User:Wiae/So you want to be an AFC reviewer

The Articles for Creation process comes with reviewing instructions that should guide reviewers reasonably well. However, in the past year of reviewing drafts at AfC, I have come to realize that many things to keep in mind while reviewing are not actually set out in those instructions. Consider this my personal "missing manual" for AfC.

Read the instructions!
The instructions at WP:AFCR are an essential read. For one thing, you have to make sure you meet the project's eligibility requirements. Further, it's important to have a firm grasp of Wikipedia's core content policies: notability, verifiability, no original research, the neutral point of view, biographies of living people and what Wikipedia is not. If you're not familiar with these documents, take some time to browse them until you're familiar with them. In particular, note the six invalid reasons for declining an article. Keep these in the back of your mind as you review.

Remember whose work you're reviewing
AFC allows unregistered or new users to create an article that's likely to stick on Wikipedia, without fear of having their incremental work speedily deleted by an overzealous Huggle user. (I say this because my Huggle trigger finger is sometimes a little itchy!) The drafts you'll be reviewing are probably not written by expert editors, but rather by relative newbies. Don't bite them, no matter how badly they may seem to misunderstand notability or the intricacies of inline citations. It may seem like aeons ago, but we were newbies once too. I know I made plenty of embarrassing mistakes when I started editing, and if someone had excoriated me for my mistakes, there's a good chance I wouldn't be here today. Assuming good faith isn't just Wikipedia policy; it's also the courteous thing to do. So, although AFC reviewing can often require large reserves of patience, keep in mind that the author of the draft you're reviewing would probably gladly accept some friendly help in navigating the web of Wikipedia policies and guidelines.

The missing manual

 * 1) Hang out at Articles for Deletion.

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Finding and reviewing an article
Now you're ready to review your first article! You can find a category listing all of the pending AfC submissions at CAT:PEND. On this page, you'll see a "Find a random AFC submission" option, but I recommend instead navigating to the end of the category list so that you see newest submissions. The reason for this is simple: the older the submissions, the higher the probability that its review has been put off, meaning it's likely more difficult to assess. You'll find more easy-to-review submissions within the newer drafts. Once you become more confident with the process, you can take a stab at the older submissions.

Moving articles to the Draft space
Many users create draft articles in their personal sandboxes before submitting them for review. If you encounter such an article, and you judge that it won't be subject to CSD, then you can move it to the draft space. Moving a draft can be done in two ways: via the traditional "Move" option under "More" (just above the editing window), or by navigating to the yellow "Review waiting" box. The bottom of that box will contain a link allowing you to either change the article name to a suggested title, or to select a new title.

When choosing an article title, take care to comply with Wikipedia's article naming conventions, found at WP:TITLE. Properly renaming a draft will set a good precedent for new users who visit it, and it will save time should the article be accepted!

What sort of response should you give?
Keep in mind that the draft's creator will most likely read the result of your review and the accompanying comment, should one be necessary. Clear, helpful answers are a must. I try to avoid declining an article without giving a cogent explanation, supported by links to Wikipedia policy where referenced. Substantive comments are preferable whenever possible. Imagine if, when faced with a legal problem, your lawyer said, "Just read the Criminal Code; your answer's in there somewhere"! Not very helpful. Likewise, merely writing "WP:BIO notability issue" isn't a particularly enlightening suggestion. What's more, a newcomer will probably end up asking for help understanding that comment, meaning you'll have to explain yourself anyway, and the entire situation will likely be a frustrating one for the new user.

Along the same lines, it's best to avoid bombarding users with Wikipedia policy links. Wikipedia policy discussions are often littered with acronyms and initialisms that we've grown familiar with, but with which a new user has no familiarity. If you need to reference a Wikipedia policy, writing This draft will require more reliable, independent source in order to comply with Wikipedia's general notability guideline is preferable to This draft will require more WP:RS, WP:IS sources in order to comply with WP:GNG.

If you have a keyboard shortcut application on your computer, you can set up key bindings to display preformed messages. I use about ten or fifteen myself for the most common cases—blank articles, test edits, minor copyright issues, non-neutral language, and general non-notability.

Under review
Once you're ready to review an article, it's best to place it under review so that another reviewer doesn't spend his or her valuable time duplicating your efforts.

The quick-fail criteria
Now that you've read the article, it's time to determine whether the submission suffers from a few common preliminary defects that render it unsuitable for acceptance.

Declining for copyright issues
Wikipedia is well-known as the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, a designation that reflects the relative freedom its editors hold. However, Wikipedia users are still constrained by certain legal rules, including copyright law. Since this is a legal issue, it must be taken very seriously. An article containing a copyright infringement cannot be accepted, no matter how well-written, notable, verifiable or interesting the content may be. As such, copyright issues are the first thing I check when I review a draft.

Watch out for both direct copying and close paraphrasing; the latter occurs when a few words have been changed, but the substance of the sentence is the same. How to identify copyright infringement? Search engines are your friend; you can try choosing sentences or phrases at random and searching them within quotation marks. However, I prefer the more robust Copyvio Detector coded by Wikipedia's own Earwig. Search the draft's title (including the Draft: prefix) and wait for the results to populate, which can take a minute or two. Then you can compare the text of the draft with potential copyright matches.

Not everything the Copyvio Detector detects is actually a copyright violation, so the confidence percentage is useful but not determinative. The Copyvio Detector may return a high probability of a violation when in fact the only "copying" that has occurred is a perfectly legitimate use of a proper noun or a long, reoccuring organizational name.

If the copying is so substantial that the article would have to be completely rewritten to avoid it, I apply the WP:G11 CSD rationale to the draft. If the copying is not so substantial as to warrant a G11, I remove the copied content from the draft, leaving an edit summary specifying the website from which content was copied. I sometimes rephrase the content instead of just blanking it, as it can be confusing for an editor to open their draft one day and see swaths of content missing. (This is especially the case after the edit history has been revision-deleted.)

It's helpful to leave a comment on the talk page with the template so that future viewers know exactly what's been copied. A revision deletion request can then be made on the draft page itself. Finally, I leave a note on the user's talk page to inform them of the copyright issue. The template is a good one for this purpose.

When an article looks like a test
Blank articles or drafts that lack sufficient context to merit acceptance are to be expected at AfC. I've found it helpful to leave the submitter a comment explaining that they are welcome to experiment in their sandbox, but that they do not need to submit a sandbox for review if they are just playing with Wikipedia's syntax and features. If a user has submitted a sandbox that looks like a user page, I try to let the user know that they can write a bit about themselves on their user page, linking them to the appropriate page.

Before you start
Search the mainspace for the title of the draft; if an article already exists about the subject, you can decline the draft for this reason. If the title exists only as a redirect to another subject, use your judgment to determine whether the redirect could stand to have its own page, having regard to any consensus that might exist, whether it be in talk page discussions, Articles for Deletion decisions or the like. If the subject is one you're not familiar with, consider taking it to the relevant WikiProject. For instance, I regularly post at WikiProject Mathematics, where experts in the field are often happy to take a look at a draft.

Notability
Notability is one of Wikipedia's most important policies, and it is the one I refer to most frequently. Yet it is also incredibly confusing to newcomers. It is crucial to note that the dictionary and Wikipedia definitions of "notable" differ substantially. While the layperson may use "notable" to refer to important, famous, or noteworthy things, on Wikipedia the term refers instead to things that have been discussed by reliable, independent sources in significant detail. Many times, the two overlap, but they need not necessarily.

I think this policy is intuitive, since it functions as a content filter of general application. In their capacity as tertiary sources, encyclopedias must rely on some ultimate authority for the content found therein. If a subject has not been covered by reliable, independent sources, then that subject's entry in the encyclopedia would be full of unreliable content or original research, which would weaken the encyclopedia's credibility. Notability guarantees that Wikipedia's readers see verified, reliable, relevant content whenever they load an article.

The following table lists the main categories of subjects and the associated notability policies. Remember that subjects are notable, not articles.


 * In general, subjects must meet the WP:GNG general notability guideline: they must have received "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject". Significant coverage must be more than a passing mention; this means that authors cannot demonstrate notability through a mosaic of sources that each mention the subject only once or twice. Subjects that do not fall into any of the categories below should at least satisfy WP:GNG to be notable. Many of the notability standards below are essentially variations on WP:GNG.


 * People are notable if they satisfy any of the criteria at WP:BIO. This may be the WP:BASIC notability criterion or from one of the criteria for biographies, creative professionals, persons involved wih a crime or criminal investigation, entertainers, actors and politicians. However, living or deceased people known for only one event usually do not qualify for an article; a redirect from their name to the event may instead be appropriate.
 * Academics may be notable either through the general WP:BIO criteria or through WP:NACADEMICS.
 * Athletes may be notable through WP:BIO, WP:GNG or WP:ATH.
 * Musicians and bands may be notable through WP:MUSICBIO.
 * Composers and lyricists may be notable through WP:COMPOSER.
 * Astronomical objects may be notable through WP:NASTRO or through the general WP:N guidelines, although the latter is unlikely.
 * Books may be notable through WP:BK or through WP:GNG.
 * Events may be notable through WP:EVENT, or probably through WP:GNG if they have enduring historical significance.
 * Films may be notable through WP:NF.
 * Most geographic features are presumed, though not guaranteed, to be notable through WP:GNG. They cannot, however, inherit their notability from other notable subjects.
 * Geographic regions, areas and places, must satisfy the relevant WP:GEOLAND criteria.
 * Buildings and objects may be notable through WP:GEOFEAT.
 * Roadways may be notable through WP:GEOROAD.
 * Music may be notable through WP:NMUSIC.
 * Albums and recordings must meet the basic WP:N notability guidelines and those at WP:NALBUMS.
 * Songs may be notable through WP:NSONG.
 * Numbers may be notable through WP:NUMBER, although I imagine this is used only infrequently, since most "interesting" numbers are already the subject of an article.
 * Organizations and companies may be notable through WP:CORP. Sports teams, non-profits and the like fall under this category, although some may have alternate notability criteria at WP:NGO.
 * Web content may be notable through WP:NWEB.

Reliable sources
Articles must be both notable and verifiable if they are to be accepted. Even if the subject of an article is notable, it is entirely possible that the article's content is unsupported by reliable sources. For instance, a recording that has been certified gold is presumed to be notable, per WP:NALBUMS, but the sourcing of the article's actual content may be inadequate or unreliable. In such an instance, you should decline the article for improper sourcing.

Neutral point of view
Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view, which prohibits original research, synthesis, flowery language and anything else that makes the content biased, partial or promotional in nature.

The easiest way to identify point-of-view issues is to read a lot of well-written Wikipedia articles, so as to gain an innate, intuitive understanding of proper tone and syntax. I've found it helpful to look for the following red flags:
 * Subjective value judgments often creep into biographies. An example is "From 1996 to 2013, Person X made widgets at the Widget Factory with a spark of joy in her heart." The problem is that it is impossible to objectively verify whether someone has a "spark of joy". Such turns of phrase should only be used if they are supported by appropriate sources, and even so, they should probably be reworded to comply with the neutral tone policy.
 * Buzzwords are exceedingly common in articles about corporations. Usage of the word "solutions", as in "Company X offers a wide variety of vertical industry solutions", is a particular problem. Consult the List of buzzwords article if necessary, and advise authors to use simple words that clearly describe exactly what the company does.
 * Original research is common in articles about people or corporations. The claim "Company X is a world leader in waste management and sets the standard for quality management solutions" contains not only buzzwords ("world leader", "solutions") but also original research. According to whom is Company X a world leader? Instead, such sentences should be rephrased and quantified whenever possible.
 * Synthesis is tricky, because it's so easy to do accidentally and because many editors are accustomed to synthesizing sources in academic writing. A quick and dirty rule is we can only report on what reliable sources have actually said about a subject, not what we think they might be implying or presaging.
 * Informal or conversational tone goes hand in hand with the other tone issues. Good articles avoid sensationalist adjectives, gushing adverbs and bombastic turns of phrase. A "just-the-facts" approach to draft writing is often the best one to take.

Inline citations
Inline citations are required whenever a statement about a subject is made that has been or is likely to be challenged, or whenever there is a direct quotation from a source, per WP:MINREF. Biographies of living people require inline citations in an additional scenario: wherever contentious content (whether positive, negative, or merely neutral) is found. There is a smart policy rationale behind this rule: without appropriate inline citations, it's nigh impossible to track down which reference applies to which statement. Further, substantive claims without inline citations come across as original research.

Accepting articles
If you've gone through these steps and haven't found any legitimate reason to decline the draft, then it's time to accept the article! The reviewing instructions make clear that AfC articles should be accepted if they are "likely to survive an AfD nomination". Common practice is to accept a draft with >50% chance of surviving an AfD nomination. (It may be helpful to hang around AfD for a few days to get an idea of how consensus typically works there.) Keep in mind that there is no requirement that a draft be absolutely perfect.

One wrinkle may occur: you cannot accept an article if its title is the same as an existing article. For example, if you wish to accept the draft "Draft:Twinkletoes", but there is already a redirect in the mainspace from "Twinkletoes" to "Twinkle Corporations", then the MediaWiki software will not allow you to move the draft. This requires administrator assistance to remove the redirect. In such a case, you can G6 the redirect. While you wait, mark the draft as under review, leaving a comment so that the author and other reviewers understand what's going on.

Finally, don't forget to add categories and WikiProjects to the newly accepted article, and assess it according to the WikiProject's standards. -->

Conclusions
Seems like a lot of rules and reading, but you'll get the hang of it in due time. Consult Wikipedia policy at every step, start with the easy ones, pay attention to the comments of other reviewers, and ask questions on their talk pages or at the Reviewer help page if you get stuck. Once you feel comfortable with AfC reviewing, if you enjoy helping new editors, there are perennial questions at the AfC Help Desk that need answering. With your reviewing knowledge and skills, you can make Wikipedia a better place for everyone!