As you may have gathered, an asterisk (little star: *) denotes my certainty of a blurb, while a question mark (Sort of hook with a fullstop directly below it: ?) denotes my uncertainty.... For example, New stories will always have an asterisk, because I know they're new.  Unfinished stories left off at a precarious point might have a Question Mark, if I don't know if they are meant to be continued.  Abandoned stories will almost always have a question mark, since I simply don't know if the author will return or not.

As for the coding itself:

New Speaks for itself, I hope.  While it may not be 'Hot Off the Press,' it's New to this archive.

Updated Is the equivalent of "New Chapter."  If the case comes up, it will also be used for "Rewritten."

Unfinished Is the Dread of Readers - a story that is not yet complete, possibly left at a cliffhung chapter.  The Good News is, it's probably still being written.  Worse, are the dreaded...

Abandoned.  These stories, for whatever reason, are left 'as is,' by their authors, often with no warning.  Sad, because a number of them show potential (if new) or are really involving to read (multis that have been cut short before their time).

High PG-13 to R is a story I don't consider 'Adult,' in nature - but may contain a little of what some people may wish to avoid, such as non-graphic [mild] sexuality, high marks of profanity or violence, or a touchy or disturbing theme of some kind.

Yaoi/Yuri/(fem)Slash, or whatever new term will pop up in the next few years... Put simply: a story, but within which is a blatant homosexual relationship [which may offend certain people].  TSW only has two real stories defined as such, so until [unless] another comes around, the orange mark will not be used.

Exclusive is a story that only appears on this website.  For whatever reason it doesn't appear on Fanfiction.Net, or elsewhere on the web (to my knowledge). Exclusive has little to do with a "hands-off" mentality (that's for the authors to decide, after all) as it does a simple, "Just can't find it elsewhere, folks."  More or less, this is a tag used for those out of Fanfiction.Net or off the 'Net who have seen other sites, and are searching for any new stuff.