Clarification on Submission Rules

No, I understood what you said. I just don't agree with it. However, if this is what has to done then it has to be done to every single listing in:
http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Pets/Supplies/Grooming/
And where ever they all go, that is where I need to be listed! As well as Bowtique Dog Bows.

P.s.

Am I seeing things through my tears or did you edit the part about ontology?
I cannot find it in my dictionary, please give me a brief description of the meaning.

I pretty much agree with that. All the sites about selling grooming supplies to groomers should go in the same cat under business and be easily navigable from /shopping/pets. There are a few sites in there that are probably miscategorized, so I wouldn't necessarily move it wholesale without doing a little scrubbing first.

I did edit out the part about ontology. I found a better way to say it. (meaning a way without using the word ontology.) Here's a pretty good definition of "ontology" the way we use it around here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(computer_science)

By the way, after re-reading your first post, I just remembered something. When you go to the grooming category, there is already an @ sign for grooming products which means what? That's how I got to the category I originally submitted to.
http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Pets/Dogs/Grooming/
Have we been beating a dead horse all this time?

Look up "taxonomy" in your dictionary, and assume an ODP editor means that when he says "ontology." We're pigeon-holers, not philosophers.

I think it's more important that you understand what we mean by "@link." If you figure that out -- or just wait till it's done. Your (and your competitors') sites will be more visible than before.

Well go back and read my last post before this one!

When you go to the grooming category, there is already an @ sign for grooming products which means what?

Click to expand...

I think you're starting to get it. That same @link in /recreation would just lead to the /business branch instead of /shopping and another @link would be created in /shopping to send surfers to the appropriate spot in /business. That way, no matter how they start out, in the end, they get to your site and those of your competitors.

Neat, huh?

OK, now I have stopped crying! So now you will make me cry again! Am I going to have to wait until all this takes place to be grouped with my competitors? Or can I please be listed here for now and be moved as everyone else in this category is moved.
http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Pets/Supplies/Grooming/

Well, this whole conversation has been strictly theoretical. In order for changes like this to be made, an editor would have to decide they wanted to do the work, and then seek consensus that a change should be made in the internal forums.

I haven't looked at your site, so I'm not sure whether it's miscategorized or not. I certainly don't want to second guess the editor who listed it in the first place.

Posting in this forum is not a fast track to getting your site reviewed or listing updated. I wish I had better news for you. But you will have to wait until an editor processes your update request in the course of his or her normal editing.

No problem! I will just go to update listing and give it a shot! But I can assure you I am miscategorized the way the directory stands at the moment. And my tracker shows that several editors have looked at my site since this turned into such a debate! By the way if any of you editors have not read in other threads what a magnificent job I think you are all doing, then know it now. I truly believe it and my hat would be off to all of you, if I wore one! May you all be blessed!

I have the same issue except for education one site for professionals and one site for consumers

Well my advice to you would be if you are already listed, and you think you are listed in the wrong category, just use the update listing, and hope for the best. If you have not submitted your site yet, make sure your read all the rules of submission several times before submitting. And pick the one that you think best suits your site.

Thanks, I'm new to the web marketing game. If my submissions are idiotic, or worse, will create a negative bias.....sound away.

I'm sorry, are you asking for more advice? I don't have any. I am not new to marketing my product. But I am new to this forum and did not even know that their was an ODP until a few weeks ago! And every submission to the ODP will have it's own unique pros and cons where the ODP is concerned. Just give it your best shot. But I can tell you that reading as many of the posts here in this forum as I could sure helped me not to make some of the same mistakes that other submitters have made.

I think you have done a really good job of bringing to public light something that often goes on internally in the ODP - an editor will bring up the question "why are there 2 sites listed in THIS category, and 2 others, doing essentially the same thing, listed in THAT category?" What follows is a discussion of how to bring the whole thing together in ONE place and make it readily accessible to anyone who would want to browse categories to get it. This is exactly what is happenning here.

Now we need to "go internal" for a while - there are editors in that branch who do not read Resource Zone, so we will need to bring it up in the internal fora, invite all the editors who might have a stake in it, come to a consensus, and then make it happen.

In the meanwhile, you should probably sit tight. We have the discussion on record here, so I doubt your case will be forgotten. Resolution will happen, but at the usual pace of things in the ODP - not in milliseconds, but weeks.

Well, I do still, most definately have concerns. And that is, that the business category that the helper first said he was leaning to moving me to, does not have a grooming or grooming supplies tree. Or at least I couldn't find one. It is pet supplies all grouped together. For those of us in the grooming industry, whether groomers or suppliers, there is a vast difference in pet supplies and grooming supplies.

Well, I went ahead and consolidated all the dog bow sites in

Shopping/Pets/Supplies/Grooming

Now, this might not be where the sites finally end up but the first step was to consolidate them and then do a little better job of linking the related categories together. I have done this. The next step is to take this into the internal forums and discuss it with the other Shopping editors. Which I am about to do.

I put them into Grooming because I researched the bow market and apparently the sites that specialize in selling dog bows pretty much market to groomers. The fact that there is online shopping on the site leads me to list it in Shopping because an individual could buy just like a business would. More than likely, since there are 4 sites specializing in it there will probably be a new category specifically for dog bows. Stay tuned...

Well thank you very much!! At least I am where I belong as the directory stands now and until the changes do take place.

And yes we have shopping carts because it is convenient for the groomer. Which brings up something that may have been part of the confusion, in the first place. Businesses that sell to grooming businesses are not selling wholesale to them. Although, it is referred to as wholesale, sometimes.
Because the supplies sold to groomers are not for resale, at least for the most part. Grooming is a service business, but on rare occasions, a grooming salon will carry a small amount of goods for their customers. But for most, having to report sales tax once a month is not worth it. They make their money by the service they provide not the products they sell. But it is part of their service to provide a bow or bandana, to finish off their work. But even though bow makers are factory direct to groomers, it is still retail not wholesale. I can indeed retail to individuals that actual want to buy in large quantities from me. But in the course of my business through the years, only three individuals have wanted to do that. So that is why I did not want to be in the category I was originally placed in.

I also do actually wholesale to distributors who resell to groomers. But most distributors buy all their bows from one manufacturer and do not offer much of a selection to the groomers they sell to. Therefore, most dog bow manufacturers do better selling direct to groomers.

Let me confuse you just a little more about how to categorize your grooming industry in the directory. There are also two different kinds of groomers in the world. The neighborhood groomer, down the street that pet owners carry their poodle or malteze to for it's monthly bath and groom is the groomer that I and Bardel Bows and Bowtique Dog Bows cater to.
But then there is also the groomer/handler for Dog Shows. They buy single bows and by the pair for some breeds. But they are a very different kind of bow, and a different kind of grooming industry. They would be appalled at the thought of having to use a bow that I made. It does not meet show standards. And they would be laughed out of the show ring.

And guess what? There are bow makers that do indeed cater to the individual pet owners. I just don't think you have any of them in your directory yet. They would indeed be better placed in Shopping/Pets/Dogs/Apparel. And most of these do cater to both the groomer/handler for the Show Ring and to Individual pet owners.
Because of this fact I am not sure you actually need to have a tree just for Bows. You just need to be able to determine which belong in Shopping/Pets/Supplies/Apparel and which belong in Shopping/Pets/Supplies/Grooming

This site caters to the individual pet owner that wants their dog to dress like the show dogs dress. http://www.dog-bows.com/ And to the groomer/handler for Show Dogs. But they would not do well placed in grooming/supplies Better placed in pets/supplies/apparel
Here are some more examples:
http://www.perfectdogbows.com/
I just discovered that Bows by Haley does not actually belong in Grooming Supplies. It belongs in Apparel also. So it is miscategorized.
http://www.bowsbyhaley.com/
http://www.dogbows.net/ caters to groomer/handlers and individual pet owners. Would belong in Apparel
So separating them by pet supplies and grooming supplies would be better than having all bows grouped together.
The key here in determining that, I think, would be:
If they sell single bows and pairs of bows, they belong in apparel
If they sell quartities of anywhere from 15 to 100 bows per pack, they belong in grooming supplies.

Now you are beginning to see why changes come slowly. Multiply this conversation times 450,000+ categories and you can see why very few editors are geiven permission to implement wide-spread changes within the directory.

This type of discussion is repeated time and time again in the internal fora whenever changes are suggested. Some seemingly straightforward proposals have been discussed for months on end as different views and perspectives are taken into consideration. And if you think presidential candidates change their positions alot, you ought to see six editors discussing something -- sometimes there are 8 different positions on the table.

As catalogers, we have to decide which degree of detail is important to our surfers and which degree of detail is important only to the handfull of people who are focus on that tiny detail.

And there is always the temptation to say: its all pet supplies anyhow.