Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors

How do I join

I wanna join hiiameverett (talk) 22:19, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Welcome. To actually join, all you have to do is place the {{User Copy Edit}} template on your user page. You can also place your name on our list of participants page, where you will find full instructions for joining and keeping abreast of our activities. You will need to place your name on our mailing list, if you wish to receive our newsletters, although that is not required. Dhtwiki (talk) 06:55, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Multiscript detection

A new maintenance page is available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia/Maintenance/Multiscript1. This essential detects the usage of multiple scripts in the |journal= parameter of citations, color coded for ease of browsing (with apologies for the color blind, but that's a thing that could be improved in the future). For example, the entry Abteilung Verhaltensökologie, Institut für Ӧkologie & Evolution, Universität Bern tells you that the Cyrillic character Ӧ is used, instead of the latin Ö in the article Xyleborinus saxesenii. So I went there and fixed it.

There's many cases like this that needs to be handled. Many entries aren't actually problematic, like Բանբեր Հայագիտության = Вестник Арменоведения = Journal of Armenian Studies, but many will be. Any help you can give will be greatly appreciated. Especially on Asian and Arabic alphabets.

Thanks ahead of things to anyone that helps! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:07, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

That sounds interesting! I'll take a look. GoldRomean (talk) 14:07, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

I've dealt with most Greek/Cyrillic issues btw. It's everything else I haven't/can't. The compilation will update today, but it won't change very much. Then it'll update again at the start of next month, and the cleanup efforts will be reflected in that one. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:13, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Cleaning up mixed citation styles in articles

Hi!

Can anyone point me to a guide for how to tidy up articles that use multiple styles of in-line referencing? I'm still figuring out some of the ways that editing on desktop works, and don't want to delete important ref info in an attempt to turn a (Wally, 34) into a Wally⁴

Thanks so much! maryshelagh (talk) 21:28, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

for context, I was working on the Child Abuse in China page, which has a tag about mixed styles maryshelagh (talk) 21:34, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

The parenthetical in-line style, like "Author Wan says that the sky is blue (Wan 1076)" is not permitted. You can remove it and change it to any other style that is dominant or was first used in the article. See WP:CITEVAR for the official guidance. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:52, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

BTW, look into getting this script User:BrandonXLF/CitationStyleMarker / User:BrandonXLF/CitationStyleMarker.js. It's very useful. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:57, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! I’ll check it out :) maryshelagh (talk) 03:11, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Ok, great, thanks! maryshelagh (talk) 03:12, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Note that the article when the template was placed was much different, although more in being a wall of text without sections and subsections, than in sylistic variances of inline citations (it's that the references section and subsection that are confusingly labeled, to my eye). Dhtwiki (talk) 09:46, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Do you think, in it’s current form, that tag can be removed? maryshelagh (talk) 12:30, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I would remove the tag about citation format. The article looks quite consistent now. Nearly every article has a couple of minor citation inconsistencies, but not enough to tag it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:23, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks so much for taking a look and for your advice here :) maryshelagh (talk) 15:12, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Rubber-stamping?

In the instructions, I read:

Don't "rubber-stamp" articles. Be thorough and complete in your copy edits, working to the end of the article. The prose in copy edited articles should comply with the Manual of Style and be free of grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors. Rejected work will not count towards your total and you may be penalized for it.

I want to understand what counts as 'rubber-stamping'? How 'thorough' is thorough enough?

I know this is vague but it's purposefully so to understand others' perspective. Kingsacrificer (talk) 14:18, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

We occasionally have problems with editors getting caught up in barnstars and what-not, and (for example) copyediting only the lead. All the best, Miniapolis 17:02, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Rubber-stamping should be pretty obvious to a good copy editor. If you visit an article that someone has claimed to have copy edited and the article contains clear punctuation, spelling, and grammar errors that any diligent reader would stumble over, a thorough copy edit was not performed. Nobody is perfect, people differ on esoteric issues like "which v. that" or "who v. whom", and WP:ENGVAR needs to be respected, but things that any reasonable person would call an error should be few and far between.

All of that said, we have all left behind small errors in our copy-edited prose, because you just can't see everything. Remember to assume good faith. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:33, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Conversion question

In the article Halifax, I came across this line: Between the 2016 Canadian Census and the 2021 Canadian Census, the built-up area of Halifax grew by from in 2016 to 23,829 hectares (238.29km2) in 2021.

As we know, hectare-to-km2 conversion is just division by 100. Can this be improved? Kingsacrificer (talk) 18:37, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

The 2016 figure is missing. All the best, Miniapolis 20:04, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

My question was about the conversion. How do we decide which units to use? Kingsacrificer (talk) 09:18, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

You can choose. See {{convert}} for the endless options. Normally, units are provided in both metric and Imperial, to be understandable by readers who use one system or the other. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:52, 26 October 2025 (UTC)