User:Pi zero/essays/What to do when given a not-ready review

This essay is under construction.

This essay is under construction.

This might eventually be integrated into some sort of larger document on the collaborative interactions of review.

You've submitted an article for review, and a reviewer has given it a not-ready review. Now what?

One thing to keep firmly in mind: The clock is ticking. An article has to complete the whole review process, all the way to publication —a passing review— within a few days after the focal event of the article, which is really a very short time for all that has to happen (for a Wikipedian, imagine trying to go from first conceiving an article to achieving "good article" status in about 24–48 hours), and a submit/not-ready/revise/resubmit cycle takes a massive bite out of that narrow time window. So anything you do that bears on publishing the article should be done ASAP, and should make a bee line toward all-around-acceptable publication.

For the reviewer who reviews your article, the review is about assessing different aspects of the article for publication, and giving you guidance on what to do for this article and for future articles. But for you, what to do next depends on what you make of the review feedback. Below, we'll discuss different cases; especially, what to do if you don't understand some of the feedback, or if you disagree with it. First, though, some perspective on the larger context that this particular not-ready review fits into.

Dos and don'ts

[criteria that say to do something, and criteria that say not to do something]

Learning

[lots; initial learning curve YMMV]

[a two-way street, but don't expect equal traffic, nor the same sorts of traffic, in both directions (and everyone should be goal-oriented)]

From your perspective

[easy cases]