Wikipedia:Quick guide to reviewing new articles

This is an explanatory essay about WP:New pages patrol.

This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community.

Shortcuts

This page contains short guides and advice for reviewing various types of articles as part of new pages patrol. Where the main instructions page focuses on a mechanical view of how to process an article, this page summarizes key things to look out for on specific types of articles, as well as resources and likely outcomes.

If you feel like you're out of your depth evaluating an article, add the article to your watchlist and move on to the next article. Note what the next editor to review it does, and if it varies significantly from what your hunch was, start a discussion about it.

Summary of outcomes

Accept – articles that comply with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines should be marked as reviewed and thus accepted into the encyclopedia. Articles should be further tagged with WikiProjects, (consider using User:Evad37/rater) and given short descriptions. {{Uncategorized}} or {{Improve categories}} should be added as appropriate, or consider adding categories yourself. Tag any major maintenance issues, and consider notifying relevant noticeboards for original research or fringe theories for significant problems or cases where you are unable to assess the article yourself due to lack of familiarity.

Speedy deletion – for pages egregiously in violation of Wikipedia's policies

BLPPROD – for biographies of living people with no citations to any reliable sources. BLPs with borderline-reliable sources or sources of unclear reliability should not be tagged for BLPPROD

PROD – for uncontroversial deletions of articles. If an article has even one citation with significant coverage in a potentially reliable source, or if you doubt your ability to effectvely search for sources for the subject due to a lack of familiarity, PROD should not be used.

AfD – the standard deletion process for all other articles that fail notability guidelines. Disputes over whether an article should be converted to a redirect are also resolved here. Redirects nominated for deletion are taken to RfD.

Merge – articles that duplicate content or significantly overlap in scope with another article should be merged. If the merge is simple, this can be performed boldly. More complicated merges should be tagged with {{merge}} (or {{merge to}} and {{merge from}}) and discussed. Depending on how urgent the need for the merge is, the page can be marked as reviewed before the merge is carried out.

Redirect – articles that don't meet notability guidelines but are mentioned or discussed in another article, conversion to redirect is a valid alternative to deletion. This can be done as a bold edit without prior discussion, but if disputed should be discussed further and eventually taken to AfD if no consensus can be found. If the article has relevant information cited to reliable sources, it may be appropriate to merge content.

Draftify – sending articles to draftspace is an option that should be used only for suspected conflicts of interest, if you yourself are planning on improving the article, or if the article is for a future event and is likely to eventually be notable. An additional reason to use draftify is if content in the article can be repurposed for a different article about a notable subject (e.g. a non-notable author's biography may have content that could be used for an article about their notable debut novel)^[a]

General advice for evaluating sources

The new pages patrol source guide is a useful resource that compiles the results of source reliability discussions. It has a lower standard for inclusion than the perennial sources list, and thus its listings are only as strong as the consensuses of the discussions that they are cited to.

Sources not included in existing source guides can be brought to the reliable sources noticeboard for discussion. However, unless a source is being used for contentious claims, you should try your best to evaluate its reliability yourself.

The Wikipedia Library platform offers access to many useful libraries of sources. Newspapers.com, Rock's Backpages and academic journals are excellent resources to apply for as a new page reviewer.

Inaccessible and non-English sources

Remember that when evaluating articles, notability is based on the possibility of the existence of coverage in reliable sources. If a notability judgment comes down to whether or not an inaccessible or unreadable source contains significant coverage of a subject, make an educated guess as to whether the source is likely to contain such coverage, based on its title and publication details. If need be, it is reasonable to ask the editor that added the sources to provide samples or translations of the content, although this may potentially be non-trivial effort for the other editor. The extent to which you require the other editor to provide verifiable scans, as opposed to mere transcriptions should be based on standard AGF principles.

For most languages other than English that you're likely to come across in article submissions, Google Translate is sufficient for assessing whether a reference has significant coverage of a subject and verifying important claims. It may be insufficient for assessing the reliability of a source, and it may also be difficult to search for additional coverage of a subject in a language that you lack proficiency in. Consider leaving articles in unfamiliar languages to editors that are more proficient, although at a certain point our team of reviewers only has so many language proficiencies and you may need to make decisions about such articles with incomplete information. Editors interested in spending a significant amount of time reviewing pages may want to consider studying additional languages. Even minimal proficiency in a language can be extremely helpful. In the case of languages that use other alphabets, it can be useful even just to learn how to phonetically read the alphabet so that you can identify names.

Subject-specific guides

Biographies

Biographies of living people are one of the most problem-rife types of new articles due to people attempting to use the site as an outlet for self-promotion. A dead giveaway for likely COI is an infobox photo that looks like a glossy professional headshot instead of a more candid photo, especially if the headshot is attributed to the editor that wrote the article as "own work", which suggests that either the editor met the subject in person or filed the image permissions incorrectly for an image that they were given (provided that a reverse-image search confirms that the image is not available elsewhere online). When dealing with potentially-promotional articles about subjects that are notable, be sure to check for additional sources online, as a draft written by a paid editor may intentionally skip over significant controversies or scandals involving the subject. Accurately updating the article may in some cases be a more fitting punishment for would-be promotionalists than deleting it.

Biographies for long-dead figures are much less likely to be created for promotional reasons. Notability guidelines are often relaxed for historical figures for whom there may be few surviving sources despite having clear claims to importance.

For biographical subjects that do not meet notability guidelines but who are associated with a notable creative work or company, redirecting to the notable article may be preferable to deletion.

Companies and organizations

Companies and organizations are subject to some of the most stringent notability guidelines on Wikipedia due to the subject matter's propensity for hiring paid editors and self-promotion in other publications. General interest and business magazines are the most likely reliable sources to find, but occasionally academic coverage will be available as well. Many trade magazines are not reliable, and even the reliable ones usually also publish content sponsored by subjects. Bare bones reports about the buying and selling of assets do not comprise significant coverage, even if published in a reliable source. While many publicly-traded companies are notable, simply being publicly traded is insufficient for establishing notability.

Educational institutions

Schools

Educational institutions below the university level are expected to meet WP:GNG. When not notable, schools are generally redirected to their local school district or parent organization if a private institution with no clear governing district if such articles exist. School districts are almost guaranteed to be notable. Carefully check articles about private schools for promotional content. Bear in mind that articles for schools will often be edited by children, and thus may be full of vandalism or poorly written content. There was a general consensus that high schools were presumed notable, although this consensus was overturned in a 2017 RfC. Hunting down articles that were created under the old consensus is a less productive use of your time than reviewing newly created articles.

Local newspapers are the most likely sources to cover schools, although larger publications may also cover particularly notable schools.

Universities

Virtually all accredited universities are notable. Colleges or other institutions within a university may be notable, but notability should not be assumed even for institutes at prestigious universities (although many will be). When not notable, content can often be merged into the article of the university.

University-level student publications are often not considered reliable sources, but may be considered marginally reliable for information about student groups.

Food

Academic journals, newspapers and magazines may have reliable coverage of food. While some recipe books may include information about recipes, bare recipe instructions are primary (and often self-published) and thus don't contribute toward notability. Food articles often contain original research, and claims about a recipe's origins may be contentious; depending on the author, a cook book may be able to provide reliable information about ingredients or variations, but not necessarily its history. When evaluating articles about dishes, make sure to search for any listed synonyms, likely misspellings, or non-English names to verify that we don't already have an article about the subject. Similarly, the article may have been created at a title that is not actually the most common name used by reliable sources, in which case it should be moved. In some cases, information about non-notable or borderline-notable foods may be better integrated into a broader article about a type of food or a national cuisine. Consequently, it's rarely appropriate to delete a food article outright.

National or ethnic cuisine articles, such as Mexican cuisine or Jewish cuisine, are almost always notable, although they may be poorly sourced, non-neutral, or far from complete

Geography

For many types of geography articles, primary sources published by governments are often reliable, and can be considered when assessing notability. Articles passed on such a standard should be tagged with {{more citations needed}}

Inhabited places

Distinct inhabited places are virtually always notable per the subject-specific notability guideline, although neighborhoods, suburbs, commercial parks and other divisions without legal recognition are not considered to be automatically notable.

Roads

Major roads in cities and highways are highly likely to meet WP:GNG. Articles about roads are almost never inherently promotional, and it's possible for them to be verifiable and informative even if lacking significant coverage in a secondary source: as such, the only benefit that deletion of a non-notable road brings is that we don't dedicate any further editor-time to it that could be better spent improving a different article. Assess whether sending the article to AfD is actually worth the additional effort required of both you and other editors.

Music

For most music-related subjects, any source with a fully professional editorial board and bylines on its articles can be considered reliable provided that it is not writing obviously promotional coverage. Note that many reliable sources will also run articles that promote an upcoming concert or that hype a recent release without providing much in the way of significant coverage. BLP content in music articles is subject to the usual level of caution surrounding biographies of living people. A valuable additional resource for music articles is the source guide maintained by Wikiproject Albums, and subscriptions to RocksBackPages are available through the Wikipedia Library platform. Music-related articles about subjects that are more than a decade old may also have coverage that can be found on Google Scholar.

Music-related topics see a fair amount of paid editing, as well as editing by fans. Non-neutral language and excessively long quotes are common problems for articles about this topic.

Songs and albums

The bread and butter of reliable coverage for songs and albums are critical reviews. When assessing notability, be careful to check that the reviews are not paid placements or self-published. The subject-specific notability guides for these subjects specifies that charting is a likely indicator of notability: in practice, unless there are several reasons to suspect that significant coverage does not exist of an album or song that has charted, an article about an album that has charted is extremely unlikely to be found not notable at AfD. Note that even RS sometimes run short pieces that are more of a promotional piece than a real review; such pieces should be assessed for their depth of coverage, and are marginally more acceptable for songs than for albums. You should also be mindful of systemic bias when evaluating music coverage.

Songs that are not notable should be pointed to albums, and albums that are not notable should be converted to redirects pointing to either the recording artist, or if applicable, a discography page for the recording artist. Songs should only be pointed to the recording artist if they are mentioned in the article and no album article is available. If the conversion to redirect is contested, AfD is an appropriate forum to resolve the matter.

Albums that have not been released yet are very rarely notable, although if a release is days away for a major recording artist and has already generated anticipatory coverage in major music publications it's often not worth the hassle of redirecting or deleting. Songs are virtually never notable in advance of their release, and redirects from speculative songtitles to albums or artists should not be created.

Science

When evaluating the notability of a scientific concept, the main thing is to check that papers have been published on the subject by scientists working independently of each other: cross check the full authors list of cited papers. Google Scholar is a good place to search for coverage. Many papers will be paywalled, and in some cases you may have to make educated guesses based only on a paper's title and abstract.

Ethnic groups

Most ethnic groups that are verifiably distinct subjects are notable, but poorly sourced articles on these subjects may be better off merged into a higher-level article, if one is available. Immigrant groups in a specific region (e.g. Italians in the United States) are less likely to meet GNG just by virtue of existing, but can often be merged or at least redirected to higher-level articles on immigration or diaspora grops (e.g. Immigration to Japan, Greek diaspora instead of Ukrainian immigration to Japan, Greeks in Ho Chi Minh City) Academic sources are strongly preferred, but some non-academic publications may be usable, and are likely to indicate that additional, more reliable coverage exists. Potentially contentious claims should be referred to OR, FRINGE, or RS noticeboards as needed.

Medicine

Medical claims in articles are subject to some of the strictest sourcing requirements, which are detailed at WP:MEDRS. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, the original research notice board, or the reliable sources noticeboard may be useful if you feel like you're out of your depth when evaluating a medical article.

Sports

Sports biographies

Following the removal of appearance-based SNG criteria for sports biographies, subjects of such articles are expected to demonstrably meet GNG. Winning or medalling in top-level tournaments is still considered a valid SNG for these topics. Given that the prior SNGs conferring notability to nearly all fully-professional players were in force for many years, it is advised to move slowly when nominating such articles for deletion, starting with {{notability}} tags and nominating towards AfD if no improvement follows the tagging.

Seasons and tournaments

Sports seasons are nominally subject to GNG, but enforcement is fairly lax as information in the articles is usually trivially verifiable and neutral. This is particularly true for league-level articles, assuming that the league is fully professional or in the NCAA.

Tournament events may be covered by WP:SIZESPLIT even when not strictly notable.

Rivalries

Sports rivalry articles are very often full of original research. Make sure that there are reliable sources that cover the rivalry itself, beyond simply confirming that the teams played each other.

Notes

^ This is not the full remit of uses of the draftify tool as laid out in the NPP tutorial. In the interest of steering new page reviewers clear of disputes with other editors, this guide includes a very sparing list of use-cases for draftification, as the process's usage in other contexts can be controversial.

[1] This is not the full remit of uses of the draftify tool as laid out in the NPP tutorial. In the interest of steering new page reviewers clear of disputes with other editors, this guide includes a very sparing list of use-cases for draftification, as the process's usage in other contexts can be controversial.

[a]