AfC submissions must be reviewed in accordance with Wikipedia'sestablished content policies and the following instructions. The role of an AfC reviewer is to accept draft submissions that are unlikely to be deleted in mainspace orre-draftified (moved back into a draft). Additionally, they give friendly feedback and guidance to AfC submitters, most of which are newcomers, on writing well-fledged articles.
You takefull responsibility for any actions taken using AFC Helper Script. You must read and abide by all relevantWikipedia policies when using this tool; failure to do so may result in beingblocked from editing.
The "Articles for creation helper script" 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 isvery 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.
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)
If your AfC Helper Script is lagging: Try archiving your AfC review log to reduce its size, if you have it enabled.
All drafts are displayed in the dynamic list atSpecial: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 atWikipedia:AfC sorting. This page is updated every day by a bot.
You can also find a list atCategory: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.
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 ofedit conflicts. When using the script, simply selectMark as reviewing from theReview tab.
The purpose of reviewing is to identify which submissions will be deleted and which won't. Articles that will probably survive a listing atWikipedia: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.
If this article were nominated for deletion atWP:AFD, would it be likely to survive?
Yes, it will probably be kept.
ThenACCEPT it now. (You can tag non-deletion-worthy problems.)
No, it will be deleted.
ThenDECLINE it. Please explain why you believe it would be deleted.
Avoid declining an article that meets thecriteria 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 ofinline citation, not just the most popular one. Many new editors choose a different style, and their choice is protected byWikipedia's citation guidelines.
Avoid declining an article because the references containbare URLs or other reference formatting problems. Instead, runreFill (andcheck its output!) or tag the article with{{cleanup-link rot|date=November 2025}} or{{citation style|date=November 2025}}.
Avoid declining an article because it contains formatting issues, such as the absence ofwikilinks, or because it has no sections. Instead,fix it yourself, or accept the article and tag it withmaintenance templates to alert other editors to issue(s).
Avoid declining an article because the reliable sources are notfree,online orin English. Books, magazines, and other print-only sources are perfectly acceptable, and may also be in another language.
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.
Learn about the quick fail criteria
Quick-fail criteria
Quick-fail reason
Action
Copyright violation
Please check all submissions for copying from existing sources –copyright infringement is a pervasive problem and it is not only important that we don't host such material, but it often leads to significant additional work when not caught early. One way to search for them is to copy and paste into a search engine such asGoogle (between quotation marks) a limited but unique portion of text of the draft, and try a few such snippets from each paragraph. See alsothis tool. Also check the sources provided, and, if relevant, and even if not given as a reference or link, check the person's or organization's web site (it is often useful once located to look for an "about", "history" or other narrative section).
If the submission contains material that has been copied from elsewhere and the source is not released under asuitable free license or into thepublic domain,immediately decline the submission as a copyright violation. In no event should you simply decline and leave the copyright violation sitting in the page history. There are three routes to take from here:
1) If substantially the entire page is an unambiguous copyright violation (and there's no non-infringing revision to revert to), please tag the page forspeedy deletion with{{db-g12}}. This can be done viaTwinkle if you have this gadget installed, or via AFCH when you decline the draft. Don't forget to warn the user with the warning notice template that will be provided to you in the text of the speedy deletion tag. Where you have not marked the page for speedy deletion for whatever reason (e.g., removing the infringement found would still leave substantial content), you can either:
2) Send the page for investigation toWikipedia:Copyright problems, by marking it with{{copyvio | url=insert URL}}, and then follow the instructions in the copyright investigation notice to list the page at "today's" copyright violations page and to warn the user; or
3) If you are willing to take the time to clean up the copyright problem yourself, please click "show" below for detailed instructions.
Copyright cleanup instructions
(i) remove all of the copyrighted material from the draft, noting in your edit summary where it is from ("Remove copyright violation of http://www...."). Where the copying is from more than one source, it's often easiest to remove each infringement in a separate edit;
(ii) post to the draft's talk page{{subst:cclean|url=URL(s) copied from}}; just place a space between the URLs if there's more than one (note: this template automatically signs for you so place no tildes);
(iii) mark the revisions in the page history (typically thefirst edit andsecond to last edit) forredaction by an administrator by placing and saving at the top of the draft page this template:{{copyvio-revdel|url=URL(s) copied from|start = earliest revision ID(that is, the number at end of the revision's URL after "oldid=") | end= end revision ID}}. Thecv-revdel script can assist in this;
(iv) change the decline parameter in your AfC copyvio decline template fromcv tocv-cleaned – or remove that decline entirely, sinceyou've just cleaned it, and re-assess the draft on its other merits; and
If a submission is clearly anattack page, an entirely negative unsourcedBLP, orvandalism,immediately decline the submission as such and ensure you select the check box to blank the submission using{{afc cleared}}. Also, you should immediately tag the page forspeedy deletion with{{db-g10}} for attack pages and negative unsourced BLP, or{{db-g3}} for vandalism and blatant hoaxes. This can be done usingTwinkle, if you have this gadget installed. Consider also warning the user on their talkpage.
Nonsense or test
If a submission consists of onlypatent nonsense or is an unambiguous test edit, decline it as a test. Test submissions with no other useful page history are also eligible forspeedy deletion under criteria{{db-g2}}.
Advertising
Quickly read over the submission. If the submission is a blatant advertisement decline the submission as such. In some cases it may be necessary to select the checkbox to blank the submission using{{afc cleared}}; althoughDraft: pages are not normally indexed by search engines, they can show up onmirror sites. In extreme cases, where a submission is a blatant advertisement and the subject is clearlynon-notable orotherwise unsuitable for Wikipedia, it may be appropriate to tag the submission forspeedy deletion using{{db-g11}}.
Blank submission
Click on edit to ensure that the article is truly blank and not simply missing a closing tag. If truly blank, decline as a blank submission. However, if you look at the page history and see that it previously had content but it was 1) blankedby the same user/IP address that posted that content; and 2) there were no substantive edits by other users – you may tag it for speedy deletion using any of{{db-g7}} /{{db-blanked}} /{{db-author}}.
Sometimes new editors create a submission without checking to see if the subject already has a Wikipedia article. Do a quick search for the title of the suggested article, as well as any alternative names that come to mind. If you find an article on the same subject, decline the article. Consider making aredirect if the contributed name is useful.
However, articles that have been moved manually without using the AFCH script often leave behind the original draft, instead of properly redirecting this to the article talk page. When you encounter such drafts, don't mark them as duplicates; redirect them properly. But be careful–sometimes users not entitled to accept drafts use the manual method either inadvertently or to avoid scrutiny–check the actual article carefully, because a high percentage of these are spam or otherwise unsuitable.
The principle ofnotability applies to thesubject of the article. The principle ofverifiability applies to thecontent 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, butno amount of editing can make an inherently non-notable subject notable!
If what is written in the submission meets thenotability guidelines, such as a claim to a major award, but the submission lacks references to evidence this, then the underlying issue is inadequateverification and the submission should be declined for that reason.Notability is a higher standard than lacking an indication ofimportance orsignificance, which are grounds forspeedy deletion in the article mainspace.
Learn about notability and verifiability
Articles requiresignificant coverage
inreliable sources
that areindependent of the subject.
Significant coverage
Referencesabout 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 benotable.
Reliable sources
Published sources that have areputation 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 beverifiable.
Independent
Nothing 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 beindependent.
Wikipedia 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 thegeneral notability guideline.
If what is written in the submission meets thenotability guidelines, but the submission lacks references to evidence this, then the underlying issue is inadequateverification and the submission should be declined for that reason.
Now you should read the submission in detail and decide whether it is suitable for Wikipedia.To be suitable, the article must be about anotable subject and be written in anencyclopedic style from aneutral point of view. The most common reasons that a submission is not suitable are provided here.
Decline the submission as having insufficient context to make the subject understandable
Recommend merging intoArticle
Decline the submission as being better placed as part of an existing article. Suggest a suitable title for the content to be merged into (if applicable). Generally, the author should be able to do this themselves.
Decline the submission as not suitable for Wikipedia; consider writing a custom decline reason in these cases, explaining exactly why the submission is not suitable.
"Contentious material about living persons… that is unsourced or poorly sourced — whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable — should be 'removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.'"
If the submission is aBLP policy violation,decline it as such, ensuring you select the checkbox to blank the submission using{{afc cleared}} – this is done as a courtesy to the subject of the submission.Attack pages andentirely negative unsourced BLP are distinct from straightforward BLP violations. They shouldnot be declined as BLP violations, non-notable, or lacking sources. Instead, they should be declined using the specific decline reason for vandalism/negative blp/attack page and tagged for immediate deletion with{{db-g10}}. This can be done usingTwinkle, if you have this gadget installed.
Consider adding categories, and/or appropriatecleanup templates orstub-tags by entering the code in the relevant boxes.
Add anyWikiProject banners that would apply to the article by inserting the template code into the relevant box.
If accepting an article about a person, please ensure you tick the biography checkbox, and select the relevant option from the living person drop-down menu. This ensures such articles are placed inCategory:Biography articles of living people.
ClickAccept and publish to mainspace. The script will move the article for you, clean it up, create its talk page, grade it, and notify the submission creator.
If you haveAWB authorization, you can use AWB to tidy up the new article and carry out typo and general fixes. If you don't have AWB, you can useAuto-Ed to clean up the formatting of pages or do it manually.
If the submission is reasonably well-sourced, has a minimum of 1,500 characters of prose, and is generally interesting, consider nominating the article to appear on the main page as part ofDid you know? (seeinstructions).
If a submission, which should be accepted, cannot be moved, you may get one of the following errors:
If a proposed article title is triggering thepage title blacklist, you will see an error message that reads:Error info:hookaborted : The modification you tried to make was aborted by an extension hook. If you try and move the page manually you will see:MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-forbidden-move. Please request help with the move from a pagemover atWikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests.
If the page title you have selected already exists as a redirect in mainspace, tag the redirect with{{db-afc-move|1=page to be moved}} and – if desired – mark the draft under review. After it has been deleted by an administrator, you can then accept the submission. If deletion is declined because the draft is not ready for main space, please notify reviewers onthe Articles for Creation talk page.
A title with a slash would work in the article namespace, but in the draft namespace it generates asubpage. For example, [[Draft:AC/DC]] would be understood by the system as the DC subpage of Draft:AC. To properly promote such pages, move the draft to a name without slash, promote the draft, and then move it back to the name with a slash.
Please read Wikipedia'susername 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 byTwinkle under: warn → Single issue warnings → {{uw-username}}. If the username is a blatant violation of the username policy, consider reporting the username tousernames for administrator attention.
Articles are frequently resubmitted after being declined by a reviewer. If you are reviewing an article that was already declined, and the same issues appear to still be present, it can be helpful to look at the edit history to see if a good-faith effort was made at addressing them. Submitters may be seeking a second opinion from a different reviewer or might not always fully understand the issues justifying a previous decline. Giving a more personal explanation can be helpful, either to guide them towards fixing the issues, or to explain how notability might be lacking.
If there have been substantial improvements, these should be addressed in any subsequent decline. Alongside the templated decline message, the reviewer should add a comment, either on the draft or on the author's talk page, explaining in their own words why the improvements fall short of addressing the issues that have been pointed out.
On the other hand, repeatedly submitting the same version, after attempts by several reviewers at clearly communicating the issues in their own words, may be consideredtendentious editing.
Draft submissions are designed to replace theuserspace draft option from thearticle wizard. Submissions are reviewed only after a review is requested. 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 inCategory:Draft AfC submissions.
Draft submissions arenot meant to replace the currentArticles for Creation system. Rather, it is meant to make it more effective by offering new editors a better way to createdraft articles, without struggling withrequested 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.
When a draft is submitted for review, there are two AFC submission templates. There is adraft 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.
Articles for creation can also be used to submittemplates anddisambiguation pages. In these cases, there are nonotability 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.
The AFC Helper Script can clean up the formatting of submissions, including removing userspace/sandbox templates and unnecessary draft templates. From theReview menu, selectOther options and thenClean submission. Once the script has finished, reload the page to see the result.
If you want to ask the submitter a question, or just make a comment on a submission, click theComment option from theReview tab. Some premade templates of common responses can be found inCategory:AfC comment templates.
Drafts on topics entirely unsuitable for Wikipedia should be rejected. Rejection is appropriate when the page would beuncontroversially deleted if it were an article (i.e., the page would be an overwhelming "delete" atAFD, or clearly meet aCSD article criterion). If a draft meets one of the general CSD criteria, an appropriateCSD tag can also be added.
If you are in doubt about whether to reject a draft, don't. (Essay)
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 thepending 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 may be moved to AfC space regardless of their status.
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 atechnical page move or ahistory merge. Do not create yet another duplicate page, even with a numerical distinguisher. This risks splitting page histories or creatingparallel histories and confusing new editors. If you find twopending submissions on the same subject, by the same author, you can decline one of them as a duplicate.
If you have thenew page patrol right or theautopatrolled right, and you accept a draft, you are permitted to mark it as reviewed, even though you also did the AFC accept. However if the draft is borderline in some way such as notability, it is a good practice to leave it unreviewed, or mark it as unreviewed, to get an additional set of eyes on it.
