Slush Pile FAQs

What is the submission process?  
Submissions first relax in the moderator queue while volunteer moderators assess them. Two to five moderator decisions per story determine whether it will be promoted to the public Slush Pile. If the submitter included an email address, he or she will receive notification of the decision, with a link to the moderator comments.

Stories in the Slush Pile are scored by readers for at least two weeks. Once a month, I sort the stories based on their voting rank and review them from the top down. Usually I get through the top half of the stories, rewriting about dozen into DAs, HMs, PAs, and ULs. The remainder languish in the pending file, awaiting possible future use.

Submitters are not individually informed when a story is promoted to the archive, but the story titles are listed in the free newsletter, so do subscribe!

When will my story appear on the website?
The story will appear in the Slush Pile or the Sorry! bin within a few days, when the initial moderation step is completed. Darwin promotes (rewritten) stories to the archives within sixty days.

Why was my story labelled "Repeat" even though I searched before submitting?   The search engine covers only submissions that have been reviewed by moderators, so it's a day or two behind. That's a limitation I set because when submissions appear immediately, the system is very susceptible to trolls seeking immediate gratification.

I do appreciate every submission, but if yours happens to be a word-for-word repeat, I only need the first one. If you rewrite the story into an amusing Darwin Award, it will stand a better chance of being sent to the Slush Pile.

To partially remedy this imperfect situation, please contact me if the story makes it to the permanent archive (titles are listed in the newsletter) and I will gladly add your name to the submitters list. You deserve credit for your effort.