Wikipedia:Code review

This is an information page. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms or practices. It may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Shortcuts WP:CREVWP:CREV WP:CODEREVWP:CODEREV

Wikipedia's code review process is a way to receive feedback from other editors about new or proposed changes to a user script or Gadget. Such changes would usually be proposed by the script's maintainer, unless they are inactive. Other editors can comment on the changes or new script. This process may be used prior to making an edit request for a script in the MediaWiki namespace (which can only be edited by interface administrators). Code review is a useful place to centralise reviews from other editors.

Code reviews are entirely voluntary, open to any feedback, and nominators may also request feedback for specific issues. Editors and nominators may both edit articles during the discussion. Compared to real-world code review process, where experts themselves take part in reviewing the work of another, the volunteers here do not necessarily have qualifications or professional experience in coding. There are also no mandatory coding conventions, though it is suggested that a script be internally consistent in whatever conventions it does use.

Y Do use code review for

• Proposed changes to Wikipedia userscript
• Proposed changes to Wikipedia gadgets
• Proposed changes to pages related to a script, such as JSON or CSS pages
• Review of new user scripts or gadgets

N Do not use code review for

• General help with programming
• Scripts which are unrelated to Wikipedia
• Scripts that you would like created
• Non-code pages, such as articles
• Lua modules

Requesting a review

See the instructions below. Nominators are limited to one review at a time, and are encouraged to help reduce the backlog by commenting on other reviews. Any editor may comment on a review, and there is no requirement that any comment be acted on.

When reviewing

• Generally, follow the MediaWiki Code review guidance, as much as is applicable to userscripts and gadgets
• Only use headings that are level 4 (==== heading ====) and below
• To show snippets of code with nice formatting, use <syntaxhighlight lang="js">. The lang attribute can also take css for CSS, and json for JSON
• You can use {{+1}} to generate +1, or {{-n}} to generate −1
• It is not generally appropriate to use "+2" or "-2", as this code review process is entirely voluntary, and the decision on whether to make changes is ultimately up to the script's author (for userscripts), or an interface admin (for gadgets)

Closing a code review

Close reviews when they are resolved, or it has been 14 days since the last comment

1. Add {{archive top}} and {{archive bottom}} templates to the top and bottom of the review page
2. Remove the subpage transclusion from this page
3. Add a new entry to Wikipedia:Code review/archive

1. Create a code review subpage. Use the box below, adding the script's name after Code review/. If a previous code review already exists, add or increment a number at the end: MyScript 2, MyScript 3, etc.

2. Add the following details to the subpage:
   • Link to existing code
   • Link to proposed code
   • Diff link, using {{Compare pages|page1|page2}}
   • Summary of you propose to change, and why
   • Specific issues, if any, you would like feedback on
3. Transclude the subpage you created to the TOP of the next section of this page, by adding {{Wikipedia:Code review/YOUR SUBPAGE}}