Wikipedia:Requests for feedback/Guidelines

Purpose of WP:RFF

WP:RFF is a place where feedback on articles can be requested via a peer review process. These articles may already be in the main encyclopaedia, or they may still be in draft form in user space. A requests for feedback on an article is normally submitted by its creator, although it is possible for other users to seek feedback on an article at RFF. Articles submitted at RFF have usually been created recently, although there is no bar on seeking feedback for older articles. Many of the articles at RFF have been created by relatively new users, who will be prompted to consider seeking feedback during the article wizard creation process. The purpose of RFF is to improve the overall quality of Wikipedia's content, to identify and improve articles with issues at an early stage, and to offer new contributors to Wikipedia some friendly assistance and contructive criticism.

Who can review an article at RFF?

Any user can offer feedback on an article listed at RFF. Articles can receive feedback from more than one user while they are listed at RFF. Feedback should be courteous, impartial and supported by reliable sources, such as Wikipedia policies and guidelines.

Selecting an article to review

Articles at WP:RFF are listed in order of submission. Please consider the oldest entries first, i.e. those that have been waiting longest for feedback. It is rare that specialist knowledge of the subject-matter is required to review an article. However, it is preferable that reviewers do not provide feedback where they feel unable to determine whether or not the material might be a hoax, or where they feel unable for any reason to provide a neutral and impartial review. In these cases, please select another article to review.

Pre-review

Once an article has been selected for review, assess it briefly as follows. This prevents lengthy reviewing of articles that contain major flaws and need further work before they can be considered for Wikipedia.

1. Does it cite reliable sources? If no sources are listed, the only sources listed are unreliable (such as MySpace or YouTube), or the only sources are not published by a third party (such as the subject's website or any Wikimedia site), feedback should not progress further. Suggested wording for the feedback entry is: "Sorry, feedback cannot be given on articles that contain no reliable sources. Please provide sources in order to allow the review process to proceed. Guidance is available at Wikipedia:Reliable sources."
2. Does it already exist? Do a quick search for the title of the suggested article, as well as any alternate names that come to mind. If it duplicates existing content and there is little hope of it ever existing as an independent page, make it into a redirect if it is in the mainspace. Explain what you have done in the article's feedback entry.
3. Copyright violation: Check that the submission has not been copied from another source. One way to do this is by searching for a portion of the text of the article on Google or another search engine. You could also check the sources provided to make sure it has not been copied from there. If the article is a copyright violation with no salvageable content, tag it for speedy deletion with {{db-copyvio}} and explain this at the article's feedback entry. If it is a partial copyvio and some salvageable content remains, remove any copyrighted text with an edit summary explaining this, note what you have done at the article's feedback entry, and continue with the reviewing process. These steps apply equally to articles in the mainspace and in userspace.

Once the pre-review process is complete, please proceed to the review stage. If the article cannot pass beyond pre-review at this time for one of the above reasons, please move on to the next article.

Review

Now you should actually read the article and decide whether it is suitable for Wikipedia. To be suitable, the article must be about a notable subject and be written in a concise style from a neutral point of view.

The most common problems that arise at the review stage are listed below, along with the appropriate Wikipedia policy or guideline.

Problem	Policy or guideline
A definition only	WP:DICDEF
A neologism	WP:NEOLOGISM; WP:MADEUP
Appears to be a hoax	WP:HOAX
Is a biography of a living person that breaches policy	WP:BLP
Not written from a neutral point of view	WP:NPOV
Written like an advert	WP:SPAM
Anything else covered in WP:NOT	WP:NOT

If an article is clearly an attack, immediately remove any libelous content. Consider warning the contributor on their talkpage. If the submission was obviously made in bad faith, it may be tagged for speedy deletion.

Notability

Many submissions do not meet notability guidelines, that is, the article does not show that the subject "has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." Depending on the subject, the article may be held to a slightly different standard than your average article. The following table shows the available guidelines and templates for various subjects.

Notability guidelines

Subject	Guideline shortcut
Academics (Professors, scientists, etc.)	WP:PROF
Books	WP:BK
Fiction, including plot summaries	WP:FICT
Films	WP:MOVIE
Musical performers or works	WP:MUSIC
Organizations or companies	WP:CORP
Pornographic actors	WP:PORNBIO
Web content	WP:WEB
Other people	WP:BIO
Any subject not covered above	WP:N

Providing feedback

You should support your feedback with links to the relevant policy or guideline, to make it easier for the creator to understand any deficiencies and remedy them.

Tagging

Once you have reviewed an article and left feedback, any "new unreviewed article" tag should be removed. It is acceptable to replace it with maintenance tags if required; please note this in your feedback.

There is no specific prohibition on nominating articles for deletion during the feedback process; however, please consider carefully before doing so. Asking for feedback is a good-faith request for input to help create an article acceptable to the community; tagging for deletion is effectively a rejection of that request. The exceptions to this are unsalvageable copyright violations and attack pages. These should be tagged for speedy deletion with {{db-copyvio}} and {{db-attack}} respectively, and the action recorded in your feedback.

Talkback

It is useful, although not mandatory, to notify a user when their request for feedback has been fulfilled, so they can return to RFF to view it. This can be done with the {{talkback}} template. Add it to the user's talk page, using the following format: {{talkback|Wikipedia:Requests for feedback#Section title of user's query at RFF}}.