User talk:Akjar13/Archive 3

The Guild of Copy Editors invites you to participate in its events:

• The October 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Contest is currently in the submissions stage. Submit your best October copy edit there before the end of the month. Submissions end, and discussion and voting begin, on November 1 at 00:00 (UTC).
• Voting is in progress for the September 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Contest. Everyone is welcome to vote, whether they have entered the contest or not.
• NEW!! In the week from Sunday 21 October to Saturday 27 October, we are holding a Project Blitz, in which we will copy edit articles tagged with {{copyedit}} belonging to selected project(s). For the first blitz, we'll start with WikiProject Olympics and WikiProject Albums and add more Projects to the blitz as we clear them. The blitz works much like our bimonthly drives, but a bit simpler. Everyone is welcome to take part, and barnstars will be awarded.
• November 2012 Backlog elimination drive is a month-long effort to reduce the size of the copy edit backlog. The drive begins on November 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and ends on November 30 at 23:59 (UTC). Our goals are to copy edit all articles tagged in 2011 and to complete all requests placed before the end of October. Barnstars will be awarded to anyone who copy edits at least one article, and special awards will be given to the top five in the following categories: "Number of articles", "Number of words", "Number of articles of over 5,000 words", "Number of articles tagged in 2011", and "Longest article". We hope to see you there! – Your drive coordinators: Stfg, Allens, and Torchiest.

• Participation: Out of 31 people signed up for this drive so far, 22 have copy-edited at least one article. If you've signed up but haven't yet copy-edited any articles, every bit helps; if you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late. Join us!
• Progress report: We're on track to meet our targets for the drive. We have reduced our target group of articles—November and December 2011—by over 50%, and 34 of the the 56 requests made in September and October this year have already been fulfilled. However, the rate of tagging for copy edit has increased, and this month we are just keeping the size of the backlog stable. So, all you copy editors, please do come along and help us!
• The September 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Contest was won by Baffle gab1978 for his copy edit of Expulsion of the Acadians. Runner up was Gareth Griffith-Jones for his edit of I Could Fall in Love. Congratulations to both.
• The October 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Contest is in the discussion and voting stage until midnight November 30 (UTC). You don't have to make a submission to vote!
• November 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Contest is in the submissions stage until midnight November 30 (UTC), when discussion and voting begin.
• Seasonal oversight: We had a slight fall from grace in the title of our last newletter, which mentioned the season in the northern hemisphere and thus got it wrong for the southern. Fortunately an observant GOCE member was ready to spring into action to advise us. Thanks! In future we'll stay meteorologically neutral.

Articles for creation is desperately short of reviewers! We are looking for urgent help, from experienced editors, in reviewing submissions in the pending submissions queue. Currently there are 3819 submissions waiting to be reviewed and many help requests at our help desk.

Do you have what it takes?

1. Are you familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines?
2. Do you know what Wikipedia is and is not?
3. Do you have a working knowledge of the Manual of Style, particularly article naming conventions?
4. Can you review submissions based on their individual merits?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then please read the reviewing instructions and donate a little of your time to helping tackle the backlog. You might wish to add {{AFC status}} or {{AfC Defcon}} to your userpage, which will alert you to the number of open submissions. Plus, reviewing is easy when you use our new semi-automated reviewing script!
Thanks in advance, Nathan2055^{talk - contribs}

Participation: Thanks to all who participated! Out of 38 people who signed up this drive, 33 copy-edited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here. All the barnstars have now been distributed.

Progress report: We achieved our primary goal of clearing November and December 2011 from the backlog. For the first time since the drives began, the backlog consists only of articles tagged in the current year. The total backlog at the end of the month was 2690 articles, down from 8323 when we started out over two years ago. We completed all 56 requests outstanding before November 2012 as well as eight of those made in November.

Copy Edit of the Month: Voting is now over for the October 2012 competition, and prizes have been issued. The November 2012 contest is closed for submissions and open for voting. The December 2012 contest is now open for submissions. Everyone is welcome to submit entries and to vote.

Coodinator election: The six-month term for our fourth tranche of Guild coordinators will expire at the end of December. Nominations are open for the fifth tranche of coordinators, who will serve from 1 January to 30 June 2013. For complete information, please have a look at the election page.

– Your drive coordinators: Stfg, Allens, and Torchiest.