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August 2012 Copy Edit of the Month Award

  The Guild of Copy Editors' Award
Thanks for your submission to the August 2012 Copy Edit of the Month contest, and congratulations! For your excellent work on Planetary consciousness, please accept this award on behalf of the WP:GOCE. --Stfg (talk) 21:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Aw shucks. Thanks for thinking of little ol' me. :) —Torchiest talkedits 21:55, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

HighBeam for D&D articles (part 3)

Thanks again for all your work on Larry Elmore - if I had a "most improved" award, I'd say you win for that one so far. :)

Staying with bios for just a little while longer, I've been looking at D&D articles with the {{BLP sources}} template on it. There are quite a few, but I gave it a shot on the ones I could find HighBeam sources for:

Ari Marmell [1]  Y

Darren Monahan – is this the same person? [2] [3]  N

Dave Dorman – there are a lot more hits on this name, but I didn't go through them all [4] [5]  Y

Drew Karpyshyn [6] [7]  Y

Glen Orbik – anything good here? [8]  Y

John Gregory Betancourt – I'm sure there are others but I did not look; regardless this is a good place to start: [9]  Y

Kate Novak [10]  Y

Mike Selinker - anything good here? [11]  Y

Todd Lockwood [12]  N

Troy Denning [13] [14] [15] [16]  Y

BOZ (talk) 12:07, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
  • The Marmell piece was short, and split evenly between talking about him, his book, and the Darksiders franchise in general. Got a little of out though.
  • The Monahan stuff was confusing at first. The first piece was just a single sentence. The second sounded like it could be him until I got to the last paragraph: "He has spent the majority of his career in the automotive industry, most recently as an automotive technical specialist for American Suzuki Motor." *sad trumpet* —Torchiest talkedits 12:59, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Ah well, I kind of suspected that might not be the same guy. A little added to Marmell is a good thing, though! BOZ (talk) 14:02, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
It's not the size of the source, it's what you do with it.  ;) Would there be any info to make the Throne of Bhaal novel article worth restoring, or anything we can make one for Temple Hill out of (recalling what we did with the Christie Golden novels)? I wasn’t expecting much from the Novak reference, but you never know. BOZ (talk) 18:54, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Ha! As for the novel article, there's only trivial mentions in the two sources you've found. Basically noting it exists and that's it, not even a plot summary. —Torchiest talkedits 18:56, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, like I have mentioned before there are a lot of hits on "Contemporary Authors" and similar works for many authors – we will definitely revisit them later and mine them for all they are worth.  :) As for John Gregory Betancourt, I did go back and look for more sources, and found these: Plato's Cream Pie and Other Horror Delicacies Phantom Detective finds new life in retro-I.E. A new Golden Age I think his sole D&D connection is that he wrote the novel The Hag's Contract; any info on that in any of the sources? BOZ (talk) 14:02, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
The Plato article has a lot of good info about Weird Tales, but nothing about D&D. The other two are not really about him; he's only mentioned briefly once in both of them. —Torchiest talkedits 21:08, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh well, it was worth a shot. :) BOZ (talk) 23:08, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I found several more hits for Dave Dorman - would you like them now or later? :) BOZ (talk) 14:03, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Go ahead and add them above. Can you do me a favor and include the article titles in links? It'll make it easier for me to keep track of which ones I've already checked. Thanks. —Torchiest talkedits 15:10, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
You got it! I found 11 more in addition to the two above. I was initially hesitant to go through the whole list, but it turns out that a few people shared his name (particularly a CEO of AT&T, and others), so after weeding them out and any likely trivial references to him, I really cut down the list: A unique buyer incentive Product placement in books? Sports cards take a hit Sci-fi embraced by cultural shift Beauty beyond the stars Comic Book Mania arrives GI Joe still a man of action How Comic-Con went from geek to Hollywood Elektra joins new lineup CrossGen does sales crossover Star Wars still a force to be reckoned with – Note that "Beauty beyond the stars" is already used several times in the article. BOZ (talk) 15:32, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I checked the two original Dorman sources. One had a few good pieces of info, but the other was about radiation, and just had him offer a few opinions about how pop culture misrepresents it and how the public is ignorant of what radiation really does. Interesting, but not sure it's worth including in the article. —Torchiest talkedits 17:38, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • The Orbik sources were only so-so, almost all trivial mentions. There was enough to source the fact that he's done artwork for a few books, though. —Torchiest talkedits 18:27, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
A little something is better than a whole lot of nothing!  ;) BOZ (talk) 21:01, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Nothing super detailed on Selinker himself, but again a few bits and pieces. Also a good story on an event his company LSG ran. The fourth article, while basically useless, has an absolutely hilarious part I have to quote here: "This past weekend was JOYstick!, a fundraiser to benefit GeekGirlCon, 'a celebration of the female geek,' to be held here Aug. 11 and 12. The highlight was when Miss Elaine Yes performed a burlesque number as Samus Aran u the galaxy-saving protagonist of the 1986 Nintendo video game Metroid. At the end of the game, and underneath all that armor, Aran turned out to be a redhead in a pink bikini. It was, shall we say, a seminal moment for most of the gamer guys in the audience." —Torchiest talkedits 02:57, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
LOL!!!! Are you sure you can't use that somehow? LOL... Well anyway, I'm sure User:Mike Selinker will be proud of your work. :) BOZ (talk) 03:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Ha, that's cool that he's an editor here. And not just a fly-by-nighter; he's in deep! —Torchiest talkedits 03:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh yeah, he's a good one. A lot of people come on here just to edit their own artice - or start it! Erik Mona was a regular editor for a bit, until he got tired of dealing with a couple of problematic users (who were both subsequently banned, incendentally). I'm sure there are more than a few notable people who edit Wikipedia regularly - some "out" and some not! BOZ (talk) 11:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Anyway, I'm pretty excited to see the improvement, especially on Elmore, Karpyshyn, and Selinker. I'm pretty sure we will be able to remove the tag on Dorman, and hopefully the links for Denning will turn out to be decent. BOZ (talk) 22:26, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the Denning sources were all pretty bad, just announcing signings for the most part. The last one had a tiny tidbit I added. —Torchiest talkedits 22:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh well, it's something, and at least the article is almost wholly sourced now. I have been thinking that after you have a look at those additional Dorman links, I'd like to switch back to video games for a bit. BOZ (talk) 23:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Works for me! :) I'll take a look at Dornan later tonight. —Torchiest talkedits 23:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Dorman sources: the "Product placement" article is more about his wife, Denise. It's actually quite substantial, probably could get a decent start for an article about her with it. Just a couple mentions about him though, nothing deep. Most of the others had one or two solid items, and a couple with either trivial or tangential. Still, it was a lot of material altogether. I'm going to archive this section, so you can start a new one for the next batch of video games. —Torchiest talkedits 02:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Fantastic! BOZ (talk) 06:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks

Thanks for the excellent tweaks. I normally would try to cover the whole thing myself, but I'm swamped with work this week. Writing up that draft was already a bad mistake for me in terms of time. Anyway your edits look great and thank you so much! -Thibbs (talk) 18:50, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

No problem! I'll get after the last section soon. I did have one question: what do you mean about the strong connection between WPVG and Milhist? I didn't realize there was that much connection between the two projects. —Torchiest talkedits 18:54, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
The Milhist thing comes from me looking back through the NL talk page archives. Specifically, I was thinking about our newsletters' connections (see here) and some inter-WP work that had been done and was proposed as a Newsletter article that never emerged (see this). I suppose the reason for any crossover related to modern war-based FPSes or something, but I actually haven't looked into it very deeply. Also these are discussions from 2008 so it's quite possible that the link has disappeared in modern times. -Thibbs (talk) 19:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi again, Torchiest, I was just contacted by User:Sven Manguard who is holding a competition regarding improvement of WP:VG articles and where the prize is a copy of Civ 5. He asked if it would be possible to put this in the newsletter, and it sounds like potentially a good idea, but I'm not sure where it would fit given the Newsletter layout. What do you think would be best? I've posted the question to NL talk here. If we come up with something fast we may be able to still fit it into the now quite delayed Q3 letter. -Thibbs (talk) 13:44, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

VIAF

I have been seeing this sort of thing pop up all over the place on bio article for about a week now, thanks to a bot. [17] You'll see a link to it at the bottom of an article, and it seems to be some sort of listing of works tied to an author or artist. I'm not sure how useful it will ultimately be, but I am pointing it out all the same. BOZ (talk) 12:03, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I've looked at a couple of them, and they may be useful, but one that I looked at was a pretty big jumble. It doesn't seem to be some perfect organization system but rather a hodgepodge of information. —Torchiest talkedits 14:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Right, and not sure how it's assembled. Still, it might be a good clue as to what a person has worked on, when the article itself doesn't get into those details. BOZ (talk) 17:44, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Here's something unrelated, but still pretty cool - Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons#‎Paul Erik and BLPs. BOZ (talk) 12:13, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

That is cool. Good to see big chunks of gaming BLPs getting fixed up! —Torchiest talkedits 15:03, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
I think so! I just spent some time adding the Tresca source to a bunch of pre-D&D stuff - very important! I'm far from done, but at least that stuff is finally available in the Google Books preview. :) BOZ (talk) 20:15, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television Stations

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A barnstar for you

  The Original Barnstar
For your help on the statewide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2012 and your idea Thanks alot ^-^ Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to finish fixing up the older tables yet. I'll try to get that taken care of today. —Torchiest talkedits 17:16, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

You are welcome and no worries, if you want to do the last two though that would be helpful =) (PA and Oregon) - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:09, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Will do. I'm also combined some rows to cut down on page size. —Torchiest talkedits 19:16, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Okay good =) - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:18, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter, Q3 2012

The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter
Volume 5, No. 3 — 3rd Quarter, 2012
  Previous issue | Index | Next issue  

Project At a Glance
As of Q3 2012, the project has:


Content


Project Navigation
To receive future editions of this newsletter, click here to sign up on the distribution list.

MuZemike delivered by MuZebot 16:02, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Dab pages in subject categories

Hi there,

Thanks for your work on the Monty Python's Flying Circus (disambiguation) page. I thought I should let you know that I reverted your inclusion of Category:Monty Python. To the best of my knowledge, dab pages aren't normally included in article-namespace categories like that.

I do have to admit that this is the first time I'd had cause to consciously think about this issue(!), as (IIRC) having learned by example, it's something that just wouldn't have occurred to me (rather than something I knew to avoid!)

Anyway, I double-checked to confirm I hadn't been doing it wrong for years, and Wikipedia:PROJCATS suggests that this *is* correct (phew!) ;-) Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Disambiguation_pages/Archive_34#Recent_change_about_categories This discussion (albeit a few years old) seems to imply the same. All the dab pages I checked in Category:Disambiguation_pages also seem to appear only in the dab pages category.

Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. All the best,

Ubcule (talk) 20:51, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Oops, you're right. I got mixed up and was thinking of redirects, not disambiguation. It only happened to "work" because all the items were related, which is not normally the case with disambiguation pages. Thanks for fixing that and doing the extra legwork. —Torchiest talkedits 20:54, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
No problem. Sorry for being waffly, but I realised that I should probably back up what I said with evidence if I was so sure I was right(!)
BTW, I also left a comment at Talk:Monty_Python#TV_series_disambiguation regarding the hatnote I'd placed on the Monty Python article; as you removed it, feel free to reply to what I said there.
All the best, Ubcule (talk) 21:06, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Re: Halo: Reach FAC

I've responded to your source comments. Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 00:13, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Think I've hit up your other concerns, take a look when you have the chance. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 22:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Blitz word counts

Hi. I think dividing by 4 was too generous, as I think the bigger barnstars should be reserved for truly exceptional deeds. If it's impossible to do truly exceptional deeds in one week, no matter. Would you be OK with dividing the original numbers by 2 instead of 4? --Stfg (talk) 18:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure, sounds good to me; my first change was just a rough guess. Halving would encourage more Herculean efforts and make this a true blitz. —Torchiest talkedits 18:46, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll do it next. --Stfg (talk) 18:52, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Advice on an article

Greetings! I recognize you as a fair and knowledgeable editor here, and I needed some advice on an article. Specifically, the entry for the band Steam Powered Giraffe.

One of the band members, Christopher Andrew "Bunny" Bennett, identifies as female. However, he plays a male robot in the band. This has led to no end of confusion as to the correct terminology in referring to him/her, and I'm not sure what Wikipedia's consensus is on what is considered encyclopedic in this case.

I know in another wiki I am an editor in, we've largely opted to keep the masculine pronouns in referring to him, as he has said he doesn't mind that, and also since he identifies as female but is playing a male, it starts to become confusing on a Victor Victoria scale otherwise. Now the PC controversy is bleeding over here, and I wanted to know the official way it should be handled. Could you advise me? Thank you.

Also I'm wondering if a short section explaining all of this in the article itself might be appropriate (say, in a "personal life" section), since he is "out" about it anyway, and since I'm fairly sure he has commented on the pronoun issue before. --Jonnybgoode44 (talk) 23:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the question. This reminds me somewhat of the dispute over the Bradley Manning article. I'll take a look and comment on the talk page. —Torchiest talkedits 02:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! --Jonnybgoode44 (talk) 03:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

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Please comment on Talk:MassResistance

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HighBeam for D&D articles (part 4)

OK, I want to jump back into video games for a while now. So far we have only scratched the surface – there is a lot left to do with D&D VGs, but on the bright side it is very finite. :) First of all, here are a couple of tidbits of apparent recent releases I came across accidentally while searching for other things:

  • I don’t think we have anything on this one, but can you gather what "Menace of the Underdark" might be? [18] [19]
  • Same thing with "Heart of Corymr" and "Sting of Lolth"? [20]

BOZ (talk) 06:10, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Go ahead and add Menace to the DDO article. I'll see about starting one for the board game. BOZ (talk) 13:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
OK, I tossed up a quick stub that should be enough to get us started. BOZ (talk) 14:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Like probably the majority of D&D articles, the DDO article needs a bunch of work; unlike a large percentage of those, we know that we probably have enough sources for this one to actually get the job done.  :) I will be on the lookout for more HighBeam sources for DDO; in the meantime, were the ones above any help at all? BOZ (talk) 17:00, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
No, they just had trivial single sentence mentions of the "Menace" expansion. I found a better free source and used it in the article instead. —Torchiest talkedits 17:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
No problem – how about the one for Dungeon Command? BOZ (talk) 17:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Oops, forgot to say that one is trivial too. It's mostly about a retail gaming store. —Torchiest talkedits 17:50, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh yeah, I can kind of see that from the preview. D'oh - oh well, at least I got a new article started with some sources on it.  :) BOZ (talk) 17:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Just to backpedal a little bit, I want to hit one more bio – I forgot that Elaine Cunningham also has the BLP sources template, and I think we can work to get more sources on her as well: [21] [22] [23]; just for Elfsong: [24] [25] Let me know if any of those links would help with articles for any of her FR/D&D books, too. BOZ (talk) 17:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Nothing great. The Contemporary Authors link was the best, as usual, and let me cite a few pieces of info. Three of the other four were trivial listings, and the last was actually a review written by Cunningham about someone else's novel. —Torchiest talkedits 18:21, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Looks a little better though, thanks! :) BOZ (talk) 19:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, back to VGs… so, while most games have one or two potential sources if any, some of these games have more than a few pages on HighBeam that are potential sources. If you think that I pull up more hits for any article than you feel comfortable checking, or if it's just a subject you'd rather not work on, we can skip those and I'll see what I can do about asking others for help.

Planescape: Torment is already an FA, so it’s not as if it needs a lot of work, and unless these contain some insights we are missing we may not need any of them, but I dug them all up just the same: [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] BOZ (talk) 19:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

You know, that's one of my all-time favorite PC RPGs, but I could never beat the final boss. Those sources are mostly reviews, with nothing that's not already mentioned in the article in terms of plot and gameplay. The reception section is already pretty massive, so I don't think we'd need to add more there either. The others are trivial listings. —Torchiest talkedits 19:20, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Well then, let me give you something that's more of a challenge.  ;)

I noticed that currently Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone has no citations at all – but I bet we can fix that in a hurry!  :) (If there’s any useful commentary on Ygorl, that would also be sweet): [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] BOZ (talk) 19:24, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Good save on Clayton Emery - I also found [46] if that helps. BOZ (talk) 14:20, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah I checked that one already. It's like a poor man's Contemporary Authors. ;) —Torchiest talkedits 14:48, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Another quick one - Marlene Perez has a Contemporary Authors hit: [47] - anything about her novel "Figure in the Frost"? BOZ (talk) 16:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Just that it exists. I did add some about her YA novel though. —Torchiest talkedits 16:59, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

You got a good start on Demon Stone - how are the rest of those hits? BOZ (talk) 12:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Oops, I forgot to post about that one. The last five links were trivial single sentences basically just noting that it was being released. There were two more good ones though; one was a full review with tons of good details. —Torchiest talkedits 15:37, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Great work! Next, I was thinking you might want to get some more work done on DDO.  :)

For Dungeons & Dragons Online, I found the following just by searching for "Stormreach": [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55]; then, I searched on the name and found more (excluding what looked like trivial mentions): [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] BOZ (talk) 15:47, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Okay, I took out that first group of references. The problem is the article itself needs a lot of work. It has a ton of detail for all the gameplay aspects, but is light on other crucial sections like development, release, and reception. I was able to get something from almost all of them though. I'll check out the second group later this week. —Torchiest talkedits 03:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
So far, so good. Yeah, the "too much detail in gameplay and plot, and not enough development and reception" is an unfortunately all too common problem in media articles on Wikipedia. It’s a lot easier to use a piece of media (movie, TV episode, game, comic book, etc) and then write something based on your experience with it without using an RS – believe me, I know this, as I’ve probably done it more times than I’d care to admit. In fact, I bet you that there are many editors out there who have never added a single RS to an article, and may not even know how to find one to add in the first place. Sad but true! So, the best thing to do is to fix this whenever possible. I think DDO would make an excellent "project" article, should be able to get it to GA or better at some point with some work. BOZ (talk) 20:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm sure there's plenty enough coverage to get DDO to GA eventually. I'm pretty sure it's Casliber's writing featured articles guide that says to write as much as you know first, then get sources. I think there is a benefit from that in that the article is more coherent. Sometimes adding bit by bit as you go leads to a more disjointed piece. But yes, WP:DND is due for some more GAs and such. We've mostly been doing ER work; it's time to do heart and brain surgery. :) —Torchiest talkedits 13:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Damn right, LOL! I think DDO isn't the only piece we can advance, but it is an excellent candidate. We can also get more among the BG/IWD/NWN crowd as well - we have a few of those at GA already, but the rest may have promise, especially given the sheer number of hits I have seen on them from searching HighBeam so far. BOZ (talk) 15:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I have collaborated on several GA's before, but to pat myself on the back, it was mostly due to my own efforts that Gary Gygax, Wizards of the Coast, Pool of Radiance, and Unearthed Arcana got promoted. Haven't done one in a while, but would be happy to get more done. BOZ (talk) 15:08, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I'd love to get BG up to good and even featured status. I've got myself spread across a ton of projects lately, so lots of things are making progress, but no one article is getting the full treatment. Sigh, so many articles, so little time lol. —Torchiest talkedits 15:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Hah, no problem. I figure, we will get some things out of the way, and then we can really focus on improving our best candidates.  :) BOZ (talk) 20:58, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Have you had a chance to check out the rest of those hits? BOZ (talk) 15:36, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I did a couple, and looked at one more, which looks substantial, but I've been distracted by my featured article push and real life. Hopefully later today I'll have a chance to do more. —Torchiest talkedits 19:36, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Cool, no worries - I've seen what you've been doing with KMFDM - good luck!  :) BOZ (talk) 00:37, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I added a few more bits, but the article I thought was going to be more detailed (here) was duplicated in one of the other links, and it's actually about 4th ed. D&D and how it has some online features. It mentions the 100,000 subscribers for DDO once, but I already had that from another source. —Torchiest talkedits 03:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

OK! I'm pretty happy about the progress you have made so far. Was that it for the DDO sources that I dug up? BOZ (talk) 03:14, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, a couple of the others were trivial, so that batch is done. —Torchiest talkedits 03:39, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Coolness. :) BOZ (talk) 03:59, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:GOCE September Copy Edit Contest

Hi, Torchiest, I've asked a question of each editor here, please feel free to ask and answer questions, and take the opportunity to vote for any candidate.Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 06:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm kraken up laughen

You copy edit archives?! Mwaaaaahahahahaha! --Stfg (talk) 19:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Haha, I knew you'd enjoy that. :) —Torchiest talkedits 19:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

GOCE fall newsletter

Fall Events from the Guild of Copy Editors
 

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.
>>> Blitz sign-up <<<         >>> Drive sign-up <<<

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Message delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 19:34, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Blitz kick-off

Hi, can I assume you'll do it? 00:00 UTC is still 1am here, for another week or so. --Stfg (talk) 20:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Yup, looking forward to it! We're "falling back" (bad choice of words?) here in the States in two weeks. —Torchiest talkedits 20:34, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Ours go back a week from now. That expression is the only way I can remember which way to change the clocks :) I'm looking forward to the blitz too. It's a very interesting idea. --Stfg (talk) 22:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

 

Good work on the cleanup of Beki Lee‎. :)

LauraHale (talk) 02:21, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much! My first kitten. —Torchiest talkedits 02:23, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

GOCE

Thanks for fixing my mistake. I wasn't quite sure about the procedures, but all duly noted now.

Best --Cocolacoste (talk) 19:34, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

No problem. It all takes a little getting used to, but is very convenient when you learn all the ins and outs. Cheers. —Torchiest talkedits 19:37, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Genetics/GMO articles

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Followup RFC to WP:RFC/AAT now in community feedback phase

Hello. As a participant in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion article titles, you may wish to register an opinion on its followup RFC, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion advocacy movement coverage, which is now in its community feedback phase. Please note that WP:RFC/AAMC is not simply a repeat of WP:RFC/AAT, and is attempting to achieve better results by asking a more narrowly-focused, policy-based question of the community. Assumptions based on the previous RFC should be discarded before participation, particularly the assumption that Wikipedia has or inherently needs to have articles covering generalized perspective on each side of abortion advocacy, and that what we are trying to do is come up with labels for that. Thanks! —chaos5023 20:34, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

God of War (comics) GAN

Since you had left some comments on the GAN review, maybe you could offer an opinion. Do you see anything wrong with the page having the Synopsis section with Setting, Characters, and Plot under it? --JDC808 23:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The Setting section needs to go as this is established in both lead and Plot and is confusing. JD means well but his writing needs work. Bluerim (talk) 02:57, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it's necessarily confusing. Since the lead is supposed to summarize the contents of the article, it's to be expected that there will be some overlap between the two. It might be possible to either trim the phrasing in the lead or expand the text in the body so they're not too similar though. —Torchiest talkedits 03:02, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Surprising spa tag

Hiya. As you probably saw, GabeMc has just tagged Rosemary Cheese's vote on the September CEM with {{spa}}. I see nothing disruptive in the vote, and we've said that anyone can, so I'm inclined to revert the tag using a good-faith edit summary and let GabeMc know that it's all right. You OK with that? --Stfg (talk) 22:31, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I just undid it before you left your message. {{spa}} definitely doesn't apply, since there's really nothing at stake here that would cause the usual single-purpose account concerns. —Torchiest talkedits 22:33, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
I thought spa tags can be used in any situation where there is a !vote. Obviously this account was created for the sole purpose of !voting in the contest. Who makes their first ever Wikipedia edit at the second ever GOCE CEM contest? At any rate, I wasn't trying to cause any concern, so I apologise if I was out-of-line in adding the tag, but clearly the account is a single purpose one (read sock). Look at the contribs. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
If this were a vote that had any effect on the contents of the encyclopedia, I'd totally agree. But since the only thing at stake is a barnstar, I'm not really worried. If someone is that desperate for an award that they'd be willing to sock to get it, I say let 'em have it. You could file an SPI, I guess, but the other edits they made look okay. I just don't see that there's really anything that important at stake. —Torchiest talkedits 22:56, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, I really wasn't implying the CEM was a crucial and important aspect of Wikipedia. Like I said, I thought the spa tag could be used at any !vote where there is suspicion of socking. I will say that if the contest tends to come down to who has the most socks, then I would suggest that the reputation and integrity of the CEM is at stake, and editors will eventually stop nominating copyedits should that impression spread. I do think this contest is an asset to Wikipedia, and it could bring in more copyeditors to the Guild. In that regard I think that the CEM is important, but hey, I wasn't trying to stir-up drama. As far as SPI, no thanks, way too tedious and I'm not accusing anyone specific, I have no clue whose sock it is, but it fails, no bombs the duck test IMO. Maybe I need to get out of mediation mode and just let everything unfold as it will. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 23:04, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I know you've been involved in a very tense long-term mediation process, but we're trying to keep it mellow at GOCE. :) If it really seems like a lot of socks are showing up and voting, then we can clamp down on it, but this is just an isolated event at this point. —Torchiest talkedits 23:08, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

() @GabeMc, I didn't know about any mediation, but in any case, everyone can see that you did it because you want the CEM and GOCE as a whole to work well, and thank you for that. You haven't stirred up any drama -- this was just an objective question of whether we accept a vote or not. You were right to raise that question, and I hope our answer may be acceptable. SPA and sock correlate a bit but aren't identical, and in this case I think that account is simply a new one whose interests we have yet to learn about. Is that OK? --Stfg (talk) 00:15, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes of course its okay Stfg. Thanks for helping to ease my mind about the drama. I really need to shift gears here asap! I know spa and socks aren't the same per se, but since the use of spa tags in this way was encouraged at the Beatles mediation, I perhaps wrongly used one at the CEM. I highly doubt that a brand new account who is not a sock would make their very first edit ever as a !vote, but who knows? I'm just concerned about the reputation of the CEM contest, as I would love to see this succeed long-term. Its a fantastic idea so keep up the great work! Cheers and thanks! ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 00:39, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for that, I'm hoping the CEM lasts, but we have an alternative in mind if it doesn't stay active enough. Still, we've gotten more participation in the voting and discussion phase this time, which is encouraging. You should vote in the September contest and make another submission for October. The month is almost over! —Torchiest talkedits 00:57, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for GOCE blitz tweak

Thanks for bumping up my word total for The Electric Company; I didn't bother, since we're not competing with each other this time, but since it was very crufty and time-consuming I appreciate the credit! All the best, Miniapolis (talk) 15:06, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

GOCE October 2012 Blitz Barnstar

  The Cleanup Barnstar
This barnstar is awarded to Torchiest for copy editing articles with a total of 6,943 words during the Guild of Copy Editors October 2012 Copy Editing Blitz. Thank you for your contribution. --Stfg (talk) 14:35, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

List of characters in Transformers: Prime

Show us the best you can do with List of characters in Transformers: Prime article, once again! JSH-alive/talk/cont/mail 04:18, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry in the United Kingdom

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Talkback

 
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--JDC808 18:55, 30 October 2012 (UTC)