hutcheson

The site may be appropriate for the category it is listed in. It absolutely does NOT describe a business appropriate for the suggested category. (I am not at this point trying to determine whether or not it is a legitimate business at all.)

Since there is no obvious connection (that I know of, at least) between "Australia" and "alternative treatments for mental disorders", the two submittals must be considered completely independently. Either (or both, or neither) may be accepted. We generally don't like multiple submittals of the same site, but if a site has global topical interest and local interest, we wish people would also submit their sites to the correct Regional categories, because some of us editors from the Northern Hemisphere couldn't find the Australian states (provinces? counties? shires? whatever) on a map, let alone know which towns are in which. In fact, if I get a duplicate submittal of a site which seems to be about an entity in some particular place, I often send it to Test/Misplaced/Regional rather than deleting it. But that's the slow boat. If you know the right province and town, you can get the site reviewed much faster.

>>rest assured that the content is the same as the English site, only a bit less of it as we try to catch up on all the translations Sorry, we can't rest on webmaster assurances, we have to go by the site. But we do have editors that understand Chinese, and they will review the site. The usual caveat applies: scheduling editor activity is like herding cats. It doesn't work, but it sure annoys the cats.

I believe that if you submit a new request it will replace the old one in the queue. And even if not, an editor perusing the queue will probably notice 2 requests on the same URL, and delete the "less reasonable" one.

You know, there are days when one is REALLY glad one runs Mozilla.

Bad editors consume the productive time of experienced editors (cleaning up their messes) and harm the directory's integrity and reputation (so long as the messes haven't been cleaned up.) Every meta editor is aware of the need for new editors. Every meta is aware of the problems bad editors cause. Balancing those two constraints takes judgment: it is never a question of accepting "more" or "less" applicants, it is always a judgment of "Has THIS person adequately demostrated competance, honesty, and willingness to help?" "Is THAT person so obviously incompetant or self-interested that no help should be expected from them?"

>I'm not sure why, but I've been told not to worry about that since not too many people still use netscape That is probably true. I know that _I_ don't review sites that I can't view with Netscape. (ODP rules say an editor doesn't have to list sites they're not comfortable with. _I'm_ not comfortable shilling for the orcs of Redmond.) Other editors have different pain levels.

Still waiting, but a pretty short queue.

That's not an incredible offer, lots of photographers do that. It's not like "hotel reservations" (which is basically always affiliate spam) or "six figure income" (which is either counting it in yen, or lying. No reason to doubt it.

Ah, but yours has "concise" written all over it.

Re: West Midlands different to Regions->West Midla Ugh. Um, thanks.

I'm a little puzzled about this "authorized dealer" bit. It's not that anyone DOESN'T believe that the dealership is "authorized" -- it's that nobody can figure out what the point is. Now, if you had said, "we CAN'T be an affiliate site, we're UNAUTHORIZED" -- that would have made sense, because it's obvious enough that the "affiliate" model can't work without some sort of "authorization" from the real retailer -- and so ALL affiliates MUST have some kind of "authorization agreement." And if you were to say, "sure, I'm an affiliate, I can prove it with this authorization agreement" -- again, that would have made logical sense. But what you said was, so far as I can tell, logically equivalent to "This site is a cow, not a dog -- see, I'll prove it, just watch me count the legs!" And, while there are surely some editors who could discuss the finer points of vertebrate anatomy, nearly all of us can count to four -- but that's not the problem.

>I did that just so I could keep track of all of the different search engines and advertisement methods. Lots of people try that. It's not allowed, which is not an issue now that it's gone. No blood, minor foul.

>... thanks for the quick replies... I got a boss all over my ass right now so your last post will help me out a bit. Tell your boss to chew you out over something you can control, like the direction the sun comes up in the morning. (Well, at least it's PREDICTABLE.) >Can the editor just do that without saying why like that? Yes. >That doesn't seem too fair... we waited 5 weeks and now we have to do it all again and it sounds like it could happen again. Absolutely, it is not fair. You got something (a site review) that you paid nothing for, and you got it about 21 weeks faster than the average. Now you're getting answers that you didn't pay for either. If life were fair, you'd get nothing. But I'll tell you what--if you won't mention it, we'll overlook it also. >Do you think I should write the editor? You can. But first try putting yourself in the editor's place. Apparently they think you're spamming. Would YOU give a spammer your e-mail address? Not likely. Now, are you going to promise your boss that you'll get a response from the editor quickly? (see "sunrise, direction of") >I really need to something to tell my boss... I have been the one telling him that this listing would be so important, It must have taken what, five minutes to submit. Perhaps you should have emphasized what else you did that day. >now I have to tell him it might of been deleted as an accident... No accident, the editor did it on purpose. >that isn't going to fly with him... crap. Anyone with any ideas? Is there an appeals place I can go? I've had bosses with neither a clue nor a bucket to carry one in. The first place _I_ went was a headhunter. This is, regrettably, perhaps a bad time for that. The good news is that one of the purposes of this forum is to act as a way for editors to find out about sites that need a second review. It worked, and you found it. You should get both a review by an experienced editor and a response -- but don't put them on your PERT chart!

Look, buy as many domain names as you want -- we don't care one way or the other. Set up as many "featured artist galleries" as you want -- actually, it is quite an attractive page. (I don't often feel the urge to return to a shopping site just to browse.) But no way is that gallery a business venture: it's just more advertisements (for perhaps more products) in the catalog of the same business.

Stop spamming. The main website is listed. Please feel free to link from there to any of your content. The ODP is not a substitute for broken site navigation. And whoever told you otherwise -- well, just add them to your list of disreputable informants. Blame the spam on them, too, if you wish.

You shouldn't have had to deactivate your firewall -- unless it was stripping out form parameters. The IP is an issue, but the current DMOZ scripts are handling it better (you get the message that your submittal was placed in a queue, which means that it will be processed, with a slight delay.) There is, however, something squirrelly going on with Infernal Exploder users. Nobody seems to have a handle on it. Giving ODP's standards-compliance track record, and Microsoft's near-perfect standards-noncompliance record, I'm betting it's some esotoric design defect in the IE. If you're a particularly public-spirited sort, you could try putting your firewall and proxy server back, downloading Netscape (4.x or 6.x, doesn't matter) and letting us know what happened.

Re: www.10w40.com - No Advertising >I'm not sure what this means for all the other directory-style sites that ODP has / will review in the future I think it's fair to assume: 1) As the ODP itself becomes a more comprehensive directory, it becomes harder and harder to create a "directory" site with content that is both useful and unique. The bar is rising. 2) The minimum directory site from 6 months ago would not get in today. The minimum directory site from 18 months ago will probably get removed next time it's looked at. 3) A forward-looking editor, when reviewing directory sites, will look for evidence of significant content in some form that the ODP couldn't match even by spidering its sites: basically, this means information that is valuable (to the SURFER, not the advertiser!) AND useful (to the SURFER, not the advertiser!) as well as being unavailable either in the the ODP directory or elsewhere on the web. 4) A forward-looking webmaster should prepare a site to be reviewed according to the ODP standards six months in the future (assuming a continued rise in standards), and should prominently feature the UNIQUE content of the site. I, personally, would not count on being able to get ANY directory site listed. Building a significant directory is (or at least so they say: I wouldn't know) a lot of work, and a lot of continued work. Reviewing one is almost as much work. You can submit one, but don't expect to get any sympathy from appeals to three-year-old listings. And don't whine about "fair". Equity has a temporal aspect. If you had submitted the site three years ago, it would have been evaluated like the others evaluated then.

Yes, you can re-submit. I'd recommend including a referenced to this thread (in brackets at the end of the suggested description) to alert the editor to the fact that changes may have been made since the last rejection. I'm ambivalent on this issue: I see enough duplicate submissions of worthless sites to emphasize the "Social Contract" -- each website has a right to ONE review, and anything beyond that is strictly the editor's discretion and generosity. If there is a real reason to review the site again (such as added information), then arguably it has a right to another review. So, make sure we know why!

>I can confirm that it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell between an affiliate link and a paid ad. Fortunately, it's not necessary. Neither is "content"(*) in the ODP definition. A site consisting primarily, exclusively, or predominately of either will not be listed. A site that contains significant, prominent, unique content may be listed -- even though it also contains either paid ads or affiliate links. Footnotes: (*) I understand that the marketing industry has a looking-glass view of the terminology here: For instance, TV programs are just vehicles for the advertising "content." It can cause confusion. If you're a marketroid, just use this simple rule: if it's content in your world-view, it's NOT content for the surfer: conversely, if it's NOT content for you, it MIGHT be content under the ODP definition.

This is perhaps an unusual form, but IMO it still counts as "bait and switch" tactics -- the Directory equivalent to Search engine cloaking. And our reaction to this is like Google's reaction to cloaking: Ban the site, and other sites related to the same parties, until the heat death of the universe.

I don't mind saying I'm the anonymous editor mentioned above. But I don't think it's correct to call the trap an "anti-spam" feature. As I understand it, for technical reasons that I don't fully understand, the server has always had problems with some submissions (having to do with the way it handles pending forms.) In the old days, submitters were given a message saying "please send this to xxx@dmoz.org" (hence called a "manual" submittal.) Most people didn't bother--those submittals were just lost to us. About a month ago, the system began to dump those submittals into a Test category, where we take a quick look at them and try to pass them along to the category where they were submitted (or if it's an obvious misfit, a better category, or even the "badly misplaced--needs help" catchall category.) Some may have suspected that these sites would be mostly spam, and in fact that was my first impression, but after looking at a few thousand of them, my current feeling is that they are very much like the rest of the directory: containing a large minority of EACH of good submittals, useless repeated submittals, and pure spam. So, it's a filter, but not a spam filter. I do weed out some blatant spam, but I also redirect some sites to a better category much more quickly than they might otherwise have been. But for those pests who submit their domain name before they develop their sites (hoping, I suppose, to develop them while the submittal is progressing down the pipeline) -- have I mentioned lately how counterproductive this strategy is? There is no pipeline out of this swamp, there are merely thousands of editors wandering around the swamp, scooping water into buckets with soupspoons. The scum often gets scooped out quickly. What you get is not a prominent place in the pipeline, what you get is the beginning of a bad reputation for your site. And, while this is not a goal or priority for ODP editors, we can rejoice in seeing justice happen.

If you have IE 5, you have every kind of issue there is. But since this particular one won't corrupt your hard drive, steal your content, invade your privacy, or enlist your processor into the service of global terrorism, I'd say it has to be pretty far down the list. Look, I just spent about four hours working on submittals that had this problem, just to get them as quickly as possible into the normal stream of submittals. Don't worry, don't resubmit. I'd strongly recommend that you consider getting an internet browser, even if you like living dangerously, if for no other reason than to detect a whole new class of errors in your HTML coding.

>>Have something like an Editor Aide application and have the applicant report his findings of abuse, spamming, etc. to a specific editor who can keep a tally of his performance and ability to edit, then if he is qualified based on his record allow him to become an editor. This way the applicant has a chance to show is knowledge of editing, keeps him from wondering why he was rejected and also helps DMOZ from accepting someone based on an application which doesn't really show what a person is capable of. This is not at all a bad idea. Now, how do we (the editors) implement it? Um, we can't really, it requires programming the back end. And of course you can't do it. Or can you? This is a volunteer organization. The invariable rule applies: act as if you have the position you want, and if people notice that it is valuable, they'll make the position for you. Anyone can do that -- you, an editor, an editall, a meta-editor. I assume you have a category in mind. Go check out the editors there. Pick an editor that with a combination of "high" activity (as measured by editing large categories) and "high" interest (as measured by being named as editor on a nearby category. Contact them, with two or three examples of your analysis ("xxx is the same as yyy, compare page zzz". Tell them you'd like to edit in that category, maybe submit a few sites with good examples (all from the same e-mail address, of course.) No guarantee, but I suspect you'll get a response from one of the first several editors you approach like this. If you don't, contact a meta-editor that concentrates on that branch of the tree (that is, who is listed at top-level Shopping if it's a Shopping category.) After, say, a dozen or so of your changes are accepted, tell them you'd like to be an editor, that you're going to submit an application, and that you'd like them to recommend you. Mention in the application that you've been working with that editor. Now, nothing is certain -- the metas have to be a bit more skeptical about accepting applications than editors are about accepting suggestions: but even if you don't get accepted, you did get a dozen or so good changes in, and you did find a conduit for getting good changes in quickly. And with a reputation and a sponsor, you have a leg up on your next application.

Don't worry about that error. The server actually picked up your submittal and dropped it in a "catch-all" category, from where it will be briefly reviewed and passed on to a "normal" category (usually the one you requested, unless that was badly chosen.)