Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/May 2014

GOCE Newbies

Already we have newbies to GOCE, and we will have more. I suggest that we provide a list or two of easy articles to copyedit for the newbies. What do other GOCE members say? - unsigned comment by Dthomsen8, 22 April 2014

Sounds good to me. A section on this page would probably make the most sense, since everyone who is signed up should have this page on their watchlist. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:20, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I will make the list.--DThomsen8 (talk) 19:51, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have made two easy lists, below, but I would welcome additions by other experienced editors. --DThomsen8 (talk) 21:45, 27 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

List of easy copyediting articles

This is a list of fairly easy and mostly short articles needing copyedit. It is split into two sections, with the South Asia articles being quite different from the variety of other articles.

Beyond copyediting, orphan status and other tags can be fixed.

South Asia

Bhaderwah India (375 words)
Lepakshi India, excessive repetition and punctuation, grammar (539 words)
Shewaki Pakistan (258 words)

Variety

Palloza Architecture article, longer but not much work. (284 words)
Seumadu Island Longer article, but easy. Change "you" to proper grammar, spelling, delete excessive detail. (606 words) Done

Help

If you are new to GOCE and copyediting, please ask me or the coordinators for help and advice. --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:43, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-annual shorties blitz

I'm going to murder the shorties again this month. In many cases, I've started putting them on the delete list. As usual I'll list the ones I've hit elsewhere. It's time to start getting this backlog down. Feedback always welcome. Go team! Lfstevens (talk) 07:24, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Go Lfstevens! For those of you unable to decode the above, Lfstevens occasionally does something like this(!) during one of our copy edit drives, finding and copy editing articles or sections from our backlog that are very short, knocking down the total backlog by hundreds of articles. It's a sight to behold. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:08, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did something like this last year myself. This year I provided a list of 15 fairly easy short articles for our newbies to do, shown above, and I would appreciate it if the experienced editors will leave them for the newbies. When it is near the end of the month, I will say it is open season for everyone. So far, none of the newbies have done any articles, but wait and see what happens. After all, it will go better in subsequent drives if a few of the the newbies become proficient, and meanwhile they will gain confidence and earn some barnstars. --DThomsen8 (talk) 02:05, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Great idea, DThomsen8. I'll try to remember to leave them. I'm still on the super-shorties so far. Unfortunately, I hit a few before I saw this:( Lfstevens (talk) 03:47, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Can you go ahead and delete any articles from the above list that are done, and if you can add any shorties, that would be welcome, too. So far the newbies have not done anything from the list, even though I have invited them on their talk pages. --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:28, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DYK, etc.

I should probably know this as a former coordinator, but do copy edits from sources other than the requests page or those tagged with {{copy edit}} still count on the drives? For example, I've had a request to copy edit something for a DYK. It seems like this sort of thing should be allowed. If not, I could just jump through the obvious loophole and ask the requester to tag it or add it to the requests page. WP:NOTBURO and all, right? --BDD (talk) 17:53, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think requests are normally counted, including requests you receive on your user talk page. No need to go through the formality of tagging it. -- Diannaa (talk) 16:53, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think so too. --Stfg (talk) 18:34, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I would not tag it on the drive page with *O or *R, however. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:54, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Botanic Garden of the Irkutsk State University

I am not sure what should be done on Botanic Garden of the Irkutsk State University. Should that long list of items about plants become inline citations? Otherwise, what is to be done? Take a look for me.--DThomsen8 (talk) 19:05, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be interested in other people's opinions here. I do not see a reason for this publication list to exist in an encyclopedia article about the garden. I would move the entire section, as is, to the article's Talk page, with an introductory sentence saying that you are doing so and that the following list of publications may be useful to someone who is interested in expanding the article.

I suppose one could improve the consistency of the formatting of this publication list or use {{cite journal}} templates to make them look nice, but that wouldn't be copy editing, and it wouldn't make the article better. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:37, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good approach, Jonesey 95. I will do what you suggest. --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:45, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sokol

I do not see copyediting needed for this Sokol *O article, but sometimes other GOCE members see something I do not find. Talk:Solol describes many issues, but they are not copyediting issues. Mention what is to be done for copyediting, or go ahead and remove the tag.--DThomsen8 (talk) 14:42, 7 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It looks pretty good in general. Here's what I saw in a quick pass.

Awkward sentence: "Primarily a fitness training center, the Sokol, also through lectures, discussions, and group outings provided what Tyrš viewed as physical, moral, and intellectual training for the nation."
Could be less sexist: "This training extended to members of all classes, and eventually to women."
"spread of mass-based nationalist ideologies." Sounds like the ideology is based around the scientific concept of mass.
Caption missing a comma or other punctuation: "Members of the Sokol club in costume, 1880s photographed by Šechtl and Voseček"
I would substitute "trousers" for "pants" to reduce ambiguity. (My understanding is that "pants" in British English means "underwear".)
I would make curly quote/straight quote use consistent.
Make the italicization of "slet" consistent. See WP:ITAL.
Use the serial comma consistently.

In general, a good thing to do when trying to spot awkward writing is to try reading the passage aloud. Sometimes your eyes will skim over something bad that you will notice when it comes out of your mouth. I find that this works especially well with things I have written myself and am trying to improve. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the good advice, which I will apply. However, when you say it could be less sexist: "This training extended to members of all classes, and eventually to women." they were very sexist in their day. What about "This training extended to male members of all classes, and later it was extended to women." This uses the time aspect of what they did, and perhaps is less harsh to modern eyes.--DThomsen8 (talk) 14:03, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe men rather than male members? (lol) --Stfg (talk) 20:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"This training extended to men of all classes, and later to women." Something like that sounds less clunky to my modern eyes. Good job, team. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:00, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Kutch Gurjar Kshatriyas contributions to the Indian railways

This *O article Kutch Gurjar Kshatriyas contributions to the Indian railways is excessively detailed, but I am unsure how much detail should be deleted. Someone please give me some general advice on how to cut this article of 14,734 words down to a reasonable size.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:54, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

as stated in the above section, i am a newbie, so idk but i think a sizable chunk of this word count stems from excessive quotations in the "notable persons" section. entire paragraphs are copied and quoted in that section which i think is inappropriate, and it's about 1.5k words give or take ~Helicopter Llama~ 20:34, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Chop lots, imo. Those tedious details about how many miles of track were laid in year X really aren't useful. And puffery like "He executed all these contracts with great ability and tact which emanted appaluse in form of good many certificates from qualified engineers of the Railways." Though it's wonderful to learn that "Jiwan Narayan's son Govamal Jivan Chuahan was born in Karachi in 1855, while he was laying rails for this line." What an achievement for one so young! --Stfg (talk) 20:54, 8 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have chopped lots, down to 1146 words from 14,734, but still more to do on the remaining text.--DThomsen8 (talk) 12:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Like. It's looking much more like an encyclopedia article now. --Stfg (talk) 22:32, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mário Negrão

What ought to be done about this article? I struggle greatly with Portuguese, and I feel like this article in particular is more a translation issue than copyediting. Opinions please? Thanks cheers ~Helicopter Llama~ 21:22, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've already done a pretty good job, actually, and with the content so poorly sourced, I wouldn't worry too much. If you find anything unclear, you have the option to tag with {{Clarify}}, or to remove if it's unsourced puffery. For more serious cases of unintelligible translations, there's a {{Rough translation}} tag, which generates a boilerplace with instructions on how to file a request for someone with the right language knowledge to help. (When we use this, we remove the copyedit tag.) But here, as I say, I think you've already done as much as can reasonably be asked for. Hope this helps. --Stfg (talk) 22:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Backlog

I'm super excited to see the backlog already down by 300. Can we get another 300 this month? Yes. Just do what you do and we'll get there. Of course, if you want to step it up a bit, the sky's the limit! Thank you for sucking it up. Lfstevens (talk) 07:29, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Our lowest end-of-the-month backlog number in the past couple of years is 2,306. We're at 2,670 right now. It's a stretch, but we might be able to make it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:55, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

we are literally like less than 20 articles away right now ayye lmao ~Helicopter Llama~ 15:16, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One fairly easy reduction is to change articles with an AfD pending into {{GOCEreviewed|user=Dthomsen8|date=13 May 2014|issues=Awaiting deletion results before copyediting}} on the talk page. I just did eight articles this way. --DThomsen8 (talk) 19:33, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We ended yesterday with 2,304 articles in the backlog, two articles fewer than our lowest end-of-the-month backlog number in the past couple of years. Keep up the great work, everyone! There are three more days in this drive. It would be great to end the month with a new low number; to do that, we need to keep editing, because new articles are tagged every day. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:03, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've been keeping an eye on the May tags, copy editing what I can and tagging for cleanup articles that are outside our scope. PaintedCarpet (talk) 00:20, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Balaur

I am working on Balaur (544 words). While I believe it reads very well right now, I also think about deleting some of the sections with excessive or obscure details. What advice do you have?--DThomsen8 (talk) 19:20, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The sections that are about dragons belong in the article for dragon, not in this article, as far as I can see. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:34, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Remember Be Bold! I moved the dragon material to the Talk:European dragon page.--DThomsen8 (talk) 17:08, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Apaseo el Grande

Sorry, but I'm back again. Also seeking guidance as to how to tackle this article, which, like my previous posting on here, looks as much as a translation problem as it is a copyediting one. Any advice, especially with the history section which looks machine-translated, would be tremendously appreciated, cheers! ~Helicopter Llama~ 21:00, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like a machine translation of es:Apaseo el Grande. I would give it a quick pass to look for easy fixes (or not so quick for this 6,700-word article), then add {{Rough translation|Spanish}} to the article and remove the copyedit tag. Other opinions are welcome. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:24, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

List of populated places in the municipality of Dragash, Kosovo

Is List of populated places in the municipality of Dragash, Kosovo an appropriate candidate for copyediting? See the talk page before commenting or acting on it.--DThomsen8 (talk) 02:00, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You find the best articles. I read the Talk page, and it seems like a standard stub article that could be something good if someone put a few solid days of work and thought into it, starting with basic formatting. There is no prose to copy edit, though, so the copyedit tag is not appropriate. It does need work, though. There is probably a Cleanup template that is appropriate. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:52, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Placed cleanup-formating tag.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Gujjar Places in Pakistan

Gujjar Places in Pakistan is tagged as {{copy edit|for=formatting, all caps|date=May 2014}}, but just like the article above, I think it is not the job of the GoCE, so I am removing the tag and placing a cleanup tag instead.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:41, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

c/e section

Hi. 2 quick questions. First, where do I find my rollover words? (such a newbie, I know). And second, if I only copy-edit a section of an article, do I put the goce tag on the talk page, since I didn't do the whole article? Onel5969 (talk) 18:22, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Onel5969. In the Signup section of the drive page, just above the box, there's a sentence pointing you to the file that contains the rollover words to use. For this month, your number is 46523. And when you c/e a section, I think it's still fine to put the {{GOCE}} tag on the talk page -- you have edited the article, after all :) Cheers, --Stfg (talk) 20:09, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Stfg! Onel5969 (talk) 20:49, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Beach Boys

Can someone check out the c/e request in the legacy section of this page: Beach Boys. Is that something that is the scope of c/e?Onel5969 (talk) 12:08, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All the ce requests were made by one editor, seemingly in response to a batch of edits made in October 2013 by a different editor. In all cases, the "Live Performances" sections are filled with minutiae and cruft, in addition to formatting and grammar errors. I've been going through the Beach Boys copyedits today, in an effort to make the editing uniform. It may be beyond the scope of line-edit copyediting, but I'm happy to do it. PaintedCarpet (talk) 18:38, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Think I got em all. PaintedCarpet (talk) 22:38, 24 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New record?

So far as I can tell, the lowest the backlog has ever been is 2430 articles at the end of the May 2013 drive. We're on the verge of breaking that! I haven't had much time to contribute this drive, so I want to applaud everyone who has been putting in lots of hard work, especially the indefatigable Lfstevens! Tdslk (talk) 19:38, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

At the end of July 2012 we hit 2,306 articles. That's still reachable at the current rate though. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 22:19, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Go ahead and do these easy articles.

- - Lepakshi India, excessive repetition and punctuation, grammar (539 words)

My newbie idea did not work out.--DThomsen8 (talk) 19:39, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We hit 2306 today, but have slipped back a bit... Onel5969 (talk) 21:16, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Solidly below the record now. Go team! Tdslk (talk) 01:43, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Table expert available?

Police Bank Ltd copyedit tag says "This article may require copy editing for making the awards less prominent. I suggest a table structure?. You can assist by editing it. (May 2014)"

Do we have someone who can do this? Tables are tricky, so I am not trying it myself.--DThomsen8 (talk) 00:27, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I converted it to a table, but it still needs a little copy editing, wikilinking, etc. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 01:07, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for doing what the tag requested. I removed the tag, and we are done for now. The additional work can be done in June.--DThomsen8 (talk) 01:15, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Last call

The May copy editing drive ends in one hour. Please make any final edits to your article lists and the leaderboard (it is not updated automatically) in the next 12 hours or so. It is OK to edit your section of the page, and the leaderboard, even though the page is archived and says not to edit it.

Barnstars will be distributed in the next few days. Thanks to everyone who participated. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:58, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Leaderboards

Just checking that were ok to update the leaderboards. Says not to edit anything in this section but am happy to trawl and find the appropriate places for this drive if am permitted to. Amortias (T)(C) 00:15, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you can fix those numbers without a problem. They get recalculated elsewhere though, so you don't need to worry if they're not correct. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 01:06, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]