Dealing with Draft Articles

Draft Article Status UpdateIn an effort to dissipate some of the confusion around the Draft Article process, we have updated the “Draft Article” article status bar to “Draft Not Live, Not Submitted.”

EzineArticles Draft Article defined: An EzineArticles Draft Article is any article that has been saved within the article submission interface.

A Draft Article is…

  1. Saved within the EzineArticles article submission interface by:
    • The EzineArticles Auto Save Option which will automatically save your article as a draft every 2 minutes
    • A Member clicking on Save Changes at the bottom of the article submission interface
  2. NOT live on EzineArticles.com.
  3. NOT submitted for EzineArticles editorial review.

Types of Draft Articles:

  1. Never Submitted – An article that has been produced and saved, but never submitted
  2. Modified Article – A live or in-review status article that has been edited or modified and saved, but never re-submitted.

This means that any article you produce or edit that is then saved within the article submission interface will be placed in Draft Not Live, Not Submitted article status.

KEY POINT: Once your article is in this status, you must “Submit This Article” or “Re-Submit this Article” in order to have it reviewed and posted live on EzineArticles.com.

Critical Point To Also Keep In Mind: Draft Not Live, Not Submitted status articles are *purged* after 30 days if they are not submitted or re-submitted.

Auto Save Option:

  • You may be creating drafts unknowingly with the article Auto Save function (default is to yes, Auto-Save).
  • The Auto-Save function is optional and can be turned off within the article submission interface by clicking “Turn OFF Auto Save.”
  • You can also turn OFF Auto-Save in ACCOUNT MANAGER, ACCOUNT PREFERENCES, ARTICLE EDITING and click “NO” for Auto-Save.
  • With the Auto Save function turned OFF, you may make yourself vulnerable to losing article content if you produce content within the interface.

Note: If you produce an article with the Auto Save function turned off and you do not Save Changes before you Submit This Article, a draft will not be created.

Me personally?

I find the AUTO-SAVE function to be annoying and I shut it off.

It was created to help the battle cry’s of authors who have written us in past years who LOST an article that they created while writing the article live within the article submission form.

My recommendation is to write your articles in Word or your favorite text editor; then copy & paste the submission.

Lastly, we’re open to your recommendations as to how we can best serve our members with this AUTO-SAVE / Draft issue. Your thoughts?

Posted by on August 19, 2008 at 10:12 am | 6,830 views

17 Comments »


1
Christina Sponias writes:

I agree with you when you say that we better write our articles first of all in Word and I do that.

However, why should you waste your time and have to submit again the same article if something unexpected happens exactly when you are in the submission process?

The auto-save is indispensable and must be always on.

And, you can simply delete the extra copies.

Comment provided August 19, 2008 at 10:58 AM

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2
Dollar knight writes:

You can best serve our members with this AUTO-SAVE / Draft issue. No need to remove it… It is being used for many articles…

Comment provided August 19, 2008 at 1:28 PM

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3
Lance Winslow writes:

Indeed, I agree that this is a wonderful feature for those who do lots of editing in the way of bullets, numbers, bolding and quotes, especially on longer articles. But for shorter articles between 300 and 600 words, where you prepare your article first in a word file and then copy/paste, it makes more sense to turn it off. Now then, if you have a lousy Internet connection which drops you a lot, then this can be a life saver. Personally, I too now turn it off. But agree with the need for such a feature in some situations for some authors. Think on this.

Comment provided August 19, 2008 at 11:34 PM

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4
Christina Sponias writes:

I can’t understand your logic. Why should you turn the auto-save off? Protection is always good.

If it is not necessary, wonderful. But what if for some reason it will save your time? What if you run out of electricity? What if an earth-quick makes you abandon everything you are doing at the moment?

Simply let the auto-save protect you always, and delete the unnecessary drafts.

Comment provided August 20, 2008 at 7:00 AM

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5
Christopher M. Knight writes:

Christina,

Auto-Save is of no value to those who already produced their article OUTSIDE of the EzineArticles submission interface.

Protection is not needed because you already have the article saved locally on your hard drive.

Comment provided August 20, 2008 at 7:35 AM

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6
Christina Sponias writes:

And how about the submission process? What if you paste your article, the description, the keywords, etc and then something happens and you have to do it again?

Once I had to re-submit an article from the beginning because you didn’t have yet the auto-save and I had forgotten that my page was open for too long, therefore my submission was not accepted ‚¬€ I had to log in again. I didn’t lose my article but I lost my time!

Comment provided August 20, 2008 at 8:12 AM

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7
Lance Winslow writes:

Well, I can say this, if you are posting 300-500 word articles and you are copying and pasting from a word file, which you should be doing anyway, then the auto-save set at 2-minutes is a problem, because, that is just about the amount of time it takes to post with a few boldings or minor editing. Thus, you end up with the extra saved copy, which you have to later delete, which takes time. So, it’s best to turn it off, unless you have longer articles, or bad internet connection or if you are writing your articles within the posting location and not copying from another file.

Comment provided August 21, 2008 at 1:22 AM

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8
Christina Sponias writes:

You take less time deleting copies than submitting again the same article, besides that if you’ll finish with your article and submit it, you don’t have any drafts, unless something happens and you have an extra copy.

Click Delete and confirm you are really going to delete the extra copy: this trouble will cost you only two clicks.

Comment provided August 21, 2008 at 6:50 AM

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9
Christina Sponias writes:

I understand what you mean about the too many drafts, now that I’m thinking about this matter.
At EzineArticles.com it doesn’t happen if you submit your article.

At Blogger.com however, when I was a beginner I would see many drafts even after posting my article. Each time it was tiring to delete all of them, especially because I had to scroll down to confirm I that I really, really wanted to delete the article!

But them I discovered a magical button that says: ‚¬“Save now‚¬. If you click it after deciding which version of your article will be posted, all drafts disappear!

Comment provided August 21, 2008 at 10:56 AM

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10
mikeallison writes:

EzineArticles.com provides an automatic updating. Old version have a problem with too many drafts. Here it will taking lot of time to submit.

====================
mike5

Comment provided August 22, 2008 at 6:11 AM

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11
Student Education Financing writes:

I don’t use the auto save, like yourself I feel it’s annoying. Yes, I rather like the option blogger has with their “save now” feature. As for editors, my favorite is note tab pro.

Comment provided August 27, 2008 at 12:34 AM

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12
Lalitha Brahma writes:

I too prefer preparing a word document and then copy/paste. However auto-save is an excellent option.

Comment provided September 1, 2008 at 1:12 PM

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13
Usdating writes:

Great done and keep posted. Looking forward to reading more from you.

Comment provided January 11, 2010 at 7:42 AM

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14
Gani T. writes:

How can I turn off the ‘Auto-Save’ function? I try to look for it in Account Manager; somehow I didn’t find it.

I agree with the usefulness of ‘Auto Save’, but I also agree that ‘Auto Save’ is annoying. I recently discover that ‘auto save’ is a culprit to why my cursor has been jumping when I type.

G.

Comment provided October 15, 2010 at 4:47 PM

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Penny, Managing Editor writes:

G,

You can read up on how this works here: http://blog.EzineArticles.com/2009/09/understanding-the-auto-save-feature.html

October 18, 2010 at 10:29 AM

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15
Jose writes:

You know, I used to write for EzineArticles a couple mothns ago, however it is not the same as it used to be. They are currently making money off my written content while the only thing I get back is visitors to my blog. I’m not saying it’s bad or anything, it still is a wonderful site if you want a lot of visitors pouring in.I recently started writing for Ehow and other sites. Now I am getting paid for my content and also getting visitors to the links I post at the same time. You might want to check that out as well.Great article though, EzineArticles definitely makes sense if you need traffic but don’t know where to start.

Comment provided November 24, 2012 at 1:07 PM

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Vanessa, Editorial Manager writes:

Hi Jose,

Can you please clarify what you mean by EzineArticles not being the same as it used to be? We are constantly updating and improving our processes, so if there is a feature that is no longer available that you would like to see back please let us know. The benefits of submitting your articles to us is that you receive highly targeted traffic back to your website, you benefit from a free platform where you are able to demonstrate your writing ability in order to be recognized as an expert in your particular niche, and the list goes on. We recommend visiting: http://ezinearticles.com/benefits/

~Vanessa

November 26, 2012 at 10:21 AM

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