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Due to the ever-increasing number of prospective SCP wiki authors, as well as the comparatively lower number of experienced reviewers who are able to provide in-depth critique, the following two new policies have been enacted:
1. All first-time authors must get their concepts reviewed (either in the Ideas Critique forum or the IRC chatrooms) and greenlighted by two experienced reviewers before the authors may request feedback on a full draft in the Drafts and Critiques forum. Note that you can still ask for draft critique in the IRC chat if desired.
Put simply, a greenlight is a vote of confidence from an experienced site member. A greenlight tells the author that the reviewer thinks the concept is solid enough to be drafted and will likely succeed on the mainsite.
Site members who can greenlight concepts are those who fulfill one or more of the following criteria:
- They are on the Butterfly Squad Roster list of reviewers.
- They have an entry in the Authors' Pages list or they qualify1 for an Author Page.
- They have been featured as a reviewer in the Reviewers' Spotlight.
- They are a staff member.
Additional note: reviewers cannot greenlight their own concepts.
To confirm: if an author has written at least one successful2 mainsite piece, they may bypass the greenlighting requirement to use the Draft Critique forum.
Of note, some reviewers have started expressing negative responses to concepts with unofficial, non-staff-designated "redlights". Please note that a "redlight" does not cancel a greenlight given, nor does it mean that the author cannot progress with editing the concept.
2. Drafts that do not meet a minimum quality threshold will receive a boilerplate critique response (with accompanying links to self-study resources), requesting that the author first address the basic errors on their own.
Criteria for an automatic deferral / "Auto-Defer" message include, but are not limited to:
- recurrent and obvious formatting errors (improper SCP format, lack of paragraph/line spacing, excessively large images, misaligned text)
- excessive grammar/mechanics errors
- specifically for SCP articles: nonsensical/extremely overblown containment procedures, severe lack of clinical tone, inaccurate portrayal of basic Foundation universe aspects (e.g., personnel acting stupid for no reason)