Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/May 2026

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 is 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 will begin on 1 May 2026, 00:00 (UTC) and will end on 31 May 2026, 23:59 (UTC). The goals of this drive are:

to reduce the backlog by as many articles as possible, especially the earliest-tagged articles (those tagged in October, November, December 2024, and January and February 2025);
to complete all requests on the GOCE Requests page, dated March, April, May 2026.

Drive participants can 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 October, November, December, 2024, and January and February 2025, and for articles listed on the Requests page. Awards will be given out once the drive has finished.

The drive is 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 GoldRomean (talk), Miniapolis (talk), Mox Eden (talk), and Wikieditor662 (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	Itcouldbepossible (57)	TNM101 (20)	Dropbear2 (18)	Tioaeu8943 (16)	Dhtwiki (14)
Total Words^{[n 1]}	Itcouldbepossible (151,481)	TNM101 (69,657)	Lfstevens (47,338)	Dropbear2 (38,531)	Dhtwiki (35,928)
5k+ Articles^{[n 2]}	Itcouldbepossible (16)	GreenRedFlag (11)	Lfstevens (7)	Miniapolis (4)	Dhtwiki (3) TNM101 (3) Augnablik (3)
Oldest Articles^{[n 3]}	Itcouldbepossible (33)	TNM101 (19)	Dropbear2 (18)	Dhtwiki (14)	Tioaeu8943 (11)
Longest Article^{[n 1]}^{[n 4]}	Itcouldbepossible (35,429)	Miniapolis (23,214)	Dhtwiki (10,561)	A Wondrous Raven (9,413)	TNM101 (9,182)

[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 October, November, December, 2024, and January and February 2025.
[4]
The number of words in the longest article you copy edited. Only one entry for any editor.

Progress chart

More information Progress graphs ...

Progress graphs

Raw data [edit]
Chart

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Raw data [edit]
Chart

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More information Date ...

Progress chart
Date	Old articles Oct–Dec 2024 Jan–Feb 2025	Outstanding tags	Change since previous day ^{[N 1]}	Change since beginning ^{[N 1]}
30 April 2026	232	1,872	—	—
1 May 2026	204	1,849	23	23
2 May 2026	198	1,821	28	51
3 May 2026	193	1,800	21	72
4 May 2026	192	1,796	4	76
5 May 2026	181	1,791	5	81
6 May 2026	179	1,778	13	94
7 May 2026	175	1,760	18	112
8 May 2026	169	1,751	9	121
9 May 2026	167	1,763	12	109
10 May 2026	164	1,765	2	107
11 May 2026	162	1,773	8	99
12 May 2026	159	1,777	4	95
13 May 2026	156	1,767	10	105
14 May 2026	152	1,764	3	108
15 May 2026	148	1,757	7	115
16 May 2026	139	1,749	8	123
17 May 2026	136	1,752	3	120
18 May 2026	133	1,757	5	115
19 May 2026	129	1,758	1	114
20 May 2026	127	1,762	4	110
21 May 2026	122	1,759	1	113
22 May 2026	116	1,750	9	122
23 May 2026	110	1,752	2	120
24 May 2026	106	1,756	4	116
25 May 2026	102	1,766	10	106
26 May 2026	94	1,752	14	120
27 May 2026	90	1,735	17	137
28 May 2026	85	1,728	7	144
29 May 2026	84	1,722	6	150
30 May 2026	79	1,712	10	160
31 May 2026	72	1,690	22	182

[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

To sign up for the drive, click the button below. This will create a subsection in the Totals section where you will record your copy edits. Rollover totals from the previous drive are located here.

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 October, November, December, 2024, and January and February 2025, 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: