My Wikipedia draft was declined: what to do next

How does the Articles for Creation review queue work?

A submitted draft joins a pool of drafts awaiting review by experienced volunteers, who pick them up in no fixed order. The Articles for Creation page says drafts are not necessarily reviewed in the order they were submitted, and that there is no fixed waiting time: some are reviewed quickly and others wait considerably longer. The notice placed on a submitted draft gives an estimated wait, and that estimate has varied a good deal over time.

A reviewer then does one of three things:

• Accepts the draft, which moves it into the encyclopedia as an article.
• Declines it, which means there is a problem that could reasonably be fixed.
• Rejects it, which means the subject or content is fundamentally unsuitable.

The reviewing instructions set the standard for acceptance: a draft that will probably survive a discussion at Articles for Deletion should be accepted. That is the test reviewers apply, not whether the draft is perfect.

Accounts that are autoconfirmed can usually create articles directly without going through review. Wikipedia's own advice is that people new to creating articles are generally better off leaving the draft for review, and the conflict of interest guideline says connected editors should put new articles through Articles for Creation instead of creating them directly.

How do you read a decline notice?

The notice at the top of the draft states that the submission was declined and gives the reason in a short standard paragraph, often followed by a comment written by the reviewer. Reviewers can choose up to two standard reasons, and the reviewing instructions ask them to add a short comment saying what the author specifically needs to address, linking the relevant policy where possible.

Read three things on it:

1. The standard reason or reasons. These name the category of problem, such as sourcing or tone.
2. The reviewer's comment. This is often the most useful part. It may name the sources the reviewer discounted, or the passages that read as promotional.
3. Earlier notices below it. Each submission and decline is kept, so the stack shows how often the draft has been reviewed and whether the reasons have changed.

The notice itself warns that if the issues listed have not been resolved, the draft will be declined again and potentially deleted. The reviewer's name is in the draft's page history.

What do the common decline reasons mean?

Each standard reason points to a specific policy or guideline. These are the ones companies and individuals meet most often, with the short codes reviewers use:

A copyright violation or a serious problem under the biographies of living persons policy is handled more severely: the reviewing instructions list both among the problems that call for immediate action, not a routine decline.

What is the difference between a declined and a rejected draft?

A declined draft can be fixed and resubmitted. A rejected draft will not be considered further. The reviewing instructions say a decline is for a substantive problem that could reasonably be fixed, and rejection only for a subject or content that is fundamentally unsuitable for Wikipedia.

The standard rejection reasons are narrow: the subject is not notable, the content is contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia, the draft is a joke or hoax, or it is an attack page about a living person.

Rejection is not permanent in every case. The instructions note that it does not prevent an article being created in future if new sources appear, and that an author with significant new evidence should first ask the rejecting reviewer to reconsider. Without new evidence, there is nothing to reconsider.

How should you resubmit a declined draft?

Fix every problem named, then use the resubmit button on the notice. The Articles for Creation page says to read the reviewer's feedback carefully, deal with the listed issues, and leave earlier review notices and comments in place. Removing old decline notices would not hide anything in any case, because every version stays in the page history.

A sound resubmission usually involves:

• removing sources that are not independent of the subject, such as its own website, press releases and paid placements, from any role in showing significance;
• adding the strongest independent coverage available, and making sure each important statement cites it;
• cutting any sentence that describes rather than reports, such as "leading", "innovative" or "award-winning";
• a short note on the draft's talk page or in the submission explaining what changed since the last review, for a draft that has been declined more than once.

Resubmitting quickly with cosmetic changes is the most common mistake. Reviewers on the help desk regularly point out that the process is not a matter of asking until a favourable reviewer appears. A second decline for the same reason makes the third review harder, not easier.

What happens to a draft that is left alone?

It can be deleted after six months. Speedy deletion criterion G13 applies to any page in the draft space, and to any user page containing an Articles for Creation submission template, that has not been edited by a human in six months. Edits by bots do not count, so a draft can be deleted even if automated maintenance has touched it.

The Articles for Creation page describes this as housekeeping, not a judgement on the subject. G13 deletions can be restored on request through the abandoned pages route at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion, and such requests are routinely granted. Administrators restoring them remind authors that drafts are not for the indefinite hosting of unsuitable material.

A deleted draft still leaves a deletion log entry, and a restored draft still carries its decline stack.

Can you ask the reviewer or the help desk about a decline?

Yes. The reviewer is named in the draft's history and can be asked on their user talk page to clarify a comment. Keep the message short, ask a specific question and do not argue the decline.

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk is the main forum for questions about declines, sourcing, resubmission and the process. Answers are posted publicly on the page, and its instructions advise against posting contact details. General editing questions go to the Wikipedia:Teahouse.

Reviewers at the help desk regularly point out that asking does not speed up a review, so use it for questions, not for chasing. A connected author should disclose the connection when posting, as anywhere on Wikipedia.

When should you stop and rethink a draft?

When the decline reasons keep pointing at the sources rather than the writing. Prose can be fixed in an afternoon. Missing independent coverage cannot be fixed by editing the draft at all, only by waiting until it exists.

Signs that it is time to stop resubmitting:

• two or more declines for sourcing or notability, with no new independent coverage between them;
• a rejection;
• reviewer comments that discount most of the sources as press releases, interviews or paid placements;
• an existing article, a past deletion or a create-protected title under the same name.

Stopping is not giving up. A draft parked until there is better coverage, and then rebuilt on it, is reviewed on its merits. A draft resubmitted every few weeks on the same sources builds a record that the next reviewer reads first. Our guide to what a failed attempt leaves behind explains how that record works.

Is it worth getting help after a decline?

After one decline for tone, perhaps not. If the sources are strong and the reviewer's comment is specific, a careful neutral rewrite may be all that is needed.

After several declines, or a decline for sourcing, an outside read is more useful, because the decision that matters is whether to resubmit at all. A specialist can tell you which sources a reviewer will count, which they will set aside, and whether the coverage exists yet. That judgement is what keeps a decline stack from growing.

We do not promise acceptance. A page health check reads your draft and its reviews and tells you whether to fix, wait or stop. Where a draft is ready to go forward, our article creation service takes it through review.