First, let me start by saying that the title of this article is a little bit misleading. I am going to talk about how to get around Wikipedia’s approval process throughout the rest of this writing; however, I want to make sure that everyone understands that I am not showing you how to trick Wikipedia’s editors in any way shape or form. I am writing to enlighten those who are unfamiliar with how it works to post a new article to Wikipedia and get sucked into believing that they must go through a long review process in order to get their articles “accepted” by Wikipedia.
What is Wikipedia’s approval process?
Wikipedia’s approval process is referred to by the Wikipedia community as “articles for creation” or “AfC.” This is an area of the website where editors can create new articles for Wikipedia and submit them for review. Once submitted, a volunteer editor will review the article and either move the article to the main space (“approve the article”) or provide comments to the creating editor on how to improve the article (“decline the submission”).
What’s the trick, advantages, and disadvantages?
If an article is “approved,” it is moved to the main space as a live article and becomes subject to all of the guidelines applicable to every other article in Wikipedia. That means that it can be edited by anyone in the community and also become subject to deletion review if an editor feels the article is not notable. So, even if the article is initially “approved” through the articles for creation, it can still be deleted by the community. Many people think that once their article is approved through the AfC process that it is immune to deletion. This is very far from the truth as articles that have been live in Wikipedia for years are often deleted just as an article that has only been on Wikipedia for a matter of days.
Advantages to posting directly to the main article space is that there is no delay in review. There are so many articles in queue at the AfC portion of Wikipedia that it often takes months for an article to be reviewed. If you have time to wait, great. If you want it done immediately, then posting it directly is the way to go. In addition, you are not relying on a single editor and their point of view about your article. It is now up to the entire community to reach a consensus on the article if it is recommended for deletion.
If you choose not to go through Wikipedia’s approval process, you risk your article being deleted if there are any major errors with the article such as it not having the correct references, being too promotional, or containing copyright violations. If the article is deleted, it makes it even tougher to get it posted a second time and can also be taken as spam and be blocked from being created again in the future. That is why I recommend that amateurs or first timers use the AfC process so that they can learn about any errors in their article and fix them prior to the article going live.
How to post your new article without going through the approval process:
If you are ready to create your article (and I recommend that you are 100% that the article you have written meets Wikipedia guidelines), then you can post your article without going through Wikipedia’s approval process. Here is how to do it.
- Search for the name of the article you want to create. Hit the search button next to the search box to see if there are any results.
- Once you search, you will see if the article has been created or not. If you see the sentence that says the article does not exist, click on the red link name in order to go to the next screen.
- Now you can type your article in the space provided. Hit the “preview” button at the bottom of the article to preview it prior to it going live. Once you are happy with the content, click “submit.” Your article will then be live on Wikipedia.
Will your article pass?
Many people email me requesting if their article will pass Wikipedia’s approval process. I am only one editor and often do not have the time to review every request (just as editors reviewing the articles on Wikipedia often do not have the time to review articles quickly – which is why the month or two backlog). However, if your article has been rejected by editors, I will gladly offer you a quote to take care of any issues cited by editors for the rejection.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: How To Get Around Wikipedia’s Approval Process
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