Wikipedia:Drafts
Namespaces | |||
---|---|---|---|
Subject namespaces | Talk namespaces | ||
0 | (Main/Article) | Talk | 1 |
2 | User | User talk | 3 |
4 | Wikipedia | Wikipedia talk | 5 |
6 | File | File talk | 7 |
8 | MediaWiki | MediaWiki talk | 9 |
10 | Template | Template talk | 11 |
12 | Help | Help talk | 13 |
14 | Category | Category talk | 15 |
100 | Portal | Portal talk | 101 |
118 | Draft | Draft talk | 119 |
710 | TimedText | TimedText talk | 711 |
828 | Module | Module talk | 829 |
Former namespaces | |||
108 | Book | Book talk | 109 |
442 | Course | Course talk | 443 |
444 | Institution | Institution talk | 445 |
446 | Education Program | Education Program talk | 447 |
2300 | Gadget | Gadget talk | 2301 |
2302 | Gadget definition | Gadget definition talk | 2303 |
2600 | Topic | 2601 | |
Virtual namespaces | |||
-1 | Special | ||
-2 | Media | ||
Current list (API call) |
Drafts are pages in the Draft namespace (draftspace) where new articles[note 1] can be created and developed, for a limited period of time.[note 2] They allow editors to develop new articles and to receive feedback before being moved to Wikipedia's article namespace (mainspace). If you are logged in, creating a Draft version first is optional. Editors may instead choose to create draft pages in their userspace or new articles directly in mainspace after the user has become autoconfirmed or confirmed. This namespace was created, and the current process established, in December 2013.
Finding drafts
Drafts are not indexed by most search engines including Google,[note 3] meaning most readers will not find them. Anyone can search and view drafts on Wikipedia directly using Wikipedia's built-in search engine: simply choose "Advanced", then tick "Draft" and/or "Draft talk" on the list of options (i.e. in this manner). The list of all draft pages is at Special:AllPages or Special:PrefixIndex. You can also view recent Draft changes to the namespace, newly created drafts, visit a random draft, or see Wikipedia:AfC sorting. Some drafts are sorted by subtopic under Category:Draft articles.
As the draft namespace is a common location for incubating articles (unlike user space), users are notified through Template:New page DYM when visiting a non-existent article whose title does exist in draft space, to prevent unnecessary creation of duplicates on current events, and to help editors discover abandoned drafts to take over and save time rather than starting from scratch:
The warning is also invoked by Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main for existing mainspace pages.
Creating and editing drafts
Anyone, including users who are not logged in, can create and edit drafts. Drafts have "Draft:" before their normal title, and also have an associated draft talk page. Users who have VisualEditor enabled will be able to use VisualEditor just like on articles. Changing a page from a draft to an article requires an autoconfirmed account (an account with at least 10 edits and created at least 4 days ago). Doing so is done by moving the page to a title without "Draft:" in front of it. If there is a technical barrier to the move, such as when the creation of an article may be protected, seek assistance at places such as the Teahouse, the technical moves page, or the request for unprotection page.
Create a new draft |
After you have created your draft page:
- (Optionally) add the template {{Draft article}} at the top of the draft (not the talk page), along with the template's parameters
|name
and|subject=
. A list of appropriate subject fields can be found here. If the draft name has a redirect page of the same name, you can use {{R with possibilities}}.
- Disable any categories by inserting a colon before the word "Category", e.g. change
[[Category:Living people]]
to[[:Category:Living people]]
, or by using the {{Draft categories}} template. - Non-free content cannot be included in draft articles, per Wikipedia's policy on where non-free media is allowed. Any desired non-free content should be added to the article once it has been moved to the mainspace.
Moving drafts to mainspace
Putting the article in the main namespace (where normal articles are) requires an editor to use the page move function to move it into the Main (article) namespace. This means that anonymous editors, or registered editors who are not autoconfirmed, will need to request help with this step by inserting into their drafts the relevant template for requesting a page move. Optionally, editors can also submit drafts for review via the articles for creation process by adding the code {{subst:submit}}
to the top of the draft page.
An article created in draftspace does not belong to the editor who created it, and any other user may edit, move, rename, redirect, merge or seek deletion of any draft.[note 4]