Wikipedia:AFCR
Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewing instructions
| Main page | Talk page | Submissions Category — List (sorting) | Showcase | Participants Apply — By subject | Reviewing instructions | Help desk | Backlog drives |
 | AfC submissions must be reviewed in accordance with Wikipedia's established content policies and these instructions. If you are unfamiliar with core content policies you should not conduct AfC reviews. Editors involved in the reviewing process must meet the criteria listed on the main page. |
 | Warning: You take full responsibility for any action you perform using AFC Helper Script. You must read and understand Wikipedia policies and use this tool within these policies, or risk being blocked from editing. |
Not everyone can review potentially new articles like they can edit Wikipedia. For criteria to become a reviewer, see Participants.
How to use the "articles for creation helper script"
The "Articles for creation helper script" is a script that assists in reviewing article submissions. The script can accept and decline article submissions, mark submissions as under review, tag submissions for deletion, and add comments to submissions without changing their status. The script will also automatically notify the author of the outcome and can be used to create the respective talk page of an accepted submission.
It is very highly recommended that reviewers use the script when reviewing, as it ensures that editors are notified and templates are removed from articles once they have been created. Though it is technically possible to do the process manually, it needs to be done exactly in every detail to avoid confusion to the contributors and other reviewers.
Editors must read the script documentation and the reviewing instructions below before starting to review submissions. The documentation and the discussion pages for the script are located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Helper script.
To install the script go to your user preferences and check the checkbox at: Preferences → Gadgets → AFC Helper Script: easily review Articles for creation submissions (drafts)
How to find submissions for review
All drafts are displayed in the dynamic list at Special:NewPagesFeed. Select 'Articles for Creation' and then from 'Set filters' choose from the multiple options which kind of drafts you would like to review. Submissions sorted by their predicted category can be found at Wikipedia:AfC sorting. This page is updated every day by a bot.
You can also find a list at Category:Pending AfC submissions. Or you can click on the button at {{AFC button}}, which will take you to a random article waiting for your keen eye.
How to place a submission "under review"
If you are in the process of reviewing a submission, please mark the submission "under review". This changes the visible submission template, alerting other reviewers that someone is reviewing the submission, which reduces occurrence of edit conflicts. When using the script, simply select Mark as reviewing from the Review tab.
Core purpose
The purpose of reviewing is to identify which submissions will be deleted and which won't. Articles that will probably survive a listing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion should be accepted. Articles that will probably not survive should be declined. Issues that do not affect the likelihood of success at AFD (e.g., halo effects like formatting) should not be considered.
| Yes, it will probably be kept. | Then ACCEPT it now. (You can tag non-deletion-worthy problems.) |
| No, it will be deleted. | Then DECLINE it. Please explain why you believe it would be deleted. |
| Maybe, but I'm not sure. | Then ASK FOR HELP on the talk page. |
General standards and invalid reasons for declining a submission
AfC participants should follow the standards set by the standard policies and guidelines for what makes an acceptable article. Article submissions that are likely to survive an AfD nomination should be accepted and moved to mainspace. If you are unsure whether a particular submission should be accepted or declined, ask for advice from other reviewers at the project's talk page. Also, for submissions about particularly specialized subjects, consider asking for assistance on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject.- Avoid the following errors
- Avoid declining an article because it correctly uses general references to support some or all of the material. The content and sourcing policies require inline citations for only four specific types of material, most commonly direct quotations and contentious material about living persons.
- Avoid declining an article that meets the criteria for requiring inline citations because you wrongly assumed that the absence of little blue numbers meant that no inline citations existed. The use of <ref> tags, although popular, is not required. Editors may choose any form of inline citation, not just the most popular one. Many new editors choose a different style, and their choice is protected by Wikipedia's citation guidelines.
- Avoid declining an article because the references contain bare URLs or other reference formatting problems. Instead, run reFill (and check its output!) or tag the article with
{{cleanup-link rot|date=June 2024}}or{{citation style|date=June 2024}}. - Avoid declining an article because it contains formatting issues, such as the absence of wikilinks, or because it has no sections. Instead, fix it yourself, or accept the article and tag it with maintenance templates to alert other editors to issue(s).
- Avoid declining an article because you personally don't like the citation style or formatting.
- Avoid declining an article because the reliable sources are not free, online or in English. Books, magazines, and other print-only sources are perfectly acceptable, and may as well be in another language.
Reviewing workflow
When reviewing submissions you should follow the steps that follow, in the order they are shown, to ensure that they are properly assessed and any problems are correctly identified. Be sure to read each step carefully and take your time; reviewing submissions is not a race. If you are unsure of the notability/factual accuracy of a subject specific article, consider finding a reviewer to ask help from at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/List of reviewers by subject
Step 1: Quick-fail criteria
Before reading a submission in detail, check whether it meets any of the quick-fail criteria. If so, it should be declined immediately and in some cases it may be necessary to nominate the submission for speedy deletion.
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Step 2: Notability and verifiability
The principle of notability applies to the subject of the article. The principle of verifiability applies to the content of the article. The most basic standard for inclusion in Wikipedia is notability. It is important for reviewers to determine a subject's likely notability right away, to avoid new editors having submissions declined for other reasons, only to find out later that the subject of their submission cannot be accepted because it does not meet the notability guidelines. Many problems found in submissions can be fixed through good editing, but no amount of editing can make an inherently non-notable subject notable!
If what is written in the submission meets the notability guidelines, such as a claim to a major award, but the submission lacks references to evidence this, then the underlying issue is inadequate verification and the submission should be declined for that reason. Notability is a higher standard than lacking an indication of importance or significance, which are grounds for speedy deletion in the article mainspace.
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Articles require significant coverage
in reliable sources
that are independent of the subject.
Significant coverageReferences about the subject — at least one lengthy paragraph, preferably more. Not passing mentions, not directory listings, not just any old thing that happens to have the name in it. Several of them. The subject of the article must be notable.Reliable sourcesPublished sources that have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. A major newspaper, a factual, widely-published book, high-quality generally trusted mainstream publications. Not blogs, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, fansites, Twitter, wikis, or other sites with user-generated content. The content of the article must be verifiable.IndependentNothing written by the subject, paid for by the subject, or affiliated with the subject. Not their website, and not a press release. The sources must be independent.Subject-specific notability guidelinesWikipedia has some subject-specific notability guidelines. Read through the submission and consider if one or more of the guidelines below applies. If it does, and the submission does not meet the relevant guideline or the General Notability Guideline you can decline the submission for that reason. The following table shows the notability guidelines for specific subjects. If the subject of the submission you are reviewing is not listed in the table below, only apply the general notability guideline.
VerifiabilityIf what is written in the submission meets the notability guidelines, but the submission lacks references to evidence this, then the underlying issue is inadequate verification and the submission should be declined for that reason.
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Step 3: Suitability
Now you should read the submission in detail and decide whether it is suitable for Wikipedia. To be suitable, the article must be about a notable subject and be written in an encyclopedic style from a neutral point of view. The most common reasons that a submission is not suitable are provided here.
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Step 4: Accepting a submission
At this point, if you have not found any reason to decline the creation of the article, it should be accepted. Follow the steps here:
Expand this box to learn about accepting a submission |
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If you cannot publish the draftIf a submission, which should be accepted, cannot be moved, you may get one of the following errors:
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Step 5: Other tasks and checks
Please read Wikipedia's username policy and if you recognize that a user has a prohibited username, tag the user's talk page with {{subst:Uw-username|Reason}}. This tag is also used by Twinkle under: warn → Single issue warnings → {{uw-username}}. If the username is a blatant violation of the username policy, consider reporting the username to usernames for administrator attention.
See also
Draft submissions
Draft submissions are designed to replace the userspace draft option from the article wizard. Submissions are reviewed only after a review is requested by the submitter. After a review is requested, it is reviewed like any other pending submission. If the submission meets the guidelines, it is accepted normally. If it needs improvement, it is declined. All draft submissions not pending review are located in Category:Draft AfC submissions.
Draft submissions are not meant to replace the current Articles for Creation system. Rather, it is meant to make it more effective by offering new editors a better way to create draft articles, without struggling with requested moves once they feel it is ready to be moved to mainspace.
A pending template can be turned into a draft template by replacing the second parameter with the letter "t". NOTE: Please only do this with the creator's permission.
Declining draft submissions
When a draft is submitted for review, there are two AFC submission templates. There is a draft submission template, and a normal pending review template. The draft submission template is merely used to keep track of unsubmitted drafts. Once it has been submitted for review, this template should be removed. ArticlesForCreationBot is tasked with removing the draft submission template, so only the pending review template should remain. If a draft submission meets the quick fail criteria, then it is declined like any other submission.
Other types of submissions
Articles for creation can also be used to submit templates, disambiguation pages and articles for deletion discussions. In these cases, there are no notability issues. You just need to decide whether the page is useful and appropriate to Wikipedia. For these submissions it will most likely be necessary to include a custom decline reason, using the AfC Helper Script. Refer to official guidelines for guidance on when to disambiguation pages or templates. This can be found at Wikipedia:Disambiguation or Wikipedia:Template namespace. Articles for deletion discussions may be created on behalf of anonymous users, who cannot start them. Aside from general reasons for declining a submission (empty, gibberish, spam, copyright violations, etc.), AFD submissions should generally be accepted. (See Wikipedia:Deletion policy and instructions for opening an AFD for more information.)
AFC also processes redirect, category and file submissions. Reviewing instructions can be found at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects/Reviewing instructions, Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Categories/Reviewing instructions and Wikipedia:Files for upload/Reviewer instructions.
Cleaning submissions
The AFC Helper Script is able to clean up the formatting of submissions, including removing userspace/sandbox templates and unnecessary draft templates. From the Review menu, select Other options and then Clean submission. Once the script has finished, reload the page to see a much cleaner submission.
Adding questions or comments
If you want to ask the submitter a question, or just make a comment on a submission, click the Comment option from the Review tab. Some premade templates of common responses can be found in Category:AfC comment templates.
Rejecting submissions
Drafts on topics entirely unsuitable for Wikipedia should be rejected. Rejection is appropriate when you genuinely believe the page would be uncontroversially deleted if it were an article (i.e., the page would be an overwhelming "delete" at AFD, or clearly meet a CSD article criterion). If a draft meets one of the general CSD criteria, an appropriate CSD tag should also be added.
Submissions in other namespace
Pending submissions that have been created in userspace (including sandboxes) should be moved to the preferred AfC namespace. You will find a pre-loaded link at the bottom of the pending review template to complete this. You may need to select an alternative appropriate name for the submission, based on its content. Note that the AfC Helper Script will not work in non-AfC namespaces. Submissions in other namespaces that contain the {{Afc submission}} template can be moved to AfC space regardless of their status, if it is beneficial to do so.
Duplicate submissions
Sometimes you will notice two or more different submissions on the same subject created by the same editor. You may notice while trying to move a pending submission from userspace, that the preferred AfC title already exists. This is usually the result of new editors who are unfamiliar with the MediaWiki interface and create new pages rather than editing existing ones. In such cases, you should consider requesting a technical page move or a history merge. Do not create yet another duplicate page, even with a numerical distinguisher. This risks splitting page histories or creating parallel histories and confusing new editors. If you find two pending submissions on the same subject, by the same author, you can decline one of them as a duplicate. If you are unsure about how to deal with duplicates, ask an experienced member of the project or an administrator for assistance.
Reviewing manually
In the event of an AfC Helper Script failure, you can review submissions manually by reading this archived version of the instructions and following the steps for modifying {{Afc submission}}. If you do this, be careful to follow every step exactly.
Log
If you want to check a reviewer's list of AFC accepts, declines, comments, and edits, you can use the AFC History Tool.