Member
Posts: 5775
Recently I have experienced an editor missing two submissions that pre-existed their own entries and then subsequently rejected these pre-existing submissions as duplicates. Some history as I understand things:
Some years ago when faced with this situation, an editor had to either reject the submission (hopefully with an apology) or deleting their own entry and processing the submission. (It is my understanding these are the same/similar options today when a later submission is processed over an earlier submission.)
Currently, editors have an additional option to process the earlier submission and "attach" (my word) it to the now existing entry. I suspect that this is more work by the editor, but the advantage is a better contributor experience (not to mention it was the editor's oversight).
Are editors required to salvage submissions when possible (i.e. a rule), is it just expected as a best practice (i.e. a suggestion), or is salvaging the exception rather than the norm?