Neopian Times submission technical difficulties

[storymakerechidna]

Hi y'all. I'm new here so hopefully this is an OK place to put this and I'm not doing anything wrong, lol.

I just got back into playing Neopets and decided to try to make my dream of being in the Neopian Times come true. I submitted a comic, but got absolutely no confirmation message ("your comic has been submitted successfully" or anything like that). It just took me back to the submission main page. I was weirded out, but I figured that maybe that's just the way it worked. However, later I learned that indeed, it's supposed to do a submission successful message. So I tried again (in both Firefox AND Chrome to be safe), but still, nothing. Now the next issue is out and I never got a Neomail of any kind about my comic, so it seems all the more likely that the submission process just didn't work.

So...I tried to figure out why. (Warning: Some technical stuff ahead, I'll do my best to explain.) I realized that the submission form uses the GET method, which means that it works by adding parameters to the URL. You've probably noticed these parameters before - there will be a question mark added to the end of the original URL, then a phrase, then an equal sign, then another phrase, then an ampersand, then another phrase with an equal sign and another phrase, etc. I noticed that the URL I was sent to when I submitted my comic (which just looked like the submission page with no changes) was the following: www.neopets.com/ntimes/nt_submit.phtml?article_name=Neo+Life+Hack&type=comic&exit_code=&e=9. I noticed that it seemed odd that there wasn't anything after the "exit_code=" other than just going straight to the next ampersand to define the next parameter; in other words, the "exit_code" was empty. I figured this might be the root of my problem, so I just edited the URL and changed it the exit_code to 1, so it read as follows: www.neopets.com/ntimes/nt_submit.phtml?article_name=Neo+Life+Hack&type=comic&exit_code=1&e=9. Once I did this, I did actually get the submission confirmation page - blue text saying my comic was submitted successfully.

The trouble is, I don't actually know whether or not it really submitted successfully, or if I just "tricked" the system into displaying that message!

So, that's where you guys can help, I hope. First of all, has anyone experienced this problem before where your entry just doesn't submit, like how I described? If so, how do you solve it?

Failing that, the next thing I want to know is a surefire way to tell whether or not my comic submitted. So basically, I'd like to know how neomails for Neopian Times entries work. Do they always send you a neomail when you submit something? If so, how long does it generally take? If I can know for sure that they always send a neomail within a week, I can know for sure whether or not my URL-tweaking worked to actually submit my comic or not (if I get no neomail, it proves it didn't work).

Thank you so much, guys. I really want to be able to submit things to the Neopian Times, lol. Also, excited to be here in general!

[Twillie]

If you didn't get a "submitted successfully" page, then that indeed means the comic didn't go through, likely because it didn't meet one or more of the file requirements. Check that the comic is either a .jpeg or .gif file, and that it is under 200k in size. (you can find all requirements here.) If it doesn't meet one of these, the comic won't be able to go through.

So, I'd definitely recommend trying again after checking all these, as I doubt your comic submitted after changing the URL. After that, you should get a "submitted successfully" page, and if you want to make extra sure, you can try to submit the comic again under the exact title. If it says you already submitted something with that name, it means the comic got though to the editor successfully!

As for held over/acceptance/rejection neomails, the timing may vary, especially depending on the type of submission. For a comic, I'd say it may take a week or two, and yes, if it submitted successfully, you should expect some kind of neomail for sure. If it takes longer than two weeks, I'd perhaps neomail nt_editor to make sure it didn't get lost in translation.

Hope that helps! ^^

[storymakerechidna]

Wow, thank you SO much! I compressed the file size again and it worked, with a submission successful message. I thought I had met the file size requirement, but I guess I must've messed up, lol. I'm so excited it worked aaaa, you're a life saver. <3

Kind of wish it gave you a "This submission failed because it was too large" message instead of saying nothing, haha.

[Twillie]

Yay, glad it submitted successfully that time =D You're welcome ^^ And I'll be sure to keep an eye out for your comic then if it does get in; what's it about, if I may ask? =o

And lol yeah, that would be beneficial if there was at least some kind of "failed to submit" page, else especially for first timers, it might just seem like redirecting back to the submissions page is normal x3;