This Copy Editing Backlog Elimination Drive was a one-month-long effort of the Guild of Copy Editors to reduce the backlog of articles that require copyediting, signified with the ((copyedit)) tag. Please make sure that you know how to copyedit and that you are familiar with the Wikipedia Manual of Style before you begin copy editing. The drives are under the purview of the Guild's coordinators. The lead coordinator is Dianna, and she is assisted by Chaosdruid, The Utahraptor, Slon02 and SMasters. If you have any questions, leave a message on the drive's talk page. The drive began on September 1, 2011, 00:00 UTC, and ended on September 30, 2011, 23:59 UTC.
The goal of this backlog elimination drive was to reduce the overall backlog by 10% (nearly 400 articles). There will not be a bonus for copy editing articles from the Requests page for this drive, but those articles count towards your total whether they have a copy edit tag on them or not, so please feel free to select from there when you are in the mood for a better-quality article to edit. Awards will be given out to those individuals who help reduce the size of the backlog.
The backlog elimination drive is open to all, and you do not need to be a member of the Guild of Copy Editors to participate. However, you may want to consider joining, as membership has its benefits. For example, you can place a special "page in use" tag when you are copy editing, and another tag on the talk page when you finish. See the Templates page. Please visit the Guild or the main drive page for more information.
Full instructions for participants, tips, help for new copy editors, useful tags, and details of the many barnstars available for the drive can be found on the main drive page. Please read this page carefully before you begin.
Rollover: To calculate your rollover, we take your July word count, subtract the award words from it, and enter the difference in the "rollover-words" field. For example, if a user copy edited 14,503 words in July, they would have received the Cleanup Barnstar (12,000 words). Thus, we subtract 12,000 from 14,503, which yields 2,503—the rollover number. Please do not add rollover into the "total-words" field. We'll do the calculating for you. You can obtain your current rollover word count from this document.
I am not participating in the total-words contest, as I just edited large articles to empty old categories, only noting huge articles > 5,000 words, and some articles were deleted, merged, edit-warred, or retagged {copyedit} after done. -Wikid77 20:16, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Completed Vale (author) (2004) Some strange passages and grammar remain, though I would recommend they are not worth correcting until deletion has been discussed. Dates and commas - see User:Chaosdruid/usefullinks/GOCEconv. I recommend that you try and edit one section at a time on larger articles - it makes it easier for everyone to see what changes were made and to revert any problems. Chaosdruid (talk) 18:33, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
CompletedMicronauts (1333) Be careful of "correcting" spelling in quotes. Where such mistakes exist, placing a ((sic|affect)) is one possible solution. Unfortunately affect was the correct word in this case, the Palisades line affected their sales. Dates and commas again, one large edit. Chaosdruid (talk) 18:33, 13 September 2011 (UTC) Also note formatting, particularly of dates – see supplementary edit. --Ohconfucius¡digame! 07:52, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Completed97th Mechanized Brigade (Ukraine) (418) Even if a copyedit tag specifies ordinals, don't stop there! This whole article was in need of copyediting. Swarmu / t 04:52, 14 September 2011 (UTC) 341 words per tool, but coptyediting credit should go to user:Swarm. --Ohconfucius¡digame! 12:59, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Dianna(Talk) will chair this group. The committee will inspect articles at random for quality control purposes. If you are interested in participating, please sign up below.
10% of a participant's copy edits should be inspected. Please choose articles at random, and do not inspect articles you have copy edited yourself. After checking an article, place a ((checked)) mark after the article on the listing and sign your username. If a rough consensus finds a copy edit is not of an acceptable standard, the tag will be re-added and the editor will be assessed a penalty of 1,200 words plus the length of the article reviewed. The reviewer may also give advice on how the edit could have been better, without penalizing the editor. Please direct any questions to Dianna(Talk).