Wikipedia article creation, done properly the first time

What does the article creation service involve?

It covers everything from the first look at your coverage to the point where a reviewer accepts or declines the draft. In practice that means a source assessment, a written draft, the submission itself, and the follow-up work that reviews often generate.

• Source assessment. We collect and read the coverage that exists about you or your organisation and judge whether it is enough for an article.
• Drafting. We write the article in Wikipedia's neutral register, with every statement tied to a citation that supports it.
• Submission. We submit the draft through Articles for Creation.
• Reviewer feedback. If a reviewer leaves comments or declines the draft for a fixable reason, we revise and resubmit where the sources allow it.
• After publication. Once an article is live, later changes go through edit requests. That is our updates and editing service.

You see the draft before it is submitted and can correct facts. You cannot approve its tone or ask for material to be left out because it is unflattering, and we will say so if a request would break Wikipedia's neutrality policy.

Who is article creation for, and when is it the right step?

It is for people and organisations that have no Wikipedia article and have been written about in depth by independent publications. Founders, executives, companies, authors, charities and public figures all fall into that group when the coverage is there.

It is the wrong step in two situations. The first is when the coverage is not yet there: press releases, listings and brief mentions do not add up to an article, and no amount of drafting changes that. We will tell you so and explain what would change the picture. The second is when an earlier attempt has already been deleted, declined or create-protected. That is a repair job with its own route, described on our page repair service, because the reviewer will read the history before the new draft.

How do we assess the sources before drafting?

We go through the sources one at a time and ask three questions of each, taken from Wikipedia's notability guideline: is it independent of you, is it reliable, and does it cover you directly and in detail. A source that fails any one of them does not count towards the case for an article, although it may still be usable for a plain fact such as a date of founding.

The output is a written assessment listing the sources we would rely on and the ones we would not, with reasons. If the honest answer is that the coverage is too thin, the assessment says that, and we do not draft.

How does the draft reach Wikipedia?

Through Articles for Creation, the review queue where an experienced volunteer checks a draft before it is published. Autoconfirmed editors can usually create articles directly, but Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline says paid editors should put new articles through Articles for Creation instead.

1. The draft is written in the draft space.
2. We submit the draft for review. A reviewer accepts it, declines it with a reason, or rejects it as unsuitable.
3. If it is declined, we read the reason carefully and resubmit only when the problem has actually been fixed.

Where the title was previously deleted and protected against creation, only an administrator can allow the article to be published. The draft then goes to the protecting administrator or to Deletion Review, with the case for why things have changed.

Why does the first attempt at a new article matter most?

Because Wikipedia keeps a public record of every unsuccessful attempt, and the next reviewer reads it. A first draft that fails rarely leaves a clean slate.

Each declined submission adds a notice to the top of the draft, so a draft declined four times shows four reasons to its fifth reviewer. A draft judged to be exclusively promotional can be deleted under speedy deletion criterion G11, and that criterion applies to drafts as well as articles. An article that reaches the main encyclopedia and is then deleted after an Articles for Deletion discussion leaves an archived debate, and a later copy that is substantially similar can be removed without a new discussion under criterion G4. Titles that are recreated repeatedly can be protected so that only an administrator can create them.

Accounts are part of the record too. Undisclosed editing for a client, or a second account used to support the first, can lead to blocks and a public sockpuppet investigation linked from the accounts concerned. Our guide to what a failed Wikipedia attempt leaves behind sets out each of these in detail.

A carefully sourced first submission avoids all of that. If the sources are not ready, waiting costs nothing. Submitting too early can cost a great deal.

What will we not do?

• Promise that an article will be accepted, or that it will survive afterwards. Reviewers and the wider community decide.
• Bypass Articles for Creation by publishing directly into the encyclopedia.
• Add claims that no reliable source supports, or cite sources that do not say what the article says.
• Write promotional copy, or leave out well-sourced material because it is unwelcome.
• Review our own drafts, or approve anyone else's work on your article.
• Generate article text with an AI chatbot. English Wikipedia's guideline on writing articles with large language models prohibits using them to generate or rewrite article content, with narrow exceptions for translation and basic copyediting. Our drafts are researched and written by editors.

What outcome can you expect, and how long does it take?

If the sources are strong and the draft is sound, the realistic outcome is acceptance, but the timing is not in anyone's control. Articles for Creation states that there is no fixed waiting time: some drafts are reviewed quickly and others wait considerably longer, and they are not necessarily reviewed in the order submitted.

Three outcomes are possible. An accepted draft is moved into the encyclopedia as an article. A declined draft has problems the reviewer considers fixable, and can be improved and resubmitted. A rejected draft is one the reviewer considers fundamentally unsuitable, and should only come back if significant new evidence appears.

Acceptance is not permanent protection. Any editor can later tag an accepted article or nominate it for deletion, and the article then has to stand on its sources like any other. Criterion G13 also allows deletion of a draft no human has edited in six months, so we do not leave a declined draft sitting idle.

When is it reasonable to write the draft yourself?

If you are an experienced Wikipedia editor, know the notability guideline well and are willing to disclose your connection, you can submit a draft through Articles for Creation yourself, and the process is open to you on the same terms as anyone.

Most people who try it for the first time are not in that position, and the errors are predictable. The draft leans on press releases and the subject's own website because those are what the subject has to hand. It describes the subject in the language of its own marketing. It is submitted before the coverage is strong enough, then resubmitted with small changes after each decline. Each step is recorded, and the stack of declines becomes the first thing the next reviewer sees.

The value of an experienced editor is mostly in the judgement before submission: knowing which sources a reviewer will discount, and being prepared to say that the draft should wait.

How do you start?

Send us the coverage you know about, or just your name or your organisation's name, through the contact form. We answer every enquiry within one working day. If there has been an earlier attempt at an article, ask for a free page health check first, which usually takes up to two working days and tells you what the record shows. Our standards page explains how we work on Wikipedia.