Publishing and moderation
How a signal goes live, why edits to a published listing are reviewed before they replace it, and the rule that matters most — your last approved version stays live the whole time.
Every signal you publish — a product, a service, a franchise offering — follows the same path. Learn it once and all three behave identically.
Two statuses, not one
This is the thing worth understanding, because almost every question about "why is my listing showing the old text" is answered by it.
Your status is what you control: whether the listing is a draft, active, archived, or unlisted. Nobody reviews these. They are yours.
The version's status is moderation: a version is a draft, in review, approved, rejected, or superseded by a later one.
A listing is live when it has an approved version and you have it active. Both halves have to be true.
The rule that matters
Your last approved version stays live while an edit is being reviewed
Publishing a change never takes your listing down. Buyers keep seeing the approved version — the one that was already working — until the new one is approved and replaces it.
This is deliberate and it is the opposite of how most moderated systems behave. Editing a price should not cost you a day of invisibility, because the predictable result of that is people never editing, and a catalogue full of stale listings serves nobody.
While a version is in review the listing shows that an edit is pending. You are not guessing.
The path
Draft
You are building it. Nothing is visible to anyone else, and you can leave it half finished for as long as you like.
Submitted for review
You say it is ready, optionally with a note describing what changed. That note is read by a reviewer, so "corrected the lead time, added two variants" saves everyone time.
Approved, or sent back
Approved: it becomes the live version. Rejected: it comes back with a comment saying what needs fixing. Either way your previously approved version was live throughout.
Superseded
When a newer version is approved, the previous one is superseded. Nothing is deleted — the history of what was published, and when, remains.
Not every edit needs review
Some changes apply to the live listing immediately. Others create a new version that has to be approved before it replaces what buyers see.
The line is roughly whether the change alters what you are representing to a buyer. Fixing a typo in an internal note is not the same as changing a specification a buyer would price against.
The system tells you which happened rather than leaving you to infer it: an edit either went live or created a pending version, and the listing says which.
What moderation is checking
Whether the listing is what it claims to be, and whether it belongs in the category it sits in. It is not a judgement on your prices, your terms, or your commercial decisions — those are yours.
Being rejected is not an accusation. Most rejections are a category that does not match, a specification that contradicts itself, or media belonging to a different product.
The statuses you control
| Draft | Not published. Yours alone. |
| Active | Live, assuming an approved version exists |
| Unlisted | Reachable by direct link, not surfaced in discovery |
| Archived | Retired. Out of discovery, kept for the record |
Unlisted is the useful one people miss. It is right for a product you sell but do not advertise, or one you are sharing with specific buyers before a public launch.
Suspension
A listing can be suspended, which is different from anything you did — it comes with a reason attached. It is rare, and the reason says what to fix.
Where this applies
Trade shows, tenders and enquiries have their own lifecycles, because they are events and transactions rather than published listings.
Invoices & payments
The four invoice types and what each is for, the states they move through, why a void invoice is not a deleted one, and how payments against them are recorded.
Contact privacy
Contact details on Bidancer are revealed when an engagement is accepted — never bought, never distributed, never listed.