Wikipedia AfC Process: How Articles for Creation Works
November 1, 2026
Wikipedia AfC Process: How Articles for Creation Works
The Wikipedia AfC process (Articles for Creation) is a peer-review system in which an experienced volunteer reviews your draft before it can be published as a live article. If you work for the company or person the page covers, AfC is the route you should take. A reviewer then accepts the draft, declines it with feedback, or rejects it as unsuitable. Below is how each step works, what reviewers look for, and how to get a declined draft back in the queue.
TL;DR
- AfC is a volunteer review queue for new drafts. Autoconfirmed editors can skip it, but new editors, logged-out users and anyone with a conflict of interest, including paid contributors, are steered toward it.
- Reviewers judge one thing above all: would this draft survive in the main encyclopedia? That comes down to independent sources, notability and a neutral tone.
- There are three outcomes: accepted, declined (fix and resubmit) or rejected (the topic is unsuitable and resubmission is discouraged).
- There is no fixed wait. Reviews happen when volunteers get to them, and not necessarily in order.
- Most failed drafts fail on sourcing and promotional language, not on formatting. Check both before you submit.
Table of Contents
- What the Wikipedia AfC process is
- Is AfC mandatory?
- The AfC process step by step
- What AfC reviewers actually look for
- How long AfC takes and what shapes the wait
- Why drafts get declined, and how to fix them
- What if the draft is rejected?
- After acceptance: the work is not over
- How we can help with the AfC process
- A pre-submission checklist
- FAQ
- Sources
What the Wikipedia AfC process is
Articles for Creation is a WikiProject staffed by volunteer editors. Under the Articles for creation guidance, a draft is peer-reviewed by an experienced editor before it can be moved into Wikipedia’s mainspace, where readers and search engines find it.
The queue exists because anyone can write a draft, but not every draft belongs in an encyclopedia. Reviewers act as a filter. According to the WikiProject’s own introduction, the basic question is whether a draft is likely to survive in mainspace. Ready drafts are accepted, drafts with substantive problems are declined with an explanation, and drafts with little prospect of ever qualifying can be rejected.
The reviewers are unpaid. The same project page notes that there is often a backlog and no requirement to review quickly, because careful, consistent reviews matter more than speed. Understanding that culture explains most of what happens next: the process rewards drafts that are easy to verify and punishes drafts that read like marketing.
Is AfC mandatory?
Not for everyone. Per the AfC guidance, established, autoconfirmed editors can create articles directly. AfC is the recommended path for new editors, for people without an account, and for anyone with a conflict of interest, such as a paid contributor.
For a company, the practical answer is simpler than the technical one. Wikipedia’s conflict of interest guideline says COI editors should disclose their connection, are strongly discouraged from directly editing affected articles, should use AfC for new articles, and must not review affected topics. If you are a founder, an executive, a communications director or an agency acting for any of them, you are a COI editor. AfC is your door.
Two consequences follow:
- Disclosure comes first. Declare your relationship on your user page before you submit anything. Our guide to conflict of interest rules and compliance walks through the wording and placement.
- Paid work is allowed, but regulated. If someone is paid to draft, the same disclosure expectations apply. See our breakdown of paid editing rules and risks for what compliant paid work looks like.
The AfC process step by step
1. Check notability before you write a word
The most expensive mistake in AfC is drafting for a subject that does not meet Wikipedia’s notability standard. A company is not notable because it exists, raised money or has a good product. It is notable when independent, reliable publications have written about it in depth. Spend an hour collecting those sources first. If you cannot find them, no amount of polish will rescue the draft. Our guide on how to check Wikipedia notability before you draft gives a practical method, and our Notability & Eligibility Audit does the same work for you at a fixed $700.
2. Create the draft
A draft lives in Draft space or in your user space, not in the main encyclopedia. It does not appear in search results the way a live article does, so you can work on it without public exposure. Write it in a neutral, encyclopedic tone and build each statement on reliable, independent coverage. The AfC guidance puts these two requirements, neutral tone and independent sources, at the center of a good draft.
3. Submit it for review
When the draft is ready, you click the submit button on the draft. That places it in the pending queue, where it waits for a reviewer to pick it up. Do not submit a half-finished draft to “get in line.” A fast decline on a weak draft costs you a review cycle, and a pile of declines can lead reviewers to read your later work more skeptically.
4. Wait for a reviewer
The guidance is clear that there is no fixed waiting time. Volunteers review at different speeds, and submissions are not necessarily taken in order. The project page displays an estimated wait and a count of pending submissions that change constantly, so check it for the current picture rather than trusting a number in an article. Plan your launch calendar around uncertainty. If you need the page live before a funding announcement or a product launch, start months earlier.
5. Receive a decision
There are three outcomes, as the AfC guidance defines them:
| Outcome | What it means | What you do next |
|---|---|---|
| Accepted | The draft is published as a Wikipedia article | Monitor it and keep it accurate |
| Declined | Problems are identified, resubmission is possible | Fix the issues, then resubmit |
| Rejected | The topic looks unsuitable, resubmission is discouraged | Ask the reviewer to reconsider only with significant new evidence or if the decision was mistaken |
What AfC reviewers actually look for
Reviewers are volunteers working through a long list, so they look for fast signals that a draft will hold up. The same patterns appear again and again.
Independent, reliable sources with significant coverage. This is the heart of it. Reviewers want to see several publications with editorial oversight, unconnected to the subject, that discuss it in depth. Press releases, the company website, interviews in which the founder simply speaks, sponsored posts and funding announcements that repeat a press release do not count as independent coverage. A small number of strong sources beats a long list of weak ones.
A neutral tone. Words such as “leading,” “innovative,” “cutting-edge” and “award-winning” (without a named award and a source) read as promotion. Wikipedia describes what independent sources say, in plain terms. If a sentence could appear on your homepage, it probably should not appear in the draft.
Citations where they matter. Statements that are likely to be challenged need a citation to a reliable source. Anything about a living person needs particular care: every claim in a biography of a living person should be backed by a source. That applies to founders and executives as much as to celebrities.
Human-written, verifiable content. Reviewers increasingly distrust text that looks machine-generated, and community norms discourage using AI to generate new articles. Use tools for research if you like, but write and verify the draft yourself, source by source.
Evidence the subject is notable now. A draft is judged on the coverage that exists at the time of submission, not on what you expect to happen after your next round of press.
How long AfC takes and what shapes the wait
The honest answer is “it depends,” and the project page is the only place with a current estimate. What we can say from the guidance: reviews are not first in, first out, and reviewers choose what to pick up. Some drafts get a decision quickly, while others sit for a long stretch when the queue is deep.
You cannot buy your way up the queue, and you should be wary of anyone who says you can. What you can control:
- Draft quality. A clean, well-sourced draft is easier and more attractive to review.
- Topic clarity. Reviewers pick up drafts they feel qualified to judge. A clearly written lead that states what the subject is and why it is notable helps.
- First-submission quality. Every decline restarts the wait. Getting it right the first time is the biggest time saver there is.
Keep the draft active, too. Wikipedia deletes abandoned drafts after long periods of inactivity, so a draft you forget about can disappear. Make a small edit now and then while you are waiting on a decision or gathering sources.
Why drafts get declined, and how to fix them
A decline is not a verdict on your company. It is a checklist. Reviewers leave a template message naming the problem, and the guidance on declined drafts is direct: read the reviewer’s specific feedback, address each deficiency, such as weak sources or promotional tone, and then click the resubmit button for another review.
The usual reasons and the usual fixes:
| Typical decline reason | What it usually means | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Not enough reliable sources | Sources are primary, trivial or not independent | Replace them with in-depth independent coverage, or wait until it exists |
| Not neutral in tone | Reads like marketing | Remove superlatives, cut unsourced claims, describe facts only |
| Not notable | Coverage does not establish the subject’s significance | Run a notability check and find stronger sources |
| Lacks verifiable citations | Claims have no inline references | Add a citation to every claim a skeptic might challenge |
Before you resubmit, reread the draft the way a stranger would. Remove anything you cannot source. Cut adjectives. Check that each reference is independent of your company. Then resubmit once, not three times in a week.
What if the draft is rejected?
A rejection means a reviewer concluded the subject is not suitable, or that there is little realistic chance it will become so. Resubmission is discouraged. The guidance leaves two narrow doors open: ask the rejecting reviewer to reconsider if significant new evidence has appeared, or if you believe the decision was mistaken. Bring the evidence, not an argument. A link to new coverage in major independent publications is persuasive. A claim that your company is important is not.
If the subject simply is not notable yet, the useful move is to build the independent record that will make it so: earned media, analyst coverage, books, academic mentions. Then revisit. Our post on why startups should get on Wikipedia covers the timing question for funded companies.
The Wiki Republic perspective
We focus exclusively on Wikipedia and Wikidata, and the lesson we repeat to clients is that AfC is not an obstacle to get around. It is the quality gate that makes a Wikipedia page worth having. A page that passes review carries a form of third-party endorsement, and that is exactly why it helps with investors, journalists and AI answer engines that draw on Wikipedia and Wikidata.
Our approach is built around what reviewers need to see: we audit notability first, source every statement to independent coverage, write in a strictly neutral register and follow disclosure rules from the first day. We report a 98% first-submission approval rate across more than 200 pages, and we believe the reason is simple: we do not submit drafts that are not ready.
If your organization is serious about a Wikipedia presence, the strongest move is to treat the draft as an editorial project rather than a marketing asset, and to get specialist help before the first submission rather than after the third decline.
Amaury
After acceptance: the work is not over
When a draft is accepted, it becomes a live article that anyone can edit. That is where many companies get surprised. Competitors, former employees and well-meaning editors can all change the page, and a COI editor should not edit it directly. Instead you propose changes on the article’s talk page and follow the process described in our guide on how to edit a Wikipedia page.
Expect scrutiny. If a dispute turns into repeated reverts, read how edit wars work and how to avoid one before you touch anything. And think about the rest of your footprint: a Wikidata entry feeds knowledge panels and AI answers, and images need proper licensing on Wikimedia Commons.
How we can help with the AfC process
If you would rather not spend months learning reviewer expectations by trial and error, we handle the whole path: eligibility audit, sourcing, neutral drafting, disclosure-compliant submission and the response to reviewer feedback. Wikipedia page creation starts from $2,000, and the Notability & Eligibility Audit is $700, which tells you whether you are ready before you commit to a draft.
See the details on our Wikipedia Page Creation service. For a wider view of the process from idea to live page, read how to create a Wikipedia page for your business. If your page is already live and needs corrections, our Wikipedia Content Editing service starts from $700.
A pre-submission checklist
Before you press submit, confirm every item:
- Your conflict of interest is disclosed on your user page.
- The subject has several independent, reliable sources that cover it in depth, not passing mentions.
- No source is a press release, a company page, a sponsored article or a lightly rewritten announcement.
- Every claim that could be challenged has an inline citation, and every claim about a living person is sourced.
- The tone is neutral: no superlatives, no slogans, no unsupported awards or rankings.
- The lead sentence says plainly what the subject is and why it is notable.
- The text is written by a person, and you can trace each fact to a source.
- You have set aside time to respond to reviewer feedback, because most drafts need at least one revision round.
FAQ
Do I have to use Articles for Creation?
No, not if you are an established, autoconfirmed editor. But new editors, logged-out users and anyone with a conflict of interest are directed to AfC, and Wikipedia’s COI guideline says COI editors should use it for new articles. For a company or its representative, treat it as required.
How long does AfC take?
There is no fixed time. Volunteers review drafts at their own pace, and submissions are not necessarily reviewed in order. The AfC project page shows a current estimate and the number of pending submissions, so check it when you plan your timeline.
What is the difference between declined and rejected?
A declined draft has fixable problems, and you can improve it and resubmit. A rejected draft is considered unsuitable for Wikipedia, and resubmission is discouraged. After a rejection, you can ask the reviewer to reconsider only if significant new evidence appears or the decision was mistaken.
Can I pay someone to submit my draft?
Yes, paid contributors can work through AfC, but they must disclose their conflict of interest and should not edit affected articles directly. Agencies that follow these rules protect you from the reputational damage of undisclosed paid editing. Our paid editing guide explains what to look for.
What should I do after a decline?
Read the reviewer’s feedback carefully, fix each issue it names, usually weak sources or promotional tone, and then click the resubmit button. Do not resubmit until the problems are actually resolved.
Sources
- Wikipedia:Articles for creation
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation
- Wikipedia:Conflict of interest