Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/WikiProject used Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/WikiProject used <<Great idea (forming guild). Please consider evaluating editors for biases (sexism, racism, etc). Several of my colleagues have been blocked for years, etc, simply for correcting sexism, anti-black stereotypes, historically inacurate articles that downplay the role of European / anglo political military aggression as it relates to Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America, Pacific/Atlantic Islands, India, etc. Personally, there are two in particular that specifically targeted me, and banned me (I'm on a 2 year ban). My colleagues and I are not rude, unprofessional, do not post curse words, do not post anything that could be considered immoral, unethical, historically inaccurate. Thanks for your time.>>

Outdated link

I'm new to Wikipedia copyediting, and I find Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit very useful. I just wanted to note the link to oldest articles needing copy edit on the project page is outdated (all the August articles have been completed :)), and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. TeraTIX 01:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Fixed! – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:44, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Automatically remove red links from page

Hi GOCE,

I have been looking around (Inlcuding in the WP:WikiProject Red Link Recovery) for information on how to remove all red links from an article (The article in question 2002 WPA World Nine-ball Championship, was translated from the German Wikipedia; which has red links, and more pool players on), as the ones that have been translated are non-notable. The only thing I've seen is that it may be possible via AWB; but didn't go into details. Is there any way to change this information (as I may need to use this more than once, and manually it's quite the job)? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:45, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Please note, this question was also asked at the Help Desk Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:34, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi Lee; the quickest way I can think of is copying the article's raw wikicode into a word processor and using its 'search and replace' facility to find instances of [[ and ]]; you can replace them on a case-by-case basis and you'd also need to remove any piped content manually. Maybe someone else can suggest a quicker method; I only edit in the wikitext window. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 10:04, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Lee, why would you want to do that? Remove all, I mean. I translate from German a lot, have the German article in a second window and decide case-by-case like this:

• If a link is red in German, I remove it (unless I think it may soon be created in English).
• If a link is blue, I create an ill-link ({{ill}}), and encourage everybody to do the same. It shows that the subject is notable in German (or some other language), it offers a direct link to that other article for those who read the language, and it automatically turns to a normal blue link when created in English. If you want to be extra helpful you don't simply use the German article name but the best name for the English Wikipedia. Examples in most of "my" articles, look at Volker David Kirchner (on his birthday) ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:12, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

This is very helpful! Thank you. I will go through this and make the changes. Is there a way of simply removing non-notable players from the article, though? (Without copy-paste?) Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:34, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

How do I remove hidden copyedit category from article?

I reviewed the article Chittaranjan and found out that it probably shouldn't be copyedited because it needs additional citations for verification. There was no copyedit tag on it but I discovered that the article is in the November 2017 list of articles that need to be copyedited and that the page has a hidden category which includes it in the list but I fail to see how it is removed. Can someone explain how is this page removed from the list of November articles needing copyedit? 06:04, 15 July 2018 (UTC)Thinker78 (talk)

This puzzled me too when I started. In this article, only a section (Chittaranjan#Facilities) is tagged for copyediting. If there's no article-wide tag at the top, I do a control-F for "copy" and that usually takes me to the tag (or tags—you can tell if there's more than one by the number of hits). I love section tags; a section's worth of work removes an entire article from the backlog :-). Thanks for your help and all the best, Miniapolis 13:30, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Could I get a second pair of eyes on this?

I've finished up copy editing Kashmir Martyrs' Day (I think) and would appreciate a second pair of experienced eyes to have a look and see if I've missed anything or messed up. LampGenie01 (talk) 18:46, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Welcome the the Guild and thanks for your work @LampGenie01: diff; my comments are below:

• I wouldn't have removed most of the material unless there are copyvio problems. Instead, break it into smaller paragraphs so you can actually see what's being said. Once you've broken up the wall of text, you can remove waffle (meaningless text used for padding) and fix any errors in grammar, spelling etc.
• You removed at least three references to online source material. I haven't checked the sources but unless they're completely inappropriate (spam etc) it's usually best to leave citations alone and mark with {{not in source}} if the source doesn't say what the article says.
• Finally, using a light touch in copy-editing is best if you're not sure what you're doing.

I hope you don't take the above to heart; we all start somewhere! instead please read through the advice listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/How to. I've restored the article and will break it up per above. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 21:05, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Hey Baffle. Sorry about the mess I made. I obviously tried to run before I could walk there. I appreciate your constructive criticism and will certainly take it on board. I'll also take a look at both the how to guide and your copy of the article when I get back from work. Thanks again :) LampGenie01 (talk) 11:19, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

No problem, as I said we all start somewhere; my first few c/e attempts were a mess too. ;) I hope you'll stay with the Guild and work on more articles in the backlog; it's a great way to hone your skills. Thanks for your reply, Cheers, Baffle gab1978 19:08, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Starting sentences with "Though,"

Hi, I'm reviewing an article (false killer whale) that has multiple instances of "Though," to start sentences. Examples include

• "Though, the name "false killer whale" comes from the apparent similarity between the skull of it and the killer whale."
• "Though, individuals in populations around the world can have different skull structures and vary in average length, with Japanese false killer whales being 10–20% larger than South African false killer whales."

Can someone help me articulate why this seems incorrect? Is it because "though" is being used as a coordinating conjunction? Thanks. Enwebb (talk) 19:42, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

According to current but well established thinking in descriptive linguistics, the "coordinating conjunctions" of old/poor grammar books are coordinators. The great majority of the "subordinating conjunctions" of these books (and many of their adverbs) are prepositions; a tiny minority are subordinators. See this (PDF) by Geoff Pullum.

Though and although are prepositions. Though doesn't always need a complement:

• The assignment was bloody hard! I handed it in on time though.

But I haven't encountered it used as you show it used above. If we remove the comma from your first example, we have:

• Though the name "false killer whale" comes from the apparent similarity between the skull of it and the killer whale.

which looks like a subordinate clause in search of a main clause, for example, the idly imagined:

• Though the name "false killer whale" comes from the apparent similarity between the skull of it and the killer whale, the two have no other significant resemblances.

which would be OK.

Without looking at the article, I can't be sure what the writer wants to say. If you substitute however for though, the result is grammatical; but for all I know it may traduce the intended meaning.

There are other infelicities; for example, not between the skull of it and the killer whale but between its skull and that of the killer whale.

I suggest that you don't inflict grammatical terms on the writers, but instead jump in with your editorial machete. -- Hoary (talk) 01:58, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I had a slightly queasy feeling when I wrote what's above. Yes, in my idiolect, clause-initial "Though" meaning "However" is ungrammatical, might it be grammatical for others?

Yes it may. I looked up ". Though ." in the BYU corpus NOW (News on the Web). This brought a huge number of examples, among them:

• Jeff M Smith -- from the Heritage Foundation -- said it was important to acknowledge that a peaceful transition of power via a democratic election is still a rare commodity in Pakistan and thus would be a positive step forward. Though, even that has been put in doubt by "some very troubling accounts" of electoral tampering and manipulation, he said.

• Maher found the net for John O'Connor's charges after the break, while Peter Osborne and Myles did likewise at the opposite end. Though, Lannleire always looked to have too much for Seans, whose championship future was sealed anyhow after Naomh Malachi defeated St. Nicholas in the group's other encounter.

• Mascaras are beautiful as well; however, the effect eyelash extensions provide can not be achieved by mascara, and we all know that! You probably have seen pictures of eyelash extensions before and after, and evidently, it left you baffled with the outcome. Though, there are varieties of eyelash extension designs such as the pen eye, natural eye, cat eye and the doll eye eyelash extensions.

• The northern parts of the state such as Hanumangarh, Sri Ganganagar, Alwar, and Sikar may also witness isolated thunderstorm or light rain activities. Though, these activities would more or less be the Pre-Monsoon activities and would be for short duration and in patches.

-- Hoary (talk) 08:51, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Blitz instructions

@Thinker78: I reverted some of your edits to the blitz instructions. From your edit summary:

moved and added info to instruction. I don't know if there is any reason this instruction was before the actual copyedit of the article as opposed to the drive instructions.

There was a reason the blitz instructions said to remove the {{copy edit}} tag before copy editing the article: it helps to avoid edit conflicts with other copy editors. When the tag is removed, the article no longer appears in the maintenance category used to find articles needing copy edit. Using {{Goce in use}} and checking the page history are also great ways to prevent edit conflicts, but we really need to use every available tool – edit conflicts of in-depth copy editing can be quite frustrating and might discourage new copy editors. So it was decided that this practice was best for blitzes and drives.

So long as participants place the article they're copy editing on the working line of their section of the blitz (or drive) page, if for any reason they have to abandon the copy edit, a GOCE coordinator will see that and either replace the copy edit tag or finish the copy edit themselves. Coordinators also tend to check the work of new participants on blitzes and drives.

Also, {{GOCEreviewed}} is used when a copy editor takes a thorough look at an article and determines that a copy edit cannot be completed at that time due to other issues which must be dealt with first. {{GOCE}} (a redirect to {{WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors}}) is used for completed copy edits. They serve different purposes; either is optional.

Since a lot of the instructions are repeated on various pages, it's probably best to discuss any non-trivial changes and make sure the instructions are simple and consistent. – Reidgreg (talk) 14:23, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi! Should the drive's instructions be changed then? Because the instruction says to remove the copyedit tag after finishing. Thinker78 (talk) 01:49, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I've tweaked the drive instructions. The original guideline (to remove the tag after the copyedit) discouraged editors from gaming the system by beginning a copyedit and taking credit for a full article. Miniapolis 14:38, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/How to#Removal of copy edit tag may also have some conflicting instructions. Thinker78 (talk) 04:25, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

That section is fine as is, IMO. Removing the tag before beginning a copyedit is appropriate for experienced copyeditors or during drives and blitzes, when edit conflicts and redundant work are very real possibilities. Miniapolis 13:43, 18 August 2018 (UTC)