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Introduction
Welcome to the Guild of Copy Editors' annual report for 2017. It has been another successful backlog-busting year at the Guild; our Blitzes and Drives have been popular, as has our Requests page. Your coordinators have also been active behind the scenes, helping the Guild to run smoothly.
Our regular backlog reduction drives and blitzes continue to keep the backlog trending downwards (see graph to right); albeit with a pronounced yo-yo pattern reflecting the every-other-month schedule of our drives. Much progress has been made this year; we started 2017 at 1,626. According to our monthly records, the level peaked at 1,871 in April, fell to 1,388 in May, bounced to 1,600, hit another low of 1,363 in July, rebounded to 1,575 then plummeted to break the thousand-mark with a new all-time low of 997 at the end of November.
Our week-long blitzes focused primarily (and successfully) on reducing the backlog on our copy-editing Requests page, with an excursion into biographies for a change of pace.
The Requests page was very popular, with 17% more editors submitting requests than the previous year. On April 17 the number of submissions per editor on the Requests page was reduced from 3 to 2, to ensure that more editors would have a fair chance of having a request fulfilled within a reasonable time. This measure had an immediate impact, and by the end of the year the number of pending requests had fallen from 75 to 13 and average wait times were reduced from 33 to 17 days.
| 2016 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|
| January | 1,774 | 1,465 |
| February | 1,981 | 1,718 |
| March | 1,966 | 1,647 |
| April | 2,223 | 1,871 |
| May | 1,496 | 1,388 |
| June | 1,713 | 1,600 |
| July | 1,656 | 1,363 |
| August | 1,886 | 1,462 |
| September | 1,789 | 1,432 |
| October | 1,937 | 1,575 |
| November | 1,414 | 997 |
| December | 1,626 | 1,194 |
Membership
GOCE membership is open to all editors in good standing who are interested in copyediting. Please see our membership page for details about signing up (and remember to add your username to our mailing list to receive Guild news).
117 editors added their names to the membership list in 2017. Of these editors:
- 18 completed a copy edit with a Guild-organized activity during 2017, including:
- 17 who participated in one or more Drives
- 9 who participated in completing Requests
- 4 who participated in one or more Blitzes
Among the promising newcomers were CoolieCoolster, David Thibault, Gwendy, Noah Kastin, NotTheFakeJTP, and SweetCanadianMullet.
At the end of 2017 there were 1,174 names on the Guild's membership list and 1,603 pages populating the Guild's membership category.
Requests page
The Requests page was popular with 17% more editors submitting requests in 2017 compared to the previous year. The Guild responded to 604 1 copy-editing requests, including 30 made in December 2016. (Similarly, 13 requests from December 2017 were addressed in 2018.) Among these requests were: 2
- 255 for GAN
- 3 for GAR
- 84 for FAC
- 7 for FAR
- 19 for FLC
- 7 for PR
- 5 for ACN
- 1 for CCN
- 19 for DYK
- 1 for OTD
- 1 for TFA
- 1 for requested sections
- 1 for tone
- 30 declined
- 3 withdrawn
- 176 unspecified
Some analysis and comparison to previous years:
- 571 requests were completed 3 in 2017 compared to 665 in 2016, 537 in 2015 and 486 in 2014.
- 588 requests were received in 2017, compared to 690 in 2016, 543 in 2015 and 489 in 2014.
- The mean average completion time was 26 days (the median and mode were 24 days). This is up from 17 days in 2016 but an improvement from 30 days in 2015 and 41 days in 2013.
- Fewer than 12% of requests completed in 2017 waited more than 41 days – the average wait time in 2013. 24 requests waited longer than 50 days and 10 waited longer than 60 days.
- 250 requests were completed as part of a Drive or Blitz, accounting for 43% of the total requests fulfilled.
There were 29 pending requests at the beginning of the year. This number grew steadily and peaked in the mid-70s from late March to mid-April. On April 17, the number of submissions per editor permitted on the Requests page was reduced from three to two. This had a pronounced effect: average wait times fell from 33 to 25 days in three-month periods before and after the change. Wait times for the last three months of the year averaged 17 days and there were only 13 pending requests at year's end.
- 49 editors completed the 571 requests, which were submitted by 212 editors.
- Top-five request copy editors:
- Twofingered Typist (236 and 10 assists)
- Corinne (70 and 2 assists)
- Miniapolis (64 and 9 assists)
- Baffle gab1978 (29 and 22 assists)
- Reidgreg (15)
- Top-five request submitters:
- Aoba47 (34)
- Tintor2 (18)
- Another Believer (17)
- Krish! (16)
- Cartoon network freak, NeoBatfreak, Yeepsi (11 each)
- Notes
- ^1 Figures were arrived at by exporting tables from the 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 request archives into a spreadsheet for analysis, particularly for completion periods.
- ^2 Some requests were made for multiple reasons; these were listed in each applicable category.
- ^3 Figures for completed requests discount any requests which were declined or withdrawn. Figures for requests submitted, received or addressed include requests which were ultimately declined or withdrawn.
 | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
Distribution of time to complete requests in 2016 (blue) and 2017 (orange). The multiple peaks in 2017 indicate the shift in completion times before and after the April 17 rule change.
Coordinators
Miniapolis was elected lead coordinator for the first half of 2017, assisted by Corinne, Jonesey95, and Tdslk who all stayed on from the previous term.
Jonesey95 became lead coordinator for the second half of 2017. Miniapolis remained as a coordinator alongside Corinne and Tdslk. They were joined by Keira1996, who returned after serving a term as coordinator in 2015.
The coordinator team remained nearly the same following the December elections, when Keira1996 stepped down and was replaced by first-time coordinator Reidgreg.
| Term | 2017 | 2018 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 January – 30 June | 1 July – 31 December | 1 January – 30 June | |
| Election | December 2016 | June 2017 | December 2017 |
| Lead coordinator | Miniapolis | Jonesey95 | Jonesey95 |
| Coordinators | |||
Thanks to everyone who took the time to participate in the election. You can view the results of the election here. The next planned election will be held in June; all Wikipedians in good standing are welcome to nominate themselves or others.
Backlog Elimination Drives
At the beginning of the year, there were 1,626 articles in the {{ Copy edit}} backlog. A low of 997 articles was reached in November before rebounding to 1,194 articles at year's end. 1 The backlog shrank from thirteen to eight months. 2
- In the first and most-successful month-long drive of the year, twenty editors removed 319 articles from the backlog, 3 removed all {{ copy edit}} templates added in the initial target months of December 2015 and January and February 2016, and most of those added in March 2015, and completed 18 articles from the Requests page for a total of 337 copy edits (679,567 words).
- March's Drive saw twenty-two editors credited with removing 220 articles from the backlog and 37 from the Requests page (439,952 words). The target months were April, May and June 2016.
- Seventeen editors removed 166 articles from the backlog and 21 from the Requests page (321,810 words). The target months were July, August and September 2016. At the end of the month the backlog was reduced to an all-time low of 1,388 articles.
- In another highly successful drive, twenty-one editors removed 316 articles from the backlog and 21 from the Requests page (556,482 words), reducing the backlog to an all-time low of 1,363 articles. The initial target months were August, September, October and November 2016, with December added to the goals.
- Fourteen editors removed 147 articles from the backlog and 12 from the Requests page (267,227 words). The target months were January, February and March 2017.
- Sixteen editors removed 139 articles from the backlog and 20 from the Requests page (285,929 words), reducing the backlog to an all-time low of 997 articles. The target months were January, February and March 2017.
Drive totals for the year: 58 editors removed 1,317 articles from the backlog and 129 from the Requests page for a total of 2,550,967 words.
18 editors participated in two or more drives, 11 editors participated in three or more drives, and 6 editors participated in all six drives.
The Guild awarded 104 barnstars for participation on drives.
- Notes
- ^1 About 400 articles are tagged every month, so somewhere around 5,000 articles were removed from the backlog during the year.
- ^2 Month-end backlog totals were taken from the drive pages. Participation was taken from the blitz and drive pages and their respective barnstar pages. Numbers for request goals were taken from historical versions of the Requests page. Some of the tables were exported and merged in a spreadsheet for easier counts and analysis.
- ^3 These figures show articles for which editors took credit on the Drive page. Additional articles are removed during drives by editors who do a quick or minor copy edit and don't record it on the Drive page, remove a copy-edit tag because it is no longer needed, or nominate an article for deletion.
Blitzes
Six week-long blitzes were held, alternating months with the backlog elimination drives.
- Between 12 and 18 February, seven editors removed 9 articles from the backlog and completed 9 requests (64,960 words).
- Between 16 and 22 April, nine editors removed 43 articles from the Requests page (81,822 words).
- Between 18 and 24 June, nine editors completed 28 requests (117,089 words).
- Between 20 and 26 August, this blitz targeted biographical articles tagged for more than six months, and saw eleven editors complete 38 copy edits (42,589 words).
- From 22 to 28 October, eight editors completed 20 requests (55,642 words).
- From 17 to 23 December, eight editors completed 21 requests (75,189 words).
Blitz totals for the year: 21 editors removed 47 articles from the backlog and 121 from the Requests page for a total of 437,291 words.
10 editors participated in two or more blitzes, 6 participated in three or more blitzes, and 5 participated in all six.
The Guild awarded 50 barnstars for participation on blitzes.
Plans for 2018
We hope to keep whittling away at the copyediting backlog, reducing both the year-end total and the number of months in the backlog. We also will give regular attention to the Requests page, to keep it under control while continuing to provide a valuable service to editors. We will continue to watch the Guild's talk pages, respond promptly to posts and hope to keep the membership informed and updated with regular newsletters.
Many thanks to our members for making excellent progress during 2017: the backlog was reduced so consistently that we set three new record monthly lows. Unlike a number of other WikiProjects, the GOCE continues to be very active and the number of coordinators was increased, but we can always use more help; if you enjoy working in a drama-free zone to improve the encyclopedia, tell your friends. We hope you all are having a happy, peaceful and healthy 2018, and hope to see you here often in the weeks and months ahead!