h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am not that impatient (honest!) but I think it would be good to have some sort of indication on the peer review page as to how long things stay in peer review, and then how long the editorial process can take.

For example I chucked something into peer review and after about 5 days of tense nail-biting waiting for hundreds of changes somebody told me that articles have to stay there for at least a week before anything is done with them. Looking at a couple of the postings here a hint as to how long the editorial process should take would also be good so that researchers can stop worrying about their articles at least for a while

k

The best answer is 'it depends'.

Since the Scouts are all volunteers, they aren't given a lot of strict rules to follow, outside of the one-week guideline.

Some pick entries that tickle their interest regardless of the fact that other, worthwhile entries have been there longer. Others pick older entries exclusively, even though there are better entries that have been submitted since then. Still others (like me) do a mix of these methods.

And once it gets picked, there's still more waiting. The entry oftentimes must wait to be posted to a Subeditor. They then have up to a month to work on it. Then it returns to the in-house editorial team for a final review. And finally it joins the queue for the front page which varies in length depending on how productive the Subs have been and how long the queue is at that moment in time.

Hang in there. I'm sure your day will arrive!

btw: As complex and lengthy as this process seems, it was much worse in the early days when everything was submitted to the Subs and they had to wade through a queue that was honestly quite enormous. It took *months* in the old days just to get someone 'official' to look at an entry.

Hope this helps!

- Jimi X

That does help Jimi, thank you .

Something like that on the peer review page would be quite reassuring to us newbie submitters to do a bit of expectation setting. For example that rule about being in peer review for a week isn't written up anywhere that I could find, so I wasn't sure if I had to do anything more after going to peer review.


k

Waiting for the debut of your first Entry is the most anxious time. The trick for making the time pass more quickly is to start on something else. If you always have something going into the sausage machine, there will always be a sausage about to pop out.

JTG

LOL!

I was wondering when John would find this thread!

We were just discussing queues in another forum.

Excellent point Kelli! We've added a section to the bottom of the rather-long Peer Review page, and have added some typical times to the 'What happens next?' page. Hopefully that makes it a bit clearer.

The process of getting an article into the Guide still seems long and complicated. Was it always like this? It sounds like the sort of thing Douglas Adams would have made jokes about.