Pending story for over a month

[draftsbyrose]

I posted part three of my series at the beginning of March, and it has been stuck in the pending folder since. I submitted several inquiries, and I've gotten zero responses. I'm almost finished with part four, and I won't be able to upload until I get part three posted. Please help!

 

[ElectricBlue]

I posted part three of my series at the beginning of March, and it has been stuck in the pending folder since. I submitted several inquiries, and I've gotten zero responses. I'm almost finished with part four, and I won't be able to upload until I get part three posted. Please help!

Unfortunately, there's nothing anyone here can do about that, except point you to the multiple threads from others with the same issue.

 

[TheIntrepidBoyager]

Honest question... After a couple weeks, why not pull the story and resubmit? Is that not an option? Or maybe do some edits and then resubmit? Didn't I read that would reset your place in the queue? I'm not saying that would magically fix whatever is going on, but maybe...?

Ya know, did you try turning it off and back on again type of thinking.

 

[RejectReality]

Reset your position in the queue by opening the submission, previewing it with the button at the bottom, and then submit again with the button at the bottom of the preview.

There's a bug they can't track down that causes some submissions to not appear in the dashboard, and resetting your position in the queue will most likely solve the problem. If that's the case, it will get processed in the normal course of a couple of days to a week.

If it sits for more than a week the second time, you're probably going to get rejected for content or AI use eventually.

Other than the queue bug, that seems to be the eventual result of long pending submissions of late.

Oh, do make sure it's in the pending folder and not the drafts folder, just to cover a base.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Has anyone ever determined if the simple act of entering a note to the admin when submitting a story can influence whether or not it gets stuck in pending, or helps to get a story stuck in pending released?

In theory, a note to admin would likely result in a manual review of the submission, if for no other reason than to read the note. If there is some systemic issue where some stories get "lost", would a note to admin override that?

When I think back to the two stories of mine that got stuck in ending last year, neither of them had notes to the admin, while every other story since then has. The ones with notes saw normal publishing times.

 

[RejectReality]

Has anyone ever determined if the simple act of entering a note to the admin when submitting a story can influence whether or not it gets stuck in pending, or helps to get a story stuck in pending released?

In theory, a note to admin would likely result in a manual review of the submission, if for no other reason than to read the note. If there is some systemic issue where some stories get "lost", would a note to admin override that?

When I think back to the two stories of mine that got stuck in ending last year, neither of them had notes to the admin, while every other story since then has. The ones with notes saw normal publishing times.

No, a note to the admin doesn't prevent the dashboard bug. That's been confirmed a few times.

Whether it would mean anything to submissions getting bottom-piled for AI/whatever flags is questionable at best. There have been at least a few people who added notes trying to get things through, only to eventually get rejected for AI after continued long-pending.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

No, a note to the admin doesn't prevent the dashboard bug.

Please explain what you mean by the "dashboard bug".

Isn't the author's control panel simply the location where they see the issue and not the "bug" itself? Have I missed a different issue?

 

[SmilingLez]

Honest question... After a couple weeks, why not pull the story and resubmit? Is that not an option? Or maybe do some edits and then resubmit? Didn't I read that would reset your place in the queue? I'm not saying that would magically fix whatever is going on, but maybe...?

Ya know, did you try turning it off and back on again type of thinking.

Sometimes that works (or maybe coincidence) and sometimes it doesn't. Ditto for all the other hacks people have mentioned.

 

[Britva415]

Sometimes that works (or maybe coincidence) and sometimes it doesn't. Ditto for all the other hacks people have mentioned.

It definitely resets the clock.

So even if it is coincidence, you at least get a chance at the coin flip.

If you don't pull and resubmit, then you don't.

 

[RejectReality]

Please explain what you mean by the "dashboard bug".

Isn't the author's control panel simply the location where they see the issue and not the "bug" itself? Have I missed a different issue?

It's what I was talking about above. There's a bug that causes some submissions to not appear in Laurel's dashboard.

 

[SmilingLez]

It's what I was talking about above. There's a bug that causes some submissions to not appear in Laurel's dashboard.

I don't think it's a dashboard bug because my poetry and audios have never sat in pending purgatory (approved anywhere from 3 hours to 3 days). Stories on the other hand have (over a month). YMMV

 

[BobbyBrandt]

It's what I was talking about above. There's a bug that causes some submissions to not appear in Laurel's dashboard.

And you know that some of those submissions had notes to the admin when submitted?

 

[IWroteThis]

And you know that some of those submissions had notes to the admin when submitted?

On one of my early experiences in Pending Purgatory, the original didn't have any notes to admin, but I resubmitted it I think three times where I added to those notes with no better luck.

 

[RejectReality]

And you know that some of those submissions had notes to the admin when submitted?

There was even a contest story with the proper tag added to the moderator notes which slipped into the cracks, and those are found by specifically searching for that tag. Even that wasn't enough to overcome the bug. ( That surprised me when I found it out, which is why I remember it specifically. )

 

[RejectReality]

I don't think it's a dashboard bug because my poetry and audios have never sat in pending purgatory (approved anywhere from 3 hours to 3 days). Stories on the other hand have (over a month). YMMV

There is a bug in the dashboard as described earlier. That was confirmed many years ago by Laurel. Its rarity and lack of any consistency in the data associated with stories known to have fallen into the cracks have made it difficult to stomp out. At this point, I would assume it's been brushed off until the next version of the dashboard goes live.

Due to the brevity of poetry, I would imagine it gets accelerated approval as an "easy win". Either something to get the motor running for the day on a positive note, or as a reward for slogging through the queue, depending upon which is needed for a brief dopamine burst. The same brevity means easier review of anything flagged as AI, so it may not get bottom-piled the way a story would that takes a lot longer to look over to decide whether the flag was a false positive.

Not knowing how the dashboard compartmentalizes things, it's entirely possible that review of poems takes place on a different tab or something similar, and the bug may not even affect poems. If everything is lumped together in one big queue with no divisions, then it's probably just dumb luck that the much smaller number of poems published have never fallen into the cracks. ( Or at least, nobody has complained about it here. Perhaps someone who frequents the poetry section might have heard a report? )

 

[BobbyBrandt]

There was even a contest story with the proper tag added to the moderator notes which slipped into the cracks, and those are found by specifically searching for that tag. Even that wasn't enough to overcome the bug. ( That surprised me when I found it out, which is why I remember it specifically. )

It surprises me too, since the site implies that the note to the admin flags a submission for whatever attention the note mentions.

The bug must bury a submission deeper than I thought possible.

 

[IWroteThis]

It surprises me too, since the site implies that the note to the admin flags a submission for whatever attention the note mentions.

The bug must bury a submission deeper than I thought possible.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the link in your activity log switches from returning the "pending moderation" message to a 404 error, so the bug seems to set something that prevents it from matching any of the queries they run.

 

[Britva415]

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the link in your activity log switches from returning the "pending moderation" message to a 404 error, so the bug seems to set something that prevents it from matching any of the queries they run.

Is that related to "permanently pending," though?

I thought that this was the effect of a totally different part of the process. And not a broken one, but one which resolves itself automatically.

 

[IWroteThis]

Is that related to "permanently pending," though?

I thought that this was the effect of a totally different part of the process. And not a broken one, but one which resolves itself automatically.

I don't know. It is something that I saw others pointing out fairly recently. Not sure how old the comments were though. Since then, I've only noticed it on stories that got stuck in Pending Purgatory, but the sample size is too small to be conclusive. Maybe I didn't check at the right time, but the three stories approved while my latest resident of Pending Purgatory has been sitting around did not return a 404 when I checked them.

 

[SmilingLez]

Is that related to "permanently pending," though?

I thought that this was the effect of a totally different part of the process. And not a broken one, but one which resolves itself automatically.

From watching some of my stories go from submission to pending purgatory and some going from submission to live this is what I've noticed

1. If a story is going to go live, a couple days after submission while still in pending queue, the URL will redirect to a page that says moderator has not reviewed it.

2. If the story ends up in pending purgatory, a couple days after submission, it's the 404 error (probably got dinged by an automatic tool/script). And I've never had a story move from that status. I usually delete and submit. But I think there is something in the database that causes the same behavior on the second submit. I've also noticed that a story will go in pending purgatory if the submission date is automatically changed.

YMMV

 

[cadeauxxx]

Mine has been stuck since February 5th. I've tried everything. Resubmitted multiple times, and wrote in the notes. The last time I did this, they changed the date from March24th to March 27th, and it has stuck in pending hell since then. I've written to Laurel, and I've done bug error reports. I'm at my wits end and have given up. I never had this happen before and I've uploaded more than 200 stories on this site. The other ones I uploaded this year were posted quickly, but for some reason, this one series chapter is stuck and it won't get out of pending hell.

 

[draftsbyrose]

Update! I took some suggestions and added a note to the admins, but my story was rejected for AI use. It wasn't written by AI and wasn't edited in anything but iOS pages. They instructed me to have it reviewed by volunteer editors, but I strongly disagree with the need for that because it's not a grammar or fluency issue. The story reads well, it's easy to follow, and most importantly, it was not written by anyone but me. How can I challenge this?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Update! I took some suggestions and added a note to the admins, but my story was rejected for AI use. It wasn't written by AI and wasn't edited in anything but iOS pages. They instructed me to have it reviewed by volunteer editors, but I strongly disagree with the need for that because it's not a grammar or fluency issue. The story reads well, it's easy to follow, and most importantly, it was not written by anyone but me. How can I challenge this?

Submit it again, with a Note to the Editor. It's clear that the site uses (probably) several automated systems before a story gets in front of human eyes, and your submission has been caught in that cycle.

Be aware that the Volunteer Editors text is standard in the rejection notices, and essentially meaningless. Also be aware that, to the best of anyone's knowledge, there is only one sister editor, Laurel, so be courteous in your message. Best of luck getting your story through.