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Introduction
Welcome to the Guild of Copy Editors' (GOCE) annual report for 2019, a summary of membership activity, progress on the copy-editing backlog, and throughput of our Requests page.
Over 100 editors joined the Guild during the year, and more editors were active throughout the year than we have seen during the last three years. One member stepped-up as a first-time coordinator to help run the Guild behind the scenes, and another was named a coordinator emeritus.
The copy editing backlog was reduced by 43% overall, with a series of record lows reached on the four last month-long Drives of the year (see graph to right). Our Requests page was busy: copy editors there continued to attend to submissions in a timely manner, with an average wait time of under 19 days. Blitzes focused on articles from the backlog selected by theme, and on Requests when that queue was large.
With the diminishing backlog and 11% fewer submissions to the Requests page in 2019, there have been some explorations of other possible activities for the Guild. One pilot project began screening the list of upcoming Today's Featured Articles (TFA) to see which ones might benefit from copy editing, and met with mixed success. There have also been discussions of joint editing drives with other WikiProjects.
Thanks to everyone who has helped to make the Guild a friendly and collegial editing environment, and for insisting on clear, comprehensible, and grammatically correct writing.
Reidgreg, second lead coordinator for 2019.