Better submission status and an queue system

I think the status you can get from your site submission is the worst ever. I mean if I ask for status of my submitted page 1 month after I have submitted then I can't ask again for another 6 months.

Also having no queuing system make this whole directory very corrupted.
"Hey my friend is and editor for that category, I can get your site listed right away"
While others can wait for many months.

Who is working for a better directory and not only for the power to choose?

A couple of questions back to you:

What would you do differently if you could return every week to hear the exact same thing: "Waiting for review"? (Since it is not possible to predict the future, that's pretty much the only answer you could ever get, other than "Listed", "Denied" or "Moved".)

Do you know of editors listing sites of friends that should not have been listed at all? If so, please use the Report Abuse form to report that. Do you know of any editors who have accepted money for listing sites? Please, PLEASE use the Report Abuse form to report that.

What do you mean by "the power to choose"? That the editors are free to choose which sites to review? In our opinion that is one of the things that makes the directory grow as quickly as it does.

I'm not talking about asking every week. I just think 6 months are to much when you can ask in 1 month the first time. Why not change so you can ask the first time after like 2 months and then after 3 month after that. Anyway I think zeal.com have a good sollution to this problem, maybe not 100% perfect. You have to go through some important questions before you can submit. You can see how the site is review, how the description is changed. Right now I know nothing about my description in DMOZ.

No I don't know any personal editor who does "own" listings first. There are editors who been deleted due to this so they are out there.

What do you mean by "the power to choose"? That the editors are free to choose which sites to review? In our opinion that is one of the things that makes the directory grow as quickly as it does.

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Why should and editor be abel to choose?
If the editor finds a very bad submission then just delete that and send a mail about how bad the description was. This wouldn't work without a queuing system.

zipoz,

What you propose may well work for a directory, but for a lot of reasons that is not the way the ODP runs.

From your perspective as a site owner it may not be they way you would like to see it run.

Suggestions of URLs to categories are only one way that an editor finds sites to add. Some scour local newspapers, noting URLs from TV advertisements, picking up business cards from places they have visited. I have done all of these. Those sites get listed because I know of their existence as a bona fide business, especially if it is a business that I have visited.

Ideas such as yours - to rigidly enqueue submissions and only let editors process them in that order (if I understand your suggestion correctly) are very contrary to the spirit of how the ODP is run. It falls in the same category as demanding a certain performance level from the volunteer editors, or starting to pay editors for the work they do. These are all contrary to the spirit of what the ODP is about.

We believe that we are providing a useful service to our customers (our customers being surfers and the downstream sites that use the data that we produce) and thus far, evidence seems to be that this style of directory, run in this fashion, is valuable. If we didn't matter, people wouldn't be complaining so loudly when "their" site doesn't get included.

Many editors have questioned the value of the status checks - it is a regular discussion on internal fora. There are those that feel it serves no value at all, and should be stopped. There are those who feel that it has value. Over the years of the activity on Resource Zone we have reached the compromise that we are at today. it may change in future, but I think it is highly unlikely to result in am ability to ask for more frequent status checks on submissions.

The reasoning behind the one month initial wait is for our internal filters and checks to have time to run. then we want things to happen wquickly enough so that, shoudl the submitter have made some mistake, or there be a bug in the system, it can be rectified and the suggestion of the URL be added to the category's unreviewed list. Up to this point, the submitter might be able to do something to help - usually by resubmitting if our investigations can not find the submission. This "early" check is to make sure that this happens fairly promptly.

After that, though, there is nothing that a submitter can do to speed things up - it's going to take as long as it takes. So why keep asking the equivalent of "are we there yet"? After that first status check, there are only several answers that can be given:

* Moved to a different category (the submitter now has to wait)
* Still awaiting review (the submitter has to wait)
* Listed (the submitter can see this from looking at the category - doesn't need to ask here)
* Reviewed and declined a listing (submitter has the option of going back, re-reading the submission guidelines and deciding whether the site is something that, given changes, could be listable or not)

So the only time that the six month status request has any value is if the site has been rejected. Anything else is just an exercise in mutual frustration. Doing that on a monthly, two montyhly or three monthly basis doesn't help anyone more than a six monthly one, and may only serve to frustrate.

Hope this clarifies.

Feedback is all anyone wants. When a visitor submits a site they expect some sort of feedback and would like to feel as though they understand what is going on. I believe that the ODP has some very serious communication problems.

If I speak to someone, and they just look at me with a blank expression I instantly assume that communication is not happening. I wonder what the problem is. Is the person I am speaking to hard of hearing? Is he/she mentally challenged? Am I not speaking loudly or clearly enough? Is the listener being passive aggressive and gets off on ignoring my questions?

In the same way, when DMOZ editors give no feedback to submitters, they begin wondering what the problem is.

I suppose the reverse could be said as well when editors repeatedly get asked questions that are answered in the information that a submitter should have read when placing their suggestion. Most seem just to type in the URL and hit the button without ever reading anything else. The same could be said for numerous posters in these forums who don't seem to read before psoting.

It isn't everyone, but sadly to say it is more common than not.

In any event, the suggestion that we provide site suggestion status information (either here again or through some automated process on the ODP site itself) has been discussed to death here in many threads. Feel free to have a search around for them (or read the FAQ). Posting in a 7-month-old thread to try and start the discussion up all over again is not helpful.

Is the person I am speaking to hard of hearing? Is he/she mentally challenged? Am I not speaking loudly or clearly enough? Is the listener being passive aggressive and gets off on ignoring my questions?

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You are missing "does the person I'm speaking to speak a different language?" That's similar to what often happens here! ;-)

Netiquette suggests (and common sense would confirm) that it is the community itself that defines the rules of communication under which it operates.

If you find the community's rules of communication unacceptable, then ... go find another community. It is unspeakably rude and arrogant to think that you can walk into an established community and impose your own concept of communication (consisting solely of obligations imposed on other people for your benefit) on them.

You will find very few volunteer communities that will submit to your demand for compulsive feedback to outsiders. If you don't want to work with volunteer communities, that is fine -- you don't have to. But the point is, IF THEY DON'T WANT TO WORK WITH YOU, THEY DON'T HAVE TO, EITHER! If there is no mutual benefit, nobody can impose on anyone else.

So how do volunteer communities work? Anyone can suggest things for other people to do -- and the fact of the matter is, most of the time the result is silence. After all, if it's not worth YOUR time and trouble to do it, it may not be worth anyone else's either!

If that isn't acceptable to you, you can always look for mercenaries. Among "directories" business, Yahoo and Looksmart and other directories -- who are we kidding here, almost everyone BUT the ODP -- all offer paid services including varying amounts of feedback. Go pick out what you want, and figure out whether you're willing to pay for it or do it yourself or live without it -- those are your options. Browbeating volunteers into doing it, ... is much more popular than its total futility would warrant.