Slashcode

02/03/06/1750247 story

Submission rejection feedback

posted by Krow on 04:50 PM March 6th, 2002      

Is it possible to add the ability to get submission rejection feedback? The common reasons could be stuck in a dropdown menu for easy admin access (adding a couple of seconds to the time it takes to reject/accept a submission. Being able to type a note in a text box would also be useful. The reason I ask is because I've made a number of submissions since I joined /. that I thought were all fairly decent. They were Ask SlashDot from crying out loud (anything can get posted there). I've only ever had one get accepted. The one I submitted this morning about Kansas' upcoming anti-spam legislation (with links and everything) was rejected in less than 15 minutes. Knowing why a submission was rejected could greatly improve the quality of submissions that get accepted. A tiny amount of feedback from the admin as to why a story is being rejected (too long, too wordy, too much ASCII art) would let the author think it over and revise the submission. That in itself could greatly improve the quality of the accepted submissions. I think it would be an excellent feature. Thoughts? Comments? Flames?

• werd up (Score:1)

  by rizzo (2828)

  This would be a great feature, as long as the admins actually stuck to using it. I've had absolutely ZERO submissions to /. accepted. I think they were all /.-worthy. My feelings of betrayal and rage would be quelled somewhat if only I had some response from those with their fingers on the proverbial buttons.

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• Not for slashdot, for the rest of us (Score:1)

  by dscottj (2927)

  I agree this is something that could be very useful. Slashdot itself doesn't have it, for reasons outlined in their faq. Unfortunately I can't find a direct link, but I do remember reading about it somewhere over there. I accept that these are good reasons for slashdot.

  However, I run an intranet based on slash, and count my submissions in the dozens per month rather than hundreds per day. I'm also really trying to encourage participation. It would be very handy to have some way to give my users feedback on why a story got rejected. Most of my reasons will be technical... duplicate post, bad formatting, etc.

  Yeah, I know, open source means getting in and doing it yourself. I just might, once I figure out how to work CVS. But it always helps to ask if anyone is already working the problem.

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  AMCGLTD.COM [amcgltd.com], where anger, cats and science fiction come together.

  • Re:Not for slashdot, for the rest of us (Score:2)

    by Krow (986)

    I am not against the feature, it would be a pretty easy code_param task to do.

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  • Re:Not for slashdot, for the rest of us (Score:2)

    by Krow (986)

    Add code_param values for this, and put in a popup list (very easy). Modify the schema and make sure it gets saved.

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    You can't grep a dead tree.
• subscriptions (Score:0)

  by Anonymous Coward

  I wonder if a subscriber will have more pull in getting a submission through than a non-subscriber....
• Thanks (Score:1)

  by macdaddy (2476)

  Thanks to all for the comments. I think this would be a really good feature. I've read the /. FAQ before but I don't recall anything about this in particular. I'll go look when I get some time. Still it wouldn't take an admin but an extra second or two to select the most appropriate and common rejection message from a popup menu or 30 seconds to type in a human-generated message if they think the submission is worth fixing and resubmitting.

  I really figured that of all my submissions, this last one would have gotten through. I mean it was about my state's anti-spam legislation that's in need of help. It goes through soon and has some flaws and controversy to it. I figured it would have made the cut easy. Weird. Maybe they just don't like my nick. ;-)