Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/May 2025

The following event is now closed. Please do not modify this page, unless you are a participant adding your final statistics within 24 hours of the closure. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate talk page.

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 copy editing: those carrying the {{copy edit}} tag (also {{copy edit section}}, {{copy edit inline}}, {{inappropriate person}}, {{cleanup tense}}, and their redirects) and those listed on the GOCE Requests page. It began on 1 May 2025, 00:00 (UTC) and ended on 31 May 2025, 23:59 (UTC). The goals of this drive were:

to reduce the backlog by as many articles as possible, especially the earliest-tagged articles (those tagged in September, October, and November 2023);
to complete all requests on the GOCE Requests page dating from February to May 2025.

Drive participants could earn barnstar awards based on the number of articles—and the word counts of the articles—they copy edit. Articles listed on the Requests page count towards your total; these articles are generally higher in quality than those tagged with {{copy edit}}. You will receive a bonus score of 50% over the article's word count for articles that were tagged with {{copy edit}} in September, October, and November 2023, and for articles listed on the Requests page. Awards will be given out once the drive has finished.

The drive was open to all Wikipedians; you don't have to be a member of the Guild of Copy Editors to participate. You must, however, be competent in your use of English grammar, spelling and punctuation. We strongly advise you to read Wikipedia's guide to basic copy editing before you begin working. If you're unsure about spelling, grammar or punctuation, consult the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Skilled use of English is especially important for articles listed on the Requests page.

Drives are under the purview of the Guild's coordinators. The drive's lead coordinator is Dhtwiki (talk), who is assisted by IQR (talk), Miniapolis (talk), Mox Eden (talk), WikiEditor5678910 (talk). If you have any questions, leave a message on the drive's talk page.

For brief instructions on recording your work, see below. For full instructions, visit the main drive page. Further details can be found on the drive FAQ page.

Full instructions, tips, and awards

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. To sign up, please use the form in the Signing up section below.

Progress

(Please update your own figures)

Leaderboard

More information Total Articles, Total Words ...

**Gold Star Award Leaderboard**
	1	2	3	4	5
Total Articles	Jonathanischoice (44)	GoldRomean (32)	Jayowyn (25)	Jonesey95 (16)	Mox Eden (14)
Total Words^{[n 1]}	Jayowyn (56,580)	Mox Eden (46,092)	Dhtwiki (35,160)	GoldRomean (31,833)	Lfstevens (25,639)
5k+ Articles^{[n 2]}	Jayowyn (4) Lfstevens (4)	LightlySeared (3) Mox Eden (3)	Dhtwiki (2) Miniapolis (2) GreenRedFlag (2)	Valorrr (1) GoldRomean (1) EricXXue (1) Readingpro256 (1) BigChrisKenney (1) Smallangryplanet (1) Augnablik (1)
Oldest Articles^{[n 3]}	Jayowyn (20)	GoldRomean (16)	Dhtwiki (11)	Miniapolis (6)	Yelps (5) LightlySeared (5)
Longest Article^{[n 1]}^{[n 4]}	Lfstevens (22,617)	Jayowyn (16,949)	LightlySeared (13,603)	Mox Eden (10,153)	Augnablik (8,953)

[1]
For requests and older articles, please include only the actual word count, without the 50% bonus.
[2]
Number of articles of 5,000 words or more. An article of 10K+ words counts as 2, of 15K+ as 3, and so on.
[3]
Oldest articles are those tagged in September, October, and November 2023.
[4]
The number of words in the longest article you copy edited. Only one entry for any editor.

Progress chart

This graph was using the legacy Graph extension, which is no longer supported. It needs to be converted to the new Chart extension.

More information Date ...

Progress Chart
Date	Old articles Sep–Nov 2023	Outstanding tags	Change since previous day ^{[N 1]}	Change since beginning ^{[N 1]}
30 April 2025	131	2,358	—	—
1 May 2025	128	2,345	13	13
2 May 2025	124	2,324	21	34
3 May 2025	119	2,307	17	51
4 May 2025	114	2,272	35	86
5 May 2025	112	2,262	10	96
6 May 2025	109	2,238	24	120
7 May 2025	105	2,228	10	130
8 May 2025	100	2,210	18	148
9 May 2025	98	2,204	6	154
10 May 2025	92	2,199	5	159
11 May 2025	89	2,202	3	156
12 May 2025	85	2,198	4	160
13 May 2025	84	2,207	9	151
14 May 2025	82	2,214	7	144
15 May 2025	80	2,219	5	139
16 May 2025	77	2,223	4	135
17 May 2025	75	2,227	4	131
18 May 2025	74	2,230	3	128
19 May 2025	71	2,221	9	137
20 May 2025	67	2,214	7	144
21 May 2025	64	2,205	9	153
22 May 2025	61	2,207	2	151
23 May 2025	58	2,217	10	141
24 May 2025	55	2,218	1	140
25 May 2025	49	2,209	9	149
26 May 2025	49	2,204	5	154
27 May 2025	48	2,201	3	157
28 May 2025	47	2,194	7	164
29 May 2025	47	2,159	35	199
30 May 2025	44	2,155	4	203
31 May 2025	41	2,127	28	231

[1]
Change refers only to outstanding tags.

Reviewing

GOCE coordinators and other experienced Guild members will carry out random checks to ensure that copy edits are of a satisfactory standard. If you are willing to help with reviewing, please sign up below.

10% of each participant's copy edits from the backlog should be checked, and all copy edits from the Requests page should be reviewed, time permitting. Please choose articles at random and do not inspect your own copy edits. After checking articles, place a {{checked}} template after the article on the listing and sign your username with four tildes (~~~~). If a rough consensus finds that a copy edit is not of an acceptable standard, the tag will be re-added and the editor will be penalized 1,200 words plus the word count of the reviewed article. The reviewer may give advice on how the edit could have been improved without penalizing the editor. Please raise any questions on the Coordinators' talk page.

Reviewers sign-up

Signing up

This drive has now concluded and is no longer open to sign-up.

Totals

How to record articles you have copy edited:

Remove any extant {{copy edit}} tags from the article.
When you sign up, your section is automatically populated with # {{Working}} [[]] () and # {{Completed}} [[]] ():
- Article titles go in wikilinks [[]]. List the article's full title (not an abbreviated version) and avoid piped links, quotation marks and italics.
- Article word counts go in round brackets (): use this script to get the page's word count. Count the words in the version of the article that existed before you started editing. These brackets should not contain anything other than this number; do not use additional brackets for comments. Avoid long calculation strings (more than one line) in your word total.
Place the article you are editing on the {{Working}} line. Only work on one article at a time. When you've finished your copy edit, change {{Working}} to {{Completed}}.
If the article is from the GOCE Requests page, place *R (using plain text) after the word count. If it was tagged in September, October, and November 2023, place *O (using plain text) after the word count.
Place any comments between the article title and the word count.
Do not list articles on which you have placed {{GOCEreviewed}} instead of copy editing them, or which needed no copy editing.
Do not add the 50% bonus for Requests or Oldest articles—a coordinator will apply the bonuses after the drive is over.
If you want your work checked, you can request this on the drive talk page.

Properly completed records look like this in the edit window:

# {{Completed}} [[Dark chocolate]] (1,234) *O

and like this on the rendered page: