User talk:Ben79487/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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Archive 5

Hi Ben79487! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from experienced editors like Lectonar (talk). Visit the Teahouse We hope to see you there! Delivered by HostBot on behalf of the Teahouse hosts 16:08, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Plandu. I noticed that in this edit to The Icebound Land, you removed content without adequately explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry, the removed content has been restored. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Plandu (talk) 23:20, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello! Thank you for helping to reduce Wikipedia's copy editing backlog on the November drive. You can find lots of information about copy editing linked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/How to.

Wikipedia has a house style outlined in our

(MOS) which is particular to the needs of an online encyclopedia. You don't have to know all of it, but copy editors should understand the basics (i.e.: capitalization, punctuation, bold/italics, date formats, etc.) and be aware of it to reference sub-pages as needed (i.e.: specific pages for biographies, or music albums, or numbers) when you come across something you're not sure about.

I'm going to take a moment to review some of your copy edits.

• KPMF-LD
  • Sometimes there is more than one acceptable style. For example, dates can be expressed in dmy or mdy formats. When there is a choice of style, we should try to apply it consistently throughout an article so that there isn't a mix of styles. Generally, whichever style is first used in an article should be retained (
    MOS:ENGVAR
    ). In this article you changed callsign → call sign. So far as I can see, either is acceptable though "call sign" seems to be more popular; however, I'm not sure that constitutes a "good reason". Also, the infobox template has "callsign" and it might be good to keep that consistent.
  • it actually serves the Memphis, Tennessee market. We need a comma after "Tennessee". Similarly with Jonesboro, Arkansas market's. Although in the latter case, since the article already mentioned that Jonesboro was in Arkansas, that could be assumed and just have "Jonesboro market's".
  • Also in Summer 2016. We don't capitalize seasons, so "summer 2016".
  • first-ever I don't feel that's very good encyclopedia tone. What is the alternative? "first never"? The "ever" is implicit in "first" and it seems to me that this is a weaselly way of giving undue emphasis, so I replaced it with "first". If you can state something more concisely, that's usually an improvement.
• Eknath Khadse
  • I reorganized the article's lead which was a bit repetitive. This may be one of those articles which was expanded from a stub and a proper lead was never written. (This is perhaps more cleanup than copy editing.)
  • We don't generally capitalize a job title like sarpanch unless it is directly attached to a person's name (
    MOS:JOBTITLE
    ). Minister for Finance and Planning may be capitalized as a proper name. Each case has to be considered.
    • For Purna River, I checked to be sure that "river" is part of the proper name. The
      Saint Lawrence River has "river" in its name, but the Danube and Yangtze
      do not, and you can't always be sure how far English conventions have permeated into India. It seems to check out, though, so I think you made the right call.
  • Try to define acronyms like member of the legislative assembly (MLA) on first use in the lead and body (
    MOS:ACRO
    ).
  • regime of 1995-99 For year ranges we use all four digits of the year, except for consecutive years describing a period of no more than one full year (e.g.: fiscal year 1995–96 or the winter of 1995–96). Also, we use an en-dash in the range instead of a hyphen. Hyphens are used for conjunction (associating things together) while dashes are used for disjunction (separation). You can make an en-dash with –.
  • Tenses: since he resigned and is no longer a serving MLA, a lot of material had to be changed to past tense.

I hope you receive this constructively. We expect copy edits to have correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitals, and the basic MOS (acronyms, dashes, italics, etc.). Some of the things I changed were MOS minutia that I wouldn't expect in start-class copy edits, but I mention them for your information. Very few editors know all the MOS and relatively few articles are compliant with all of it. Please let me know if you have any questions, and please do enjoy editing! – Reidgreg (talk) 21:44, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! I'll be more careful next time. — Ben79487 (talk contribs) 01:48, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Can you check the edit I made to elegant madtom, please? Let me know if there's any feedback you would like to suggest. – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 02:00, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Sure thing. BTW, yes, copy editing is all about being careful. I find it takes an enormous amount of concentration to really pick phrases apart and find if there's a better way to state something. I understand that some speech writers will copy edit backwards, reading the speech from the end to the beginning, in order to get a fresh look at it.

• Elegant madtom
  • First off, your edits were good. You don't have to bother with some of the changes which are interpreted the same way by the Mediawiki software. For example, [[riffle]]s and [[riffle|riffles]] are both treated the same, and multiple spaces are always displayed as a single space. Some editors use multiple spaces because they feel it makes it easier to read in the edit window.
  • one of 29 species. The rules for numbers can take a little getting used to. Zero to nine are normally expressed as words. Other numbers that can be expressed in one or two words can be expressed in either words or numerals (e.g.: two million or 2,000,000). Other numbers are expressed with numerals. There are some exceptions; ages and dates are usually expressed with numerals, as are numbers with abbreviated units (9 ft not nine ft). Another exception is when the reader might compare numbers; it puts less mental burden on the reader if numbers that may be compared are in the same format. So "one of 29" is a no-no. Either "one of twenty-nine" or "1 of 29" would be acceptable. Since the "one" starts a clause, I used words.
  • and lower, north-central Tennessee rivers We use commas for separation and so shouldn't have one there between compound modifiers.
  • The section Ecology had a bit of "if we look" and "we can project". Addressing the reader like that is common in textbooks, which lead the reader through a chain of thought. But for an encyclopedia we should neutrally report the facts and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions. This is called encyclopedic tone. Its part of the style of writing on Wikipedia that you might not realize until you get into copy editing.
  • I ended up doing quite a bit of rephrasing; I felt a lot of material was repeated or presented in a circuitous order. You can do this sort of thing as you become more confident. You can find my edit on the View history and click "prev" to see a "diff" of my edit (or just use this link).

Interesting little article, and you jumped at it the same day it was tagged! – Reidgreg (talk) 23:57, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 04:13, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi. I'm Barkeep49 and I am working to re-establish the Children's literature WikiProejct as an active project. It seems like you might be interested in (re)joining. If so I would encourage you to add your name back to the active members list. If you have any questions feel free to leave me a talk page message or ping me here. Otherwise I hope to see you around the project. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:33, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: Barkeep49, I am currently busy participating in the GOCE December 2018 blitz. I'll be there on the 23rd of December, when the drive ends. Best wishes, Ben79487 (talk contribs) 03:58, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

		The (modern) Guild of Copy Editors Barnstar
		This barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copy edits totaling over 40,000 words (including bonus and rollover words) during the GOCE November 2018 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

		Guild of Copy Editors Leaderboard Award: Total Articles, 3rd Place
		This Leaderboard Barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copyediting 39 articles during the GOCE November 2018 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

		Guild of Copy Editors Leaderboard Award: Total Words, 5th Place
		This Leaderboard Barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copyediting 32,687 total words during the GOCE November 2018 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

		Guild of Copy Editors Leaderboard Award: Long Articles, 4th Place
		This Leaderboard Barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copyediting one long article during the GOCE November 2018 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

		Guild of Copy Editors Leaderboard Award: Old Articles, 5th Place
		This Leaderboard Barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copyediting ten old articles during the GOCE November 2018 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

		Guild of Copy Editors Leaderboard Award: Longest Article, 4th Place
		This Leaderboard Barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copyediting one of the five longest articles – 7,586 words – during the GOCE November 2018 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

That's a very nice barnstar, and it isn't easy to cover all five leaderboard categories!

If you have time, you might find useful to take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/How to and specifically User:Tony1/Redundancy exercises: removing fluff from your writing which has some exercises on neutralizing peacock language. – Reidgreg (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll take a look into the peacock language page. – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 01:15, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I have a question. Can I copy the barnstar markup and put it on my user page, or will it have to stay here? – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 01:28, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Never mind. :) – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 01:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't watch a lot of talk pages and don't often notice unless you place {{

Wikipedia:Userpage design center. Some editors will put tiny versions of the barnstars on their main user page, or maybe a Barnometer. If you do move them, it's a good idea to preserve the signature and time stamp. – Reidgreg (talk

) 18:04, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

December 2018 blitz bling

		The (old school) League of Copy Editors Barnstar
		This barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copy edits totaling over 15,000 words (including rollover words) during the GOCE December 2018 Copy Editing Blitz. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 18:05, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your contributions and happy editing in the new year! – Reidgreg (talk) 18:05, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Reidgreg! And happy holidays to you too! – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 21:41, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Congrats on your first GA review. I have found my GA efforts, as both writer and reviewer, very rewarding and hopefully you did too. I know you were quite thorough in going through the various criteria but did want you to know, even for veteran content creators like Fearstreet, it's unusual to have no comments/fixes/changes. If you decide to continue with GA reviews, and I certainly hope you will, you might want to check out some by some prolific reviewers to get a sense of how they approach things. Once again thanks, congrats, and a separate thank you for your efforts to improve Children's literature articleson Wikipedia. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:43, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: Thanks, Barkeep, for the info. And have a happy New Year! Best, Ben79487 (talk contribs) 19:30, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

This is a known spam message.

Hello. Help copy edit for article Maureen Wroblewitz. Thanks you. Nguyenngocngan8 (talk) 03:31, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

@Nguyenngocngan8: I'm currently busy with the January 2019 GOCE drive. I'll work on it on 1 February. Thanks for the request! – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 19:11, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Ben, you can safely ignore this; this is a blocked sockpuppet account of a user that habitually spams user talk pages with this crap (see the section on REQ Talk). Cheers, Baffle gab1978 02:24, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Baffle gab! I knew there were talk page watchers and stalkers, but I never thought I would see spam! And no, not SPAM, the meat. Thanks again! – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 00:04, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		This barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copy edits totaling over 60,000 words (including bonus and rollover words) during the GOCE January 2019 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

		Guild of Copy Editors Leaderboard Award: Total Articles, 3rd Place
		This Leaderboard Barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copyediting 31 articles during the GOCE January 2019 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

		Guild of Copy Editors Leaderboard Award: Total Words, 4th Place
		This Leaderboard Barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copyediting 52,719 total words during the GOCE January 2019 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

		Guild of Copy Editors Leaderboard Award: Long Articles, 4th Place
		This Leaderboard Barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copyediting three long articles during the GOCE January 2019 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

		Guild of Copy Editors Leaderboard Award: Old Articles, 2nd Place
		This Leaderboard Barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copyediting 30 old articles during the GOCE January 2019 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

		Guild of Copy Editors Leaderboard Award: Longest Article, 3rd Place
		This Leaderboard Barnstar is awarded to Ben79487 for copyediting one of the five longest articles – 11,174 words – during the GOCE January 2019 Backlog Elimination Drive. Congratulations, and thank you for your contributions! Reidgreg (talk) 03:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Another five leaderboard awards! Congrats and thanks for your contributions! – Reidgreg (talk) 03:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

@Reidgreg:Thanks! And another question: when is the February blitz happening, and what theme will it have? I want to get ready for it. Cheers, Ben79487 (talk contribs) 05:48, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

P.S. I finished Racism. A long article, but worth the effort.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:49, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for uploading

).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 03:45, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Oopsie! It was going to illustrate how the cover changed, but unfortunately, I never got around to uploading it. Thanks for reminding me! – Ben79487 (talk contribs) 03:06, 14 February 2019 (UTC)