Can't find the editor of my site's category!

I submitted my site once, and following the guidelines, I waited the recommended time period to see if my site was posted. It was not, so I resubmitted. I again waited the recommended allotted time. After not seeing the site listed, yet again, I tried to contact an editor - but couldn't find one in my category. Does that mean that there isn't an editor, and that's why the first and second submissions didn't go through? Will I be penalized for submitting twice? I wouldn't have done that if I knew there wasn't an editor the first time. I'm still in the learning process.

There is never a "the editor in a category". There are always many editors who can edit any category. The vast majority of edits are done by volunteers who are not "listed" in the category.

A submission (suggestion) doesn't really "go through". It merely waits, that is its only purpose in life.

Eventually, someone kills it (having examined it and determined it is no longer useful.) Of course, it might be no longer useful because the action it suggested has been done. Or it might be no longer useful because the action it suggested was really a bad idea in the first place.

Having made a suggestion, you can't track it. Too many different things can happen, the vast majority of which are something like "confidential message: I figured out how to spot yet another spammer."

Two suggestions are not going to be a problem. Expecting a suggestion to be "processed" on a "schedule" ... will cause disappointment.

I'm sorry to contradict you hutcheson, but I don't recognise your description of the process of dealing with submissions (suggestions). I would say that "going through" describes perfectly what happens in many cases.

Submissions go through a spam filter and non-spam ones arrive in the unreviewed pile in the category. When and if an editor has the time and interest in reviewing it, the submission will go up on their editing screen. The editor will review the site. If it fits the criteria for listing in that category, the editor will check (and more often than not re-write) the suggested title and description. Then a button is clicked to publish the listing. So it goes through to the public side - though usually not in the exact form that it arrived as a suggestion.

davisgrl2000 - I'm not sure where you saw advice to wait an allotted time, but even if it was in an official source, I'm sure it didn't mean to imply that suggestions will usually be reviewed within a particular time. We simply can't say when a suggestion will be reviewed.

That is a different conceptual model of the process, but it is, I believe, misleading. In particular, the "go" metaphor suggests an idea of "progress" that really doesn't apply.

It's really better to think of a suggestion like a post-it note stuck to your monitor. It doesn't "slip down and GO THROUGH your keyboard", even though at some point you may transcribe words from it using your keyboard.

The post-it note simply stays stuck on your monitor until you either throw it away saying "I don't want to do this anymore", or you throw it away saying "I've already done this."

There is a germ of truth in your model also: some things that happen to a post-it note could be described as "progress". As you say, the note might be improved and corrected. (But that is by no means a necessary step, or necessarily separate as a step.) Or I might "move" the note to someone ELSE'S monitor, telling them, "I don't know how to do it, you'd be much better." (If they agree with me, that is a kind of "progressive movement." If they don't, well, its just thrashing.)

On the other hand, the idea of "progress over time" is what leads people to think "I suggested the site xx time-units ago, it must have 'gone all the way through' by now." If you abolish that concept, then a pervasive error disappears with it.

Hutcheson - Naturally I perceive and support your motive. But let's not throw up new clouds of confusion in our efforts to erase a common misconception.

You paint a picture in which the software can make no direct link between submission and listing. That is misleading. It suggests that we keep no record of submissions (or none linked in any way to listings.) That is simply untrue.

The simple answer here is that we make no promise that a submission (suggestion) will be reviewed within any particular timescale.

On software grounds, I would indeed explicitly say that we do not keep any record of deleted suggestions, and in general we cannot tie specific suggestions to specific editing acts. (A human, with enough extra-database information can make connections that the software cannot.)

Yes, we really do keep suggestions until we're done with them, then we discard them (leaving only obscure traces in editing logs.)

And we definitely don't keep any record of suggestions linked to listings. Suggestions contain (but are not linked to) URLs; listings are linked from URLs. So given a suggestion, you can find the listings, but given a listing, you can't find the related suggestions. Now, given a listing, you can find the logs, and from the logs a human can sometimes deduce where a suggestion might be -- but I certainly wouldn't call that a link; and sometimes the logs are silent on the subject.

I suspect part of the difference in perspective here is that I am thinking in terms of computer databases (my own training) and Jean is thinking in terms of what's deduceable through historical analysis.

Yes, there have tracks that often allow a human to infer relationships. But a computer program that attempted to automatically connect the dots would be extremely difficult, would give some wrong answers, and would sometimes just fail to give an answer.

Neatly done Hutcheson.