Wikipedia:Peer review/Review closure policy

This page details circumstances in which reviews may be closed.

Limits
Peer review (PR) resources are limited and, in order to try and provide all peer review requests with a response, some limits have to be placed on requests as well. Requests exceeding these limits can be removed. Requests that are removed can be relisted when they no longer exceed these limits.


 * 1) Editors are limited to one open peer review request at a time.
 * Since PR is supposed to be an interactive process, having more than one open PR requests seems counterproductive. A PR request can always be archived if someone wanted to open another. If an editor is fully engaged in their PR request (responding to feedback promptly, making changes to the article based on suggestions, etc.) they may open another PR request.
 * 1) Articles with major cleanup banners in place cannot be submitted for peer review.
 * Since the goal of peer review is to improve articles that have already received dedicated attention, major issues should be resolved before PR. This is similar to the "quick fail" criterion used in Good article reviews: Presence of any correctly applied cleanup banners, including, but not limited to, cleanup, POV, unreferenced or large numbers of citation needed, clarify or similar inline tags.
 * 1) An article that has had a peer review cannot be listed on WP:PR again until at least two weeks after the archive of its previous review. Articles that have gone through an unsuccessful review at FAC should address issues raised there before opening a PR.
 * The basic idea is that editors should look carefully at feedback from any review process, and make the needed changes before asking for a peer review. Examples: On the 1st day of the month, article A has a Peer Review which is archived, and article B closes an unsuccessful FAC. Article A cannot be the subject of a new peer review request until the 15th day of the month (14 days later). Neither article should open a peer review until the old comments have been addressed (note that articles are sometimes sent from FAC directly to peer review).

Note: These limits are based on this discussion and this discussion.

Closing reviews
Every editor is invited to close inactive discussions. Please only do so with the following kinds of requests:


 * 1) Requests that aren't appropriate for peer review, for instance requests for help in containing vandalism, requests to review versions not in article space, resolving an edit war, or detecting a copyvio. These should be removed promptly in the interest of the requester, since he/she is unlikely to get adequate response to them at Peer Review. Please drop a note on the requester's talk page to inform them of the removal and the reasons for it, and try to recommend a better page to list the request, for instance for vandalism Vandalism in progress, for editing disagreements Requests for comment, and for suspected copyvio Copyright problems.
 * 2) Requests that have received one or more responses and have not shown any activity for a period of 14 days (two weeks)(requests with no responses may be kept longer).
 * 3) Requests older than a month, unless they remain very active (with activity in the last two days).
 * 4) Articles that have gone on to be listed as good article nominees, featured article candidates or featured list candidates. (If you feel that an article you posted needs more comments and suggestions from peer review, it's probably too soon to list it on FAC.)
 * 5) Articles which have been nominated for deletion, or have been deleted, through a deletion debate or otherwise. (In case an article has been undeleted, the request may reopen at any time.)
 * 6) Nominators of peer reviews can close discussions which they initiated (but please see also item 4 above).

Direct nominations for GA/FA
Sometimes an editor wants to know if an article is suitable to be nominated to be a good article or featured article. If this is the case, and a reviewer who is familiar with the good article review criteria or featured article criteria thinks that an article stands a reasonable chance of passing, then they may close your review and suggest a direct nomination. This can save months of waiting, and also the time and resources of the limited number of active peer reviewers.

When an article that is suitable as a direct nomination, the review should be closed. To do this, close the review the normal way and copy to the review page:. This will show on the page:

Reviewers -- please be careful that the review is not asking for feedback to improve the article in general; and that you genuinely believe an article to have a reasonable chance of meeting the above criteria