I'm Sorry Vocal But 8 Days to Publish a Story is Not Acceptable

Actually make it 8 days.....

Below in quotes is copied text from the Vocal help section describing their policy with respect to story publication times. This information was posted 2 years ago. Highlighting with italics/bolding are my own

"It's been 24 hours and my story still hasn't been published.

All submissions to Vocal are reviewed by our team within 24 hours of your submission, even on weekends and holidays! If it's been longer than a 24 hour period and you don't think your story has been reviewed yet, there are a few different possibilities:

1. We need some further information from you.

If your story has been published before, we'll ask you to confirm a few things for us. If it's been published somewhere else on the internet, we need written confirmation that the content belongs to you and you have the rights required to publish it. If it's been published on Vocal before, we just need you to confirm that you do in fact want us to publish the duplicate story, and wouldn't prefer to edit your original story instead.

If we're waiting to hear back from you to finish reviewing your story, we'll hold onto it past the 24 hour window. If 7 days pass and we still haven't heard from you, we'll send your story back to your drafts, where you're able to resubmit it again if you wish.

In either case, you'll receive an email to the address associated with your account detailing exactly what we need from you. Just reply to that email and we'll take it from there.

2. We've run into a technical issue when moderating your story.

If we have a technical issue and aren't able to review your story for any reason, we'll let you know via the email address associated with your account. You'll also receive an email from our customer support team, who will let you know exactly what needs to happen in order to solve the problem.

3. Your story requires edits.

If you're not seeing your story published, it's also possible that something just needs to be edited before we're able to publish it. In this case, you'll also receive an email to the address associated with your account letting you know that your story requires edits before we can approve it."

In the past few months I have noticed an upward creep in story publication times and have had several stories linger in the submitted section of my account for up to 3 days in direct violation of Vocal's stated policy of all stories being reviewed/published within 24h. I have held my tongue until now. Given Covid and the overall tightness of the labor market I figured I could cut Vocal some slack. However, eight days from story submitted to publication (still not published) with zero communication as to why or an update on the current status is way beyond the pale, and in direct contravention to Vocal's policy shown above which repeatedly states that writers will be notified by email of any delays beyond 24hours. I sent emails to the "help desk" at Vocal about this issue yesterday but no reply as of this morning.

They may not enforce their own internal policy of 24h story review/publication, but they zealously enforce the 600 word count minimum rule which is why the story I wrote above did not end after "morning" as it should have. Instead I am forced to yet again append some ridiculous bullshit filler material so I can meet the totally arbitrary and absolutely stupid 600 word count minimum. I cannot tell you how much that pisses me off. Stupid freakin dumb ass policy makes no sense. Dumb.