Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors Backlog Elimination Drive! We have now reached the halfway point, and here's what has happened so far.

• Requests Report - Good news! The number of special requests waiting to be edited has been reduced drastically, with almost all of the remaining items having editors committed to getting them done. Good work, people!
• Target Report - ɳorɑfʈ's initial target of reducing the backlog of articles for copy edit turned out to be unrealistic insane, so a new target was set: we hope to reduce the to backlog to less than 7,500 items in the queue by the end of the month. The number in the queue was 7,950 as of close of business yesterday.
  • If we "concentrate our firepower" we can wipe out Jan, Feb, and March 2008, meaning the drive will have cleared four months off the backlog queue. Please consider copyediting from one of these months.
• Rewards Report - We now have some clear leaders on the board in all three Gold Star categories, and many people have qualified for the various barnstars. It is not too late to participate, as it takes just 2,000 words (pre-edit) to qualify for a barnstar! Don't wait! Start participating today. Remember, the ultimate winner is Wikipedia.
• Notice to Participants - For those who have indicated that you will be working on certain articles on the drive page in your respective tally box, please ensure that you complete these copyedits as soon as possible.

Thank you very much for your participation so far!

- Coordinator: ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! Co-coordinators: Diannaa ^TALK and S Masters (talk)

This newsletter by Diannaa (writer) and SMasters (writer and typesetter).
Thrown onto your doorstep by ɳorɑfʈ on a red Huffy bike.

Moving forward

The drive has not only forced a great leap forward in reducing the backlog. It has helped promote the Guild, and led to a greater awareness of the level of vigilance required to keep the backlog manageable. Ideas such as charts, graphs, and barnstars helped motivate editors, and meeting other users helped quell any feelings gnomish editors may have had in the past that they were toiling all alone. Keep up the good work people!!

Stats

Almost everyone who participated will receive a barnstar. We will be handing these out over the next week or so.

• Five people will receive the highest award for word count (80,000 or more), the Most Excellent Order of the Caretaker's Star: Bullock, Diannaa, NielsenGW, S Masters, and Torchiest.
• The Order of the Superior Scribe (40,000+) goes to Auntieruth55, Bobnorwal, Kojozone, Lfstevens, and Mlpearc.
• fds wins the Modern Guild of Copy Editors Barnstar (30,000+).
• The Old School League of Copyeditors Barnstar for 20,000+ is awarded to A. Parrot, mono, Truthkeeper88, and The Utahraptor.
• the Tireless Conributor Barnstar (12,000+) goes to dtgriffith, Laurinavicius, and Quinxorin.
• Buggie111, Brickie, cymru lass, liquidluck, noraft, and Yellow Monkey get the Cleanup Barnstar for 8,000+ words.
• The Working Man's Barnstar for 4,000+ words goes to Annalise and fetchcomms.
• The Modest Barnstar is awarded to Theo10011 and The Tito.

Gold Star Award

The Gold Star Award goes to the top editor in three challenges: Number of special requests fulfilled, number of articles edited, and number of words. Here are the final results.

Coordinator: ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! Co-coordinators: Diannaa ^TALK and S Masters (talk)

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors Backlog Elimination Drive! We have now passed the halfway point, so here's an update.

Progress Report - Progress toward the targets has been good. 751 articles out of the approximately 1,600 we would like to get completed by the end of the month were done by July 15, so we will be very close to meeting the target for volume. However, we would like to clear all of the 2008 articles from the backlog, and there are still 892 left to do. Please consider choosing one of these older articles when looking for something to copy edit. If we focus our firepower we can completely wipe out 2008 from the queue.

Participation Report - 95 people signed up for the July drive. This is a great result compared to May, when we had 36. However, in May only one person that signed up didn't do any copy edits, and in July only 59 of the 95 have posted any copy edits on the big board.

The task may seem insurmountable but please remember that if all 95 participants copy edit just one article a day from now until the end of the month, we will eliminate 1,300 more articles from the backlog. So please consider participating at whatever level you can! All contributions are appreciated.

This newsletter was prepared for the GOCE by Diannaa ^(Talk), S Masters (talk), and The Raptor ^{Let's talk}.

As you already know, the Guild of Copy Editors has a Requests page where editors can list their articles to request a copy edit. During January and February, the requests have been arriving at the rate of several every day, and we are getting a bit behind! As one of our prolific editors and a January winner of a leaderboard award, we are hoping you can spare some time to help us get caught up. If you are interested in lending a hand, please select one or two articles from our Requests page and do a copy edit. Help a little or a lot; it's good karma! Thank you very much for any assistance you can offer.

Your GOCE coordinators –S Masters (talk), Diannaa ^(Talk), The Utahraptor^{Talk to me}, and Tea with toast (Talk)

New page patrol – Survey Invitation

Hello Laurinavicius! The WMF is currently developing new tools to make new page patrolling much easier. Whether you have patrolled many pages or only a few, we now need to know about your experience. The survey takes only 6 minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist us in analyzing the results of the survey; the WMF will not use the information to identify you.

• If this invitation also appears on other accounts you may have, please complete the survey once only.
• If this has been sent to you in error and you have never patrolled new pages, please ignore it.

Please click HERE to take part.
Many thanks in advance for providing this essential feedback.

You are receiving this invitation because you have patrolled new pages. For more information, please see NPP Survey

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors March 2012 Backlog elimination drive! Here's the mid-drive newsletter.

Participation: We have had 58 people sign up for this drive so far, which compares favorably with our last drive, and 27 have copy-edited at least one article. If you have signed up but have not yet copy-edited any articles, please consider doing so. Every bit helps! If you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late. Join us!

Progress report: Our target of completing the 2010 articles has almost been reached, with only 56 remaining of the 194 we had at the start of the drive. The last ones are always the most difficult, so thank you if you are able to help copy-edit any of the remaining articles. We have reduced the total backlog by 163 articles so far.

Special thanks: Special thanks to Stfg, who has been going through the backlog and doing some preliminary vetting of the articles—removing copyright violations, doing initial clean-up, and nominating some for deletion. This work has helped make the drive a more pleasant experience for all our volunteers.