Confirmation Email?

My name is Kevin Pond and I submitted <url removed> to http://www.dmoz.org/Business/Indust...ery_and_Tools/Vehicle_Repair_and_Maintenance/ earlier this month.

I did not receive a confirmation email, is this expected?

With respect,
Kevin

Confirmation emails are not sent. Your confirmation is the thank you screen you see after you suggest your site.

Thank you for the info! I promise not to ask about the status of my submission every two weeks.

Kevin

Don't ask about the status of your suggestion at all.

cmon mate, do you seriously expect that the judgment of every one of your editors is flawless? So if even one editor makes a mistake and rejects a website, and that website owner is not notified, then where is this website owner supposed to go to for help? If we can't come here, the hangout place for dmoz editors because of editors getting annoyed by website owners asking for the status, then there could be many frustrated people out there like this guy who has waited over 4 years with still no response.

Give us a webmasters a break will you. Most of us are only trying to increase the exposure of our websites to the internet community, and by doing so populate your database with factual and useful links.

We once did status reports for site suggestions, but decided to stop that. More details on FAQ: Why can't we ask about the status of our site suggestions anymore?.

Please remember, that the ODP doesn't offer any service for webmasters. We are building a directory, and for our own convenience offer the outside a possibility to hand in websites people think should be listed.

Most of us are only trying to increase the exposure of our websites to the internet community, and by doing so populate your database with factual and useful links.

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You are of course free to do whatever you like to increase the exposure of your website, but that activity is completely unrelated to the efforts of volunteer editors in building a comprehensive directory.
In devoting some of their leisure time to this goal, editors find sites in all sorts of places, sometimes even among the pool of suggestions made by webmasters. But reviewing such suggestions is by no means the primary activity of volunteers.

So if even one editor makes a mistake and rejects a website, and that website owner is not notified, then where is this website owner supposed to go to for help?

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The website owner can go wherever he wants for help. But there are places where he's not likely to find any. The local Shriner's Hospital, or Baptist Church, estimable as those organizations may be, are not likely to give much help with website promotion! And there is no reason the Open Directory volunteer community couldn't have its own mission completely unrelated to any particular website.

But here's the more important issue. Suppose a website suggestion is reviewed, and the reviewer doesn't find anything on the site worth listing. What are the chances the reviewer missed something? (about 1% in my experience). What are the chances the suggestor really wants the site listed (um, 100% more or less).

OK, so out of 100 suggestions considered useless by the volunteer, there will be 1 mistaken editor and 99 mistaken but impatient webmasters. And the more impatient the webmaster, the more likely he is to be among the mistaken.

Those are not good odds. No sensible editor would enter into long justifications of his activity when the discussion would be a total waste of time 99% of the time for obvious reasons, and a total waste of time the OTHER 1% of the time for more subtle reasons. Look at it this way. If an EDITING mistake is made, any editor could simply re-review the site, if there were some evidence it was worth listing. There STILL would be no need for any discussion with the webmaster, long or short. The website is there, ANYONE can just LOOK at it.

And what could the editor tell the webmaster that the webmaster doesn't already know? "Your site don't have anything at all about the Socioeconomic ramifications of disestablishment!" ("Yes, I know that.") "And it doesn't have anything about the life cycle of the pileated morganser!" ("Yes, I didn't know anything about that!") "And the stuff about Romanian politics is cadged from the CIA website!" ("Doh, yes, I know that, I'm the one who cadged it, what's your point?") "Do you really expect a list of all the unique information your website doesn't have? How fast can you read?") ("No, what's your point?")

"A reviewer couldn't find any unique information on your site!" That's all that matters, and the webmaster should already know how hard it is to find unique information--it's his own site, he knows where the information came from, and if he's not ignorant and unteachable, he has a good idea about what information is on other similar sites.