Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors: Difference between revisions

Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 02:17, 7 August 2008

Creation of page

Hi all! Glad you have made your way to this project. *smiles* I have been considering starting a Wikiproject or task force for some time that would focus solely on maintaining and reducing the backlog of articles needing copy edit; this idea came about because I realised that there is currently no Wikiproject dealing with this (after WP:LOCE died due to non-fulfillment of copy editing requests, probably among other reasons).

The Wikiprojects closest in intention are WP:Grammar and WP:PR, but these don't deal with the backlog. I have contacted several people over the past weeks who are or may be interested in the project, and will send out a more general call for interested people, especially to members of WP:LOCE, WP:Grammar, and perhaps WP:PR. We'll see how things go. Meanwhile, feel free to start copy editing, discussing project details, and what have you.

The next thing we should do for the project is to create images and templates for our logo, usebox, article-in-use tags, and etc. I have some skill with PhotoShop so I'll be working on this if I have the time, but feel free to try too :)

Cheers! -Samuel Tan 01:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Stuff to do!

Tools: Wikiproject guide, Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/WikiProject, nav templates

Create the project page, which should include, if humanly possible,
- Pretty pictures for the Wikiproject and to, well, embellish the page (*grin*)
- Statements of the project's goals and scope Done
- To do lists Done
- Progress chart with links fixed
- Requests for help/collaboration Done
- List of useful templates Done
- Copy editing guidelines (ref. "How to copy edit") Done
- Links to lists of articles needing copy edit sorted by various categories (not sure if possible)
- List of members Done
- Guides to GA / FA nomination Done
- Guides to deletion / translation processes Done
- Links to the MoS and other Wikipedia guides Done
Notify previous members of WP:LOCE and current members of WP:Grammar and WP:PR
List on WP:COUNCIL/P Done
Create own page if >5 members Done
Create project userbox and article-in-use template

-Samuel Tan 01:44, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Getting the word out

I've contacted a good-sized bunch of possibly interested Wikipedians. We should eventually create a project banner to help people get to know us, but let's see how many people respond to the calls so far. Once we get a sizable amount of people in the project, we can start discussing the details (if any issues pop up). -Samuel Tan 04:29, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Signing up

So, err, I'm interested in joining, but I'm not sure exactly how the code for the signup table works (the code for copying seems to have vanished, assuming it's meant to be within the comment). Plus the table on the project page doesn't seem to have updated with any of the members except the first two. Adacore (talk) 05:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah there was a coding error... I had mistakenly linked it to an old version of the page on my userspace. It's fixed now; want me to help you sign up? :) -Samuel Tan 07:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've done it now - easy enough when the template is there to copy. I could probably have signed up earlier, but I wanted to make sure it was working ok first (which, it seems, it wasn't)! Adacore (talk) 07:58, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

welcome to the land of little blue shiney spheres *grin* -Samuel Tan 08:15, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Project direction?

I conceived this project as happy and relaxed, where everyone can work on the articles at their own pace (because I imagine that imposing deadlines on copy editing can really burn people out).

But what do you guys think? Should we create some short-term goals for ourselves? Is everyone ok with the "goals and scope" stuff we currently have on the front page?

(and nice that we're getting bigger *smile*)Samuel Tan 11:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Samuel. Thanks for the invitation to join, which I have done. I think the 'happy and relaxed' approach is good, even though that means articles probably won't get edited quickly; however, less pressure means we're more likely to edit out of our own volition and should do that with enthusiasm :) MP ^{(talk•contribs)} 17:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me, Samuel. It feels better than LOCE, I think. Short-term goals would be good. I always get a little freaked when someone tosses in a huge page I can barely understand and says "fix it up!". IceUnshattered (talk) 18:24, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey guys, Lazulilasher has put up the article Louvre on the main page for help getting it to FA status. Do we want to help with such requests, or direct them to Peer Review? My original idea was that we only work on articles tagged {{copyedit}}, but I'm wondering what you guys think. -Samuel Tan 05:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I'd rather work on articles like this. I mean, if we're honest, lots of pages that are tagged in the backlog are tagged because they suck in all categories. To improve the copy, we would really need to improve the whole article. Louvre is pretty solid, but just needs a prose re-work. But then again, taking articles like this is what the LOCE did, and it didn't work out. So, I'm not sure. Lord of Modesty 20:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer we didn't let the "Requests for collaboration or help" section turn into a generic "requests for copy edit" list. That's what Wikipedia articles needing copy edit is for, and we should use it. Our focus should be on reducing that backlog, not giving people a place to circumvent that process, putting their own pet project ahead of all the others. For copy editors that want to avoid articles in the backlog that "suck in all categories", they can just look through the backlog until they find ones that don't suck in all categories. There probably are quite a few there that only need copy editing. As for articles like Louvre, I think they should just be tagged with {{Copyedit}} and one of us will eventually get to it. I think the "Requests for collaboration or help" section should explicitly state that it's just for copy editors who want to collaborate with other copy editors. Otherwise "Requests for collaboration or help" would just become another backlog like Wikipedia articles needing copy edit.

Might be a good idea to make the the real backlog more prominently displayed, though, since it is, after all, our main focus. Maybe we could have a list of the 10 oldest articles in the backlog? I'm not sure how that would be achievable, though (except manually, but that would be a hassle to maintain). -kotra (talk) 21:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think Kotra is right. Also, I apologize for the over-generalization. It was just my excuse for laziness, really. Lord of Modesty 21:55, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, and there's already a place for people to request help (Peer Review), and those guys there sure have a huge backlog of their own.

Talking about making the backlog more prominently displayed, I thought of creating a section where articles tagged for copyediting are displayed according to category, so that people can choose what interests them, but we might need to look for a bot that can do that. Alternatively we could just have a section where we list random articles from the Jan 2007 (oldest) category. -Samuel Tan 01:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think a short list of about 10 of the oldest (Jan 2007) articles would be best. Categorizing the articles seems like too much of a task, and I doubt a bot is around that could do it. Besides, with all the categories the page would probably get too cluttered. It's a good idea for those who want to edit specific types of article, but I don't know how feasible it is. -kotra (talk) 17:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, probably not feasible. I spent some time exploring the functions of various bots, and they all seem to do quite menial tasks. Poor bots.-Samuel Tan 13:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the issue of these articles that "suck in all categories", I think we should probably remove the {{copyedit}} tag from the page (obviously with a nice, non-insulting message in the talk page explaining why). If we don't, each user who comes along to go through the backlog will have to trudge through these articles until they find one that is actually improvable. If we couldn't remove the tag, is there a way to create a list (or a new tag) for these all-around-sucking articles to remove them from our backlog? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peacheshead (talk • contribs) 23:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly don't see the issue. Most articles that have several issues are still copyeditable. We can still clean up the grammar, spelling, punctuation, and poor word choice, and leave the other issues to someone else (assuming the article is appropriately tagged). The only problems I can think of are articles written in broken English, for example as a poor translation, or articles with ambiguous wording. In the former case, there are appropriate tags for that, and for the latter, the original meaning should be determined by asking the original author or on the article's talk page. -kotra (talk) 00:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yups, I think what we should be doing is attempting to copy edit the article as far as possible, and add appropriate tags if there are areas which cannot be improved (like what I wrote on the front page). That way, those articles get transfered to "someone else's" backlog.

For example, suppose there's an article some esoteric topic of the nervous system that (1) has atrocious grammar and (2) is so confusing that only a Biology nerd can understand it. What we can do is improve the grammar of the portions we understand, and then tag it with one of the {{expert}} tags, so that some time down the road a Biology nerd who is sifting through the articles needing his expert attention will come across it.

Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against Biology nerds. *Tosses cookies to any biology nerds reading this. -Samuel Tan 13:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Also, I don't know what kind of cookies you've been eating, but the equipment manager of your local baseball team seems to be pretty angry. -kotra (talk) 06:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Project logo, banner, userbox, shortcuts

Hey guys, I just created those stuff. The banner is hosted as a subpage of the project, and the usebox is on the template space. Feel free to change them if you have better ideas :) -Samuel Tan 12:53, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Project Name

What does everyone think about possibly changing the name? Maybe it's just me, but 'Wikiproject Articles Needing Copy Edit' is really a mouthful. Maybe we could go for something less technical, like "Wikiproject Icy Black Hand of Death" (he he). Thoughts? Lordofmodesty (talk) 03:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I wanted a nice name too but couldn't think of one >.< "The Copy Edit Backloggers"? "The League of Copy Editors v2.0"? EyeSerene suggested "WANCers" (per the acronym WP:WANC) but that might get us speedily deleted haha

Actually Icy Black Hand of Death has a nice ring to it... How about "WikiProject: Icy Blue Pen"? *grin*) -Samuel Tan 03:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, wait, I've got it: Wikiproject Fierce Restorers Of Grammar and Syntax. That way, we can be Wikiproject FROGS. *chuckle* Lordofmodesty (talk) 19:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the name is too long. For the simplest, most straight-forward name, WP:WikiProject Copy Editing or WP:WikiProject Copy Editors (or "Copy-editing" or "Copyediting" or "Copy-editors" or "Copyeditors") aren't taken. Or, if we want to continue the tradition of the League of Copy Editors, it could be "Order of Copy Editors", "Cabal of Copy Editors" (there is no cabal), "Syndicate of Copy Editors", "Flange of Copy Editors", etc... -kotra (talk) 20:44, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I favor the most self-evident, Wikiproject Copyeditors (or some similar variation). Lordofmodesty (talk) 04:55, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like the "Guild of Copy Editors", "Copy Editors' Alliance", or "Copy Editors' Association". None of these, of course, have a great acronym like FROGS or an intimidating name, which obviously have their advantages. *grin* --Peacheshead (talk) 01:12, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I think "XYZ of Copy Editors" or "Copy Editors' XYZ" would be good. If we want a great acronym, "Alliance of Copy Editors" would give us ACE. *grin* Another possibility is "Copy Editors Society", analogous to the American Copy Editors Society. -Samuel Tan 02:34, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so we've got:

WikiProject Articles Needing Copy Edit [current name]
WikiProject Icy Black Hand of Death
WikiProject Copy Edit Backloggers
WikiProject League of Copy Editors v2.0
WikiProject Icy Blue Pen
WikiProject Fierce Restorers Of Grammar and Syntax [FROGS]
WikiProject Copy Editors
WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors
WikiProject Copy Editors' Alliance
WikiProject Copy Editors' Association
WikiProject Alliance of Copy Editors [ACE]
WikiProject Copy Editors Society

Suggestion: the ones that don't start with "WikiProject" probably should, as convention. The full name of the League of Copy Editors, for example, was Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors.

Any favorites? Additions? Comments? -kotra (talk) 06:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, "Wikipedia: WikiProject" is what they call a pseudo-namespace for all projects, or something like that. Anyway I think we shuld decide first if we want an eye-catching name (... Hand of Death, FROGS, etc) or a professional-sounding name. My two cents: I personally like Guild/Alliance of Copy Editors, and Copy Editor's Society: broad-sounding names that may attract more people who like to copy edit. :) -Samuel Tan 14:30, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've added "WikiProject" to all the above now. Note that two now are longer than the current name (LoCE v2.0 and FROGS), so I think we can probably eliminate them since the main reason for the name change is that the current name is too long.

And I agree, silliness is ok in some contexts but a more professional-sounding name seems better here. -kotra (talk) 17:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) If we're going to change the name, seems we should do it soon before we get too well-established. So in the interest of moving this forward, here's a shorter list of what I think are the most promising names:

WikiProject Articles Needing Copy Edit [current name]
WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors
WikiProject Copy Editors Society
WikiProject Copy Edit

Of these, which do you guys like best? Any feedback is very welcome. -kotra (talk) 18:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you guys in favor of a project newsletter? I'm thinking of creating a really simple one, with just an update of the number of articles needing copy edit, new requests for help/collaboration, new announcements, and perhaps a list of new members. Any thoughts? -Samuel Tan 02:34, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think maybe we should wait until the project gets a little better established. Lord of Modesty 02:40, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The newsletter is a good idea, but we haven't even decided for sure on the name yet. -kotra (talk) 05:24, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For deliver of the newsletter , you may use the services of TinucherianBot or any other Newsletter delivery bots -- Tinu Cherian - 05:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. It's a bit odd to have a newsletter when we're still discussing our name. Heh. -Samuel Tan 14:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article-in-use template

I've gone ahead and made an article-in-use template for the project. It is largely based on the old LoCE template (and it's the first template I've made). Obviously, feel free to fix/change the template as things take shape here. The template is at {{PACEinuse}} and looks like this:
Template:PACEinuse
--Peacheshead (talk) 02:51, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice one! This template is really convincing me that we need to come up with a shorter project name. Our current name really is quite a mouthful. (I removed our project name from the last line because the length of the name was making it sound awkward. *grin*) I'll copy the template to our main page. -Samuel Tan 11:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copy edit progress

Here's a big hug to everyone working on the August 2008 articles. I suddenly feel like giving out barnstars to everyone in this WikiProject. *draws stars on my laptop screen* By the way did anyone else see the already-deleted "Trainbaby" article that was in that category? It was the first Wikipedia article that actually made me laugh. :) -Samuel Tan 13:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm almost disappointed to say I missed that one. By the way, I'm generally working on the principle that the very newly tagged articles are considerably more likely to be deleted, fixed by an editor watching that page, &c. I'm therefore working on the non-August backlog (generally the 2007 articles), for the most part (as well as grabbing some of the low hanging fruit in the form of two-paragraph articles about schools, bridges, &c.) Adacore (t·c) 04:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is it wrong that I enjoy attacking minor school articles (which are obviously written by pupils) with the stabbity edit-knife of WP:NOTE and WP:NPOV so much? They're a great source of articles where you can legitimately condense 5 paragraphs of text into a few sentences - so much fun! Adacore (t·c) 08:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's like trying to move a mountain. We know the boulders are the hardest to get rid off, but it's so much fun to play with pebbles. *grin* -Samuel Tan 10:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category counting and using Erwin85Bot

Hello! Just thought I'd explain the method I used to count articles in CAT:COPY, to those of you interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff of this project. Basically there are two methods of counting the articles: automatically and manually.

Automatically
This method is done via Erwin85Bot; this bot can count the number of articles in a given category (but not articles nested in sub-categories). For example, to use it to count the number of articles in "Category:Please count me", place {{User:Erwin85/CatCount}} in the page in which you want to include the article count, then add the code, 0, to the spot where you want the article count to appear. Erwin85Bot only updates the article count once a day, so changes my take a while to be reflected.

I have used this method for the monthly article counts and the total article count on the main project page (a big thanks for Kotra for some help with the total count).
Manually
This method simply involves opening up the respective category pages and copying the total article count displayed on the page. Right now, the progress chart displayed on CAT:COPY and its subcategories is updated manually. Someone mentioned that he might be able to write a Bot that can update this chart, so it hopefully it will be automated soon.

Yup. That's all, folks! --Samuel Tan 10:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanation! So, I guess the main project page's number will be automatically updated by Erwin85Bot from now on? -kotra (talk) 17:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's with the extra 249 articles in the that aren't in the monthly categories? Do these date from before January 2007, or do they have some other special reason for not being tagged in the monthly groupings? Adacore (t·c) 02:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Progress measurement graph

Would it be possible to graph the total number of articles in the backlog against time? Perhaps updating weekly? It would give at least some idea of whether we're making progress or slipping further behind over time. Adacore (t·c) 02:17, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 157: / Line 157: @@
 :What's with the extra 249 articles in the [[Category:All articles needing copy edit]] that aren't in the monthly categories? Do these date from before January 2007, or do they have some other special reason for not being tagged in the monthly groupings? [[User:Adacore|Adacore]] <small>([[User talk:Adacore|t]]·[[Special:Contributions/Adacore|c]])</small> 02:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
+== Progress measurement graph ==
+Would it be possible to graph the total number of articles in the backlog against time? Perhaps updating weekly? It would give at least some idea of whether we're making progress or slipping further behind over time. [[User:Adacore|Adacore]] <small>([[User talk:Adacore|t]]·[[Special:Contributions/Adacore|c]])</small> 02:17, 7 August 2008 (UTC)