Iconography

Format

Sometimes stories are available as part of magazines, e.g. as a story within a larger PDF or audio file.
If these are the only formats available, there is no direct link for the story title.
Otherwise, these are provided as additional links.

I no longer link to stories or books that are only readable online
(mainly in order to avoid having to include lots of browse-inside-the-book entries).

Reviews

These icons link to reviews of the respective story. Current sources of (freely available) reviews are:

Distribution

Stories are available under various licenses and via different distribution channels:

Level 1: Creative Commons, Project Gutenberg, Public Domain and Baen CDs.

These licenses and categories basically ensure that the respective stories will always be available for free, even if they should be removed from their current location.
The ‘Project Gutenberg’ and ‘Public Domain’ categories are based on US copyright law – you’ll have to check the copyright laws of your country if you’re outside the United States!

Level 2: Stories available through major online magazines.

These stories are under regular copyright, and therefore may not be available indefinitely.
Still, most of these magazines are expected to keep their content available for free.

Level 3: Stories available elsewhere on the World Wide Web.

Includes stories available via authors’ homepages/blogs, and stories provided as samples by publishers.
Should generally not be expected to be available for an extended time period.

Level 4: Stories not available for free.

This indicates that the respective story is not available online at all, or that you have to pay for it, or that you cannot download it.
These are only listed as part of award ballots.

Favorites

Recommended stories are indicated like this: