Article feedback/Version 5/Help

=Article Feedback form=

What is this feedback tool?


The Article Feedback Tool (AFT) offers a new way to contribute productively on Wikipedia. It invites you, the reader, to leave feedback about articles, to help our editors improve them. We hope you will leave helpful suggestions for improvement -- both for your own benefit and to provide better information to Wikipedia’s almost-500 million users.

At the bottom of each article you can find a feedback form to provide suggestions on how to improve the article. You can access all the comments provided by users at the feedback page, as shown in this diagram. Read more about these features below.

Where can I find this tool?


The feedback form is a blue box at the bottom of Wikipedia articles, with a simple question: "Did you find what you were looking for?” and a comments box (see example above). For now, it is only available on a small percentage of the English Encyclopedia, while we complete development and testing. Would you like to try out this tool? Here are some test sample where you can post feedback during this development phase. Until the new AFT5 version is released, an older version of the feedback tool (AFT4) is shown on most other Wikipedia articles, inviting people to rate the quality of articles -- without comments.

How do I leave feedback?
To leave feedback, use the feedback form at the bottom of Wikipedia articles in our test sample. This “feedback form” asks if you found what you were looking for. Click on ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to let the editors if you found the article useful or not. Then add a comment about the article. For example, you can include suggestions for improvement, ask a question, give praise to the authors or report a problem. Just type your comment in the text box, then click “Post your feedback” to share it with the editors on the feedback page.

What kind of feedback should I give?
Please post helpful feedback -- suggestions that can help editors improve the page. We encourage you to be civil, focus on facts, cite your sources, be specific and keep it short. Please avoid comments that are irrelevant, opinionated, offensive, defamatory or promotional. Community editors or automated software may flag or remove feedback that they find inappropriate. To learn more about do’s and don’ts of posting feedback on Wikipedia, check our feedback guidelines.

What happens to my feedback?
When you post feedback on an article, it is added to a special “feedback page” which lets editors improve this article based on suggestions from users like you. You can view this feedback page by clicking on 'Talk' at the top of the article page, then clicking on 'View reader suggestions' at the top right of that talk page. Read below to learn more about the feedback page.

Why was my feedback rejected?
The feedback form uses special software filters to reject or flag inappropriate posts. If you get a warning, please revise your comment as requested. For example, the filters block out obscenities -- or reject web addresses used for spam, as outlined in our feedback guidelines. If you think that your feedback was rejected in error, you can email our Community Liaison, Product Development at, with details on the problem you experienced.

How else can I contribute to Wikipedia?
Besides posting feedback, you can also become an editor :). Wikipedia is “the encyclopedia anyone can edit” and it is maintained by regular folks just like you. If joining our community is something you would be interested in, check out this quick tutorial on editing. If you have more questions about editing, you can ask them in the Tea House, where experienced Wikipedians are standing by to provide peer support for new editors.

=Feedback page=



What is the feedback page?
The feedback page is a list of feedback posts left by you and other readers for a given article, as shown in the screenshot above. Its purpose is to help editors improve the article based on reader feedback. To see the feedback page for test sample, click on “Talk” at the top of the article page; then click on “View feedback” at the top of the talk page. For example, take a look at the feedback page for San Francisco.

What can I do on the feedback page?
The feedback page is a great place to see what other readers think about a Wikipedia article. If you read a useful post that can help editors improve this article, please mark it as helpful. And if you find inappropriate feedback, you can flag it as abuse, as described below. By marking or flagging these posts, you can surface constructive feedback to the top of the list, which helps editors find good suggestions for improvement.

How can I filter the feedback?


You can pick which posts to view on the feedback page through different filters (e.g.: “Most Relevant” or “All Comments”). Simply select the filter of your choice in the top tool bar above the feedback list. “Most Relevant” includes only feedback that has been marked as helpful (or that has been featured by an editor) -- and excludes posts that have been flagged as abuse (or hidden by an editor). “All Comments” shows all feedback posts with and i know your shining down on me from heaven like so many friends we lost along the way and i know eventually we will be together one sweet day

How can I mark helpful feedback?


If you see a good feedback post, we invite you to mark it as helpful by clicking on the “thumbs-up” icon below the post. The icon will turn blue to confirm your selection. You can also mark feedback posts as unhelpful by clicking on the “thumbs-down” icon. This will change the ranking of that comment, making it appear more or less prominently depending on what option you select. This makes the suggested changes more obvious to our editors.

How can I flag abusive feedback?


If you see a feedback post that you think is inappropriate, we invite you to report it by clicking on the “Flag as abuse” link with the flag icon. The icon will turn blue to confirm your selection and the post will be flagged as abuse. Our editors will then review it and decide if it should be hidden or not. This also removes the post from the ‘Most relevant’ view, which makes it less prominent on the feedback page. If a post is flagged by five different users, it is automatically hidden from view.

Where can I find my feedback?
If you posted feedback on an article, your post should be listed on its feedback page. Use the filter and sort tools described above to find it. If you cannot find it, it is possible that other users may have made it less prominent. We plan to provide a way for you to find your feedback posts more easily in upcoming releases of this tool.

Who can and cannot use this feedback tool?
Anyone can post feedback on articles in our test sample (except for blocked users), and anyone can view the feedback page. Readers can mark posts as helpful/unhelpful or flag them as abuse, as described above. Some editors have access to special tools to let them monitor the feedback page, as described below.

Who can moderate this feedback page?
Experienced editors and administrators have access to special monitoring tools to moderate comments on the feedback page. All experienced editors can feature posts to make them more prominent, as well as mark them as resolved. A smaller group of “monitors” can hide inappropriate posts, and an even smaller group of “oversighters” can permanently remove feedback from public view. All these groups can also view user activity and other details for each post.

How can I learn more about monitoring tools?
Experienced editors have access to special monitoring tools, which vary depending on their user rights. To learn more about these tools, click on the links below:
 * Editor Help: Feature a post/Mark as resolved (for auto-confirmed editors)
 * Monitor Help: Hide a post/Request oversight (for rollbackers, reviewers or admins - a.k.a. 'monitors')
 * Oversighter Help: Oversight (permanently remove) (for oversighters)

=Troubleshooting=

The tool isn't working properly
This is a fairly new tool, and some bugs are to be expected. If you find a bug, you can email our Community Liaison, Product Development at with details of the error and what browser and operating system you are running. He will submit the bug reports for you.

What do I do if I have other questions about this tool?
As above, our Community Liaison is available to answer any questions about this tool. Feel free to email your query to, and he'll be happy to provide as much information as he can :).

Recommended guidelines for monitors
For guidelines on the proper way to respond to different types of feedback, see Article Feedback/Guidelines.

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