Better proof reading of articles prior to decision making#439

I know that the team is only small but I feel that articles aren’t getting read properly prior to a decision is made on whether an article is published or not.

For example, I have recently had an artificial rejected for been a duplicate. However the article I submitted is a different place, at a different address, with a different history, amd a different name. The only similarity it had to the article it was supposed to be repeating was it was in the same city!
A similar thing happened with another article I previously submitted, because it had a similar name to an article half way around the world it was rejected.

I understand that things will be busy for you, but it feels like articles are been skim read rayher than actually reviewed before decisions are made, otherwise the differences with my article would have been identified.
This is disappointing because I can only imagine all the other amazing places that are falsely getting rejected!

I had a recent experience where I submitted articles for two different but distinctly independent museums in Bologna, Italy, featuring musical instruments but where one was accepted for publication (Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica) while the other was rejected (Museo San Colombano). This left me feeling confused. The email for the rejected location stated “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.”, but I quite frankly cannot conceive of why a deconsecrated renaissance-era church filled with centuries-old harpsichords and pianos did not meet Atlas Obscura’s publication criteria.

Like katielou106, I also understand that the staff at Atlas Obscura have been working with a relatively large workload, and I am grateful that most of my submissions get published. I just do not understand this specific rejection and strongly suspect that it was incorrectly flagged as a duplicate.

When AO rejects an inferior dupliate they will specifically tell you so. It has happened to me before.