Step 1: Quick-fail criteria

Before reading the submission in detail, check whether it meets any of the six criteria below. If so it should be declined immediately.

Step 2: Notability and verifiability

The principle of notability applies to the subject of the article. The principle of verifiability applies to the content of the article. The most basic standard for inclusion in Wikipedia is notability. It is important for reviewers to determine a subject's notability at the earliest opportunity, to avoid new editors having submissions declined for other reasons, only to find out later, that the subject of their submission cannot be accepted because it does not meet the notability guidelines. Many problems found in submissions can be fixed through good editing; however, no amount of good editing can make an inherently non-notable subject, notable!

If what is written in the submission meets the notability guidelines, but the submission lacks references to evidence this, then the underlying issue is verifiability and the submission should be declined for that reason. Notability is a higher standard than importance or significance, which are terms used in respect of candidates for speedy deletion.

Subject-specific notability guidelines

Wikipedia does have some subject-specific notability guidelines. The following table shows the notability guidelines and templates for specific subjects. If the subject of the submission you are reviewing is not listed in the table below, apply the general notability guideline.

Verifiability

If what is written in the submission meets the notability guidelines, but the submission lacks references to evidence this, then the underlying issue is verifiability and the submission should be declined for that reason.

Step 3: Suitability

Now you should read the submission in detail and decide whether it is suitable for Wikipedia. To be suitable, the article must be about a notable subject and be written in an encyclopedic style from a neutral point of view. The most common reasons that a submission is not suitable are provided below, along with the appropriate templates.

Note 1: If the article is a BLP policy violation, blank the body text of the page as a courtesy and place {{afc cleared}} just below the {{AFC submission}} template. If you are using the script, this is done by default when you decline a submission as a BLP violation.

Step 4: Invalid reasons for declining a submission

AFC participants should follow the normal standards set by the standard policies and guidelines for what makes an acceptable article. Avoid the following errors:

1. Declining an article because it correctly uses general references to support some or all of the material. The content and sourcing policies require inline citations for only four specific types of material, most commonly: direct quotations and contentious material (whether negative, positive, or neutral) about living persons.
2. Declining an article because you personally don't like the citation style or formatting, or because you wrongly assumed that the absence of little blue numbers meant that no inline citations existed, is not acceptable. The use of <ref> tags, although popular, is not required. Editors may choose any form of inline citation, not just the most popular one. Many new editors choose a different style, and their choice is officially protected by Wikipedia's citation guidelines.
3. Declining an article because it contains easily solved formatting issues, such as no wikilinks to other articles or no sections, is not acceptable. Instead, fix it yourself, or accept and tag the article to alert other editors to the one or two issues that you believe are the most urgent issues.
4. Declining an article because the citations contain bare URLs or other reference formatting problems. Instead, run The Reflinks tool or tag the article with {{cleanup-link rot|date=June 2024}} or {{citation style|date=June 2024}}.

After you have declined

If you are using a script, there is nothing more you need to do.

If manually reviwing, after you have filled in the submission template with "D" and the reason, and added any other templates, save the page.  The page should reload with the decline template showing.  At the lower right corner of the decline template will be the link: "Inform the Author".  Click on this link, and it will bring up the user talk page preloaded with the following template:

{{subst:Afc decline||cv=no|sig=yes}}.

Insert the exact Title of the declined article between the "||" so the template will look like:

{{subst:Afc decline|Declined Article Title Example|cv=no|sig=yes}}.

This will add a template to the user page informing of the declining of his article.  If you forget the Title of the Article, the author will not have a link to it.

At this point, if you have not found any reason to decline the creation of the article, it should be accepted. There are two ways to accept:

Using the script

1. click the Accept button.
   • Select an appropriate name
   • Give the article a rating on the quality scale
   • Add any other tags you think might be relevant
     • If accepting an article about a living person, please ensure you add {{WPbiography|living=yes}} to the article talk page. This ensures such articles are placed in Category:Biography articles of living people. You may also add the {{Persondata}}, if it's not in the draft.
2. Click Submit. The script will move the article for you, create its talk page, grade it, and notify the submission creator.

Doing it manually

1. Create the article by moving it into mainspace and removing the {{AFC submission}} tag, as well as any AFC related comments or content from earlier, declined submissions.
2. Consider adding the new article to categories, and tagging it with appropriate cleanup templates.
3. If the article is a stub, add the {{stub}} template, or preferably the appropriate category-specific stub template.
4. Add {{WPAFC}} to the talk page of the new article to flag it as part of the AFC WikiProject. (To quickly add {{WPAFC}}, click the Preload talk link on the bottom row of the pending banner before removing it from the submission.) Also add any other Wikiproject banners that would apply to the article.
   • If accepting an article about a living person, please ensure you add {{WPbiography|living=yes}} to the article talk page. This ensures such articles are placed in Category:Biography articles of living people. You may also add the {{Persondata}}, if it's not in the draft, and complete as much information as possible.
5. If you feel able, please try to assess the quality class of the article and include this in the template {{WPAFC}}. The parameter name is class and the criteria can be found at WikiProject Articles for creation/Grading scheme.
6. Add {{subst:Afc talk|Article Name}} to the talk page user who submitted the article, to inform them that their submission was successful
7. Consider adding a link to the article in the recent contributions list, adding the new article at the top and removing the bottom entry.
8. If the submission is reasonably well-sourced and has a minimum of 1,500 characters of prose, consider nominating the article to appear on the main page as part of Did you know? (see instructions).

Note: If for some reason, it is necessary to copy-paste the submission rather than moving it, credit the IP address or username of the author in the edit summary and redirect the submission to the title of the new page.

After accepting, remember to cleanup!

This is related to both the script and to the manually accepted submissions:

1. Clean up the accepted page. Remove AfC related templates, comments, and signatures.
2. Add banners for the relevant WikiProjects to the talkpage.
3. Add (if needed) {{stub}} tags, categories (or tag as needing: {{categories}}), wikilinks (or tag as needing: {{deadend}}) and other relevant maintenance tasks, such as {{sections}}.
4. If you have AWB authorization, you can use AWB to tidy up the new article and carry out typo and general fixes. If you don't have AWB, you can use Auto-Ed to clean up the formatting of pages.

Known issues

If a submission, which should be accepted, cannot be moved because the title is blacklisted, or the page is creation protected, you will get an error message.

• If a proposed article title is triggering the blacklist, you will see an error message that reads: MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-forbidden-move. Please find an administrator who will be able to assist you.
• If the destination page has been creation protected because of repeated recreation, it may be necessary to make a request for unprotection at Wikipedia:Requests for unprotection.

Draft submissions are designed to replace the userspace draft option from the article wizard. Submissions are reviewed only after a review is requested by the submitter. After a review is requested, it is reviewed like any other pending submission. If the submission meets the guidelines, it is accepted normally. If it needs improvement, it is declined. All draft submissions not pending review are located in Category:Draft AfC submissions. If the draft has not been edited for more than one week, the draft is automatically declined by ArticlesForCreationBot.

Draft submissions are not meant to replace the current Articles for Creation system. Rather, it is meant to offer new editors a way to create draft articles, without struggling with requested moves once they feel it is ready to be moved to mainspace.

A pending template can be turned into a draft template by replacing the second parameter with the letter "t". NOTE: Please only do this with the creator's permission.

Declining draft submissions

When a draft is submitted for review, there are two AFC submission templates. There is a draft submission template, and a normal pending review template. The draft submission template is merely used to keep track of unsubmitted drafts. Once it has been submitted for review, this template should be removed. ArticlesForCreationBot is tasked with removing the draft submission template, so only the pending review template should remain. If a draft submission meets the quick fail criteria, then it is declined like any other submission.