Amen to that. Take care of yourself. We all realize that this is a labor of love and that your real obligations to yourself and others come first. I'm sorry you felt the need to explain in the public forum. It really is none of our place to demand anything, and if we have questions, PMs are the better route to pursue. Feel better!

I don't really mind as this is one big family here! I care for small children so it was inevitable that I catch something and as I have asthma (shhhh preexisting condition...) I got a little worried. I had to stop googling! They say it's better than being vaccinated though.

I usually notice someone's quiz like that immediately when it's popped back in...so I too thought it a case of Agony's 'not resubmitted yet' state.

I keep mentioning this but the queue is like an auto mechanic shop. Some cars are going to take more time to get into shape and tuned up. So when you do look at the queues, many times they've gone through the first triage and they will require more time on our part. If I see you resubmitting a quiz and it's in excellent shape, I'll just get it on the road in no time though.

Mine was submitted Feb.19 and still no word on it from anyone.

The submisison date is Feb 19 but, for some reason, it's in the queue with today's date. Have you gone ito the quiz and re-saved it, by clicking the save button?

(re-saving the quiz puts your quiz in the queue with today's date, behind all quizzes dated 4th March and earlier)

Please don't get me wrong, I do realize that the Editors are human, but I was wondering how long it will take my quiz to be edited. Two weeks ago, I submitted a quiz titled "Big Brothers/Big Sisters" in the hobbies catagory. Grandted, I have written some really bad quizzes in the past; but I feel that two weeks is a little excessive.

Edited to change topic title back

Haku4u - your quiz has been submitted 9 days ago, on the 21st. With your previous track record, you need to expect turnaround times of 6 to 8 days even in the best cases, so I would not yet say your entry is even near to being overdue.

edited to change topic title back

I learned that one must choose carefully as to which quiz to submit if they have more than one waiting to be submitted. I changed one once, thinking it would take the quehe place of the other, and of course, that's just doesn't make sense as the newly submitted quiz needs to have time spent on it just the same as the one you submitted.
So a word of advice to authors who think about 'changing their submission'-only do this if there is something really wrong you've noticed in your submitted quiz, or you want to delete it or change it. Once you do change it, you should realize that just because it's been in the quehe before doesn't mean it will take less time on its subsequent submission.

Sometimes peepulz iz sooo krazy!

There's an unstated golden rule if you want to avoid delay, namely: once you've submitted a quiz, don't fiddle around with it.

Hi, I have a question about the queues, not necessarily the waiting times. I've had my quiz submitted to Sci/Tech since April 9 (I think) so it's only 6 days, and the category waiting time says up to 6 days, so that's no problem.

However, I've somehow managed to submit 2 quizzes at once! My max in Author Central still says one. It happened because I submitted a quiz which was to be part 2 of a series, and a previous quiz had been taken offline so I could edit the title etc. to make it part 1 of the series. However, when I was finished, I didn't think about it and clicked submit! I didn't think it would let me submit more than one as this is my maximum!

As I said, I don't think my quiz should have been seen to yet, as it's still within the range, but if there is a problem caused by submitting 2 instead of 1, it'd be better for me rectify it sooner or later!

Apologies if this would have been better sent directly to Crisw, but I thought maybe other editors could answer on it?

Thanks,
Richard

If it lets you submit two quizzes, there will be no problem caused by your submitting two.

Oh, o.k. That's great. It must just be that they haven't been seen to yet, which is fine. Thanks for the quick reply.

(P.s. Does this mean I can submit two now, and that the number on Author Central just hasn't been updated, or is it more likely to be a one-off? )

Usually the max of 1 refers to only one new template. If a quiz has already been online and had to come offline to fix something, it'll let you resubmit that one, plus one new one, but probably not two or more new ones, if your Author Central says 1.

O.k. Thanks very much That makes sense.

Submitted a quiz (20/6/2010) when waiting time was 2 days, now a week later it's 5/6 days. Question being does your submission get looked at in order of when it was submitted or what?

When your quiz gets reviewed is REALLY variable. When it's reviewed depends, where the editors are depends, but yes, for the most part you are reviewed in order. If you are "green slipped," you will have a lesser priority than more experienced authors. How many quizzes you have online matters. If you re-save a quiz, you're placed back at the back of the queue. Like I said, it's really variable!

Oops! Looks like Kyle and I posted at almost the same time.

Once I submit a quiz, I'm the most impatient person in the world. Madly checking the Buzz and my mailbox for the lovely little note to say my quiz is online. But I NEVER play with my quiz once it's submitted, because hitting that save button will drop it back to the end of the queue. Kyle will attest to the fact that most authors get very "twitchy" waiting for their quizzes to go online.

The long and the short of it is, the editors are only human, despite evidence to the contrary. And with all the new challenges and things on the author board, they are severely overworked too. All quizzes, unless so bad that they cannot be fixed (I doubt that would ever happen) will make it online eventually.

Patience is a vertue, and if you cannot be patient, work on your next quiz! Or join us in the author board where you can have company while you twitch! lol

Quote:

---

The long and the short of it is, the editors are only human, despite evidence to the contrary.

---

What evidence is that? The LCDs in our eyes, or the constant chanting of "ex-ter-min-ate'?

I can only reinforce what my editorial colleagues have already said. Basically, a quiz with no errors will probably go online quicker than one that has lots of typos, grammar problems, etc.

Another factor is the specialised expertise of some editors. As an example, in Hobbies, I generally get quizzes like chess, board games, collectibles, etc, and leave alone things that I know nothing about, such as knitting, astrology, gardening.

Patience is a virtue, and authors get a chance to become more virtuous! I have had the heady experience of such quick editorial processing that three quizzes went online within a single day, and I have waited for over a week while a category that estimated 1-2 days wait when I submitted blew out to a longer wait every time I checked. Of course, the wait seems longer than it really is - I had to start keeping a record of when I submitted each quiz so that I can remind myself that it hasn't really been as long as it feels. But they do get there eventually, and the waiting time gives you a chance to start releasing your baby, and moving on to the next one.

I have a couple of questions, it's not a complaint either, just plain curiosity and wonder!

When checking the queue lines, let's say movies says 3 to 5 days, (you're looking when it's the said day 4), then you look on day 5 and it's switched to 5 to 8 days and so on, that sort of thing.

Now my actual question is, when a category is overflowing with quizzes having a queue line of, let's say 8 to 15 days, do editors from other categories set their queue waiting list aside and go help in the busier category? Is this a reason for some unexpected delays?

My next question is just about new quizzes on line. Often there will be a splurge of quizzes from the same category that show up, like music, which is very popular. But then something like History will only have a quiz show up once every two or three days some of the time, even when the queue might say 2 to 3 days. Is it more difficult to edit some categories than it is to edit others? Is this a reason for the wait time differences?

Hopefully, you get what I'm asking about here. I just think that more explanation about how it is for editors could certainly help authors to relax and stop feeling like their quiz is being ignored or the wait is far too long before the quiz goes on line.

Thanks, and I do look forward to an answer that might help clarify these sorts of questions.

Hugssss
Giz

We all have our categories that we edit in, and cannot edit in others, so there is not much piling in to help those who are swamped. Within the categories we edit, though, there might be a bit of that. For example, I edit in three categories. In one of them, I'm the only one to edit those quizzes (I do all the book quizzes in FC). Since there is nobody else to take up my slack, I make a point of never going more than a couple of days without working in there. In my other categories, I'll take a look at queue length, and pitch in where it seems I'm most needed.

When you see a whole whack of quizzes going online in one category, that's a sign, usually, that a single editor has been working hard and trying to clear things out a bit. The one History quiz a day may mean that there have been few submissions in there lately, or it may mean that the History editor is busy in real life and can only pop into FT for a quick release of one quiz, or it may mean that History submissions lately have been very poor, and he's working very hard on quizzes that are going through their third or fourth rejection.

It's important to keep in mind that very few quizzes go online first time, especially those from new authors. Most submissions in the queue are from new authors. Some categories, like Music, get an enormous number of submissions. It's entirely possible for an editor to have been working for two hours in that queue, and to have cleared a dozen quizzes from the queue, but for only one to have gone online - the rest have been sent back for correction. Three days later, when those corrected quizzes come back, five can go online within fifteen minutes if everything asked for has been done. So you see that there is no point in looking for direct correlation between estimated wait time and what you see on the new quizzes list.

The issue is further complicated by the fact that certain quizzes will only be edited by certain editors, because of competency in that area. So, if that editor is not around, a quiz may wait longer than others in the same queue. Some quizzes pose problems of categorization or other things, which mean the editors need to discuss them behind the scenes, which means they will wait longer. Some quizzes are just so dreadful-looking that they get left for a bit - I know I need to be in a particular mood in order to deal patiently with an author who submits a quiz with ten spelling errors just in the intro. I can also only handle so much Harry Potter or "Twilight" in one sitting - editors are human, too. We also have other behind-the-scenes duties, such as dealing with corrections and making subcategories, that sometimes take away from working on the queue. And, of course, our lives are all different - some of us get big swatches of computer time, others snatch five minutes here and there while the pasta is cooking. Some of us are here every day, and some have, say, two hours every Tuesday.

So, if you are looking for some way to tell, by estimated wait time, which editors are online, and what's happening in the new quiz list, when your particular quiz will be edited, you really can't. It just doesn't work that way.

I'm not an editor, so I should give a little caveat: maybe I'm totally wrong. But sometimes editors feel the need to confer with each other, and then it might be the first editor is waiting on input from his/her colleagues.