Automated status check?

I know this is probably a dumb question and has been shot down before, BUT

Would it be possible to automate the status check?
Some kind of form -

Enter URL:
Enter category:

>Submit.

Response -

Url is waiting for review. There is no way of telling how long that may be and there is no guarantee that the URL will be listed. Thank you for your enquiry.

or

Url has been denied by an editor for reason(s) listed in the "suggest a site" guidelines. Please do not try to contact an editor for reasons why site was declined for none will be discussed at any time.

or

Url has not been received in that category. Please check to see if you may have submitted to a different category. Otherwise, please go to the appropriate forum at http://resource-zone.com and request status on this site submission. (I almost said "please resubmit to correct category, but only once")


I'm sure someone who knows what they're talking about could right it better and have more responses but you get the Idea. It seems to me that this would take some pressure off the forum and relieve some of the webmaster's anxiety.

OK, NOW you can shoot my idea down.

I'm not going to shoot it down, because it would have to get off the ground first, and that idea -- while discussed many, many times -- is simply a nonstarter.

It is not going to happen because it empowers the directory abusers.

ah.

I'm surprised, being as smart as you are, spectregunner, that you haven't figured out a way to negate that problem.

Oh well, thanks for the reply anyway.

Maybe someday I'll come up with an original thought.

being as smart as you are, spectregunner

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Would you pass that observation along to Mrs. Spectre?

I would, really, but she'd probably figure you paid me to say it.

It's not a truly awful idea. There are three problems with it which we haven't yet solved:

(1) How do you avoid telling the spammer what you're doing with his site? Sometimes we really don't want to say anything about it, or we don't want to tell all the things we've done to it. [This sort of implies that we really can't say much more than: hasn't yet been looked at / has been looked at / is listed in category XXX. Even with humans doing the answering, we're usually limited to this. And note that an acceptable solution must not involve added work for editors.]

(2) How does this feature help editors build the directory? [In the absence of hordes of editors begging, "I need this feature to do my work" or "With this feature, I could do so much more editing", ODP staff is not likely to invest time and effort -- which are scarce commodities -- on this rather than on something that contributes to the bottom-line efficiency or effectiveness of editors.

(3) What genuine, practical effect will this have for submitters? People are expecting all sorts of information that simply isn't there ("you are #12365; now serving #17" or "scheduled for review in 26.2363 hours" or "assigned to editor fooblitz for review" or "project lead for this review is meta-editor fooblitz, who will be fired if there are any unexpected delays" or all the trappings of micromanagement as it is practiced in the disfunctional corporate world. And ... we really don't have any of that, not a bit of it. So you're out there hearing one of our three states and saying, "that's all you know?" And usually it really is. OK, so you hear the status. What are you really going to do with that information? Are you going to budget differently? Promote your site differently? You should be promoting your site elsewhere whether or not it's listed here -- otherwise your competitors who are listed here as well as promoting their sites will still be ahead of you!

Now, what some people probably think is, "well, I'll pigeonhole the editor and CONVINCE him my site is good." Sorry, but that ain't gonna happen: there is no way you can do that without incurring charges of editor harassment: we have teenagers, single women living alone in urban areas, grandmothers -- and you haven't _seen_ testy unless you've tried to be pushy to one of our non-gun-toting editors. (The gun-toters can, we presume, protect themselves.) Now think of all the things they taught you in Sales&Marketing 101. Every single one of them is considered "pushy" in this context; and we regard it as our duty to society to make sure the pushback is an effective deterrent, no matter how many innocent bystanders are caught in the blast. This doesn't leave you much room to maneuvre, and if someone figure that out it doesn't completely cut off lobbying, we wouldn't begin to tolerate lobbying, we'd just enlarge the free-fire zone.

So what other action can you take based on your submittal status? We haven't been able to come up with any answers, so there the matter stands.

Now, about 1 of every few hundred submittals goes awry, and in those rare cases it really would help to know that, so you could submit again. So the question never goes away, and can't be dismissed completely. But the first two issues are really major, and as often as they have been raised, I'd guess if they could be answered, someone would have suggested an approach to it already.

Which hasn't happened yet.

Maybe my ideea is even dumber but, here I go:

To improve things a little I believe a new class of moderators can be usefull. This new category should have only atributions in this forum and not editing rights (read only access at the complete ODP database). That way, you can have somebody to give answers in the forum and somebody who is doing the editing.

Also, another improvement is a World abuse team. I know you have an abuse team, but the problems are in the World section when, if I report an abuse, you have to trust my translation or send it to an editor who understand my language.

To improve things a little I believe a new class of moderators can be usefull. This new category should have only atributions in this forum and not editing rights (read only access at the complete ODP database). That way, you can have somebody to give answers in the forum and somebody who is doing the editing.

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No. This forum is unofficial and we're not going give someone such broad access to the ODP data just so they can answer requests here. Not going to happen. Sorry.

Also, another improvement is a World abuse team. I know you have an abuse team, but the problems are in the World section when, if I report an abuse, you have to trust my translation or send it to an editor who understand my language.

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While we don't have metas in every language, we are a pretty multilingual bunch. So, technically the people who are investigating abuse reports *are* a "World abuse team". If you're suggesting that we recruit people who can read a specific language just to investigate abuse, that's not going to happen. While any editor (or member of the public) can report abuse and do what investigation they can with what they can see, actual abuse investigations are limited to catmod/meta editors.

motsa said:

While we don't have metas in every language, we are a pretty multilingual bunch. So, technically the people who are investigating abuse reports *are* a "World abuse team".

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I don't believe many editors from the abuse team speak romanian. And I say that because I reported a few dozens of abuses. Jean was great and solve them all but one is still waiting because of the romanian language. Actualy, Jean solved the problem very quickly, but the site was listed again in 2 days and now the problem is wating for someone who can understand the language to review it.

Another problem with problematic abuses was with sites who were selling illegals products in my country. That can't be solved by a general editor because he don't know the romanian laws.

I don't believe many editors from the abuse team speak romanian. And I say that because I reported a few dozens of abuses. Jean was great and solve them all but one is still waiting because of the romanian language. Actualy, Jean solved the problem very quickly, but the site was listed again in 2 days and now the problem is wating for someone who can understand the language to review it.

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Ah yes, you mean the Report Abuse thread here at Resource-Zone? That is a little limited by the fact that not many editors read it. If something is reported in that thread that can't be solved by editors here, an editor usually brings them to internal editor forums or directly to an editor who speaks the language and has the ability to edit in the category.

The "abuse team" is the Meta editors, as motsa mentioned, and that is not the same thing as the people who read the abuse thread here. Meta editors deal with the abuse reports that are filed through http://report-abuse.dmoz.org/ , and yes, there are Romanian-speaking Metas

As I said, we don't have metas who understand every language but we do what we can.

[added: Ah, thanks for the clarification, nea. I was thinking our abuse reporting system, not the abuse thread here (which I admit I avoid)]

an editor usually brings them to internal editor forums or directly to an editor who speaks the language and has the ability to edit in the category.

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That is exactly what happened in this case. Three Romanian editors are aware of the post that you made miromulus, including a meta and another senior editor. Perhaps I did not make clear that any further discussion would take place internally, not on this forum.

jeanmanco said:

Perhaps I did not make clear that any further discussion would take place internally, not on this forum.

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My post dosn't contain the url or the situation of that case. I was just giving an exemple.

That's fine. I wasn't implying that you had done anything wrong. We just seem to have had a slight misunderstanding.

Funny commenting and cute avatar too.