IMPORTANT SCP SITE NEWS: New authors have more things to fear when posting. Let’s talk about the “Secondary Mainlist Curation Standard.”
If you’re not a chud who spends all their free time on the SCP website—like me—then you probably haven’t heard about the Secondary Mainlist Curation Standard proposal. So, I’m here as SCPaul Revere to break it down to you non-website dwellers (and explain why it’s bad).
First: What is the Secondary Mainlist Curation Standard?
On May 12th, 2026, site mod wackdog proposed the Secondary Mainlist Curation Standard. I’ll provide a summary, the actual link is here.
This summary is from poltatherian’s essay on the topic (because im bad at summaries). If you want to skip this part, look for the big text under it.
All options below will utilise full automation by the tech team to pick out articles that fall under the threshold automatically.
Each option has two sub-options:
- Unlisting Instead: Unlist the articles instead of deleting them.
-Unlist then Delete: Unlisting the article for an extra brief period (perhaps one month) after the initial one-year period for any potential rewrites, and then deleting them after a short period.
Option A: Under +20 After One Year
Mainlist articles would be expected to reach +20 within one year of posting.
After discussing with community members, I believe this is a realistic and achievable benchmark for new articles and new authors alike.
Articles that fall below +20 after one year would still prompt the deletions timer.
With information from data analysis, this method would free up 333 slots immediately.1
Option A2: Option A with unlisting instead of deletion.
Option A3: Option A but with a short unlisting period prior to deletion.
Option B: Under +10 After One Year
This option would function the same way as Option A, but with a more lenient threshold.
Mainlist articles would be expected to reach at least +10 within one year of posting.
Articles that fall below +10 after the one year would still prompt the deletions timer.
With information from data analysis, this method would free up 71 slots immediately.
Option B2: Option B with unlisting instead of deletion.
Option B3: Option B but with a short unlisting period prior to deletion.
Okay, now that that’s done, here’s why it’s bad. (TW OPINIONS)
I’m speaking from my own perspective as an aspiring author. This is heavily discouraging for new authors who want to start writing for SCP. The fear of an article that you wrote, something you’ve worked hard on, something you’re passionate about being deleted is horrible. This new standard will do nothing good for the site.
The primary reason (from what I understand) for this proposal is because of 10k-con (context for you non web dwellers, every time SCP reaches a new 1000 slot, there’s a contest held for the number, most recently the 9k con for the 9000 slot.). Slots are filling up too fast for con staff to keep up, and I understand that, but this is NO WAY TO FIX IT!
As poltatherian said in their essay, votes are not a way to rank SCPs. VOTES CAN MEAN ALMOST NOTHING! You can up or down vote for any reason, they’re not a measure of how good an article is.
So, what can we do about it?
Staff currently have 4 days to discuss as of writing this post. Unfortunately, it looks like many people do agree with these proposals. That being said, there’s also big authors who heavily disagree with it.
What I recommend, promoting niche and low-rated works that you enjoy. If this standard does go into effect, those unknown articles that you enjoy are at risk of being lost. And for the non-website fans: start reading new material, I promise it’s good. I’ll even share some low rated articles at the end.
There is one more thing I’d like to discuss before we end this post.
SCP-10000-J by Dr Katalin Bava. This new SCP posted today has sparked a lot of controversy—you can see the discussion here. I’ll say, I’m a huge fan of it. I think it really reflects the feelings many authors and readers have towards this.
some of my recommendations:
ok waiy hold on theres been a change as im writing this
A couple hours ago, user Calibold posted SCP-9397, a direct reference to the last section of SCP-10000-J. It was simply a drawing (resembling a child’s) of a woman, titled “DRawing of moMmy.” You can access the comments here. This SCP has since been deleted, I did not get a chance to archive it.
I think that’s really all from me.
As always, please let me know if I’ve said something incorrect or anything changes. And yes, it is this serious.
