lately I captioned a 'Sudden Clarity Clarence' which is common templates' list so it doesn't need any afresh approval;
added a four-word-caption (no NSFW terms, no cusswords);
no extra-images added, no sublime tagging, no extra title.
then submitted to the 'politics stream' where I know they do 'auto-approval' by algorithms. (no mods involved to feature a submission; only those submissions who fail the algorithms will get a closer look at by a mod).
It didn't auto-feature though, it was stuck in submission loop for like 9 hours. I eventually filed a 'feedback' complaint in order to have it featured.
thereafter it featured within half an hour.