Better feedback for rejected places#320

I recently submitted a place that was rejected, and while I don’t feel too badly about that rejection, it would have helped me to write better articles if I had received better feedback. The feedback that I received said, “You added a place that doesn’t fit with Atlas Obscura’s mission of sharing the most unusual, hidden, wondrous, or otherwise amazing places in the world.” This seemed vague to me and left me feeling uncertain about what I did wrong or how I could avoid whatever mistake I had made. More specific feedback would really help me to be a better contributor.

Also the complete impossibility to get any kind of feedback or discussion on a rejection is very unfriendly imo. One if my places was mistakingly assumed to be a double one, while it was a more accessible alternative. I tried for literally a year to get it reevaluated but it just isn’t, and resubmitting doesn’t work because I guess someone sees it’s a resubmission that was rejected.

I think I’m the only one affected, but I have had absolutely no communication about the rejection of my last few places. Very odd as I think I’ve gotten every other email from places@atlasobscura.com in the meantime.

Mentioned on the (current) fifth-to-last post on #291, tagging @Michelle Cassidy but no response yet.

Just for reference, it’s these:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/la-casa-de-los-lotos-the-house-of-lotuses

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/casas-arabe-y-china-arab-and-chinese-houses

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/abandoned-las-velas-resort

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/malecon-tajamar-tajamar-boardwalk

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/museo-restaurante-trilobit

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/helicopters-of-the-instituto-americano-leonardo-da-vinci

Hi all, thanks for this feedback. With the number of submissions that we receive every day and the size of our team, we unfortunately don’t have the bandwith to provide detailed feedback on every submission that we decide to pass on. As most of you know, we have a long backlog of places awaiting publication, and we’re focused on getting those entries edited, fact-checked, and published.

@linkogecko hmm, I’m still not sure what’s going on with those emails for you. I know that they’ve had responses from our end (I wrote at least a few of them), but it’s unclear why you wouldn’t be receiving those messages.

@Michelle Cassidy , that is actually better feedback (“we unfortunately don’t have the bandwith to provide detailed feedback on every submission that we decide to pass on”) than the generic message that I received (“You added a place that doesn’t fit with Atlas Obscura’s mission of sharing the most unusual, hidden, wondrous, or otherwise amazing places in the world.”). Maybe you should use something like that first statement.

@Dark Nebula Deluxe noted!

It would also be great if it would be possible to get the feedback if one really wants it somewhere. Maybe a thread can be opened here?

I agree with @Dark Nebula Deluxe above, specially since there are plenty of examples of published Places that don’t fit with “unusual, hidden” at least (#296)

I got that rejection message myself on a couple of occassions. I think a standard set of options for the editors to select would be extremely helpful. Like, “Why are you rejecting this?” [] Too well-known, [] Too mundane, []Wild animal contact, stuff like that. That would provide better feedback, and be simple for the editors to use.

In any case, this rejection message about AO’s mission is apparently attached to EVERY rejection, making it useless in determining what was wrong with the article. Some of these places take hours (and often money!) to research and write, so I think the editors can take a few seconds to write “This place is too mundane” or something like that.

Yea, I agree. I have a few places which imo are very fitting, but someone at some point rejected it and I never got anyone to reply to any of the decisions. Even though I tried multiple times over several years.

I really appreciate that we get a channel to the editors via the discord, but this has always remained a pet peeve.

@Michelle Cassidy this seems like another example of this:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/monument-to-the-heroes-of-the-air

The article says it needs further work and to check my email, but I have received no email so I don’t know what I need to fix to get the article published.

Hi @katielou106! If the email is not in your inbox (or possibly your spam folder), is it possible that you have turned off email notifications?

While we get that figured out, I can tell you that the feedback on that specific place was a request to re-upload the images, as it seems like there was an error in uploading images when you initially submitted that place.