Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Membership/News/2011 Annual Report

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors! We have had a busy year and have made steady progress in our task of reducing the copy edit backlog. Many thanks to those who participated in our copy edit drives, helped out with requests, or participated in discussions.

The Guild's

has grown from 503 in December 2010 to 764 in December 2011. This is an increase of 261, or 51%. This compares favorably with 2010, when there were 176 new members. We'd like to welcome all of our new members to the Guild!

Records were kept through the end of September of the number of requests received on the Requests page. 587 requests were received in that period, for an average of 65 requests per month. The busiest month for requests in 2011 was July, with 89 requests. There are currently 62 articles awaiting copy edit on the Requests page. An experimental Potential Featured Articles requests page was added in September, and it looks like it will become a permanent Guild page. The Requests page archives, begun in September 2010, were discontinued in September of this year, as maintenance was too time-consuming for the few that were managing the page. Archiving might resume in the new year.

Coordinators elections were introduced at the end of 2010 as a way to formalize the structure of the Guild and to ensure a supply of incoming new leaders and ideas. Our first tranche of coordinators served from January to June 2011, and the second from July to December. Our third tranche, elected in December 2011, is as follows:

• Lead coordinator: The Utahraptor
• Assistant coodinators: Dianna, Stfg, Dank, and Sp33dyphil

Elections will be held again in June, so please keep the Guild in mind when looking for ways to expand your Wikipedia participation. We are open to fresh leadership and fresh input.

At the beginning of the year, there were 5,151 articles in the copy edit backlog, and we managed to eliminate some 1,000 articles from the backlog over the course of the year. There are currently about 4,100 articles in the backlog.

January 2011 drive

This was our first drive of the year. Out of 54 people who signed up, 40 participated. 633 articles were eliminated from the backlog.

March 2011 drive

This was our most successful drive of the year! 99 people signed up for the drive, and of these, 70 copy edited at least one article. By the end of this drive, we had fewer than 500 articles remaining from 2009.

May 2011 drive

Out of 63 people who signed up for this drive, 45 participated. 421 articles were removed from the queue during the course of this drive.

July 2011 drive

50 people signed up for this drive, and of these, 39 participated. 338 articles were removed from the queue during this drive.

September 2011 drive

58 people signed up for this drive, and of these, 42 participated. An exceptionally large number of articles were tagged for copy edit that month, but we still managed to reduce the backlog by 146 articles.

November 2011 drive

During this drive, we reduced the backlog by 232 articles. We were successful in our goal of clearing the oldest three months—March, April, and May 2010—from the queue.

Category:All articles needing copy edit Started at May 1, 2010 with 8,323 articles. 2,674 left.

5,649 / 8,323 (68%)

The Guild's new lead coordinator, The Utahraptor, has many new ideas and plans for the Guild for 2012. These include:

Come join us at the Guild and participate in our rewarding activities. We look forward to your company.