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Story Content

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General

What are “Right”, “Working”, “Romantic”, “Related”, “Learning”, “Friendly”, “Inspirational”, “Healthy”, “Legal”, Etc?

  • Right: Customer stories
  • Working: Bosses & coworkers
  • Romantic: Couple stories
  • Related: Family stories
  • Learning: School stories
  • Friendly: Friends & strangers stories
  • Inspirational: Feel good stories
  • Healthy: Medical/health stories
  • Legal: Stories involving the law

Why am I seeing political ads?

Sometimes advertisers will post political ads on our platform if they feel our readership is relevant to their target demographic. They are not against advertising guidelines but they do not reflect the views or opinions of Not Always Right; we are politically neutral.

Story Submission

How do I submit a story?

Submit your story by clicking here! Once you see the Submit Story form, you can fill in the scene/setting and location of your story. In the “Please tell us your story here!” field, tell us what happened!

  • Scene/Setting Examples: High School, Home, Office, Evil Laboratory, etc.
  • Location Examples: New York, USA. Toronto, Canada

Who writes the stories that are published on the site?

All of our stories are submitted by readers just like you!

I submitted a story, when will I see it?

As soon as possible! We receive up to a hundred submissions every day. While many are great stories, only a few are able to make it to publication.

Why does it take so long for my submission to get published?

We understand it’s frustrating waiting for a story to be published, but the backlog is shrinking every day and with it the wait times. As a reminder, stories that end up not selected for our editorial process can still be found in the Unfiltered section.

My story got published, but it’s slightly different! How come?

Most of the time a story just needs to be formatted to the NAR style and undergo a grammatical pass. If we need to further edit a story we’ll always keep the heart of the story intact:

  • Extraneous detail may need to be cut down, such as overly-elaborate scene-setting.
  • Your submission might explain that this didn’t happen to you but to your friend/sister/uncle, but the audience doesn’t need to know that.
  • Sometimes specifics can be a distraction from the overall goal of the story, so we might change “the customer shouted at me for thirty minutes” to “the customer shouted at me for a long time.”
  • We might add some clarification to make a story easier to read, such as explanations of technical terms or adding introductions to characters that appear in the story suddenly without context.

Even though the story might go through some adjustments, we will never embellish or invent anything to change the story.

What is your editorial process?

  • Submission: We receive your story submission; sent directly through our site, or through our social media.
  • Rules compliance: We check if your submission’s content complies with our rules.
  • Main feed or Unfiltered?
  • Final editing pass for main feed stories:
    • We re-check grammar & spelling, dialogue, and attempt to preserve the story’s cultural language style, tone, etc.
    • Editors create a witty title.
  • Scheduling: We schedule your story to be published in one of the 9 main categories.

Do you have any guidelines/tips for submitting a story?

Yes! Here are some tips:

  • Stick to specific events: We prefer to tell stories which depict specific events that happened, keeping the story tight with only the necessary details. Long-winded rants and complaints about something general usually do not get published.
  • Have a conclusion: The best stories generally have a strong ending or punchline. Not every good story is necessarily funny, but having a conclusion can make or break a story. Good karma and inspirational stories are also always welcome!
  • Avoid gross or obscene scenarios: While NAR is generally about people behaving badly and doing bad things, we might not publish stories containing gross or obscene content for the sake of our more sensitive readers.
  • Keep it (relatively) realistic: Sometimes, things get exaggerated in the telling of a good story, and while we understand that everybody has a different experience of what realistic is, stories that are “too out there” may not get published. Relatable/realistic stories do well because readers are able to relate on some level.
  • Dialogue is not required: While most of our stories are dialogue, we equally welcome non-dialogue stories!

Story Content

Is this site suitable for children?

Some situations are not suitable for younger audiences. We do our best to censor profanity and other explicit content, but there are some topics that are best discussed only amongst adults and away from the prying eyes (and ears) of children.

What happened to the Hopeless section?

The “Hopeless” stories are now identified with the “Inspirational” tag so you won’t miss out on ANY of our feel-good stories!

What are ‘Content Warnings’?

While most of our content is lighter fare, some stories may cover topics that could be difficult for some to read. Content Warnings, therefore, warn readers of potentially distressing stories.

Content warning labels are blurred automatically, but can be easily seen by hovering the cursor over them (for desktop users) or tapping on them (for smartphone/tablet users).

They have been blurred to ensure NAR remains a safe and inclusive space for as many readers as possible. Some of our readers are sensitive to the content warnings themselves, so blurring the content warning ensures they can scroll past without being upset by it.

Sometimes the content warnings will need to be more specific and reference potential spoilers in the story, so blurring out the labels for those who do not care about the content warning protects them from this but still provides an opportunity to those who wish to read them to do so.

Are your stories real?

We receive up to a hundred submissions a day. Selecting the few that make it to the site is a long process, but even then the work isn’t done. Every submission that meets our grade is then put through search engines using multiple variations of key text.

In the past we have found submissions that are:

  • Quotes from episodes of sitcoms (Family Guy being a continuous favorite!)
  • Copy and paste tales from stand-up comedians
  • Slightly amended tales from stand-up comedians
  • Textual interpretations of YouTube clips

For obvious reasons, these submissions don’t make it to publication and those that do might have been copied from some other sources that we missed. If you spot something we haven’t, then let us know!

Why are you publishing Reddit stories?

Sometimes our team will come across a story on a subreddit that we feel the NAR audience would appreciate. This also allows many of the non-Redditors to enjoy these great stories still. Reddit stories are always sourced with permission from the OP, and they face the same editorial standards that our direct submissions do.

Why are you publishing Clients From Hell stories?

CFH is actually a part of the NAR family. Our editors are now looking to give their large catalogue of client stories a wider audience to appreciate them. If you’re unfamiliar with CFH, it’s a very similar site with real stories about clients or customers who behaved badly or ignorantly and someone felt compelled enough to share the encounter.

Why don’t you just publish more of the direct submissions?

We’re always continually working through our direct submission queues. Having additional sources of authentic stories that match our editorial standards allows us to increase the amount of stories offered through the curated experience that many NAR readers enjoy.

Do you ever embellish stories?

One of our main goals is authenticity, so our editors will never embellish or exaggerate the stories we receive, in fact in some instances we aim to tone it down!

We will never:

  • Add punchlines
  • Insert extra jokes or one-liners
  • Amend any text to make it more outrageous or controversial

I found this story offensive, why did you post it?

Stories posted on Not Always Right will sometimes portray views that we don’t agree with. They can be sexist, racist, homophobic, or use derogatory slurs and hateful speech. However, they are opinions of the submitter or antagonist, and are not necessarily reflected by Not Always Right. But we will never advocate or promote the usage of hate speech in any capacity. If you feel a story needs a second look, please feel free to write in.

What is the “Unfiltered” section?

  • For stories that don’t get selected for our editorial process, we publish them completely unedited and without any censorship in the Unfiltered section! It’s a great place to look when you just want to read more stories — you’ll get to see exactly what we see in the submissions box!
  • It should be important to note that because Unfiltered stories are unedited and uncensored, it is more likely you’ll come upon a story that contains offensive material we might not deem suitable for the main feed. Please keep this in mind when browsing Unfiltered stories.

Do Unfiltered stories ever make it to the main feed?

  • Yes, they do! We routinely review the latest month’s published Unfiltered stories to see if any have performed well with our readers. To our best discretion and based on our readers’ feedback, stories from Unfiltered which qualify to be in the main feed are edited, and re-published into one of the main categories.

I think an Unfiltered story is good enough for the main feed, what should I do?

  • Upvoting & commenting on stories you like helps us when reviewing and selecting stories to be re-published to the main feed. While our small team does their best to go through each story, it’s always super helpful to have our readers’ feedback.

Do the editors remove details from the stories?

Yes. If there are extraneous details that aren’t relevant to the story then we will remove them to keep the narrative short and punchy, but still make sense. We want our stories to be entertaining first and foremost, so our editing practices reflect this. We don’t always need to know the chicken’s life story before it wanted to cross the road!

Why do you only use he/she pronouns in your stories?

We aim to change as little as necessary in the editing process with our user-submitted stories. When these include the pronouns for the characters, we do not assume to amend these and potentially damage the authenticity of the original story.

When a submitter indicates a character in a story is non-binary, gender-fluid, agender or demi-gendered and provides the appropriate pronouns, we use these just as we would with any other.

Commenting & Voting

I posted a comment. Why can’t I see it on the site?

Your comment may have been automatically flagged by our system. It will appear on the site after we review and deem it appropriate.

What does “Upvoting” on a story mean?

Upvoting a story means that you’re able to appreciate the content itself, while you don’t necessarily agree with the subjects’ actions or the outcome of the story.

Remember that Upvoting stories help us give you better content by letting us know which ones you are more likely to appreciate.

What do “Upvote” & “Downvote” on comments mean?

  • Upvoting: Means that you find the comment relevant for discussion even if you don’t necessarily agree with it.
  • Downvoting: Means that you find the comment irrelevant for discussion even if you don’t necessarily dislike or disagree with it.

What are Disqus Badges?

  • Badges are a way to recognize & distinguish contributing community members. Whether they’re a community all-star, jester, convo-starter, etc., these are the people who drive the conversation and help transform our community into one worth coming back to. Badges are displayed next to each commenter’s username as well as in the Badges section of their Disqus user profile.

How do I get awarded badges?

  • Some badges are automatically awarded when you’ve reached a certain amount of comments or upvotes on your comment. Other badges are manually awarded by NAR at our own discretion.

Why don’t I have a badge that I already qualify for? (Only applies to manual badges)

  • If you qualify for a manual badge, it may take some time for you to receive it. There are numerous numbers of commenters on the site, and our staff will try to award qualifying commenters as we read through the comments.

Why don’t you add more badges?

  • Disqus badges are currently limited to only 8 badges.

Will you ever change or remove badges?

  • Badges may be added, modified, or removed by NAR as necessary.

What are the current NAR Disqus badges?

  • Not Always Lurking: Post a total of 25 comments
  • Fan Favourite: Receive 75 upvotes on a comment.
  • Listen When I Speak: Receive 30 upvotes on a comment.
  • Not Always Casual: Post a total of 300 comments.
  • NAR Scholar: Post a total of 1000 comments.
  • NAR Advocate (manually awarded): Awarded to commenters who generally help/guide others, and help move conversations forward in a civil manner, while upholding NAR values.
  • Side-Splitter (manually awarded): Awarded to commenters who tend to comment with (appropriate) jokes, puns, humor, etc.
  • Ice-Breaker (manually awarded): Commenters who tend to post the first comment in a story which promotes discussion.

NAR’s active Disqus badges are also seen here.

Reporting Spam & Abuse

How do I flag & report inappropriate comments?

You are able to flag spam and abuse by finding the drop-down arrow at the top right corner of each comment, and then clicking flag as inappropriate.