diff --git a/frontend/src/components/Dashboard/ui/core/core.css b/frontend/src/components/Dashboard/ui/core/core.css
index c36a63c..bad1560 100644
--- a/frontend/src/components/Dashboard/ui/core/core.css
+++ b/frontend/src/components/Dashboard/ui/core/core.css
@@ -350,7 +350,11 @@
 }
 
 /*
- * A publish in flight, drawn as a ring just inside the tile's own edge.
+ * A publish in flight, drawn as a dashed ring just inside the tile's own edge.
+ *
+ * Dashed because the editor's selection ring is a solid one in the same place
+ * and the same colour — status has three colours and none of them is "picked",
+ * so the two are told apart by the stroke rather than by a fourth.
  *
  * The marker takes no box at all and the frame draws the ring, because the
  * body a control sits in is a query container — which is a containing block
@@ -368,7 +372,7 @@
   z-index: 3;
   pointer-events: none;
   border-radius: inherit;
-  box-shadow: inset 0 0 0 2px var(--primary);
+  border: 2px dashed var(--primary);
 }
 
 @media (prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference) {