What is the Wikipedia sandbox and how is it used for drafting?

Every registered Wikipedia editor has a personal sandbox at User:[username]/sandbox, a workspace where article content can be developed, sourced, and refined without being live in mainspace. For new articles, all meaningful drafting work happens here first: structure, inline citations, encyclopedic tone, and internal review before external eyes see it.

From sandbox to publication: two paths

1. Direct move to mainspace, The editor uses the page-move function to publish the draft immediately as a live article. This is faster, but the article can be nominated for deletion the moment it appears, with no protective review buffer.
2. Articles for Creation (AfC) submission, The editor adds {{subst:submit}} to the draft, placing it in a reviewer queue. An uninvolved community reviewer evaluates notability, sourcing, and policy compliance before the article moves to mainspace. Review can take days to several months depending on queue depth and draft complexity.

COI disclosure before submission

• Wikipedia’s terms of use require paid and interested-party editors to disclose the relationship, on the user page, the article Talk page, and in edit summaries, before any submission.
• COI editors are strongly discouraged from moving drafts directly to mainspace; AfC is the expected path.
• Undisclosed COI is grounds for declining the submission regardless of article quality.

What the sandbox does and does not protect

• It keeps incomplete or imperfect drafts out of the public eye and out of the deletion queue during development.
• It provides a stable working environment for multi-round internal review before community scrutiny begins.
• It does not protect the published article from later challenges, notability and sourcing issues that persist into the live article remain subject to community review and deletion nomination after publication.