This Copy Editing Backlog Elimination Drive is a one-month-long effort of the Guild of Copy Editors to reduce the backlog of articles that require copy editing, signified with the {{copyedit}} tag. Please make sure that you know how to copy edit and that you are familiar with the Wikipedia Manual of Style before you begin copy editing. The drives are under the purview of the Guild's coordinators. The lead coordinator is Diannaa, and she is assisted by Chaosdruid, The Utahraptor, Slon02 and SMasters. If you have any questions, leave a message on the drive's talk page. This drive will begin on November 1, 2011, 00:00 UTC, and will end on November 30, 2011, 23:59 UTC.

The goal of this backlog elimination drive is to reduce the overall backlog by as many articles as possible, with a focus on those that have been in the queue for the longest (March, April, and May 2010). Articles from the Requests page count towards your total whether they have a copy edit tag on them or not, so please feel free to select from there when you are in the mood for a better-quality article to edit. Awards will be given out to those individuals who help reduce the size of the backlog.

The backlog elimination drive is open to all, and you do not need to be a member of the Guild of Copy Editors to participate. However, you may want to consider joining, as membership has its benefits. For example, you can place a special "page in use" tag when you are copy editing, and another tag on the talk page when you finish. See the Templates page. Please visit the Guild or the main drive page for more information.

Full instructions for participants, tips, help for new copy editors, useful tags, and details of the many barnstars available for the drive can be found on the main drive page. Please read this page carefully before you begin.

Feel free to put your name down at any time. Read the directions, and then add your name:

1. in the Totals directly below.
2. to the Participants list at the bottom of the page.

Copy and paste the following into the Totals sections below, placing your entry alphabetically, and filling in your rollover words, if applicable.

=====~~~=====

{{GOCE Article list

|articles = 

# {{Completed}} [[]] ()

# {{Working}} [[]] ()

|total-articles = 0

|total-words = 0

|rollover-words = 0

}}

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Rollover: To calculate your rollover, we take your September word count, subtract the award words from it, and enter the difference in the "rollover-words" field. For example, if a user copy edited 14,503 words in September, they would have received the Cleanup Barnstar (12,000 words). Thus, we subtract 12,000 from 14,503, which yields 2,503—the rollover number. Please do not add rollover into the "total-words" field. We'll do the calculating for you. You can obtain your current rollover word count from this document.

• Total articles: 0
• Total words: 0

• Total articles: 0
• Total words: 0
• Rollover words: 114

• Total articles: 0
• Total words: 0
• Rollover words: 1,404

• Total articles: 0
• Total words: 0

Diannaa ^(Talk)) will chair this group. The committee will inspect articles at random for quality control purposes. If you are interested in participating, please sign up below.

10% of a participant's copy edits should be inspected. Please choose articles at random, and do not inspect articles you have copy edited yourself. After checking an article, place a {{checked}} mark after the article on the listing and sign your username. If a rough consensus finds a copy edit is not of an acceptable standard, the tag will be re-added and the editor will be assessed a penalty of 1,200 words plus the length of the article reviewed. The reviewer may also give advice on how the edit could have been better, without penalizing the editor. Please direct any questions to Diannaa ^(Talk).