An article about DMOZ for my customers

Hello

Firstly, sorry to hear about the troubles you are having here at DMOZ, I really hope you get them sorted soon.

Ok, the reason I am here is because I regularly get emails from my customers asking how to suggest a site to DMOZ, or can i help them to understand why their website has not been listed. I refer them to various web pages on DMOZ but even though the information is here in plain english, many of then still have trouble understanding.

So, I have written an article explaining how dmoz works and giving explanations to many of the questions I often get asked.

I'm concerned though because although i have myself suggested many sites to DMOZ and often been successful, I do not want to publish this article for my customers unless the infomation is accurate.

I wonder if any of you editors have a spare moment you could give it a wuick read and tell me how I could improve it, or possibly you think i should just scrap it. I cant think of any better people to give me their opinion of such an article.

Many thanks in advance, the artocle is currently at http://www.jaywebsolutions.co.uk/articles/odp.html

I'm in a rush and haven't given your article detailed study. I have one vital point though.

I didn't notice where you said that we don't list all websites or how to determine if a site is listable at all.

Yes it is there (twice in fact), which is very good to see.
In fact I am impressed at the way you have understood the way the ODP works, and what it offers. Thank you for taking the time to do so, and for passing that knowledge on so clearly. Much appreciated.

The only factual error I saw was in terms of the consequences of choosing the wrong category, and writing a "hyped" description. You are certainly correct that these

may delay your inclusion

Click to expand...

but neither of them should

get your website rejected.

Click to expand...

If I may expand on that a little ...
In the first case, an editor should either leave the site alone, or move it to the correct category. Both of these will obviously delay further review, but editors are specifically instructed not to delete suggestions which are merely misplaced.
As for promotional descriptions, close to 100% of suggested descriptions do not meet our Guidelines, so we would have a very small directory indeed if we refused to list such sites.
It is true that many editors are drawn to a suggestion where the webmaster has obviously taken the trouble to read the Guidelines and try to apply them, and such suggestions often stand out dramatically from the pool. So there are benefits to making an effort, but all editors expect to have to rewrite the title and/or description anyway, so once again that is certainly not a reason to reject a site outright.

As jimnoble mentioned, it may be useful to your readers if you were to mention what factors are considered when deciding whether or not to list a site. You have correctly mentioned unique content, but there are several other aspects on http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html which might be helpful.

Once again, thank you very much indeed for your efforts, and for seeking our comments.

Thank you for the information, I will update the aricle.

Wonderful article, jayweb, thank you for going to the trouble of understanding us correctly, and making the effort to explain it to others.

I never reject or delete legitimate sites. I'll delete duplicate submissions of the same site, and leave one copy for review, I'll delete mirrors and other types of sites that we don't list (a list of which can be found in our Guidelines), but, I will never delete a misplaced site, I'll move it to where it belongs for consideration by an editor in that area, or if I have editing permissions where I move it to, I'll review it when I start working in that area.

As for promotional descriptions, close to 100% of suggested descriptions do not meet our Guidelines, so we would have a very small directory indeed if we refused to list such sites.

Click to expand...

Very true, it slows down the editing process for both site suggester and editor, but, it does not mean that it will be rejected or deleted for that reason. The ones that need no changing are very few, and stand out like gems, so they become more visable to us, and are appreciated, .

My main point in mentioning that in another post, is that submitters can play a very large role in speeding up the whole process, by merely taking the time to write proper titles and descriptions, and submitting the site to the correct category.

With thousands of sites to review, it slows the process way down if we have to stop and take the time to rewrite titles/descriptions to comply with our Guidelines. And, the truth is, if you can do all the work neccessary to create a site, you should be capable of reading our Guidelines, and creating a proper title/description "on the submission form" , .

Well I think i have decided to apply to become an editor once the system is back up and running. I did apply once before but was turned down, admittedly i didnt have much to offer the ODP back those days and that was probably very easy to tell in my application.

Now i have gained quite a bit of experience and have worked on some other large web projects, I think I will apply again.

I'm going to aplly for UK / Norfolk / Swaffham because that is where I live and there are some great websites about the town and ammenities that are not yet listed. Also my dad is a town councillor here and he finds out about some good informational websites which would probably add value to the category.

Fingers crossed my application will get accepted. Although, I suspect that you get a huge amount of requests to be an editor and i bet it is VERY tough to work out who is applying just so that they can get their own site listed. you must get thousands. Its a shame. So i wont pin my hopes on it, if i get accepted great, if i dont I wont worry

In the mean time. Thanks for the nice comments and imput about the artiicle. I will make the suggested alterations and then publish it knowing that I am at least doing a tiny bit to help my customers and the ODP.
JON

Good luck, jayweb, !!

I'm going to aplly for UK / Norfolk / Swaffham because that is where I live

Click to expand...

Good luck

One point you might consider adding to your article is that any website which has a bricks and mortar address may be eligible to be suggested to two categories - one in a topical section and one in the Regional/.../locality category. [However if a business has multiple locations covering an area do not suggest to each location it has a presence in, but once to the category covering the area (e.g. county, state or country) instead.].

A business operating only locally may not be eligible for a topical listing and the category descriptions of the topical category and its parant categories should be checked for geographical scope and any other critria. Though not all categories have descriptions, going up the category chain and reading the descriptions of the parant categories is important. For example, the Business category description applies to all categories below it - each lower categories description may refine this description with details specific to that lower category. Important information relating to the lowest category may be found at a higher level (as well as in the guidelines).

regards

One point you might consider adding to your article is that any website which has a bricks and mortar address may be eligible to be suggested to two categories

Click to expand...

You start getting into grey areas when you start delving into that kind of thing, though, because a bricks and mortar address is not necessarily required for a site to be listed in Regional (depends on the kind of site) and many sites that might be listable in Regional are not listable in Topical.

I'm going to aplly for UK / Norfolk / Swaffham

Click to expand...

As you won't be able to apply until things are working again, I recommend using the time to read through the FAQ and Advice thread for prospective editors, as well as the specific ODP Guidelines for Regional editors.
Demonstrating an understanding of the Guidelines is far more important (both in an application and an editor) than the amount of internet expertise one has.
Good Luck!

makrhod said:

As you won't be able to apply until things are working again, I recommend using the time to read through the FAQ and Advice thread for prospective editors, as well as the specific ODP Guidelines for Regional editors.
Demonstrating an understanding of the Guidelines is far more important (both in an application and an editor) than the amount of internet expertise one has.
Good Luck!

Click to expand...

Thank you

Yeah I have spent some time reading through that and i have already typed out my application and saved it ready for when your ststem is back up and running.

I realise that internet experience is not the main thing, I have not written it too much like a CV.

Thanks for the advice.

JON