theseeker

Re: Humble Suggestions: Improving DMOZ productivity & gr My first inclination is to point out flaws in the reasoning, but instead I will say, that was very well thought out and took a while a put together, and I appreciate that. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> It always looks different from the other side of the fence though. I personally believe our application process is about as efficient as it's going to get. The backlog is not that large. Let's say, in the hundreds for the entire directory, not hundreds per category. Applications that wait longer than a few weeks are rare--except perhaps in non-english cats where there are less meta-editors that speak the language. I can't speak for anyone else, but I send at least the form letter with most rejections. If I would like the person to try again, I will include comments that point out the reasons why. I would like to approve as many editors as possible, but no matter what I do, there will be some that are bad choices. That means everyone I approve I have to check back on, for quite a while. As with all "job" application processes, the decision is based on percentages. What is the chance that the person who filled out the application will be a good editor, or will be easy to work with to make them a good editor? Certain things on an application improve the chance. Some things decrease the chance. Several years of experience has already gone into making this process as efficient as possible, including making the application form longer and more complex, which happened several times, the last time not long ago. (For comparision, when I joined all I was asked for was name, email address, and reason I wanted to join. No sample sites required.) I hope that this will at least give a little bit of perspective from this side of the fence. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Since this forum is for status of submissions and that has been answered, I'm closing this thread. Discussions about problems perceived from the outside are not unwelcome, but they should be done in the General or Site Submission forum.

I've already been looking into this, but if you have any information I might have missed, please feel free to send it to me by private message. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

It is currently listed in http://dmoz.org/Regional/Oceania/Australia/Tasmania/Localities/H/Hobart/Travel_and_Tourism/Accommodation/

The site is still in unreviewed in that category. There are less than 50 unreveiwd in the whole category as djdeeds said, but it isn't possible to give an exact time to review. From the sound of it, that sounds like the best category (I haven't reviewed the site), or, if a Directory subcategory is created as hutcheson suggested, your site will be moved there. Give it a little longer and then post here again if you don't see it appear.

It's a known syndrome that people who are corrupt and only care about themselves believe everyone else is that way too. Trolls tend to care less about the issues and more about how they make people react. There is no point to closing this thread because the posts made in it by pastedits make little sense and present little evidence to back up his claims. Few people have paid much attention to it, and we have no wish to silence anyone that is not being disruptive. Consider, to keep the referenced multiple account, he will have to do very little editing and keep from attracting attention to them. Ask yourself what point there is to having multiple account you can barely edit with, when most competent editors rapidly rise within the category structure and go on to become part of a team of editors doing their best to work together civilly. So far, pastedits' posts have lacked credibility to me, but if he wishes to continue to post his views on the matter in this thread, then he is welcome to. I will have to trust that the viewing public will get out of them exactly what I have.

>>Your information should "not" have been lost when choosing your browsers back button. << Depends on the browser, the operating system, the settings (if the browser is set to refresh the page every time then the back button is like back + refresh), plus a common windows problem is the cache get full, and it doesn't always make room automatically.

hehe. I'll bet it took sabre23t longer to check than it did to post the previous two posts. I tried to go into the category and remove the one URL and check the status of the other, but even on my DSL it was taking forever to load, and I had to run.

chuladi::>>I was hoping to find out real information on the status of my sites' submission, instead I have gotten a lot of unfounded accusations.<< arlarson provided that information near the beginning of the thread: "With the present backlog, it will probably take several months for the site to be reviewed." I can clarify that by saying that nalasgallery.com is still waiting to be reviewed. As for what makes an affiliate, I don't edit much in Shopping and I'm not as qualified to comment on that as some. But I have put some thought into it. The scenario you have is one of the hardest to come up with a good answer for. The supplier of the products does not sell the products, but there are many sites that do sell them. That means that there could be hundreds of sites selling the same products, and none of them would be unique. That's going to be a case where uniqueness is the only deciding factor. If there are 10 sites that contain unique content in addition to those products that are offered on hundreds of sites, those are going to be the 10 sites that are listed. That's just my opinion. hutcheson::in reply to "no one is better suited for spotting such affiliates than the webmaster that was just rejected for being an affiliate." said >>I wouldn't go quite that far. A fair number of the sites accused aren't, um, easily verified. But even if half of the sites spotted are verifiable (and I believe that's about the right percentage) then we're still happy to hear about them. << That's what I meant. /images/icons/smile.gif

I'm hoping that the public abuse report form that is in the works will help in this regard. As we've discovered many times in this forum and others, no one is better suited for spotting such affiliates than the webmaster that was just rejected for being an affiliate. Hm. Have we derailed this thread?

-t +w Sleep? No I not need no sleep. /images/icons/wink.gif

You site was one of the two added. It is not listed in http://dmoz.org/Arts/Celebrities/P/Pitt,_Michael/

>>Couldn't a non-editor just use the "update URL" function?<< True. But I'd rather these types of update requests didn't get too mixed up with other unreviewed.

>>Or they will add a title after the site has been initially reviewed, and the change in title will not be noticed until an editor does a follow-up review of the category. << You wouldn't believe how often this happens, even in Arts categories that rarely have business listings. I always hesitate when listing a site titled like its domain, and often when I visit a category and see 1something.com as a title, I'll check just to see if it's right. I don't get much time to wander looking for those anymore, though. If you spot some like that, I wouldn't mind if you send them to me through a PM here or feedback on my profile, though you'll have to give me a week or so (adjusting for real life activity) before I can get to them. Send site title and category.

Go to the category where 1-web-hosting-domain-registration-services.com is listed. Click on "Update URL" in the top corner. Fill in the information that you want changed and submit it. An editor will evaluate the request and change/move the site as appropriate.

My original post said that you need to include the site for us to look at it. Then I pressed submit, looked at your post again, and realized I was blind today--you did include it. I edited the post in a hurry before someone could post after me to tell me I was blind today, and then looked at the site. My second post I did after looking at the site. Sorry to be so confusing...

The link to the domain registration compnay should not hinder your site's review. The site will be considered on it's own merit.

Edited as I just realized there is a link; which I didn't notice. More details coming soon... The listing of a site depends not on the presence or absence of affiliate links, but on the content the site contains.

>>Since I have Shareware apps, can I still submit to freeware (or will some editor think for himself "wrong category" )? << You should probably submit to the Computers/Software/Shareware/Windows category. This looks like the best place for now, and it is also an area where you are likely to be listed quickly. >>For someone like you (an editor) to consider it better suited for "custom software" category, would you want more info on past projects etc. (I guess so, just speculated if there was something specific you had in mind)? << For that part, I can't say, as I have no experience in that part of the directory. To see what you need to be listed there though (or in any category, for that matter), look at some of the other sites in the category. That won't always work, as sometimes the category is undergoing a re-organization and the sites will be moving around, or the guidelines for the area might have changed and the sites haven't been re-reviewed yet; but most of the time, looking through existing sites will give you an idea of the requirements for the category.

>>In future website may be used more aggressively here (I have not decided yet). << *Takes off ODP editor hat* *Puts on Professional Internet Consultant hat* Here's a freebie: If a website is not aggressive and being used to it's full potential, it might as well cease to exist. There's too much on the web these days, and users are browsing more and more sites. You have to be, hands down, the best site out there. You need to get their attention, make them stay on the site as long as possible (every page they view increases the chance they buy from you), and give them everything they need, and make it easy to find. When I say keep them on your site as long as possible, I don't mean trick them (I'm speaking generally--your site doesn't look bad at all designwise). You need UNIQUE AND USEFUL CONTENT. Sorry for yelling, but this is not just an ODP point. That's what the surfer is looking for--something that doesn't already exist on the other hundred sites he's looked at. OK, that's all the free adivce I give out today. * Chucks the work hat because it's the weekend * * Put ODP editors hat back on * I don't edit at all in Computers (which I'm sure everyone finds to be a strange thing considering I live and breathe computers). But at the moment the site doesn't cover your custom software at all, so it is unlikely to be listed in Custom Software or in the higher level category. But, if your software on the site is going to remain all freeware, I suggest trying Computers/Software/Freeware (which, unfortunately contains over 600 unreviewed). If you are going to offer shareware also, then I suggest Computers/Software/Shareware/Windows, which has only a few unreviewed and is well looked after. Note though that if you submit an all freeware site to the shareware category you are likely to be moved to the freeware category. Hope that helps. /images/icons/smile.gif

That's because we stopped providing profiles in the RDF. Lycos was one of the first users of the data and the license back then was different. I don't know if they were required to update to the newer (present) version of the license. And that's more of a legal question that I couldn't answer and shouldn't be concerned with anyway. But I can advise that the current version of the license is the one that all new data users need to comply with.

Re: 3 months and waiting no reply - please help *DELETED* Post deleted by theseeker

Any editor in a category above it, plus any of the editall editors can edit there. Submitting to an incorrect category will just mean your site will be moved to the correct categories unreviewed and will often take longer. There are currently about 60 unreviewed in the cat, close to 100 counting the subcat, but I could not find your site in there. There are no notes on it, which means it has never been reviewed or moved, so you should try submitting it again.

>>I (we) don’t like the way you’ve challenged our qualifications and/or editing practices so were not gonna add your site.<< I doubt anyone would be challenging our qualifications and/or editing practices if we were including their site. You have the cart leading the horse. The purpose of this forum really was not to argue about individual sites. But this thread has at least made a lot of us think about various policies, including affiliate links. The Internet has changed a lot in the last three years, and our policies and practices have had to change with it. But with over 3 million sites in the directory now, there are going to be categories that do not conform to those policies. We do re-evaluate categories, and some categories disappear, some sites are removed, but you will always find categories with sites in them that wouldn't be listed under the new policies. For this reason, pointing to sites that are listed as a reason why your own site should be listed will rarely make a difference. Though that will bring our focus to that category, and that category will very likely be cleaned up. Most editors I know, including Hutcheson, do not review sites as it appears in these threads. The patterns of editing for other editors often follow mine, so I will go over mine. When I enter the category, my thoughts are on finding as many sites as possible that fit there, and that will make the category comprehensive. The sites need to be relevant and unique, though some duplicate data is sometimes acceptable--even desirable--as long as it is combined with unique content. So as I go through each site, I don't look for what is wrong with a site (though if there are things that are very wrong they will jump out at me). I look for reasons to include the site in the category. If there aren't any, I look for reasons to include it in a different category (while looking for a category it might fit into). But this is not the approach any of us use when someone asks why their site wasn't included. Then we go to the site and look for reasons it wasn't included. When I approached the bizrate site as if I had just found it in unreveiwed, I looked for reasons to list it. At first, I thought I would. But I shortly found it to be confusing in areas, with data that was wrong in spots, and not particularly useful in the areas I checked. I wouldn't personally use the site. But then, I wouldn't personally use Yahoo; a lot of other people do. Of 150,000 people who did price comparisons, how many went away frustrated? I don't know. And I DON'T want to consider that when considering the usefulness on this site. It can be too misleading. I've been vague on what made the site of so little use to me. As I web designer, I can see some things that would help. But that's really not important either. The only thing that matters is whether the site will add something to the category, so that the category contains links to as much relevant data about the subject as possible. I haven't really said whether or not I'd list this site if I was editing that category, and I won't. Unless I find evidence of gross incompetence or ulterior motives in the editors that edit there, I will have to trust their judgement.

>> hope I get accepted (when the newapp form is actually working), but if I don't I will certainly keep this entire thread in mind.<< Just wanted to be the first to welcome Angela to the ODP. /images/icons/smile.gif