Selecting Gravitational Wave Candidates for Electromagnetic Follow-up: Advanced LIGO/Virgo's Decision Making Process

Some of the most violent events in the universe are bright in both their gravitational wave (GW) emission \textit{and} electromagnetic (EM). This means that prospects for multi-messenger astronomy increase as more and more detectors join the search for gravitational waves. Here I present the protocol created by members of Advanced LIGO/Virgo's EM Follow-up Program which ultimately results in alerting its astronomy partners or not. I discuss the series of checks and questions performed by humans (follow-up advocates and control room personnel) and automated online software (Approval Processor). This talk will follow the fate of the gravitational wave candidate event after it first enters Advanced LIGO/Virgo's online candidate event database.