Answers to Question about Submission Validation Order

[Aquarius]

It's come to our attention that some of you have questions about the procedure involving which fics get validated and when after they're submitted to the archive.

Generally, we do validate things on a first-come, first-served basis. There are, however, a variety of instances when the archivist on duty may decide to circumvent the submission order. Instances when this would happen include, but are not limited to:

* There are issues with your submission that require your attention before we validate it. While we're waiting to hear from you, we will move on to the next submission (if there is one) and try to get that validated.

* The ten "Most Recent" fics displayed on the front page starts to look unbalanced. Again, the reasons for this could include but are not limited to a disproportional number of fics by the same author and/or containing the same 'ship or being of the same nature.

Let me break it down for you:

The Expanse is new. We are trying to build a reputation--a "brand", if you will. We want EVERYONE to know how serious we are about being friendly to all genres, 'ships, and styles---IDIC, y'all. We want that front page to show a variety of things.

What we categorically will not do, however, is set specific quotas, like "no more than five fics on the front page by the same person" or "no more than four featuring the same 'ship" or whatever. That would just be...ridiculous. For one thing, we are kind of limited by what's submitted, so such quotas wouldn't take into account things like what we have to work with at the moment, how fast/slow submissions are coming in, etc.

What we are doing is reserving the right to table your fic(s) for a couple of days in cases where either the image of diversity may be compromised, or if you've been very prolific, and we want to give the people who submitted things before you a fair chance to shine on the front page.

As I said, we reserve the right to "eyeball" it. For example, one person submitting six fics that vary in genre as in het/slash/gen, style as in humor/romance/suspense/drama/etc., and/or 'ship is different from one person submitting six fics that are all the same genre, style, and 'ship. Likewise, seven people submitting stories about the same 'ship but offering a variety of styles is different from seven people offering the same 'ship and every single story is the same style. We just don't know what we're going to get or when, so there may be times when we decide to hold off for a couple of days and see what else comes in.

And, unlike certain other sites, we will NOT be skipping people to the front of the line just because they're our friend.

If anyone has any questions, you may PM Honeybee or myself. Rest assured, this isn't something that comes up all that often, and remember--we have done it to ourselves many, many, MANY times over in order to keep the site from appearing biased in favor of TnT or het. The staff members have always taken one for the team in an effort to let other authors and 'ships shine.

Thank you, and I hope I explained this well.