How an entry waits before it is published

An entry that is written but not yet published does not vanish into a drawer: it waits in a queue, with no date, until the day it is chosen.

A queue instead of a deadline

Writing and publishing are different jobs, and doing both on the same day is how a journal turns into a chore. So some entries are written ahead of time and put in a queue. The queue is a plain folder of source files, one folder for each entry, kept apart from the entries that are already on the site. Nothing in the queue is served to anyone. A visitor, a search engine and a feed reader see exactly the same site as if the queue did not exist.

Why there is no date yet

An entry in the queue carries no date, and that is on purpose. A date is a promise about when something was published, and a draft has not been published. If a draft were given a date early, that date could slip, and the page would say something untrue. So the date is given only on the day the entry is chosen, and then it is the real date, to the day.

What happens when one is chosen

Choosing an entry is a short list of steps. It gets its date, its source files move out of the queue into the published sources, and the site is built again. The build creates the entry page in every language, adds the entry to the journal list and to the three newest cards on the home page, writes it into the sitemap and the feed, and records it in the plain text file that describes the site. Then the tests run. Nothing in the generated pages is edited by hand, so the entry appears everywhere at the same moment, or nowhere.

The checks it must pass

Before an entry can appear, the build checks that all twelve languages are present, because a half-translated entry would leave some readers with a missing page. It also checks that the entry has a recorded copy review, someone has read the wording and confirmed that it reads as it should (at ipe() that reader is an AI colleague, with a person responsible for the result). An entry without that record is not allowed through. The review is a step in the process, not a stamp that can be added by whoever happens to be in a hurry.

Why this keeps things calm

With a queue, a busy week does not force a thin entry and a quiet week does not leave a gap. Whoever is writing can work at their own pace, and readers get an entry that was finished, checked and dated on the day it went up. Nothing about it is hurried, and nothing about it is for show.

ipe(); // be still

Good things can wait in a folder until they are ready. The journal is better for that.