvio-revdel}} until I saw that you'd done one the other day. By the way, we should only use it when the revdel wouldn't overwrite other good work (See WP:CFRD, bullet 1), though I'd hope the servicing admin would spot it if we made a mistake with that. WP:Cv101 is also very helpful. --Stfg (talk) 14:28, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Quite welcome, and good point. User:Moonriddengirl, an admin who concentrates on copyright issues, told me about {{copyvio-revdel}}. Allens (talk | contribs) 16:42, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Sharing a moment of excitement with you all

So as you may realize, I just started on Wiki this month, after years of wanting to edit but being overwhelmed by the vastness of the Wikipedia project. I pretty much had no clue where to jump in, and I couldn't really figure out how to get in on topics of interest to me (in particular queer and trans studies, sexuality, feminism). I was combing through WikiProjects when I came upon the GOCE, and figured "hey, why not apply my passion for and expertise in copyediting to Wikipedia?" I've enjoyed the competition-driven nature of the drive, but let's face it, in focusing on January–March 2011 I've learned more about tiny South Asian and Eastern European towns than I ever needed to know! I've given myself permission to move onto April since we're nearly done with February and March, and I'm thrilled to find that lavender linguistics is on the list! This happens to be one of my biggest, geekiest interests, but I'm not close enough to it to have a bias, and I'm excited to start copyediting this weekend. Woo! Avory (talk) 12:39, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

That is excellent. Have you tried using CatScan? You can match up multiple categories, and find articles needing copy editing in your areas of interest. I've tried doing so with Category:Linguistics, but it has so many subcategories that it froze the search. Still, you could definitely dig into some of the subcategories and search in those with the tool. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 12:47, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Avory. Thanks so much for your interest in helping out with copy edits. Those last few articles in the target months tend to be real stinkers: lengthy pieces about manga or computer games or comics. Luckily there's lots of people prepared to take on these less pleasant tasks just for the satisfaction of seeing the categories empty out. Welcome to Wikipedia; I hope you have a blast. -- Dianna (talk) 15:17, 25 May 2012 UTC)

I tend to fix the long, tedious comics articles, so I have an idea of what to allow for "in-universe tone". They often need 200-400 changes per article, and I am not a Comics expert, but the readers flock to those articles, with pageviews like 400x-800x per day. So, any grammar errors are noticeable there. -Wikid77 06:42, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Happy for you, Avory! I spotted that one myself as one of interest, but concluded it needed someone with more linguistics knowledge than I have. Allens (talk | contribs) 16:39, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Need more people checking results

We need more volunteers to help proofread. In particular, we have Lfstevens working over 614 articles. To proofread 10%, that means 61 articles to check, but only 30 have been proofed so far. Look for punctuation in the recent rewritten text, such as adding commas, capital letters in names, and check wikilinks in the expanded footnotes. -Wikid77 06:42, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Quite. Everyone misses things (I know I do!), especially at Lfstevens' speed. I've noted some cases where I did significant copyediting afterward. (I've given up trying to review 1 in 10, and am going for 1 in 15, currently.) Allens (talk | contribs) 10:23, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I have finished my big project and the donnybrook at Talk:Sean Combs seems to be over as well, so I will get some checks done today. -- Dianna (talk) 14:40, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for dropping the ball in the past few days -- a couple of books I ordered arrived and ... Thank you Allens for doing so much of the checking lately. --Stfg (talk) 20:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Quite welcome; I understand the allure of new books... Allens (talk | contribs) 22:35, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess I am an 'inclusionist'

I have reviewed John Spearman and decided to stop editing it. I left comments on the talk page. I am interested in others commenting on what I have said there. Here or on the article talk page. Here would be best I think: any discussion is of most value to Guild editors. --Greenmaven (talk) 12:09, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like this is not likely to be a copyright violation - the referenced work, which is where it's likely to be copied from, is from 1909 - likely to be public domain at this point (pretty definitely public domain in the US). What is a problem is that, if it's closely copied from that source, this should be made clearer than the simple reference, or it should be more paraphrased. Allens (talk | contribs) 12:11, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I have added to the citation to make it clear that the material is public domain and giving better attribution. The language should still be cleaned up and modernised to make it easier to read. -- Dianna (talk) 14:35, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok. I will complete the CE. --Greenmaven (talk) 15:25, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. That kind is hard to do. -- Dianna (talk) 17:10, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Just to make sure...

Today I started on List of Berenstain Bears books. There's a lot to this article, and a lot of cleanup required. However, I want to make sure I'm on the right track copyediting this page; is it proper to have the book summaries in sections below the template listing the books, as is currently the layout; should the plot summaries be merged into the template, or should they be excluded altogether? Like my singing? Ha-la-la-la-la-la-LA-LAAA!!! (talk) 12:25, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

• Keep split for sortable table: I think keep the wikitable separately split from the plot-summary paragraphs, to still allow sorting the titles by date or alpha order. Normally, wikitables should add parameter "cellpadding=4" (4 pixels, or such) but the option "sortable" also widens the columns. I have widened the whole wikitable by 2% with option style="margin-right:0" to handle the "wp:98 percent table width anomaly" which has been a Wikipedia issue for several years. In general, data should be split, as in that list article, between a compact wikitable and a longer descriptive list (such as plot text), to support readers who want a quick glance at compact data (such as wp:Cheatsheet or wp:BACKLOG), versus readers who want mid-level summary details about the plots, or such, versus readers who intend to read each book article individually. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:57, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, very much! :) Like my singing? Ha-la-la-la-la-la-LA-LAAA!!! (talk) 00:59, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Lfstevens

He goes around removing my {{copyedit}} tags without doing sufficient work, like here, here and here. The last one, where he claims to have copyedited when in fact he changed nothing at all, is on the verge of absurdity. I have already retagged and/or cleaned up the above-mentioned articles, but at this point I am asking you to consider double-checking articles "credited" to User:Lfstevens. Thank you, --M4gnum0n (talk) 11:11, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

First, M4gnum, it is not clear to me what you think the scope of copy editing is. Secondly, I don't understand why you tag articles for notablility and then tag them for copy editing as well. Why do you think it acceptable to call on other people to spend their time on an article that you don't consider notable? Thirdly, I cannot see where you tried to discuss your concerns with Lfstevens (for example, on his talkpage) before re-adding those tags (giving no reason in the edit summary) and coming here to criticize him in such a public forum as this. Have you done anything along such lines?

I've looked at the diffs and they seem acceptable to me. And you are wrong, in the third very little change was needed, and Lfstevens made it. I am going to remove those tags now. If you wish to re-insert them, please discuss on my talk page first. And no more personal attacks, please. --Stfg (talk) 12:14, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Plus, on going to do that in the third article, I find that you have undone his edit, reintroducing the errors that he corrected. Please desist from reintroducing errors. --Stfg (talk) 12:20, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, when a {{copyedit}} template is removed, I expect to find an article written in good style, basically plain English. Secondly, a notability concern can be raised together with other issues and there is nothing wrong about it: see {{Multiple issues}} where the |notability parameter happily coexists with others and no one ever considered this a contradiction. Thirdly, if you really think one should contact editors on their talk pages before reverting, you show to not understand WP:BRD very well. Fourthly, please look at the diffs that come after the one I provided, that show what kind of edits are needed before removing a copyedit tag, and tell me again if the improvements by User:Lfstevens were substantial. Finally, I made no personal attacks and wrote a message that was not rude nor threatening, instead of you. --M4gnum0n (talk) 13:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

By the way, Oppose Strongly to this "needed little change", that introduces the third Tipically in a row. How can you call that an improvement!? Please desist from reintroducing errors.

To the other copyeditors: I would like to know if this is really the standard modus operandi around here. --M4gnum0n (talk) 13:49, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

To be as brief as I can: "He goes around removing my {{copyedit}} tags without doing sufficient work" is commenting on the person, not the content, i.e. a personal attack. I did not say one should contact editors before reverting them, but I do say that reversions of good-faith edits need edit summaries that explain them, and I do say that it's bad to come and complain in open forum about an editor without raising the issue with them one-on-one first. I am familiar with WP:BRD, including the 2nd bullet of WP:BRD-NOT. I accept that the 3rd "typically" is poor style, but you could have restored the "usually" without putting the full stop after the reference and returning to one-sentence paragraphs, couldn't you? Finally, I did not threaten you. --Stfg (talk) 14:27, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi, M4gnum0n. I noticed that the first article mentioned in this post - AceProject (Software) - was actually copy edited by two members of this wikiproject: Wilhelmina Will did a copy edit on the 18th, and you re-tagged the article, and then Lfstevens did further edits on the 21st. If you can still see spots where the prose needs work, it might be better for you to do the work yourself, or give more specific examples of what you think still needs improving. The three examples you posted here needed very little work, and that is why very little work was done.

I agree with Stfg that you should have approached the editor on their user talk before coming here. You initially did not even notify them of this discussion. As does every other Wikipedian (including yourself), Lfstevens contributes to the project as a volunteer -- not an employee -- without any compensation other than the enjoyment and satisfaction he may get from doing so. Therefore it is imperative that he be treated with respect and the assumption that he is acting in good faith and doing his best to improve the encyclopedia. -- Dianna (talk) 14:50, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi, everyone. Didn't notice this discussion until M4gnumOn "hijacked" another topic on my talk. Thanks for taking my part. As I always tell commenters, please let me know of any specific errors I introduce or disimprovements I leave behind. I am happy to correct them. I probably move too fast, and certainly leave some errors in my wake. I do think I leave articles better than I find them, but am willing to listen to any suggestions. Ironically, the topic that M4gnumOn appropriated was that of another user defending my changes on Conquistador that yet another editor had found wanting. To all Wikipedia: sorry for all the trouble.

Usually, I change "usually" to "typically", because the latter identifies a class rather than temporal frequency, and typifies the issues I encounter! But there certainly can be too much of a good thing. Lfstevens (talk) 15:21, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your usual typically phlegmatic response to all this, Lfstevens. I hope you won't mind, but as this article is very close to what was my field of work for several years, and didn't describe it at all well, I've just recast it. More than a copy edit, so I hope no toes got trodden on there. Thanks for mentioning the usually/typically distinction, which had somehow passed me by. --Stfg (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm only glad that an expert got involved. That makes it worth the trouble. Phlegmatic, huh. Hmmm. Cheers! Lfstevens (talk) 16:47, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

So, I saw a potential problem in one of your peers' copyediting pattern and reported it here, as I thought you could be interested. I did not initially notify the subject of the complaint because I did not believe it was necessary: I know this is standard practice in places like WP:ANI, WP:RFC/U and the like, but this is not a formal forum and no sanction will come out of here. I could not find mention of this custom in WP:Wikiquette, either.

On personal attacks: WP:NPA does not say anything similar to User:Stfg's interpretation, which would stifle any conversation about editors' behaviour (like this one).

@Sftg: you initially attacked me saying you did not see any problem in his removal of the template, that I was clearly wrong, "Please desist from reintroducing errors" (threatening tone, by the way) and yada yada, then you go on and make the very kind of improvement that I claimed was necessary!? But it is ok, because yours was "more of a copy edit", so no contradiction! And why do you almost apologize while you improve the article?! You surely know how to irritate me. --M4gnum0n (talk) 09:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Second sentence of lede of WP:NPA: "Comment on content, not on the contributor". I said "More than a copy edit", not "more of a copy edit". What I did was close to a rewrite. --Stfg (talk) 10:17, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, "more than a copy edit", I messed up when writing it out, sorry. I intended exactly that, though: you think it is alright to remove a {{copyedit}} tag when substantial work is still needed to put the article in good shape, and I am of the opposite opinion. Then I go back rereading the entire discussion, and linger over your first sentence: "it is not clear to me what you think the scope of copy editing is". Could it be that I got it wrong all the time, and copyediting is really nothing more of punctuation, spelling and grammar? In this case, I'm afraid tagging articles would become pointless to me, as even IPs routinely correct that kind of errors...

Back to the original topic: I believe that User:Lfstevens usually edits more carefully outside of backlog drives, thus case closed for me. Next step: I would like to know better what community consensus says about the role and scope of copyediting, copyedit templates, copyeditors and this guild, and will probably ask something along these lines in the following days.--M4gnum0n (talk) 10:58, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

More on personal attacks: that sentence is indeed in the lead of WP:NPA and seems to imply what you say. But something isn't right, there has to be a wording problem in there... Taking it literally, no one could ever praise or scold another editor! In fact, according to the WP:WIAPA section, my initial post is not regarded as a personal attack. --M4gnum0n (talk) 11:18, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

When you wrote "Firstly, when a {{copyedit}} template is removed, I expect to find an article written in good style, basically plain English", I saw that you do indeed understand what copy editing is. I should have said so at the time, and am happy to do so now. I acknowledge, too, that nothing you said comes close to anything in WP:WIAPA (although that section declares itelf non-exhaustive). I feel that the key point about this kind of thing is that it be done in a fair and proportionate way. Thank you for your recognition of Lfstevens's contribution. I too would like to consider this case closed, if we can. Regards, --Stfg (talk) 12:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

GOCEreviewed reasons

This discussion has been transferred to WT:GOCE#GOCEreviewed reasons by consensus. Please post any further discussion there, not here. --Stfg (talk) 12:48, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Scope of copyediting

In reference to M4gnum0n' query, I personally take my definition of (minimal) copyediting from {{copyedit}}'s default message: fixing "grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling". Making things fit the MOS is a considerable portion of it. I do personally tend to go further, such as labeling things as needing clarification, looking up references if necessary to give all parameters/attributes, adding wikilinks, etc; in some cases, I do wind up (coming close to) rewriting the article (particularly likely if it's a short article). If one is working on an article that's going for FA, then going even further (to achieve prose that "is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard") may be necessary. Allens (talk | contribs) 11:14, 1 June 2012 (UTC)