Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors

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Welcome to the home page of WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors. This WikiProject is dedicated to improving the quality of writing in articles on the English Wikipedia. The Guild welcomes new and experienced editors alike to join our project, participate in its activities, and copy edit Wikipedia articles to make them clear, correct, concise, comprehensible, and consistent; to make them say what they mean and mean what they say. What we do   The Guild of Copy Editors aims to improve Wikipedia by: eliminating the backlog of articles marked with the {{copy edit}} template (and its cousins: {{awkward}}, {{copy edit section}}, {{copy edit inline}}, and {{spacing}}) helping editors to raise the standard of prose in English Wikipedia articles that they wish to nominate for Good Article, A-class or Featured Article status; maintaining the category of articles needing copy edit. Current focus   The Guild's members are currently working: to keep the number of tagged articles trending downwards; to promptly fulfill special requests; to organize backlog elimination drives to encourage active participation in the Guild, and to reduce the copy edit backlog to a manageable level; to attract competent copy editors to the Guild and improve our level of expertise. Events   The Guild organizes regular events to help us achieve our goals. These are: bi-monthly Backlog Elimination Drives, in which Wikipedians earn awards for improving the standard of prose in articles from the backlog; bi-monthly themed Project Blitzes, similar to Drives but shorter and more focused. Requests   The Guild maintains a Copy Edit Requests Page, where editors can request copy edits on articles they are working to develop and improve, or want to nominate for Good Article, A-class or Featured Article status. We try to complete requests quickly, but waiting times are variable. We do not guarantee that articles we copy edit will be accepted at review. The Requests page is not for: Draft articles awaiting review at AFC, in the Draft namespace or in your user space; Articles that are currently nominated for deletion at AfD; Articles that are undergoing rapid development, are the venue for edit-wars, or have other major problems that may result in a copy edit being replaced or reverted. Copy edit requests for the above may be declined after discussion. Also note that the GOCE is not Cleanup. Who coordinates Guild activities?   Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Coordinators The Guild of Copy Editors' project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining the Guild's internal structure and processes. They coordinate Guild activities, maintain our pages, and organize Drives and Blitzes. They have no authority over article content or editor conduct and have no special powers conferred by their Guild activities. Lead Coordinator Jonesey95 (talk) Coordinators Tdslk (talk) Corinne (talk) Coordinators emeriti SMasters (talk) Dianna (talk) Torchiest (talk) Joining the Guild   Membership of the Guild of Copy Editors is informal and is not monitored. To be considered a member you can: add your name to the List of Participants; add {{User Copy Edit}} to your userpage, which will automatically add you to Category:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors members; join our mailing list to get regular newsletters with information about our activities. Because of the nature of our project, members who copy edit articles listed on our Requests page should have a high level of skill with English spelling, grammar and punctuation. Requests are often being prepared for promotion to Good Article, A-class or Featured Article status, all of which require prose that is clear, concise, and error-free. Good judgement is often required when deciphering the meaning of confusing passages of text and considering how to best clarify it without altering its meaning. If you're not as confident about your skills, you can gain some copy editing experience by working on articles from the backlog of articles needing copy edit. How you can help   There are 1,571 articles currently in the backlog. You can: Help improve our oldest backlogged articles (December 2015) Help improve our most recently tagged articles (January 2017) Dive right in and start improving the articles needing copy edit Select an article from our Requests page to copy edit. Follow the instructions on that page. Copy edit a random article from our backlog; see these instructions on our Drives page. New copy editors   If you're new to copy editing and you want some help, you can ask questions on any of the project's coordinators' talk pages. We'll do our best to help you. Wikipedia's guide to basic copy editing is here. Our how-to guide has links to exercises and advice for copy editors of all levels. Advanced copy editing advice and exercises are available at Tony1's copy editing guide. Progress   A full version of our progress chart can now be found on its own page. Graph of progress Category:All articles needing copy edit Started: May 1, 2010 with 8,323 articles It currently contains 1,571 articles. 81.1% completed (calculated)     Useful links   Here are some links to pages we think you'll find useful for copy editing: The Manual of Style (MOS). This document defines Wikipedia's "house style". Familiarity with it is essential when editing articles to become Featured Article Candidates (FAC) or Featured List Candidates (FLC). Wikipedia:Simplified Manual of Style. This is a gentler introduction to Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It covers the most important points of the MOS and has many links to the manual and its sub-pages. Wikipedia:Basic copyediting. This is a useful beginners' guide to copy editing. Comma#Uses in English. The most misunderstood punctuation mark explained. Tools   This section lists some tools you might find useful for your copy editing activities: Main tool page: http://tools.wmflabs.org/ AutoEd is a user script that helps to automatically clean-up articles, and allows for the easy design, use, and customization of user scripts related to automated article cleanup. reFill – This tool edits bare references and adds elements like titles and dates to bare references. Checklinks – Edit and repair external links. Dab solver – Quickly resolve ambiguous links. Edit this panel

Guild of Copy Editors Quick links: Copy edit requests Guild members Backlog Elimination Drives Project Blitzes Manual of Style Wikipedia articles needing copy edit Subtotals December 2015 25 January 2016 66 February 2016 93 March 2016 113 April 2016 98 May 2016 72 June 2016 123 July 2016 111 August 2016 146 September 2016 134 October 2016 126 November 2016 139 December 2016 352 January 2017 21 Undated articles 0 All articles 1,619 Alternatives to copy editing Translation needed ~ WP:PNT Not English Tag {{Notenglish|language}} Mention on WP:PNT Direct machine translation Tag {{cleanup-translation}} Mention on WP:PNT Deletion candidate ~ WP:DEL Article meets CSD Tag db template Uncontroversial deletes Tag with {{subst:prod|reason}} Controversial deletes See AFD Unsuitable for copy edit Remove {{copy edit}} tag Tag talk page with {{GOCEreviewed}} Article contains Original research or lacks citations: Remove {{copy edit}} tag Tag with {{cleanup}} Taking articles further Good articles ~ WP:GA Nominate for review Featured articles ~ WP:FA Develop the article Check against FAC Get peer reviewers Apply for FA status [Edit this panel] Monthly progress chart Edit Date Number of articles Change from previous month December 31, 2009 8,002 +156 January 31, 2010 8,036 +34 February 28, 2010 8,025 −9 March 31, 2010 8,111 +86 April 30, 2010 8,323 +212 May 31, 2010 7,563 −760 June 30, 2010 7,582 +19 July 31, 2010 6,293 −1289 August 31, 2010 6,300 +7 September 30, 2010 5,575 −725 October 31, 2010 5,601 +26 November 30, 2010 4,974 −627 December 31, 2010 5,151 +177 January 31, 2011 4,518 −633 February 28, 2011 4,672 +154 March 31, 2011 3,850 −822 April 30, 2011 4,158 +308 May 31, 2011 3,737 −421 June 30, 2011 3,953 +216 July 31, 2011 3,615 −338 August 31, 2011 3,947 +332 September 30, 2011 3,801 −146 October 31, 2011 4,054 +253 November 30, 2011 3,822 −232 December 31, 2011 4,152 +330 January 31, 2012 3,983 −169 February 29, 2012 4,167 +184 March 31, 2012 3,667 −500 April 30, 2012 3,793 +126 May 31, 2012 2,627 −1166 June 30, 2012 2,805 +178 July 31, 2012 2,306 −499 August 31, 2012 2,653 +347 September 30, 2012 2,341 −312 October 31, 2012 2,791 +450 November 30, 2012 2,690 −101 December 31, 2012 3,005 +315 January 31, 2013 2,894 −111 February 28, 2013 3,124 +230 March 31, 2013 2,835 −289 April 30, 2013 3,061 +226 May 31, 2013 2,484 −577 June 30, 2013 2,723 +239 July 31, 2013 2,817 +94 August 31, 2013 3,186 +369 September 30, 2013 3,152 −34 October 31, 2013 3,104 −48 November 30, 2013 2,631 −473 December 31, 2013 2,922 +291 January 31, 2014 2,777 −145 February 28, 2014 2,915 +138 March 31, 2014 2,902 −13 April 30, 2014 2,987 +85 May 31, 2014 2,236 −751 June 30, 2014 2,400 +164 July 31, 2014 2,199 −201 August 31, 2014 2,411 (est.) +212 September 30, 2014 2,384 −27 October 31, 2014 2,483 +99 November 30, 2014 1,974 −509 December 31, 2014 2,198 +224 January 31, 2015 2,186 −12 February 28, 2015 2,432 +246 March 31, 2015 2,423 −9 April 30, 2015 2,627 +204 May 31, 2015 2,022 −605 June 30, 2015 2,216 +194 July 31, 2015 2,188 −28 August 31, 2015 2,322 +134 September 30, 2015 2,336 +14 October 31, 2015 2,557 +221 November 30, 2015 1,849 −708 December 31, 2015 2,019 +170 January 31, 2016 1,774 −245 February 29, 2016 1,981 +207 March 31, 2016 1,967 −14 April 30, 2016 2,223 +256 May 31, 2016 1,496 −727 June 30, 2016 1,713 +217 July 31, 2016 1,656 −57 August 31, 2016 1,886 +230 September 30, 2016 1,789 −97 October 31, 2016 1,937 +148 November 30, 2016 1,414 −523 December 31, 2016 1,626 +212