Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Blitzes

Professional editing

I teach professional editing at a 4-yr university and regularly assign a project that requires my students to copy edit Wikipedia entries that have been tagged as needing editing. Our project this semester corresponds to your February Blitz next week. Mind if I have my students sign up and participate? Beyond having them read over the Blitz and copy editing guidelines, and familiarizing them with the MOS, is there anything else you'd recommend I do to prepare them for the Blitz? Marti2cs (talk) 17:02, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

No; we appreciate your help! All the best, Miniapolis 20:05, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Custom signatures

I've amended the current Blitz page, just below the sign-up box, to say, "Custom signatures may be converted to standard format if they don't a) show your true account name or b) provide a direct link to your talk page". This is because I've just had to fix three sigs to save coordinators messing around chasing talk pages. If this is unsuitable please remove it. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 12:41, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

February 2015 Blitz

What will be the February 2015 Blitz?--DThomsen8 (talk) 18:06, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that depends upon the general consensus at the coordinator's page. --Biblioworm 18:28, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

February 2015 Blitz ideas

Right now the GoCE Requests are 60, and the Category:All articles needing copy edit is 2,173. One suggestion is to work on just the GoCE requests. In the past. the Guild did a Blitz on Religion articles, and on the month of December 2013.

I have a different idea entirely. The letter L in the Category:All articles needing copy edit is 97 articles. I suggest that we work on those articles. There are 33 articles starting with the word "List" which I have worked on in the past, and this is why I suggested "L" words.

Any other ideas?--DThomsen8 (talk) 22:26, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Catscan blank

§ Finding articles sez

1. Go to the CatScan tool.
   ✔ Done
2. Set the Depth to 5.
   ✘ No can do, señoras y señores. The CatScan page is, for me, "a perfect and absolute blank".

And unlike the problem I just reported at Button doesn't work in mobile beta, I'm using my laptop to access the full site. --Thnidu (talk) 05:55, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Consider Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests instead.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:13, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer, Dthomsen8, but for now I won't bother. I'm quite happy (as these things go) trying to wrangle Ancient Greek personal names into shape, currently 1 § at a time in my sandbox. I may not finish in the blitz period, but that's not a big problem for me. --Thnidu (talk) 07:35, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Redirect

Thinking of creating a redirect, WP:GOCE/BLITZ, like I did here. Eman235/talk 00:35, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Belated thanks for a good idea; I created WT:GOCE/BLITZ for a shortcut. All the best, Miniapolis 14:25, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome, created that redirect. Eman235/talk 23:19, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

June Blitz?

I am quite content with a June Blitz doing the GoCE Requests page, but my effort will be limited to running AWB on the articles and checking the talk pages for WikiProject entries. When will the June Blitz start?--DThomsen8 (talk) 01:32, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Explaining my latest edit and a brief question

As I've said on Jonesey's talk page, I've looked over this article and it previously mentioned finding articles with the copy edit tag – since our blitzes aren't always for those articles, I felt it was best to edit that to reflect this and explain about the themes in slightly more depth. I've also played around slightly with the rollover words section, adding something mentioning that drive rollover words don't count – I'll add that to the drive page next time I go over there, I've been familiarizing myself with the GOCE pages over these past few days.

The question is as follows: why does the "Current Blitz" link direct to the previously finished blitz when a blitz is in the sign-up process – I would argue that this should be changed as soon as the next blitz is in the sign-up process for ease of access to it. @Miniapolis, Jonesey95, Philg88, and Biblioworm:?

Edited Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Blitzes/tabs, changing the blitz month; this is why we need four assistant coordinators :-). Thanks for the heads-up and all the best, Miniapolis 23:16, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikibreak

User:Dthomsen8 is taking a WikiBreak, starting January 1, 2016.

(I've added this text message because the use of {{wikibreak}} below produces only blank space, at least in the mobile interface on my Android Verizon S-6 running Marshmallow. --Thnidu (talk) 04:38, 27 April 2016 (UTC))

Looks fine to me on my PC. Must be your device.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:35, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Um, okay, but that tag is for user talk pages and the date parameter is for the return (not the starting) date. Enjoy your wikibreak and all the best, Miniapolis 13:54, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

@Dthomsen8: More likely the mobile coding. I've found a lot of things that work fine on Desktop but not on Mobile, and their progress on phabricator tells me that it isn't just mine.--Thnidu (talk) 17:12, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

word count?

§ Instructions for participants says

• Obtain the article's word count...

...

• Record your work in the "Totals" section of the blitz page.....

In figuring the total word count, do we use the original word count of the article or the word count when we're done with it? --Thnidu (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

The word count before you begin, which is usually higher than what you end up with. Miniapolis 23:09, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

@Miniapolis: Thanks. I've added some words of clarification, after "Article word counts go in round brackets ()." --Thnidu (talk) 11:11, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Discrepancy between Blitz and Drive barnstar requirements

I've notice that the requirements for particular barnstars given for participation in the week-long (at least since I've participated) copy-editing Blitzes is 1/2 that for the equivalent barnstar rewarded after the month-long Drives, when it seems that 1/4 would be more fair. Why the discrepancy? Dhtwiki (talk) 00:20, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

@Dhtwiki: I get what you mean but I take the opposite view. It cheapens the barnstar to hand it out for less than full price. I understand blitzes last 1/4 the time a drive does but that only means you have to edit faster or participate more often to earn the rollover credit. Some of those barnstars are gimmes, anyway. I wouldn't support lowering the requirements. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:15, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I've always figured that it was because it is easier to sustain high effort for a week than for a month. Maybe you could track down some of the former coordinators who created the system in the first place. Check the page histories. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:01, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Finished my first article!

I finished copyediting the article +44 (band) for my very first blitz. I just couldn't figure out what was the intention of the editor who made a bibliography subsection within the "references" section. I am thinking it may be a general reference or it may be a "further reading" section. Thinker78 (talk) 04:57, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

I would leave it as it is. When you use short references like "Shooman, 2010" in the notes, you need a section where you list the full references. People do that in different ways. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:54, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

April 2019 blitz idea

I have an idea: that for April 2019, we focus on Requests (as usual) and the 75 articles that are most-viewed (compiled before the blitz). Maybe it can also be on the week of April 14–20. Can you let me know your thoughts on this? – Ben79487 04:10, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Ben79487:. We are planning the upcoming blitz at wt:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Coordinators if you want to join the conversation there. Cheers, Tdslk (talk) 01:45, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll join in. – Ben79487 19:03, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Problem with tool

The catscan tool is unavailable at the time I clicked on the link in the instructions ("Go to the CatScan tool."). I get the following notice: "The URL you have requested, https://catscan2.toolforge.org/catscan2.php, is not currently serviced."--Thinker78 (talk) 16:39, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

I think PetScan has replaced CatScan de facto, and will tweak the instructions to reflect that. Miniapolis 22:56, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Question round brackets

The instruction says, "Place any comments between the article title and the word count in round brackets ()." I was wondering if I place my comments in round brackets or the round brackets is related only to the word count, or both.--Thinker78 (talk) 15:29, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

The comment goes in round brackets (parentheses, avoiding confusion with the curly brackets used for templates). I'll clarify the instructions. Miniapolis 16:41, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion: Reviewed

I suggest adding {Reviewed} in addition to  Working and  Completed. After all, articles tagged with GOCE Reviewed are also work that was performed and it may be a useful statistic to track as part of the efforts of the Guild.--Thinker78 (talk) 17:05, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

There is a "reviewed" template of some sort that you can apply to articles where actual changes to the text aren't required. However, my understanding is that such articles don't qualify for credit during a drive or blitz. See under Wikipedia:WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors/Blitzes#Dos_and_Don'ts Dhtwiki (talk) 02:06, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Fun fact

It took me almost 12 hours to work on 246 words of "readable prose size"—20 words per hour or 3 minutes per word. I'm very detail-oriented and somewhat of a perfectionist though.--Thinker78 (talk) 17:28, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Current or Next Blitz button not working

The June 2022 Blitz has already started, but the 'Current or Next Blitz' button still redirects to the April Blitz. Could this please be fixed? JML1148 (talk) 07:40, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Fixed, and thanks for the reminder. All the best, Miniapolis 13:46, 21 June 2022 (UTC)