hutcheson

Basically, all you can do is wait for a volunteer to become so dissatisified with the comprehensiveness of that category that they take time to do something about it.

Re: My only problem Yes, please, we say, with profound gratitude and profusive thanks.

Re: URL which appears out of place, at best and mi Thanks for scouting this out (or outing that scout, or whatever). It's been pulled.

Re: Multiple Listings in sorted order Well, mon, I suppose you're not still wondering whether anyone ever uses it. Thanks again.

>Yet I see no sign that such a fight is taking place at all. Nothing on any of the newswires and nothing on this forum. In the presence of any kind of effective lobbying, that is precisely the sign you should expect not to see, and where you should expect not to see it. This forum is for the public to communicate with ODP editors: staff seldom, if ever, reads it. If editors have something to say to staff, we use the internal forum. And if people started publishing stuff from the internal forum here, they would be hanged by their entrails from the ODP confidentiality guidelines. The newswires? Get real. Bombastic boy bands, deposed dictators and dimwitted demagogues, war famine disease and death, bread and circuses, billion-dollar businesses, grand conspiracy theories? The ODP doesn't spring to most people's mind, nor yet engage their curiosity, when they want to read about any of these.

Some things editors can control, and we try to care -- passionately -- about those. Some things editors can't control, and we try to ignore them. Speed of the servers, on the public side, falls DEEP in category #2. Staff is involved, and -- as has been mentioned before -- progress is being made. We all -- editors and webmasters -- can learn to bandage brick-shaped bruises on our foreheads, or we can get something else productive done while we practice patience.

Status: waiting review, still. Movement in waiting line: 'Tain't no line, it's every site for itself, and the editors pick the one they feel like reviewing first.

Yes, it is fair to the volunteer editors. We don't try to make them do anything they don't want to do...So long as they do something good, and don't do harm, we are grateful. Yes, it is more than fair to web surfers, for whose benefit we are volunteering. Demonstrably, it is the most effective way to build a comprehensive directory of sites of general interest. Yes, it is more than fair to webmasters, who don't have to submit a site AT ALL to have it reviewed. Now, you ask: would it be nice to be able to get more information back to site submitters, most of whom are, after all, also trying to help us? Yes, it would. That's why these forums are here. But right now staff has higher priorities, like the server issues. (And most site submittals are spam, so we have to be careful about what information is given out. A technological solution will not be easy.) Or: would it be nice for editors who are concerned about long waits for review (yes, there are such editors!) to be able to find long-overdue submittals? Yes. Editors have asked for that, and may even get it someday.

Swamp still there, alligators still active, civil engineers still elsewhere.

As for determining uniqueness, as is my usual practice I did several search engine searches for other sites with the same content. For an admittedly small sample, I found some of that content on other sites, and failed to find some of that content on any other site. At that point, my effort of determining "exactly how much of the content was unique" outweighed my estimate of the value to our users of "adding another not-entirely-unique deeplink of an already-listed site." Webmasters should be aware that ODP editors will not visit every page of a site. For a directory, we'll sample a few links to see if they work, and point to valuable and unique content. A site in which (to pick an example from _other_ sites, so as not to appear personal) 1 of 3 links _doesn't_ work, or that contains several businesses in a category where the ODP already lists dozens, or features a product line that is really an affiliate link -- is going to be deleted out-of-hand. We're not going to look at all 30,000 product pages to be sure there's not a single bit of unique content! There's no harm in web-publishing non-unique content. I've done it myself (although I carefully didn't give it an ODP listing). Having non-unique content is not even a bar to getting an ODP listing. Just make sure, for the sake of the editor and other active web-surfers, that your unique content is prominently featured, and your non-unique content is labelled.

OK, that does seem to make sense. Another editor is double-checking, but at this point: 1) The reason for which it wasn't listed before may be tentatively considered inoperative.2) This doesn't mean it _will_ be listed. It means: it will get a fresh review without being prejudiced by the prior review. And if it _isn't_ listed within a month, come back to this forum, bump this thread: you can get a new answer (which will probably be a different answer.)

Re: Status of http://TexasRealEstateClub.com, plea You've been given the status already: "pending review." Please follow the forum rules, and bump this thread (after a month) to get a new status.

I agree that the alleged apparent connection with ei-r.com is probably an editor's error. But I still believe that I can name other domain names operated by and for the benefit of the same parties. Would you like to recheck this?

>Furthermore, we are not a part of any other business. We make our business fully independently and our Internet site has ... Internet _site_? Are you implying that there is only one?

Here's an approach editors typically take in high-affiliate-spam areas: go in and look at the site, to see if it shows signs of (1) being unique, or (2) being non-unique. (After reviewing a few hundred sites in an area, an editor will have "a good feel" for those signs, even if they can't describe that verbally.) If the site looks "non-unique", the editor will probably then pick a product "more or less at random" and try to see if it is already represented. If it is, that's two strikes (one called, and one swing). In this game, that's all you get. It's OUT! -- Umpire's call, and very few instant replays. If you'll think about it a bit, you'll realize that no other approach is practical. Do you really think an editor is going to look at every single product on a site that bears all the earmarks of being an affiliate site -- knowing full well that many affiliate programs offer thousands or tens of thousands of products? It will never happen. In order to allow editors to distinguish between "unique" content and "affiliated/linked" content, it will be necessary to make that distinction _very_ clearly on the website (otherwise they won't know), and make the "unique" content _very_ prominent in the site design (otherwise they won't care). This isn't dictating how you design your website; It's describing how we build ours (a subject, BTW, on which we do not accept dictation.) It may give a little bit more insight into what we consider a site "useful" to surfers. (Note that we have no interest in whether sites "attract" surfers --after all, roach hotels attract roaches -- but that is not exactly the same thing as being useful to them.)

>He finds "evenutally" an unacceptable answer. Welcome to a world of finite possibilities. True. Acceptable. Relevant. Pick any two.

>I wonder if you also have to fight the network congestions when you want to edit sites. No, thank goodness, or some of us with shorter attention spans would NEVER get any editing done. The current stop-gap approach to the bandwidth problem includes reserving a "substantial" number of connections for editors only, and giving them very good response (well under 5% timeouts). We do sympathize with legitimate site submitters (who are after all helping us!) -- but, of course, not enough to share that bandwidth. We do and hope the new hardware on order will help you all.

nein, danka!

Waiting review with a moderately small queue of other sites.

Re: Submission in Directory - How long before they Yes, the "normal" time frame is 3-10 days. But if it shows in the directory, it will (eventually) be picked up by the next re-index, whenever that occurs (normally once a week, but has sometimes failed for weeks at a time.)

Re: http://accessories-cellphones.com/ >We would appreciate a new placement of the site in a more expanded catagory rather than completely removing it. I thought ettore's remarks were clear enough, but apparently they were misunderstood. I'll try. It is a "doorway site" -- that is, it does not contain any retail shopping information, it just contains links to two other sites that actually sell the product. The editors' guidelines say that such sites must not be listed. The site was added by mistake. We must apologize to our users for that kind of mistake; and we remove editors who keep making that kind of mistake. The site was removed, appropriately, in a successful attempt to improve the quality of the results that we provide users. Expect it not to be added back, ever.

It's not "could not get into DMOZ." It's "haven't yet been considered for listing in DMOZ." There are probably 200 editors who COULD have reviewed it, which means there are at least 200 sets of reasons why they haven't yet. I'm one of those that COULD, but I don't think I've ever listed a Shopping/Jewelry site. The ODP being down, I'll give some of my reasons. Prejudice against jewellers? No. Just other things that I'd rather do, or that someone important to me had rather me do. I tend to be easily distracted, so for me, "focus on activity X" means "start something related to X every time I return from a distraction." And I have a list of ODP activities I focus on. That list is already too long for the editing time I have, so I carefully resist the temptation to jump into new major projects (like, for instance, cleaning up the Shopping/Jewelry, Shopping/Health, Shopping/Books, or News backlogs) unless I can convince myself that they are related to current activities. I was able to convince myself that News relates to my work on the SpamCops beat (since it is surprisingly a prime target for both MLM spammers and e-mail spammers). Similarly, Shopping/Health is a prime target for affiliate spammers and MLM spammers. And Shopping/Books is close to my interests -- both my ODP editing and my personal internet use. But Shopping/Jewelry? That's just ODP-public-service work, and my time would be more efficiently spent doing THAT somewhere are closer to my own knowledge -- but equally backlogged. I know you won't appreciate this, but there is probably some other editors choosing to ignore the enormous Shopping/Music backlog to focus on Shopping/Clothes and Shopping/Jewelry -- and I hope someday soon you have a chance to appreciate THEIR work. If the other 199 editors came in, they'd have similar reasons (but no doubt different details.)

As the primary purpose of both sites is to promote a particular medicine, both of them would be listable, if at all, under the topic of "particular medicines." Since that would place them in the same category (obviously, since the same medicine is involved) and they are obviously from the same source, they simply cannot be considered independent websites. They are merely one website that is asking the ODP to compensate for its inadequate navigation -- which habit the ODP makes a policy of not practicing. In this context, you should contemplate these extracts from the Submittal Policy (emphasis added): "Do not submit ... CLOSELY RELATED sites .... abuse of these guidelines may result in the removal of a site AND ALL RELATED SITES." These two sites are exactly and precisely what those words are referring to. And these words describe the only kind of reconsideration that editors would be ALLOWED to do on such sites.

Someone said (emphasis added) >Yes, no doubt, you are seeing the results of people's dislike of "permission marketing." This is fair (so far as it goes) because people really do dislike it, and you are really doing it. But did ANYONE say that would keep it from being listed? NO! Instead, someone said: >"So what's the real issue? ... It conflicts with the ODP's INFORMATION model." So it's extremely pointless for you to keep addressing an issue that you've already been told is irrelevant. It is also extremely counterproductive to keep pounding on a point that you already knew would tend to destroy whatever sympathy you might have had. You're not only not addressing the point, you're working HARD to arouse animosity. It's like saying "I'm not a murderer, but I think the world would be a better place if that ugly-looking dude in the jury box were killed tomorrow. I'm not a murderer, you all are just prejudiced against me because I like to beat up people. I'm not a murderer, because where I've lived, human sacrifice isn't considered murder -- when you're just trying to talk your way out of a parking ticket...and the police know your car is still locked in the no-parking zone. You need to read the responses more carefully, and note that we try not to CARE whether you call into the class of 'murderer,' or the even more dispicable class of 'spammer.' (And when we do care, we simply recuse ourselves from the jury.) But you need to stop making it so difficult for us to not care.

Re: What to submit http://www.pearson-ranch.com to >Could you explain why I'd submit to: http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_Mexico/Counties/Catron/ versus: http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_Mexico/Travel_and_Tourism/Lodging/Ranches/ This wasn't a "rather than" but an "in addition to, and the logic works like this: Generally, a site may be reviewed for a possible regional focus (and therefore regional listing) AND a possible topical focus (and therefore a topical listing.) e.g. General Motors, headquartered in Flint, Michigan. Some kinds of entities have a topical focus, but only in a very small geographic locus. If there are too many of them, including at least one in almost any community, then we just don't list them at all in topical: elementary schools, real estate agents, hairdressers, etc. Some kinds of entities have a local focus, but are rare or unique enough to draw people from a wider geographical region to that locus, simply to make physical contact with that entity: National Parks, Symphony orchestras, Art Museums, Zen or Mormon Temples, Theme Parks, Show Caves. These entities might be included in Topical categories broken down by region, or in major Regional categories broken down by topic. Wherever the category happened to have been created, it could be logically be considered a "topical" category; and therefore a listing in it wouldn't overlap with a listing in "Regional" that represented a VERY specific local focus. The question is: does the ranch website have information uniquely of interest to residents of the county (or nearest town): perhaps employment opportunities, special services geared to local residents or groups, etc.