I love those guidelines at Futility Review, but FR has effectively intimidated me into not submitting. Not only would I expect rejection, as promised, but Bahr & co. appear to be publishing poetry by authors with big names (well, relatively "big" in certain circles). A submission by someone with a small to medium sized name would no doubt prove futile.

As the publisher/editor of Mad Hatters' Review (http://www.madhattersreview.com), I'm pleased to take credit for framing absurdly detailed and complicated, guidelines that few subbers read, and fewer follow. Instead of ignoring these writers who haven't read the guidelines and e-trashing their offerings, I e-yell at them: Why don't you try reading guidelines before submitting? We're not even READING at this time! And we don't really WANT to publish your 290,000 word novel online; in fact, our ususal minimum is 3000 words, as we've said in our GUIDELINES. Thanks, The Editors.

Ok, so our guidelines needn't be as detailed as they are (well, really, we don't care about font and size and spacing and all that). But even an attempt at simplifying the process (we're trying a rudimentary submission form, which will grow more complex as the days grow dangerous hot) won't yield an appreciably greater number of compliant submissions -- this I know. Our new form (only used by maybe 50 - 60% of subbers for our next issue (NO, WE'RE NOT READING NOW) asks each writer to swear (well, sorta swear) that s/he's actually READ the guidelines. The writers all check the box to indicate that they have done so. Yet it's perfectly clear that a ridiculous number of writers LIE, just as politicians LIE. We'd sue if we weren't too busy yelling at them (the writers), and ripping out our split ends, one by one.