Any way to determine is site is in system for review

I submitted my site about a month ago. Yesterday I checked to see if I was listed. I wasn't. So I joined the Resource-Zone and started reading some of the guidelines and forum postings so I could find out how to check the status of my site. It's a much discussed topic and apparently verboten. I did find a reference to a confirmation email in one of the posts.

I can't find a record of my receiving the email. I checked all current mail and archives. Since I can't ask about the status of my site application, should I re-submit? I couldn't find any references describing what to do if your application didn't get into the system in the first place.

Please go ahead and submit it once more, using our Guidlines for a proper Title & Description located here: .
http://dmoz.org/guidelines/describing.html

You can also look at the current listings in that category to see what is acceptable.

If it did go through before, it's still waiting to be reviewed by an available editor, which may or may not take a long time.

> I submitted my site about a month ago. Yesterday I checked to see if I was listed. I wasn't.
Time between suggesting a site and it being listed might vary between a few days and several years. One month is certainly not a big time.

> I did find a reference to a confirmation email in one of the posts.
There is (and was) never a confirmation email for website suggestions. I think you read a thread about becoming an editor, such requests get a confirmation.

> I couldn't find any references describing what to do if your application didn't get into the system in the first place.
It all depends on what you mean with "get into the system".
At the time you suggested the site you got a confirmation on your screen telling you it was received by the system.
You won't get any message when your site is reviewed, not when it is listed and not when it is rejected. Such a message would (in the opinion of DMOZ and its editors) not have any value. If the site is listed you can find it in the directory (but I see no need to check every day or week). If the site is rejected there is nothing more that can be done, some types of sites are just not listable in DMOZ (see our guidelines).

I did find a reference to a confirmation email in one of the posts.

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That was probably in reference to new editor applications, not site suggestions.

Site under review, confirmation email

Thanks for the prompt replies. I was looking on the Become an Editor forum at that time. That was the location of quite a few "status of my site" requests.

Your answers make sense. I didn't remember getting any error indications when I submitted my site. So now it's just wait until I get listed or get a rejection notice, right?

Thanks...

So now it's just wait until I get listed or get a rejection notice, right?

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No, there is no rejection notice. If you want to you could wait, but most people are better off forgetting about it and using their time in promoting their site in other ways.

regards

Ouch!

So if you're rejected, you're toast. No chance to find out why and fix it? And the only way you know is after 6 months or a year, you don't appear? I understand everyone's a volunteer and you want to stay focused on the mandate of the ODP, but that seems kind of harsh & discourteous, no offense.

I thought it would be easier to understand if I signed up as an editor, but I got a service not available page.

Yeah, if you have a look at our outage announcement thread (stickied at the top of every forum), you'll see that the editor application form is one of the things still not functioning after the server outage of last year. Keep an eye on that thread (you can subscribe to it) and we'll update it whenever there is news.

> No chance to find out why and fix it?
You can find out very easely if your site is or will be rejected.
You can even knwo before you suggest the website.
Just read the DMOZ guidelines
see http://editors.dmoz.org/add.html and http://editors.dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html
From our experience we know that rejected sites can not be fixed to make them listable. Unless it was under construction when first suggested (which you are asked not to do) or when a site has completely changed subject.

> And the only way you know is after 6 months or a year, you don't appear?
Ehh, no. It can take several years before a suggested site is reviewed. I have myself reviewed sites suggested 4 years earlier. So you can't make any conclusion out of the fact that a site is not listed after 6 months or 1 year. Except for the conclusion that it is not listed at that moment.

It might sound discourteous, if we were a listing service, but we're not. You are allowed to make a site suggestion to us, and we're allowed to use that suggestion or not use it, at our sole discretion and for our own purposes of building a Directory, .

No site has a right to be listed, I'm afraid.

If it makes you feel any better, as a Regional editor, there are very few legitimate sites that I won't list, .

Final comment about listing

motsa: I did check the outage announcement thread after trying to become and editor. That comment was just to indicate that whatever I may think about how ODP does business, I hadn't really earned the right to cast dispersions yet. I hadn't walked a mile in any of your shoes, but was trying to. I will monitor the announcement thread and apply to become an editor when it's available.

crowbar: You are right, ODP isn't like a regular business that has to fight to keep customers. It's more like a business that has all the customers it needs and can set guidelines on accepting new ones.

pvgool: I did read the guidelines, and followed them. I don't really expect to have a problem with my submission, except the time it takes. Not that it matters, it's not something I have any control over. Once I have the opportunity to become an editor, I'll at least have the same frame of reference. Right now I'm standing outside looking in.

Thanks for all the comments. I appreciate the time all of you take to work this project. The "Internet" would not be the same without it.

crowbar: You are right, ODP isn't like a regular business that has to fight to keep customers. It's more like a business that has all the customers it needs and can set guidelines on accepting new ones.

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It's not really a business, more like an entity that exists.

Having a small business of my own allows me to edit when I can, but, the ODP doesn't have to worry about paying those quarterlies we get hit with, . I won't ever get rich in my business, but, I've got good job security, , and no website any more. It never did have much effect on it.

It's more like a business that has all the customers it needs and can set guidelines on accepting new ones.

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Our customers are surfers and other downstream data users. We don't see website owners as being customers.

Other than the need to provide proper accreditation if publishing all or part of our database elsewhere, we don't impose any guidelines on our customers at all.

>So if you're rejected, you're toast.

OK, you're wearing two hats, and you've forgotten which hat you're wearing.

One hat is as a surfer, volunteering to help ODP volunteers find useful websites. You make a suggestion, and it's either helpful or it's not. If it's not helpful -- then that was pretty discourteous of you to waste our time with useless suggestions, wasn't it? But we'll pretty much ignore it unless you make a habit of it.

However, a surfer obviously isn't going to be fixing anything on the site. That's someone else's job -- that is, the webmaster's. And there's no reason for us to suppose that the webmaster even knows what surfer has visited his site, much less recommended it to anyone.

How here's a web developer, building a website that serves his purposes (whatever they are.) The ODP editors can visit his site as many times as they want to, whenever they want to -- just like any other surfers can. And whenever they visit, they can decide the ODP would be better off with this site listed (or not listed.)

>No chance to find out why and fix it?

Who's going to fix what? The surfer who made the suggestion to us isn't going to fix anything. And the webmaster's website is doing what he wants, and nobody else has a right to tell him what to do, even if we knew (which we can't!) what he was capable of (and willing to do!)

This is really a non-issue -- it has no relationship with reality.