Automated site submission verification

I was wondering, would it be such a bad idea to develop some kind of robot that could instantly check site submission status against the dmoz database? DMOZ seems to be written in .php, so the robot cannot be particularly hard to code, and could save countless hours of editor time dealing with submission queries, as well as sparing frustration for site submitters. I guess the main things it would have to display are: site address, site details (name, description etc.),position in queue, submission status, editorial comments (if any), date submitted.

Any thoughts on this?

The ODP software is closed source managed by AOL, which makes software changes a lot more complicated than you would expect. In fact only AOL staff can make changes. And btw: It's in perl and has no database but a flat file system behind it, for historical reasons. Which makes changes extremely work intensive. Everything else about this can be found in FAQ: Why don't you provide an automatic status reporting system for URL listing suggestions?.

This has been discussed over and over in this forum so much so we have a FAQ on the subject: http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/faq.php?faq=status_faq_item#faq_how_many

<add well windharp was faster ;-)>

Will add though:

barnamania said:

I guess the main things it would have to display are: site address, site details (name, description etc.),position in queue, submission status, editorial comments (if any), date submitted.
Any thoughts on this?

Click to expand...

There would be no way to povide anything more than the site is waiting for review, the site is listed, or that site is not currently waiting for review.

1. There is no 'position in the queue' as there is no queue, rather a pile in no particular order unless an individual editor chooses to look at in one.
2. Date submitted is irrelevant since the submitter should already know that.
3. The status would only be waiting for review, already listed, or not waiting for review. And telling a spammer that their site was caught and removed would just open the doors for more spam, telling someone the site is listed is silly because they can check that by looking at the category, and saying that it is still waiting is meaningless since there is no way to predict how long the wait will take and there is nothing different that would need done anyway.
4. Editorial comments are private and would not be revealed.

Once you suggest a site, you should see the "Thank You for your Suggestion" page. If you see that the public process is over because the suggestion has gone through and then the process moves to the volunteers.