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AfC unreviewed draft statistics as of July 20, 2026

Request to expedite a review of an article

My student completed Draft:Borderland Humanities Research Laboratory of Nankai University few weeks ago, but still hasn't received a review. The course will end in less than two weeks, after which I doubt the student will be around to fix any issues.

Since I know we are dealing with a flood of AI slop, this is just a translation of 南开大学边疆人文研究室 - 维基百科，自由的百科全书. It seems fine to me, but a second opinion wouldn't hurt, since the student chose to use AfC (it's optional, after all).

In my recent feedback to her I told her to use Template:Interlanguage link to add some more links just like in the original, but I think this is alrady beyond what we require from new articles. _{Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here} 08:32, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately we cannot accommodate third party deadlines. The review process is conducted entirely by volunteers, who all do what they can, when they can. Everyone wants their draft reviewed quickly, and everyone has a compelling reason to "jump the line" and be first, but we can't do that for literally thousands of drafts awaiting review. It, frankly, is a poor assignment to require the creation of a Wikipedia article by a student as most of the process is outside the control of the editor(such as getting reviews). I would suggest reviewing the Wikipedia Education Program materials.

If you have no conflict of interest with the subject of the editing, you are certainly free to move the draft into the encyclopedia yourself if you feel it meets requirements. 331dot (talk) 08:50, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. Having students improve already-existing articles is a much better way of assessing their abilities than having them write something from scratch; it's the entire reason I'm here. Primefac (talk) 09:33, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Ryan Bartley

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This time I found a little more reliable source showing she is recongizable.

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/cosmic-princess-kaguya-netflix-anime-streaming-debut-trailer-1236624308/

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=137736

https://www.anime-expo.org/talent/ryan-bartley-3/

https://toonamifaithful.com/toonami-faithful-interviews-ryan-bartley-at-anime-expo-2019/

The subject clearly meets the criteria outlined in WP:PERSON and WP:ENT. She has received significant secondary coverage in high-quality, reliable, independent sources with Variety is the strongest evidence. ~2026-18378-31 (talk) 06:42, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-18378-31: this page is for discussing administrative etc. aspects of the project. If you have questions about a particular draft, please go to the help desk WP:AFCHD. Thank you, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 06:52, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

AFCH helper script duplicating declines?

On Draft:3rd Street Garage Radio Show and another draft, the AFCH helper script declined the draft twice, notified the user twice (on the second draft it caught itself and only notified the user once), and logged it on my AfC log twice. I reverted it, but why is it doing this? Has anyone else experienced this, and is there a way to fix it? Thanks. ^{In solidarity,} 🏳️‍🌈JohnLaurens333 ^{(They/them • Talk • Contribs)} 07:01, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

It's odd that it happened twice, but unless someone else has noticed this happening it might just fall under the category of "weird thing my browser did that one time", because I can't think of any systemic reason for this to be happening. If it matters for debugging the other page was Draft:Promega Integrated Services.

Out of curiosity, in the "work window" (where it updates the steps as it goes) did it tell you that it had edited everything twice? Primefac (talk) 09:34, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

@Primefac It did; it just said every step twice. For example:

"Logging decline at User:JohnLaurens333/AfC log..."

"Logging decline at User:JohnLaurens333/AfC log..."

With the second one, when it tried to notify the user the second time, it caught itself and said something like "Edit already done".

Hopefully it was just a weird glitch; I reviewed a draft between those two and it was fine, so I'll review some more drafts later and see if it works. Thanks! ^{In solidarity,} 🏳️‍🌈JohnLaurens333 ^{(They/them • Talk • Contribs)} 18:34, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

It did a similar thing to me with Draft:TorahApp, in this order:

1. notify user (1)
2. Decline
3. notify user (2)

I noticed the double-notification in the script's log and reverted it. Since it seemed like a one-off, I didn't mention it. Sorry about that.

To the best of my knowledge, I did nothing differently with this review than any others. My process is to skip to references, check those out; in this case they didn't show notability, so I selected the reason, copypasted my sources-no-good message and hit decline.

@JohnLaurens333, do you remember if you used the "nn - Submission is about a topic not yet shown to meet general notability guidelines (be more specific if possible)" rationale on either of those drafts? I think this might be the first time I've used it, so wondering if that's relevant. Meadowlark (talk) 11:20, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

The three declines were ns, corp, and nn, so I think it's unlikely due to a specific decline rationale (which would be weird but also very interesting). Primefac (talk) 14:15, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Well darn. It seemed worth mentioning. I wonder what it is. At least it's not script-breaking! Meadowlark (talk) 01:04, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers § SafariScribe's NPP/AfC reviews

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers § SafariScribe's NPP/AfC reviews. InfernoHues (talk) 01:45, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Now that SafariScribe has responded at ANI (TL;DNR = they admit to knowingly accepting subpar Nigeria-related drafts, although deny any related UPE), I guess here at AfC we need to decide whether we still have confidence in Safari's ability to review drafts. I think they were granted the AfC right explicitly a couple of years ago, rather than getting it via NPP, so although the NPP perm has been removed the AfC one is presumably still there. Practically this has no immediate impact either way, since they've been blocked from article and draft spaces, but that could change at some point. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:19, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

They are not on the WP:AFCP list; if they can get their namespace bans overturned I would view that as an acceptable bar to clear should they wish to re-apply for either this project or NPR in the future. Primefac (talk) 07:21, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

I assumed they weren't on the AFCP list because as an NPP'er they don't need to be. I found this among the old requests, and assumed they were given AfC in its own right, but perhaps I got that wrong. Either that, or it was subsequently removed when they got NPP a couple of months later. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:30, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Gotcha. For the record, they got NPR 8 days after getting granted AFCH access (while it was temporary, they were granted permanent status shortly after it expired). I wasn't always super-quick to remove NPR from the list back in 2024 so it's very possible they were on both lists for a good while. There was one time an admin (DGG) needed to get added to the list specifically because for some reason the system wouldn't recognise his +sysop but as far as I know he's the only one that was ever intentionally added as a duplicate. Primefac (talk) 08:03, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Error message when opening pages User:*

If I open a page in User space (not at Talk page) I get:

• AFCH error: user not listed AFCH could not be loaded because "Johnjbarton" is not listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants. You can request access to the AfC helper script there. If you wish to disable the helper script, click here. If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch!

I rather this did not happen. Johnjbarton (talk) 20:27, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Johnjbarton, the message is produced by having the AfC helper script enabled in your preferences, and as the message says you can disable it in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets (search for afc). KylieTastic (talk) 20:32, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Sure but then I would not have access to the helper script I assume. Johnjbarton (talk) 20:37, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

The helper script is for reviewers that are either listed as participants at WP:AFC/P or hold certain permissions such as administrators and new page reviewers. So if you want to use the helper script you should either apply per WP:AFC/P or join Wikipedia:New pages patrol. KylieTastic (talk) 20:44, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

You appear to be easily above the bar for being granted WP:AFC/P so that would be the easiest route and you can then help as little or as much as you like. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 20:48, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

John's been a reviewer in the past, so yes, a quick pop over to WT:AFCP and we'll get things sorted. Primefac (talk) 20:49, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, I guess I did not read the fine print:

• Participants who have not carried out any reviews in more than 6 months,... are considered inactive and may be moved to the inactive reviewers list.

I thought the columns marked expertise in the table was an offer to help with those topics. No one asked for help, so I'll take that as a sign. I'll remove the script and my row on the table. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:44, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

New field for AI use disclosure at AfC Submit Wizard?

I've been thinking of how the AfC Submit Wizard could use additional field(s) to help submitters disclose their AI usage.

It would only help honest people be honest, but I think it would improve our understanding of how (new) editors use AI and help reviewer feedback be more specific than what we have currently.

I've drafted potential questions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Submission wizard/AI use disclosure. I'm interested to see if this is a viable idea. Ca ^{talk to me!} 10:27, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! I think this is worth a try. Newystats (talk) 12:11, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

I really like this idea! I suggest limiting to a single key question though, whatever the reviewer needs the most - in this case, just the first question. In general, fewer questions increases the chances that people will fill something out. Dreamyshade (talk) 23:12, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree with knocking a question off or two. However, I don't think keeping only the first is a good idea. From my experience, most editors, when asked about their AI use, claim they used only used AI for copyediting or formatting when its clearly untrue. The latter two question are more evidence-based, rather than self-report-based. Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:48, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I've reduced the number of question to just one. 👍 Ca ^{talk to me!} 10:54, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

mmm, the results would probably be useful, but it might give people the wrong impression that LLM use is allowed, and I'm not really comfortable w using newbies as guinea pigs like that. Idk if there's a way to address that? Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 20:53, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

The WP:Article Wizard already informs participants that LLM generation is disallowed, so I'm not too worried about giving the wrong impression. Technically, AI use for "basic copyedits and translation" is currently allowed, so I tried to orient the example answers to follow that limitation.

I agree we shouldn't conduct systematic research with the disclosures without them being informed about it, but that wouldn't be its primary goal. I think its main use case would help reviewers distinguish between cases where drafts were wholly AI-generated and cases where it was just simply rewritten with AI. Both are disallowed by policy, but one is salvageable and one is not, helping reviewers provide more specific feedback.

I'd also add that frequent exposure to known AI-generated text has been shown to improve AI-detection abilities. Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:44, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

that sounds good then! Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 21:46, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Notifying expired TAs

I just declined Draft:The Kinetic Group (TKG), which had been sitting in the pool for over 3 months. It was most recently submitted by a TA, who hasn't edited since, and whose account recently expired. The notification went to their talk page, but I guess they'll never find out, since their account is no longer active, and if they come back and continue editing they'll get assigned a new TA. (The same could also arise even with TAs that aren't yet expired, but expire before the user next comes back.) I don't think this is a major problem, and in any case I'm not sure what we can do about it, just thought I'd mention. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 09:07, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, not really sure there's much for us to do, it is the same as someone with a dynamic IP submitting in the old days, if their draft was declined but they were on a new IP, they'd need to still visit the old talk to deal with it. Primefac (talk) 10:20, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Rejecting drafts based on sourcing

If you are going to rejectdecline a draft for lack of SIGCOV or other problems with sourcing, then try to explain what is wrong, or mention which sources are problematic. I came across this draft Draft:Tunji Olowolafe. It has been reviewed (and rejecteddeclined) twice. It has been submitted again. If editors are just gonna rejectdecline it without a proper explanation, then it will keep getting submitted over and over again, clogging up the AfC queue (which is at over 4000 as of this writing).

@Gheus rejectdeclined it with an explanation of "See WP:NEWSORGNIGERIA." That is a misuse of the guideline. NEWSORGNIGERIA doesn't say that no sources from Nigeria can be used, it says many Nigerian news media outlets and Nigerian newspaper coverage should be considered with caution when assessing notability, particularly for biographies. I don't see any "consideration with caution", I see a blanket rejectiondecline of the draft just because the sources are Nigerian.

@ArthurTheGardener just rejecteddeclined the draft without explanation. Presumably because the sources are Nigerian.

If you can't be bothered to go through the sources, then just skip the draft and go to the next one. At least take a look at few of the sources. If a source is WP:PROMO you can remove it from the Draft. Drafts aren't owned by the creators, but they "belong" to everyone and anyone can edit them.

Is AfC really a place where we simply accept/reject/decline articles? Why not edit it a bit and see if you can get it to a state that it can be published. Again, there are over 4000 Drafts in the AfC queue. Last time I was active at AfC (months ago), the queue was always around 2000 Drafts. If editors just keep rejectingdeclining the drafts with poor reasoning, not improving the draft, the queue will just grow.

Regarding the draft I mentioned, Draft:Tunji Olowolafe. Yes, some sources are WP:PROMO, but I also see some decent ones, like Vanguard (Nigeria), The Punch, and The Guardian (Nigeria). The subject of the article has been appointed Chancellor of Ekiti State University, as confirmed by the universities website. After spending 10 minutes researching (clicking links), this person seems notable. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 12:03, 3 July 2026 (UTC) edited 12:47, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Correction: the draft was declined twice, not rejected. Kovcszaln6 (talk) 12:21, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed. I'm going to leave the section title as-is so I don't mess up the links. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 12:48, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

(FYI, {{Anchor}} can solve the section title-link issue.) —ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email) 03:13, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the subject line matters much. The point is communicated well enough in the text of the original post with corrections. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 03:19, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, in an ideal world, the reviewer would decline, and add a meaningful explanatory comment to the canned decline template, or go to the author's talk page to do the same. The author would then carefully read and consider the explanation, study the P&G the template links to, and gain a good understanding of the issues involved, enabling them to improve the draft in all relevant aspects before resubmitting.

It has also been known to happen (!) that the author doesn't even look at the decline template and comments, just does their own thing, and resubmits. Or just resubmits. Or doesn't even realise there are comments and decline reasons provided, and comes to the help desk, or the Teahouse, or goes to the reviewer's talk page, or someone else's talk page, or some off-wiki channel, or asks AI, or any combination of the above.

(One could be forgiven for developing a degree of cynicism after a while.)

I for one often – not nearly always, but probably more often than not – provide some comment in addition to declining, eg. if I pick the company/organisation notability template, I might add something like "Primary sources and routine business reporting do not establish notability per WP:NCORP." Or if I'm declining for insufficient reliable sources, I would probably point out which of the sources cited are non-RS, and why. At other times, such as with non-English or AI content, I would probably just use that template and not add anything. Don't ask me where my boundary between adding a comment vs. not lies; it's somewhat fuzzy and loose.

I don't know if, and to what extent, declining without commenting is responsible for our nearly 5K pending drafts. It could conceivably be the other way around: if every reviewer took extra time to write comments with each review, they would spend more time with the review and therefore get through fewer reviews in any given time. Either way, I'm not sure there's a clear causality there, but happy to have this pointed out. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:08, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

The reviewer could remove all the non-RS and PROMO sources, including the claims they are cited for. It wouldn't take long and it would be a huge help, both to the editor submitting the Draft and any subsequent reviewers. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 13:28, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Attempting to remove all the spam and promo from every AfC submission would be a full time job for a team of five. ScalarFactor (talk) 14:04, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

You don't have to remove all of it, just some of it. Two editors looked at the Draft linked above. If each of them removed 2-3 sources, the third reviewer (in this case me) would have a much easier time of removing a few others. Then perhaps the fourth reviewer could get the rest. This is a collaborative project and nobody expects one editor to do everything. But as it stands now, it looks like the Draft will just keep getting kicked down the road until one editor takes it upon themselves and fixes it all. Why not make it easier for that one last editor? TurboSuperA+_[talk] 14:16, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

I have a concern that is not necessarily based on the time the reviewer spends editing; the time the creator/authors spend editing. If theoretically (because they don't understand RS) every sentence is unsourced, and we blank the entire draft, but every sentence could be properly sourced, we've just forced the creator/author to re-write the entire draft instead of just plonking in some references. The aggregate is that no one's time is well-spent.

Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from, but I'm only going to remove chunks of a page if it will then result in the page being acceptable (e.g. there's an entire "personal life" section that's unsourced but the rest demonstrates notability). Primefac (talk) 14:28, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

That's a good point. I guess that's also something to keep in mind, what the claim is. If it is something not extraordinary, then a better source can be found (and it can be tagged that way). There's also the consideration that certain sources (like SPS) can be used for some claims, but do not add to notability.

There's also cases where the whole Draft is LLM-generated or there isn't any chance of notability, and those can be promptly declined/rejected. But in cases where there is a possibility that the subject is notable, I think we can agree that declining without providing any explanation or tips for the editor on how they can improve the Draft is not helpful. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 14:46, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, my personal philosophy is, unless the decline reason is very obvious, to always leave a comment. Since there are times where they genuinely aren't needed, though, we can't really mandate it. Primefac (talk) 14:56, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree that many reviews are less than ideal in failing to give more tailored comments etc., but after the first few years I came to feel that a large number of submitters just ignored/didn't read, any advice in review comments. I decided to save my time by not writing longer explanations on reviews and put the effort into detailed answers when interested submitters asked for help on my talk page. So although I started off thinking the same as you, I came to feel as though it was, unfortunately, often just a waste of time. However it does depend on if the chosen decline notice(s) gives enough of a pointer to the issues, and a short comment is often going to be helpful.

You say reviewers should improve any issues for others and called yourself the third reviewer but have not made any edits or comments. You said After spending 10 minutes researching (clicking links), this person seems notable but did not accept it or leave a comment pointing to which key sources you believe showed notability. You should follow your own advice if you expect others too. I also think you are assuming to much of the two reviewers intent. Gheus did not say "no sources from Nigeria can be used" as you interpreted, I would AGF and they meant that they thought some of the sources failed for that reason but just failed to be clear. Also I think presuming that ArthurTheGardener declined just because the sources are Nigerian is just pure assumption. KylieTastic (talk) 16:26, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

I didn't make any changes because I used the Draft as an example, so wanted editors to see it. Also, it takes me some time to go through a Draft. Most of the declined Drafts got deleted, but here are some to show the kind of comments I leave: Draft:Doobie_Duke_Sims, Draft:Otabek_Mahkamov_(politician), Draft:Priyam_Archi. If there is a mix of RS/non-RS, I'll do a detailed breakdown. And usually editors find that helpful; if you check some of the declined Drafts in my AfC log, you will see that they were accepted. A new editor submitting a Draft has a much better chance of getting it accepted if they know exactly what to fix.

I'm not saying we need to, or should, do that for every Draft, but the one linked in OP was salvageable, cause there are some RSes. I also checked the articles themselves and they seem real, i.e. not paid promotion.

I'm just saying that a long Reference list may seem daunting (it did to me), but if every reviewer does a little bit, like the squirrel, we might get an Article out of it and start clearing the queue. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 16:54, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if that's quite what you mean, but we've discussed before reviewers doing partial reviews where they can, eg. someone who can read Korean-language sources doing those, while another reviewer with a good grasp of WP:MEDRS could handle them, rather than a reviewer having to do 'all or nothing'. This seemed, and seems, a good idea to me.

I'm still not sure this is going to do much to reduce the backlog, though. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:35, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

The assumption that I declined the article because the sources were Nigerian is incorrect and uncalled-for. I rejected it on May 25th because although there were a lot of sources, I felt that several of them didn't contribute much. Since then, some better sources have been added, presumably in response to my assessment. Regarding comments: I've found that if editors need more information, they generally ask on my Talk page, and I'm happy to have a more detailed conversation there. ArthurTheGardener (talk) 17:36, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I offended you, that wasn't my intention. Gheus left a comment NEWSORGNIGERIA, and you didn't say anything, so I assumed it was for the same reason. I also didn't want to imply that there were any issues. Thanks for clearing it up. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 17:43, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

No offence taken, but thank you. I'm still a bit new to AfC, and I'm sure I make errors of judgement, but I do give my assessments a lot of thought. ArthurTheGardener (talk) 17:52, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

The top post at that university, as far as NACADEMIC is concerned, is Vice-chancellor.

I do occasionally take out a duff IMDB source, but in many cases it's not a quick task ChrysGalley (talk) 14:11, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

I'll always remove the blatantly bad ones like IMDb, spotify, etc. Primefac (talk) 14:28, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

That's good to know: I was wondering what the etiquette was. ArthurTheGardener (talk) 17:53, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Helper-script changing AFC templates to redirected names

When looking at a resubmitted draft that had previously been declined, I am especially want to see what has changed since the previous decline. That means I am likely to diff the revision at the time of the decline against the current version. This diff is needlessly complicated because some of the AFCH tools use redirected forms of the AFC templates (and even change canonical calls to those redirected ones) whereas other AFCH tools and also other genfixes actions change them to canonical. The more decline–resubmission cycles or gnoming, the more my eyes glaze over even before I get to the content that might have changed.

As a simplified demonstration of workflow/timeline (first I saw with the problem in the queue, no prejudice against the involved editors):

1. First submission places {{AfC submission}}
2. First decline, where {{AfC submission}} becomes {{AFC submission}} and a {{AFC comment}} is added.
3. Various edits, including resubmission. AWB gen-fixes has been run, where {{AFC submission}} and {{AFC comment}} become {{AfC submission}} and {{AfC comment}} respectively
4. I look at the diff since last decline

Lots of AFC material from prior to #3 appear as new or changed content because the case-change in the template calls.

Is there a reason that AFCH uses the all-caps version, and even changes mixed-case canonicals of them to all-caps? DMacks (talk) 08:08, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Tracked in github.com
Issue #469

I would presume the reason is no one noticed or at least no one had thought to file an issue before since the template was moved in 2020. I have raised one now. KylieTastic (talk) 10:00, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Correct; nothing was technically broken when the names were changed so the script never got updated. I'll see about fixing that (because I agree, those sort of edits are diff-killers). Primefac (talk) 10:40, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

When does probation end?

Hi there. I have been a reviewer on probation for 13 months. In this time I have been reviewing a bit on and off. I made one mistake by accepting Manuport Logistics which was then deleted, which I freely accept was my error. Whether I am officially on probation or not makes no difference to me but I am just curious when users are normally given permanent status. Thank you in advance. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 15:04, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

I go through the entire list every 6 months primarily to check for inactive reviewers, but I occasionally will do spot-checks for the probationary list. Nothing wrong with slow and steady, so I generally don't think about "promotion" until the review count starts getting up towards 100 (which averages out to about a review every other day over a six-month period). Primefac (talk) 15:17, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Okay, thank you for the reply. JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 15:24, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

StoryToys Wikipedia Article Page Creation Process Related Assistance

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Help! Can somebody on Wikipedia pretty please help me and also show me how to create StoryToys Article Page with proper information sources and also reliable coverage and reviews? Pretty please actually reply to me as soon as possible. Thank you! DisneyFanMF (talk) 18:51, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

DisneyFanMF, WP:YFA is really your best port-of-call, but if you want additional help with that specific draft please ask at WP:AFCHD, as this page is more for administration of the project itself. Primefac (talk) 19:00, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

This page is for discussion about the operation of the AFC process. You've already posted to the main AFC help desk. Please do not use multiple forums. 331dot (talk) 19:06, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Ah, my bad, didn't see they already posted at the HD. Primefac (talk) 19:17, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Princenile TA socks

Just letting the project know to be wary of NGC drafts, many that meet WP:NASTRO but are very short and only contain one or two sources are likely to be Princenile socks. Please tag for WP:G5 and/or report to the sockpuppet investigation. Pretty identifiable WP:DUCK behavior to watch out for. 🌀Hurricane Wind and Fire, why did you decline my draft? (talk) (contribs)🔥 04:15, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

A Question about a Hidden Notice

I have probably seen this many times and ignored it. In editing a draft, I see <!-– Important, do not remove anything above this line before article has been created. --> The infobox and the AFC stuff are above it. My first question is: Does "before article is created" mean before the draft is accepted? I can see that the AFC stuff should not be removed except by AFC acceptance (or by an editor who knows what they are doing and has a good reason for doing it). (Removing the AFC stuff to hide declined is a case of knowing what one is doing and having a wrong reason.) If that is what it means, should the infobox actually be below the hidden notice, because the infobox, like the text, is part of the draft and subject to review? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:40, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I know you're experiences are vastly larger than mine, but I've never seen an infobox above the ----- line break, but yes, if you use AFCH to clean the page it will put things in order of:

• AFC templates (and associated hidden notices)
• Shortdesc/maint tags (if any)
• Infobox
• Article content
• Refs

Whether this is done manually or with the script, the infobox isn't magically immune from review if it's in the wrong place </joke>. Primefac (talk) 09:20, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Just the other day I saw a draft where that hidden comment was the last line in the source. :) DoubleGrazing (talk) 09:59, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I have seen that comment moved all over the place. I guess we have a lot of blind editors :)

Yes Robert it means before the article is accepted, and yes all content including any infobox are meant to be below it. The reason it is there is just to try to stop submitters altering the various AfC templates they often do not understand. Mostly that is removing or editing old declines, but sometimes changes to other AfC templates or the adding weird stuff to the active submission breaking it. I have even seen the odd case of content/infobox above the ---- line as well. KylieTastic (talk) 10:40, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

So my next question is: Should I move the line break to be in its proper place if I am leaving the draft for another reviewer? My thinking is that I am not required to do that, but that doing that is a best practice. Does anyone agree or disagree? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:58, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I used to move things to the correct order when I noticed, but yes I would agree with your thinking: not required, but a good thing to do. KylieTastic (talk) 08:28, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

If things are bad enough I can't just make a fix in ten seconds, I'll use the AFCH cleaner function to tidy it all up. Primefac (talk) 17:00, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

August backlog drive

Hello all! In case you missed it, the AfC backlog hit a magical 5000 drafts yesterday. There has been discussion of organising a backlog drive in August on the discord (before the next NPP drive in September). I've said I'm happy to coordinate one along with @Tenshi Hinanawi, and have tentatively created WP:AFCAUG26, but before we set everything in stone, just want to run it past everyone here too. So, people keen? In solidarity, nil ^nz 21:55, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

I am seldom in favor of backlog drives because they are often poorly documented, so that I and other reviewers may not know what we are supposed to do when. In this case, I think that a backlog drive is in order. I also think that the criteria, including the scoring criteria, should be documented a week or so in advance of the start, so that any questions can be asked and answered, and so that the reviewers understand and agree on the criteria. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:03, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

We'll be following the format and criteria used in the last few drives, which can be found on the drive's page, but if there's anything unclear let us know. In solidarity, nil ^nz 00:15, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

WP:GAN do backlog drives every four months due to the fact that there are always more people nominating than reviewing GAs. Maybe I think AFC could organise it to happen two times a year or so. JuniperChill (talk) 00:23, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

I think this would be worth thinking about. NPP currently hold backlog drives every four months too, and if AfC were to do regular drives, my suggestion would be to also do it every four months, but in the intervening months, so every second month there'll be either a NPP drive or AfC drive (with a month's buffer in between). Only issue with scheduled drives is you then run the risk of clashing with some of the other big ones, which stretches the same editor pool between them (and/or burn them out). In solidarity, nil ^nz 01:31, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

I would double that and do eight months. The backlog seems to have been managed pretty well to keep it reasonable. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 16:19, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think 90-days bonus is feasible and we might want to reduce it down to 60-days. Currently, I do not think there are any articles that would qualify for that bonus and there might only be a couple when it starts in less than a month. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 00:24, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

At CAT:AFC/AGE, there's currently 369 that are 90-days, and 627 that are 60-days, so happy to look at how we score the bonuses. In solidarity, nil ^nz 00:38, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Oops, I did an off-by-one error. 90 days should be fine then. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 00:40, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

I haven't been on this talk page for several months (maybe a year, wow) - I did float the idea with Ingenuity of having, in essence, a backlog drive every month - that is, a no pressure way to reward consistent reviewing of articles, rather than having an up-down-up-down fluctuation punctuated by an elimination drive every x months. I think it gained some small traction at the time, but perhaps it is time to revisit it? It would certainly encourage me to do more AfC reviewing and hopefully others as well, without the pressure of doing x articles all in one month, then slacking off. Cheerio, Mattdaviesfsic. Talk to me. 18:35, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Found it: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Archive_53#RfC: Rewards for AfC participation - back when I was certainly less experienced than now...! (Although there is probably still something to the original idea.) Cheerio, Mattdaviesfsic. Talk to me. 19:08, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Merging and Merging

It seems that I didn't take part in the discussion of merging the Merge process with the Deletion process. I concur with the result, because I think that deletion and merging are related library processes, and that sometimes merging is an alternative to deletion and sometimes deletion is an alternative to merging. Having two separate decision and record-keeping processes to handle what was one encyclopedia-management process was unnecessary. That isn't the question.

However, my question has to do with merging in a different stage of the development process. I sometimes look at the category of AfC submissions with the same name as existing mainspace pages. Right now, there are 322 submissions (mostly drafts) in this category, which is grossly excessive, and is a reason why we need a backlog drive. But there are a variety of reasons why there are entries in this category. Many of them are human names, and the draft needs disambiguation. Many of them are redirects in article space to a parent article. This is what {{db-afc-move}} was created for, but of course the redirect should only be tagged for G6 after the reviewer has verified that the draft should be in article space, and, if accepting the article, the reviewer should also check what changes are needed to the parent article.

But sometimes the originator has created two copies,either the same or almost the same, in article space and in draft space. If they are the same, then the draft should be replaced by a redirect to the article. However, what I encountered had to do with Norman L. Paxton, a flying ace of World War Two. I saw that there were a draft and an article, by the same person, and the draft had more information than the article. I declined the draft as -exists- but said that the article should be expanded. I then added a tag to the article to merge from the draft. Another editor reverted my addition of the merge tag with an explanation that the proposed merge process is deprecated, and there are other ways to discuss a merge. I wasn't using the Merge tag to request a discussion of a marge. I was using it in a way that I previously used it, when it was still in Twinkle, to indicate editorially that it was my recommendation that merging be done boldly. Maybe I was using the Merge tag in a way that was never intended. Maybe I was using the Merge tag in what had been a secondary use that has been swept away.

So I think that I have two remaining questions. First, is there a way that I can mark pages that I think that there should be a merge done, such as of a draft that contains information that is similar to but not the same as what is in an article? I thought that the Merge tags could be used for that purpose as well as for merge discussions, but maybe I was mistaken. Second, in the specific case, may I swap the draft and the article, with explanations in the history via the Move dialog? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:11, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

The user in question has decided that the {{merge from}} template cannot be used any more, and thus reverts every use of it. I disagree but I also am tired of arguing with them in multiple places about their "improvements" to various pages and processes. Personally I would ask them what they expect us to do in these sorts of situations.

If there is only one content editor, then swapping an article with a better draft is a perfectly acceptable thing to do, but if they have different editors a merge will be needed. Primefac (talk) 17:07, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining that this is an editor on a hobbyhorse, User:Primefac. I will continue to use the {{merge from}} tag the next time that I think that a draft needs to be merged into an article, or that two drafts need to be merged, neither of which is done with the merge process. When I am reverted, I will discuss with that editor, and then maybe bring the discussion either here or to a Village Pump. I think that occasionally a draft should be tagged for merging via the editorial process, not by a formal process. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:29, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

For the record, my response was a little strong, this is not a single editor out on a crusade, merge discussions were folded into the AFD process but it's the fact this editor is zealously overseeing the process that has been bothering me. Basically I object to the idea that you can't put a banner up to let people (who might not visit the talk page) know that there are other pages that could be merged into a page, and have yet to get anything other than "you're not allowed to use this template any more". Primefac (talk) 08:43, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

AFCH used the ~enwiki version of a username

Tracked in github.com
Issue #408

I declined User:Awsalas/sandbox () and the AFCH script left the declination notice on the talk page User talk:Awsalas~enwiki (). I'll note the draft didn't use that version of the name in the template, from the submission: () {{AfC submission|||ts=20260709200058|u=Awsalas|ns=2}}

Anyone seen this before or know what might have cause this? Bobby Cohn 🍁 (talk) 20:24, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

This is https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/afc-helper/issues/408. GTrang (talk) 15:31, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Option to reject AI generated submissions

This is a hot take, but us reviewers should be able to reject AI-generated submissions.

7 out of 10 submissions I review are AI generated. I'm not over exaggerating. It has become so frustrating, and you see the same for the new pages feed. 95% of submissions I decline are AI generated. Note that I've just had my NPP rights renewed, but I'm not a very new reviewer

Now of course, we should always give the editor a chance to improve and cleanup the article, like we do now. I'm not against that. But it has become stupidly common for editors to use AI to "fix" the articles, or simply make a really poor effort. In fact, in my opinion, such articles usually require to be completely rewritten. They do not meet Wikipedia standards.

So why not have the option to straight up reject it after multiple attempts? I mean as if it's already not clear enough that AI is banned. Fortek67 (talk) 20:05, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

User:Fortek67 - Are you specifically asking for the use of artificial intelligence to be added to the list of Reject codes? It is already a reason to decline. If you are saying that it should be added to the list of Reject reasons, then I agree. A reviewer should be given the option of how much tolerance to allow for authors who use artificial intelligence. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:53, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I am aware of the decline option for AI, use it a lot. I'm just proposing the option to reject. Fortek67 (talk) 09:34, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree that it should be added as a reject reason. SomeoneDreaming (talk) 01:18, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

But you can already reject something after multiple attempts that are going nowhere. That's perfectly normal practice. If someone has made multiple obviously AI submissions, decline as usual, and write a comment recommending that the next attempt be rejected if it's again AI slop. Then the next reviewer can be your 2O (and will probably reject). You can also report people for repeated LLM use at ANI. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 01:21, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense, but under which AFCH reject reason? In many cases I have been the 2nd (or 4th…) opinion and it’s clearly not going anywhere but I didn’t think it clearly fit into the listed reasons and there’s no custom field. SomeoneDreaming (talk) 03:29, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

• Rightly or wrongly I do occasionally reject LLM submissions. The key test for me is "is there any way that this can be rewritten by a human and meet the notability requirements?" or is it a hopeless matter? Here is an example from yesterday Draft:The Long Game, which was given a chance from the previous reviewer to improve, the editor made some minor changes and actually added a new chatgpt generated image. So not notable (robot said so), no pathway to notability, and the editor not understanding the problem. There would be cases, in my view, where the clanker-crud is so bad that not only can it not be rescued, but the very basis of the draft is contrary to the purposes of the project (advertising for example). But certainly the frustration is shared. ChrysGalley (talk) 08:28, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

  ChrysGalley, yes, but sometimes those options don't apply. Some drafts generated by AI are so bad they should be just straight up rejected. Others can be less obvious, but they are still declined nonetheless.

  And actually, don't we already make it explicitly clear that AI is banned? Because reviewing AfCs nowadays is getting super frustrating. A lot of other reviewers can't even tell and accept it. Then months later it is (maybe) brought up to WP:AIN and the damage has to be cleaned up.

  @gurkubondinn, sorry to ping you, but what do you think of having an AI option for rejecting AfCs? Fortek67 (talk) 09:38, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

  No worries @Fortek67, I don't mind being pinged (you might be thinking of Gnomingstuff who doesn't like it, both our usernames are 12 characters long and start with a 'G'). I would really like an option to reject AI generated drafts. All of the rejection options are based on the topic of the draft. But I've started rejecting the most egregious ones with the 'topic is contrary to the purpose' reason anyway and a note along the lines of "AI-generated submissions are not accepted" (not that it stops them from being resubmitted). Having rejection option for NOLLM would be great. ‑‑gurkubondinn 09:46, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

  Thank you so much for your response, gurkubondinn. Considering now that at least a couple of people like the idea, and nobody isn't against it, maybe there's an actual place to officially propose this. Is the village pump good? I'm saying this now before this discussion gets to long. Idk. Or maybe we should wait some more time. Fortek67 (talk) 09:48, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

  The discussion has only been open for 24 hours, and it's our own project, we can sort it out here. Primefac (talk) 12:59, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I've nothing against declining for obvious AI use, and will also readily G15 speedy such drafts, but summarily rejecting at first sight seems a bit bitey to me. Yes, as a reviewer it's frustrating to witness the constant onslaught of AI, especially as the situation seems to be only getting worse. But from a new author's point of view, it may be their first draft, and maybe even the first time they're learning that AI shouldn't be used. I think declining, and giving them a chance to rectify the issue, is less harsh and works well enough for the first (or even second) review. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:05, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I meant to also say that the problem is more nuanced than just black & white 'AI / no AI'. There are obvious G15 ones which literally need WP:TNT. At the opposite end of the scale, there are those that may or may not involve AI, but don't have any major problems, are fundamentally sound (sources check out, etc.), and could be rescued with minimal effort. If we start rejecting everything with possible AI use to any extent, I think we'll be throwing away some proverbial babies with the bathwaters. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:11, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

WP:TNT – that was my main point with rejecting. Some articles are so bad, they were generated with just one prompt and clearly do not meet Wikipedia standards. Fortek67 (talk) 10:17, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I think that blatant unsalvageable AI usage probably already comes under the The subject is contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia rejection notice. At least, that's what I have been doing when confronted with blatant AI.

My concern with adding a specific AI-reject reason is that reviewers might reject even salvageable drafts. Rejecting should ideally be fairly last resort to allow the editor to improve the draft. qcne (talk) 10:54, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I concur, rejection is sufficient using the existing framework. Primefac (talk) 13:17, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I've started rejecting drafts that meet the G15 criteria. That makes sense to me, because deleting something is a form of rejecting it. But all of the rejection reasons are based on the topic of the draft, and I'm not rejecting because of the topic. It would make more sense to have a way to reject that isn't based on the topic, because that might give the user the wrong impression in the talk standard talk page message and edit summaries that the AFCH tool posts. ‑‑gurkubondinn 13:20, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I am still not sure how I feel about G15, but that is also an acceptable way of dealing with AI nonsense. Primefac (talk) 13:43, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I would just like to be able to do it without also telling the user that the topic is unsuitable, because the topic is often notable. The problem is just that they didn't actually write draft they've just submitted and I'm earmarking for deletion. It would be better if I could do it in a way that communicates "this was not accepted because it is generated text" without mentioning the topic. That's why I mostly just decline before I tag for G15, but that has the problem of implying to them that if they just submit something that "looks" less like generated text then it would be fine. It would be great if it would tell them that generated text is not accepted without implying anything else. When I feel like the user might be open to writing a new draft themselves, then I'll often also go on their talk page and explain that as well. It's just the obviously generated, or a re-generation of something that has already been declined/deleted/rejected and so fourth that I will outright reject it at AfC. ‑‑gurkubondinn 13:52, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken the ai decline does that, and I like your method of decline-then-G15. Primefac (talk) 13:55, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I guess that what I would prefer is to somehow be able to not include the "Next steps" in the decline notice that gets posted to the user's talk page (for example in Diff/1363562428), because that suggests that they could just regenerate the article and try again. The notice should somehow communicate clearly that generated submissions are not accepted, and that there is no way to get around that. ‑‑gurkubondinn 14:11, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

That's the current way I guess you can say, the closest to "rejection". Although I still think an "AI" option will be better. Fortek67 (talk) 12:56, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

The decline/reject options will never fit every situation which is one of purposes of using comments. The AI decline already gives instructions on what they should do and where to go if they have questions. If they keep submitting AI slop, then reject it using "contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia" and use the comments to explain further. The "Next steps" would be for them to completely rewrite it which is essentially what the decline tells them but maybe it could more straight forward. S0091 (talk) 21:10, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Honestly I though that too that all reviewers would start rejecting AI submissions. Then again we would have to carefully consider, how bad an AI submission should be for it to be rejected? I'm not saying all AI submissions should be rejected.

And we should make it explicitly clear what should be rejected. Because if it just says "AI" then all reviewers would start rejecting submissions. Although my current main point is that one of the warnings you see when creating an AfC, is that AI is banned. We have the same for things like non-notable topics, or bias autobiographies. So maybe we should treat AI the same way? Fortek67 (talk) 12:58, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm extremely confused here -- isn't this happening already? There are over 5,000 articles in Category:AfC submissions declined as a large language model output. Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:23, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I am talking about rejecting not declining submissions. Have a look at the AfC review options. Fortek67 (talk) 06:29, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I just had a thought, spurred by Gnomingstuff's highlighting of category of AfC Category:AfC submissions declined as a large language model output.

An LLM Reject may help us better track the level of AI-generated drafts? Quite often I will go straight to Reject as Contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia for obvious slop drafts, and then tag then with G11. But this doesn't actually then reflect as an AI-related Reject.

Just a thought. qcne (talk) 12:43, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I am absolutely already in the habit of rejecting AI generated drafts if I see no reasonable attempt at human-driven improvement by its creator. If they've already been declined once for AI and I see the next edit summary is obviously AI generated and then they resubmit it again, I immediately reject the draft under, as others have said, "contrary to the purpose." We should waste absolutely no time on people who've already been told very clearly that AI is not allowed. Athanelar (talk) 05:29, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

The painful reality is that a subset of editors, hopefully a small subset but it's also growing in number, is simply unable to operate without AI. In the draft:The Long Game mentioned above, first declined for AI usage, then the second submission's edit summary ran: Created Wikipedia article for Saalim Zayed's book "The Long Game." The article covers the book's main arguments about education and short-term thinking, its Islamic framework, and the author's background. I expanded the synopsis to include details from all eight chapters, added a themes section covering the book's main ideas, and included multiple citations from the manuscript. Tried to keep the tone neutral and encyclopedic without sounding promotional. Noted that there are no independent review. So after the first reject they didn't see and/or understand the first decline reason and went straight back to the robots. ChrysGalley (talk) 07:16, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

This is the general pattern I'm starting to see develop, yes. I even wrote a whole AISIGN about it; WP:AIUNSURE. People will see the decline notice and then, rather than reading it, will ask the chatbot to ask us to explain why it was declined.

But that's exactly why I don't waste time on these people. If they don't read the giant red notice explaining what they need to do then I'm not going to waste time saying the same thing all over again. Turn your brain on and come back. Athanelar (talk) 08:25, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Well said. They don't read the notice and just copy and paste it to whatever AI they're using. AI will rewrite it and give them some long edit summary to paste. These editors know nothing about Wikipedia. Fortek67 (talk) 08:29, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Rejection for Repeated Resubmission

The above discussion mentions drafts that are repeatedly declined due to the use of artificial intelligence. This raises a mostly unrelated question. Do we need a rejection code for repeated resubmissions of drafts? I reject them as Not Notable, because the declines usually were for either notability or verifiability, and the originator never established notability after repeated declines, but I have sometimes wondered whether repeated resubmission without improvement should be specifically listed. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:37, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon This seems like a good idea and will help reinforce with repeat submitters. I feel there is a template somewhere that sums that up (along the lines of draftnoimprove or something like that) we could modify for use. 🌀Hurricane Wind and Fire, why did you decline my draft? (talk) (contribs)🔥 05:35, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

User:Hurricane Wind and Fire - That may be {{noimprove}}. It is one of multiple templates that I have written that are entered in the AFC comments window. At present, it is worded to warn that a future resubmission will result in rejection, but I have sometimes also used it on a rejection. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:44, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

I disagree with the idea that a draft should be rejected due to repeated submissions; when that happens it is a failure of the editor, not the content, and we need to ask ourselves if the draft is not salvageable, or the editor is. Repeatedly resubmitting without making changes falls into WP:TE territory (regardless of whether the draft subject is notable) so the two things need to be independently evaluated (i.e. a draft with a CCoS could still be acceptable even if the creator is incompetent). Primefac (talk) 09:40, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Well my initial idea was that rejecting submissions that are so bad, they require complete rewriting. Sometimes users just generate complete text walls of AI slop, no actual information to anything, such as links, templates, categories, etc.

Also, when is it applicable to nominate the submission for CSD G15? I've seen it done before, wouldn't you say that's a way of rejecting? Fortek67 (talk) 12:55, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Having a rejection reason for repeated resubmissions would address it in a much more resilient, structural way than a specific "reject" version of the LLM decline. However, we can also think about the aspect of guidance: was the lack of improvements because the draft author refused to communicate and heed the advice, or simply did not understand or did not get actionable enough advice?

I once added (from a suggestion of @Jimbo Wales) this section as Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewing instructions § Reviewing repeated submissions:

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 considered tendentious editing.

The tendentious editing part matches what @Primefac was touching on: it is an issue with the editor rather than with the draft's subject, and especially for drafts on more popular topics (e.g. upcoming films), we don't want to shut the door to other potential improvements. Ideally, we'd want to establish a healthy balance: provide close guidance to cases where the editor genuinely struggles to understand how to improve the draft, while also putting a stop to repeated submissions where it is clear that no attempt is being made from their end. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 14:34, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree, and yes, we don't want to shut the door to other potential improvements – but what do you think of WP:TNT? Like I said before, some of these submissions are sometimes just AI slop text walls. Poor formatting, no links, no cats, etc.
Then again I assume that can be rejected because it is "contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia", but I think an option for AI would be better, it's more specific. Fortek67 (talk) 14:39, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

TNT is always on the table: sometimes, the best improvement is really just to start again from a blank state. The problem is that rejections address the subject itself rather than the actual content, and can discourage these efforts. Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 15:10, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

I think that’s why the suggestion is made for a reject reason that addresses the content rather than the subject, but I might be missing something? SomeoneDreaming (talk) 18:00, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Custom Reason for Rejection?

There is an option for a custom reason for a decline. Should there also be a custom option for rejection, or would that encourage newer reviewers to reject submissions for inadequate reasons? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:40, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

No, because yes. Primefac (talk) 09:35, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Definitely not – rejecting submissions is pretty serious, and some reviewers may think that it can be done for any reason. Fortek67 (talk) 12:52, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

I also suggest holding off per the others and I feel the rejection reasons cover nearly everything we could reject for. There may be one or two cases where our current reasons don't fit but that can be further explained in the comment. 🌀Hurricane Wind and Fire, why did you decline my draft? (talk) (contribs)🔥 14:27, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

AfC stats tool

Similar to the AfC review history tool, is there a tool that can identify articles authored by IPs or temporary accounts that were later accepted by a specific AfC reviewer? Bonus if it can also detect whether those articles are Nigeria-based BLPs or companies. Also, should I be asking this at WT:AFC or WP:VPT to get a better chance of an answer? If so, please let me know so I can move this. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 17:03, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

@Jeraxmoira Worth asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation as that is where all us AFCers hang out. qcne (talk) 17:18, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

If an AFC reviewer has an /AfC_log enabled you'll be able to cross-reference their accepts with the users. Primefac (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

They have around 1900 accepts and the log also includes declined entries, which makes it difficult to identify which accepted articles were written by TAs/IPs. I'm sure there's a pattern to be found here, but the volume of articles makes it harder.

I came across https://quarry.wmcloud.org/ on the ANI thread. Primefac, do you think it's possible to pull this data via Quarry or are there any limitations to it? Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 20:43, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, if you get the right search params that could probably pull what you want. Primefac (talk) 20:53, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Odd 'authors'

Monday morning's idle curiosity more than anything of real substance, but: I've seen several drafts (mostly or only on South Asian subjects, although that could be just a coincidence) citing sources where the authors are shown as "Share, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Follow us" or something to that effect. This comes from social share buttons on top of the news (or 'news') article being cited, such as here. Can anyone think of a reason other than the use of AI/LLM which would cause this? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 09:22, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Appears to be an issue with website's data. Putting your linked URL into VE's automatic ref generator produced the following:

References

In solidarity, nil ^nz 09:51, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Oh, okay, thanks. I assume 'VE' means VisualEditor? I didn't even know it has an automatic citer tool. (I guess that serves me right for never going anywhere near the damned thing.) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:53, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Yup, Visual Editor! Is a pretty handy tool at times for populating citations from just a URL, DOI or ISBN. In solidarity, nil ^nz 12:33, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

With it being likely the VE will become default for new editors, I wonder if this needs to be raised as a bug in Phab. qcne (talk) 12:35, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I think it's actually something wrong with the page's metadata, not anything phab could fix. But it's probably a good idea to start a ticket just in case. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 22:53, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I checked the html source code, and the webpage has "author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Web Desk","url":"https://www.asianetnews.com/author/web-desk"}, so I'm confused why VE isn't pulling that like Citer does below. In fact, I can't see any obvious reason that would make it pull the Socials instead? In any case, I've opened a ticket at phab:T432076. In solidarity, nil ^nz 23:31, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

citer grabs the author field, which is a generic name but certainly more correct:

• Desk, Web (2024-09-06). "നാലാം വാരവും തിയറ്റര്‍ വിടാതെ 'വാഴ'; മൂന്നാഴ്ച കൊണ്ട് ബോക്സ് ഓഫീസില്‍ നിന്ന് നേടിയത്". Asianet News Malayalam (in Malayalam). Retrieved 2026-07-13. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)

Maybe there's some code/algorithm they could yoink? ScalarFactor (talk) 23:10, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Draft:George Perks

Hi, I was reviewing this page and think I should probably decline it, due to insufficient significant independent coverage. However, I was wondering if WP:NM might apply to him, in which case he has produced/engineered several albums that reached no. 1 in UK charts, and so would pass. Thanks Freddieh9 (talk) 14:57, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

I can't recall NM ever being successfully used for a producer/sound engineer in the absence of significant coverage. But if you think it's borderline, and you're not sure whether to accept or not, "has produced some top-charting albums" is probably worth accepting for. We don't need to be sure things will survive AfD - just that they have a reasonable chance. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 15:03, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Not really, the sources used, apart from 2 interviews, only give a trivial mention to him. Freddieh9 (talk) 16:43, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Discussion of interest

Reviewers might me interested in the discussion happening at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § AfC reviewers removing old decline notices on several occasions Best, Squawk7700 (talk) 00:38, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

AfC related discussion

AfC reviewers may be interested in the following discussion: Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers § NPP Guideline Proposal Regarding AfC Drafts EaglesFan37 (talk) 19:36, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Suggestion for "Accept" template

The user talk page template for accepted articles (Template:AfC accept/testcases) includes the following friendly bits of advice, depending on the initial assessment:

• All = "See the quality assessment scheme to find out how to improve the article."
• Stub = "It is common for new articles to start out as stubs and then attain higher grades as they develop over time. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article."
• Start = "Most new articles start out as Start-Class and then attain higher grades as they develop over time. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article."

I like the idea of helping editors learn how to improve their articles, but I suspect that Wikipedia:Content assessment (or Wikipedia:Content assessment#Grades) is not super helpful for new editors interested in improving their articles, because it wasn't written for that audience. For example, the grading scheme table starts with a description of Featured Articles, rather than starting with a description of Stub/Start class and describing how to get to C or B quality. The most useful information is inside the table in "More detailed criteria", collapsed by default.

I suspect it'd be more helpful to primarily link to Wikipedia:Article development - that page isn't amazing, but could be revised to better address the needs of new editors. Makes sense to retain a link to the grading scheme for people curious about what "stub" and "start" mean. For example:

• All = "See article development to learn how to improve the article."
• Stub = "It is common for new articles to start out as stubs and attain higher grades as they develop over time."
• Start = "Most new articles start out as Start-Class and attain higher grades as they develop over time."

Also, the templates in Category:WikiProject Articles for creation might make sense to re-categorize into Category:WikiProject Articles for creation templates. Dreamyshade (talk) 04:46, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, I think we might want to remove all of that and just replace it with something like "Feel free to continue working on the article." In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 23:21, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

I'd support this and / or @Asilvering's suggestion below. Shorter the better probably so that new editor's aren't overwhelmed. qcne (talk) 12:41, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Easy enough to remove, so I've done so; if folk really want it back it's easy enough to undo. Primefac (talk) 12:51, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Referencing – AI artefact?

I'm seeing quite a few drafts where inline citations are missing, and instead the sources are all cited in the 'References' section, and always in the vertical form. I'm guessing some AI tool is the culprit? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 11:21, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Could you link to an example draft to help me (maybe others) to understand what you mean by "in the vertical form"? Cheerio, Mattdaviesfsic. Talk to me. 11:23, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I've just deleted the most recent one which prompted me to come here. But if you look at Template:Citation#Simple_citations, it shows both the horizontal form (each cite param next to each other) and the vertical (each on top of each other). I mostly see the horizontal type, but these ones where the refs are all at the bottom they're invariably in the vertical layout. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 11:29, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Oh I see. I assumed you meant individual citations on different lines, haha. Cheerio, Mattdaviesfsic. Talk to me. 11:38, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Hm, maybe? But I dimly recall this being the way I learned how to do citations, before I just let all the automated tools do it for me. My guess is we have a how-to page somewhere that suggests doing this, and either AI is "learning" from it or some editathon or something pointed people at it. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 18:47, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

• I tend to use Citer, but if it's out of action or can't find an ISBN and I'm doing it manually then at least to begin with I would write them out line by line, just to check I don't have too many pipes or include a carriage return. I've also have in my sandbox a line-by-line template, more so I don't forget something. I always now use <references> rather than {{reflist}} because it's so much easier to maintain. However I think there is something on the AI side here, when you get a single edit text+submit all in one. But unfortunately AI isn't consistent in approach on these, or rather I suspect there are competing AI products doing similar things. ChrysGalley (talk) 08:53, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Proposal for condensing declines

While the TfD for Template:AfC notice holder was ongoing, KylieTastic suggested that, if there was going to be something to contain old declines, it should function like {{WikiProject banner shell}}. Although a banner shell seems rather tricky to pull off, this suggestion gave me a brand new idea that made me support deleting the template so I can start over on the right track.

This new idea involves condensing declines into bullet-point lists (like how {{multiple issues}} handles maintenance banners or {{old XfD multi}} handles historical AfD outcomes) that only show the first sentence of each decline reason.

Rough example

{{prior declines|
{{AFC submission|d|v|u=173.71.213.176|ns=118|decliner=WaddlesJP13|declinets=20241203000101|small=yes|ts=20241202225931}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
{{AFC submission|d|v|u=User1SD|ns=118|decliner=DoubleGrazing|declinets=20241201105511|reason2=web|small=yes|ts=20241201103428}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
{{AFC submission|d|web|u=49.184.195.198|ns=118|decliner=AlphaBetaGamma|declinets=20240922154515|small=yes|ts=20240922140213}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
}}

Example with many declines

{{prior declines|
{{AFC submission|d|n|u=R3adyWrit3s|ns=118|decliner=Theroadislong|declinets=20260502192127|reject=yes|small=yes|ts=20260430000000}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
{{AFC submission|d|n|u=R3adyWrit3s|ns=118|decliner=EatingCarBatteries|declinets=20260429234124|reject=yes|small=yes|ts=20260429232832}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
{{AFC submission|d|music|u=R3adyWrit3s|ns=118|decliner=EatingCarBatteries|declinets=20260429230652|ts=20260429224712}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
{{AFC submission|d|bio|u=ElizabethMarieCamacho|ns=118|decliner=Theroadislong|declinets=20260429191336|small=yes|ts=20260429000000}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
{{AFC submission|d|ai|u=R3adyWrit3s|ns=118|decliner=Gurkubondinn|declinets=20260427221314|reason2=v|small=yes|ts=20260427221107}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
{{AFC submission|d|music|u=R3adyWrit3s|ns=118|decliner=Tacyarg|declinets=20260427101859|small=yes|ts=20260426154710}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
{{AFC submission|d|music|u=R3adyWrit3s|ns=118|decliner=Bonadea|declinets=20260426142824|small=yes|ts=20260426133600}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
{{AFC submission|d|v|u=R3adyWrit3s|ns=118|decliner=ChrysGalley|declinets=20260426131949|reason2=music|small=yes|ts=20260426130344}} <!-- Do not remove this line! -->
}}

If a notice-containing template is reintroduced, The AfC helper script may have to be reconfigured to prevent unintended removals of declines within the template. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 16:58, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

• Must say I like this idea. Cheerio, Mattdaviesfsic. Talk to me. 17:04, 17 July 2026 (UTC)
• Support the idea too, so long as (a) the immediately previous decline is retained in full to assist the current editor, and (b) the old Comments are left in. These previous declines are invaluable for the reviewer but a new editor is unlikely to benefit from the historic chapter-and-verse versions. ChrysGalley (talk) 08:57, 18 July 2026 (UTC)
• I pretty much fully agree to this proposal. NeoGaze (talk) 09:33, 18 July 2026 (UTC)
• I have a slightly less "let's redesign the entire template structure" way of doing what is being proposed, but in the meantime I have a question - are the old declines for us reviewers, or for the people working on the page? If it's just for us, then yes, this is a perfectly suitable means of showing previous declines. If it is for the writers, trimming it down might remove too much useful information (note that |small= on old declines removes everything except the decline rationale itself). In other words, does removal of the extra information in old declines hurt the editor more than it helps us (by reducing the amount of scrolling we need to do to review the page)? Primefac (talk) 09:44, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

  Are the old declines are for us reviewers, or for the people working on the page?

  I'm sure that both types would appreciate no longer having to scroll as much through declines, and that more of these declines can fit on their screen.

  Does removal of the extra information in old declines hurt the editor?

  I doubt it would. As far as I can tell (and if comments at the AfC help desk are any indication), some editors don't seem to find the lists of tips in the decline notices to be sufficiently helpful, so having the same lists repeated over and over again might not leave any better an impression on them.

  Part of my idea is that the latest decline would be kept at full size above this banner. In that case, two lists of tips could remain up for editors to read, if they even do that at all. If it's necessary to display more reasons at the same time, the AfC decline notice should be designed to be able to display more than two if needed. That way, reviewers can reiterate every point they think is still necessary and won't have to pick just two anymore. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 10:35, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

  Just as a minor note about your last point, we have decided many times over the years that two decline reasons is more than sufficient; by the time you hit a third decline reason, you're more than likely reiterating things that were in the other two. Primefac (talk) 11:13, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

  If editors only need to see the advice that accompanies two decline reasons, then it may not hurt to condense previous declines in the way demonstrated above, especially if the advice given in them is already reiterated in the latest decline notice. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 12:30, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

It would be better if like {{WikiProject banner shell}} you could still expand/show any of the individual declines. KylieTastic (talk) 12:36, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. In general I like the idea of condensing templates on drafts with loads of declines, but I worry that by removing actual content from the decline message it breaks the chain somewhat and could confuse new editors. Whereas, collapsing them does the same thing but keeps the content. Worth thinking how that would look on mobile view though. qcne (talk) 12:40, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

It's like how {{multiple issues}} removes content from maintenance banners. For example, if {{cleanup}} or {{AI-generated}} are placed inside it, then only the first sentence of each would be shown, and their corresponding placement reasons (if filled in) wouldn't be viewable to readers. Users who place those cleanup tags likely want readers to be able to see their reasons without going into the source editor. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 14:29, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, when I first introduced {{AfC notice holder}}, I originally called it {{AfC notice shell}} and put declines inside the banner, but that caused declines to become narrower because they were {{ombox}}es, so I proposed adding a wide parameter that would turn {{AfC submission/declined}} into a {{fmbox}}. When that suggestion was turned down (because I didn't realize I needed to get consensus before making an edit request on a template talk page), I later got the idea to put the declines below the banner instead. I thought hiding declines would be okay because that's what {{WikiProject banner shell}} does on some talk pages. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 12:54, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

If there is to be an AfC banner shell instead, it could look something like this:

This is just a rough, improvized demonstration using only the markup I'm familiar with. An actual version (with proportions that better match {{WikiProject banner shell}}) might use Wiki syntax I wouldn't have been able to think of or work with. {{WikiProject banner shell}} relies on a module, and modules are beyond my Wiki skill set. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 13:51, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

As I said, I have ideas. Let's figure out what we want to see before we start throwing things at the wall. Primefac (talk) 14:13, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Non-reviewers commenting on drafts

Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants states that "Editors whose usernames are not on the list are strongly cautioned not to review AfC submissions", which is sensible advice for multiple reasons, but how does the project feel about comments from non-reviewers? Does the project consider it appropriate for a non-reviewer to add relevant commentary to a draft submission using Template:AfC comment? I ask, because I've done this on a few occasions. I'm not interested in signing up as a reviewer (I'd easily meet the criteria), but I do sometimes notice relevant issues with drafts, which a reviewer may not necessarily otherwise be aware of. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:16, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

No issues from my point of view. qcne (talk) 15:17, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Likewise Cheerio, Mattdaviesfsic. Talk to me. 15:24, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

No issue that I can see. Sure some individuals could give bad advice on drafts, but they can on any forum — so that's no reason to discourage the majority from helping. It would be good if non-reviewers who enabled the AFCH tool got access to the AfC comment option (I assume it does not do that). KylieTastic (talk) 15:40, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

When I manually left comments at Draft:Carl Azuz to explain the draft's situation, I appended (Non-reviewer comment) at the end of each comment to remind people that I'm not an AfC reviewer. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 18:03, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

• I think it's very helpful. I personally think it wouldn't be a bad way for those not-quite-ready for AFC, maybe just outside the criteria, to contribute / learn the ropes. If you are in the AFC logic then a reviewer should be easily able to detach themselves from any comment which is wide of the mark. The {non-reviewer} pseudo-tag I guess takes it beyond criticism. ChrysGalley (talk) 21:14, 20 July 2026 (UTC)