Changed my listing

I just requested a change in my listing, as the title and focus of my website, http://www.betterhomesecurity.com, had changed from security stickers and signs to stun guns. I did not expect anything to happen in the same day, but I have found that my listing has disappeared completely from its original category, http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Home_and_Garden/Emergency_Supplies/Security/, and has not been reestablished in any new category.

I know the new category's editor will have to look at the site, but I would hope that making a change to a site with the same URL, would be simpler and quicker than a completely new submission.

Is it common when making a change, that the first thing done is to delete the site?

It all depends on the kind of change.
If the site should be moved to another category it could be out of sight for some time.
Another thing that could have happened is that the editor reviewed the site an decided it should not be listed based on current guidelines and current content of the site.
As we don't discuss individual sites at R-Z I'm not going to look what has happened to your site.

Makes sense

Thanks for the quick reply.

Let's face it, all of us are after the same thing - more traffic - so it kind of stinks that my site had to be deleted instead of just changed. But, I have to admit that it really doesn't make sense to be in that category anymore anyway since the site topic has changed.

Oh well, I guess those are the breaks - back to square one!

Thanks again,
Desmei

Additional question:

Assuming that my site is still "listable" (it should be), would it now go to the end of the line in the new category? Or would the fact that it was a change request help it get reviewed quicker?

My site was deleted on the same day that I suggested the changes, and I would guess that the motivation for deleting it so quickly was that it no longer was a perfect fit for the category. Would it not be just as appropriate for the editor deleting it to also expedite the relisting of the same, listable, quality site, in the new, appropriate category. The new category is very closely related to the old one and may even be edited by the same people.

If one requests a change, within closely related sub categories, wouldn't it make sense to process it as a change, and not as deleting a listing and then resubmitting from scratch?

Even though, of course, I requested the change for my own benefit, doing so also helps DMOZ stay relevant and useful, and for that reason, it is my humble belief that change requests should be handled differently than new submissions. If they are not, then perhaps I should have suggeted the site to the new category, instead of asking for the change. This way, the new category's editor would not have had the old listing deleted until he was ready to list the new. Is that what I should have done?

What are your thoughts?

>Assuming that my site is still "listable" (it should be), would it now go to the end of the line in the new category? Or would the fact that it was a change request help it get reviewed quicker?

OK, there's never a line. Any editor can review any site, submitted or not.

However, among submitted sites, there are about five distinct categories:

(1) Automatically-detected QA problems. These used to be the absolute-highest priority for many active editors; now they are automatically moved to the unreviewed section. where they are not intrinsically so urgent.

(2) Update requests. These are considered "very high" priority because they represent a potential quality problem. Recently groups of flying editalls have been trying to get these also addressed within a few days.

(3) editor pre-approvals ("greenbusts") -- the intent is that these be reviewed "fairly quickly"; I don't have a good feel for what that means in quantitative terms.

(4) Editor suggestions. This is where a site would go if it were removed from one category and put into another to be re-reviewed. These presumably often have a higher priority than general submittals; again, I don't have a feel for how much difference that makes in practice.

(5) General submittals -- envisioned as the lowest priority of all of these (or more accurately, as not known to have any particular reason for being treated with a higher priority than any other random site).

Your site, if not moved outright or removed outright, would have fallen into class 4 (presumably in a new category, but it's possible to go into class 4 in the same category.)

Like everything else, each editor sets his own priorities. The classes are there to give a hint about what another editor thought was important, and we often listen to each other. But in the end, the only way _I_ can say when some site will be processed is to say when _I_ have determined to do it (and that's of course an unethical thing to do with special requests.)

Wow, thank you for the thorough, and very informative reply. I figured that in general there would be some prioritizing, although as always, at the discretion of the editor.

You said that my situation is probably like scenario (4), but what is the difference between (4) and (2). Is (2) an Update just a title, description, or URL change, not a category change? I thought what I did was an update, but apparently it falls into a different priority set. And again, I know that your categories are not hard, fast, rules, and that each editor will work in his/her own way.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond in depth.
Very kind.

What you did was make a suggestion (a #2 type) -- "I think something needs to be changed about this listing." -- and you may have given specific details. But the editor is responsible for the listing -- for re-reviewing the site, verifying the new URL, determining the right category (whether it's the same one or not), and writing guidelines-compliant title and description. In that way, at least, it must be treated like a suggestion for a new listing.

If the editor, for whatever reason (whether a casual forum comment, or a #2 or #5 suggestion, or his own initiative) moves a site to "unreviewed" [as opposed to deleting it outright, which is most common, or adding it blindly to another category] then it creates a #4 record.

(I think you've been assuming that your update request triggered the action you saw; that is not certain. But the mechanism doesn't really matter. [Except that an update request stays until some editor has "processed" it. Of course, "processed" may mean "determined not to do it" or "determined that because of other changes it is moot" or even "noted that it has already been done at some other instigation."])

My own concerns, when moving a site from one category to another, are twofold: (1) I don't want to leave the site out of sight for very long. (2) I don't ever want to add a site to a category without taking a look at the category -- for instance, it might already be sitting there under a different URL. Principle 2 is usually more important, if I have to make a choice. I can't speak for all editors, although I know principle 1 is widely held. And I suspect other editors have also experienced feeling like an idiot after adding a newly found URL for a neat but already listed site...and having to delete it again; if so, then principle 2 will not be specific to me either.

So the "best practice" is to move a site to another category unreviewed (class #4), then go immediately to that category and check whether it can be added; and if so, add it, if not, delete that unreviewed record.

That leaves me with one final question.

Your comments taken as a whole seem to indicate that my update request may carry just a little more weight than a raw, new submission, even though the site and category will still have to be reviewed. No guarantees, but it is within the realm of possiblility that my site could be relisted relatively quicky. (whatever that means!)

You also said,

as opposed to deleting it outright, which is most common

Click to expand...

Does this mean that my site might have been deleted without any attempt to add it to a different category? If so, then it is possible that I currently have no submission pending review?

If I don't see my site listed in any new category, say in a month or two, should I try resubmitting? I don't want to be guilty of spamming, but if my site was deleted outright, I would like to resubmit it as I am confident it is worthy of reinclusion in the directory.

>Does this mean that my site might have been deleted without any attempt to add it to a different category? If so, then it is possible that I currently have no submission pending review?

(1) Yes, and in that category that's the most likely possibility.
(2) Yes.
(3) If the site has been deleted, the editor was confident otherwise. One resubmittal is probably not totally unreasonable, but (again, without looking at this specific site, as per forum guidelines) one can usually bet at high odds on non-reinclusion. I don't know what you mean by "worthy" -- like "quality", that's not a term we use with reference to a site. It either contains INFORMATION we can't get elsewhere, or ... it doesn't.

A lot of people mistake "Shopping" for "Pre-sales", "marketing", "advertising", "order-taking", "lead-collecting", etc. categories. And if their site does a slick job of any of those, then ... it does what they want, but it doesn't do anything WE want. We want to send surfers straight to the authoritative source of information.

A business site qualifies by providing unique relevant information -- which is typically an answer to the question "who are you, and what would you make/serve/do for money?"

Shopping categories are like Business categories in that each site uniquely represents a business. But Shopping sites must also answer the additional questions, "Just how much is it gonna cost, how do I order, how do I pay, who delivers it?"

In this context, one possibility (a low but non-negligable chance) is that the site doesn't fulfill the shopping criteria and has been shipped to Business. Another is that it doesn't fulfill the Business criteria and thus has unique, authoritative information to provide, therefore has no place in an information-based directory.

Does this mean that my site might have been deleted without any attempt to add it to a different category? If so, then it is possible that I currently have no submission pending review?

Click to expand...

We will not look into the situation of a specific site (see the faq http://resource-zone.com/forum/faq.php?faq=rz_faq#faq_status_faq_item )
If your change request was to get the site to be listed in an other category it very probably is now waiting in that category.
But it is also possible that the editor looked at the site and decided it ins't listable at all based on current guidelines and the current site. Or he may have decided forhimself that it better should be listed in another category.

Thank you for the replies. I understand the fact that editors do not even have to comment at all, so any response is appreciated.

That said, I am a little offended (who cares) that editors seem to take such a smug tone - that a mere sumbitter couldn't possibly know that his site meets the guidelines for inclusion. Not all of us have blinders on, only seeing what we want to see. Of course we are all self-serving, we all want more traffic/more money, but it is very obvious that if you don't belong in DMOZ, you will not get into DMOZ. If my site didn't belong in DMOZ I wouldn't be here now.

I know my site meets and exceeds all of the guidelines. It met them before, that is why it was in the directory, and now it has all of the same (still unique), valued, content that it had before, plus many additional pages of unique, useful content. If the editor who looked at my site followed the guidelines for inclusion, there is no way the site could have been deleted. That is why I was so surprised to see Hutcheson's comment that it would be "most common" that my site was deleted outright. One would think it would, instead, be most common for an editor to think, "here is a site that has been in the directory, and the owner cares enough to infom us of changes, at risk to his own listing. I will look at this site and if it is still meets our guidelines, I will do my best to get it listed properly."

Perhaps that is idealistic, but it seems more inline with what I perceive to be the intentions of the editors. As opposed to, "Oh, here is a site that doesn't belong in this category any more - I'll just delete it. Who cares if it gets relisted. There are hundreds more websites we could list...In time, I'm sure that the new category's editor will find this site again, or many other sites worth including...it's out of my hands."

While that attitude may also be inline with DMOZ philosophy, that kind of treatment would be, in effect, "punishing" a submitter for no other reasons than that the site owner added unique content, and felt that it would serve the interests of all involved to move the listing to a more appropriate category.

The message this is sending is that if you are in DMOZ, leave well enough alone. Don't worry about being in the correct category. Don't "play ball" by doing the right thing. If for some reason this site does not get relisted in a new category, you can bet I'll never try to change any of my other DMOZ listings now or in the future. And that can't be the message the editing staff wants to convey. Nor can it be the best thing for the directory and those who use it.

No, you don't understand.
As we don't give any status information about sites we can not comment on the exact situation of your site. So we tried to answer you by describing global and common situations about what could have happened with your site.
Only you know the kind of update your requested and only you know if your site has changed in such a way that it isn't listable anymore. I never looked at your site or at the listing it has had. And I guess neither did hutcheson.
We can and will not get into detail about the situation around your site (our own guidelines don't allow us).

Desmei,

The most likely explanation (which you came up with yourself) is that the site is in the process of being moved from one category to the other - all the rest of this discussion is covering a small likelihood.

Here's what happens - most editors in the ODP can only edit in certain categories. When an update request comes in, and the reviewing editor can edit both the existing category and the new category, assuming the update is warranted, they can do that without any disappearance of the site.

If (as is most often the case), the reviewing editor does not have priviledges to edit in the new category, then they can only send it to the unreviewed area of the new category. This *is* put in a special area, the hope being that when an editor comes by who has editing privs in the new category, they will treat this with some priority.

The tone of this thread has gone very negative - you had a very legitimate question, and I hope this answers it.

I know my site meets and exceeds all of the guidelines. It met them before, that is why it was in the directory, and now it has all of the same (still unique), valued, content that it had before, plus many additional pages of unique, useful content.

Click to expand...

This is just a general comment -- I haven't looked at your site or its specific status in the ODP: the fact that a site was listed before doesn't necessarily mean that it is actually listable. Mistakes happen (and get corrected). Prior listing does not guarantee continued listing.

NOTE: The personal security products "industry" is rife with dropshippers, affiliates, and other general non-unique content, all of which gets submitted to us when it isn't listable.

OK, you're making a mistake that is very common among people who don't understand statistics. The "most common" action for ALL sites in that category is what it is, and you shouldn't be surprised that we tell you the truth. In the forums, we can't (ethically) get any more specific than that, and therefore you can't take it any more specifically than that.

But ... the REVIEWING EDITOR can't do statistics. He may know 19 of 20 sites are spam, but HE DOESN'T KNOW AHEAD OF TIME WHICH IS THE TWENTIETH. We have to look at each one, looking for the real businesses. And that is something that we care passionately about -- the little businesses that are spammed right out of Google (to say nothing of the Microsoft Spam Network search) by the doorways, affiliates, drop-shipping, and other fright wigs for the big sleazy companies. Finding that twentieth site, despite the statistics, is what editing is all about.

Now, as for being concerned about the "care the webmaster put into it" -- that would be just plain wrong. Some spammeisters are VERY attentive. We care about what the surfer gets out of it, which is a very different thing indeed.

And as for "punishing" the submitter, who for all practical purposes we assume is NOT the webmaster (and this is "more likely than not" -- but remember the caveat about the statistics of single cases) quick reaction to a reported quality issue is not punishment by any stretch of the imagination.

As for the attitude you deprecate: "Oh, here is a site that doesn't belong in this category any more - I'll just delete it. Who cares if it gets relisted." Let me tell you something: you cannot, you cannot POSSIBLY hate that attitude as much as, say, editing goddess (meta and administrator) "orlady" does. And I know this, because although she is one of the mildest and most soft-spoken of editors -- when she finds a site that was deleted like that, there are mushroom clouds and high ambient radiation counts over the internal editors' forums.

If your site is deleted (which, I repeat, I cannot confirm or deny because I haven't looked), the chances are very good that it should have been. Conversely, if your site shouldn't have been deleted, the chances are extremely good that it will have been shuffled to the correct category. Because the editalls that do most of the "update URL" reviews really DO care: each one of them have demonstrated that by a record of thousands (often tens of thousands) of site reviews.

Last question - a little off subject

Thank you all. One last question and I'll lay this to rest.

You mentioned drop shippers. We stock all of the items that we sell. Some of the items are unique to our site, like our stickers and signs, others are items that are sold by many companies - dropshippers and stocking companies alike. How would an editor know whether one is a drop shipper or not without placing an order?

We certainly don't have a cookie-cutter website, so I am not worried about that.

Other sites listed in the category sell Mace for example, and some, if not most, use the same descriptions from the manufacturer. Would using a common product description be a reason not to list a site, if other content was unique, and relevant? Many shopping sites listed in DMOZ sell a lot of the same products and use the same descriptions.

Thanks in advance. Unless something very unusual comes up in your responses, I will not post again to this thread - let's be done with it.

(As an aside...What is so bad about drop shipping anyway? I mean who cares where the products are shipped from? As long as the site isn't a cookie-cutter template site, identical to 50 other "affiliate" type sites, it shouldn't matter where the products are located before they ship, right?)

Thank you.

As an aside...What is so bad about drop shipping anyway? I mean who cares where the products are shipped from? As long as the site isn't a cookie-cutter template site, identical to 50 other "affiliate" type sites, it shouldn't matter where the products are located before they ship, right?)

Click to expand...

Sites using dropshippers are very much like sites using affiliate links from an ODP point of view -- they may be providing a unique front end but the back end, the meat and potatoes of the business, are all done by another company, another company that many, many other people are creating many, many similar front ends for. As with affiliate sites, we list the main dropshipper site but not the sites using the dropshipper.