New Page Review Wondering why your article has still not been reviewed or was changed to a draft? This plain and simple guide provides you with answers and links to important policies and guidelines.
This page in a nutshell: All new articles are reviewed for suitability for the encyclopedia. This includes drafts, redirects, and articles created from drafts and redirects. Articles that have not been reviewed can be seen within the encyclopedia, but they are hidden from external search engines
Legitimate Wikipedia editors will never offer to remove the 'not reviewed' message in exchange for money. See the paid editing scam warning for more information.
New articles are checked by experienced editors who are very familiar with core policies. They are new page reviewers and they control the quality of new pages and prevent the addition of spam, copyright violations, articles not about notable topics, and other content not suitable for Wikipedia even if it has many references.
This includes articles created directly in mainspace (the encyclopedia proper), or moved there from draftoruser space (including sandboxes). It includes articles replacing a redirect that had existed at the same title and new articles created at a title that was previously deleted, whether or not the content is new or taken from previous or existing content. Some articles created via the Articles for creation process will also be reviewed again by a new page reviewer after acceptance.
Once an article is reviewed, it will be visible to external search engines (indexed). New page reviewers are volunteers and articles are not reviewed in any specific order. An article may remain unreviewed for several months. An article free of potential issues is usually more likely to be reviewed promptly. Sometimes, articles have been patrolled but have not been marked as reviewed. They may have some banners on top explaining what is wrong and including links on what to do.
In some cases, if articles are not quite ready for mainspace, they may be moved to Draft space where you can work on it undisturbed for a while until it is ready. Articles that are not suitable for the encyclopedia will usually be listed for deletion.
What can you do if your article has still not been reviewed and/or has been tagged for more attention or moved to a draft?
Understanding our requirements: Conflicts of interest and what Wikipedia is not
We are here to build an encyclopedia. Many kinds of articles are not permitted. If your article has a This article contains content that is written like an advertisement tag on it, you probably have a Conflict of interest. We do not allow articles that are promotional or spam. To know what kind of articles are unacceptable, check out What Wikipedia is not.
Sources & References
Facts matter: The content of your article might be true, but to gain the trust of our readers you must prove it. If your article has a This article needs more footnotes tag, then some of the content must be supported by references to reliable sources; check out the Referencing Help page. If it has a This article relies excessively on references to primary sources tag, it needs more independent sources. You also can't write about your own research, so check out No original research and remove anything that has not been written somewhere else.
Deletion & Draft
Clearly unsuitable articles are listed for very quick deletion. If your article is possibly acceptable but the issues are not easily fixable, it could be moved to the Draft space where you can continue to improve it for a while without worrying about immediate deletion. You can also consider moving the article yourself. Please do not remove any tags without fixing the problem, doing so will likely be counter-productive. Some articles will be discussed by other editors before they are deleted. Many articles are simply written too soon and you will just need to wait for more published sources to become available.
Notability
Articles must be written about notable topics. Our definition of notability may not be what you expect. The topic must have been written about in reliable sources, and with some detail. Two or three sources that each have at least several paragraphs about the subject will likely show that it is notable. If all that is written are trivial mentions, a large number of sources will not help, the topic will still not be notable. If your article has a The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline or a This article does not cite any sources tag, you must add more or better sources.
If you've read through this page and are still confused about what needs to be done to fix an issue and remove a maintenance template, ask at the Teahouse, where our experienced volunteers are quick to answer questions from new users. Ask us a question! Alternatively, you could try the more general Help desk, or seek live assistance at the IRC channel: #wikipedia-en-help. Get help at the Teahouse
