Confirmation of submission

I am not certain this question is in the proper category, apologies in advance if it is not.

Does DMOZ send out a confirmation of submission? If not, it would be very helpful in tracking submissions if the submitter received an autoresponse with the date and directory the listing was submitted to. That way you may not have as many people inquiring on submissions while they are still in the "bucket".

Thank you in advance,
Coverall

Yes, the confirmation is a web page saying "thank you for your submittal ... bla bla bla." All the information you request is in your hand at that point.

No e-mail is sent.

While errors can occur and lose your submittal after this point, it's obvious that e-mail couldn't possibly help in any way. First, the vast majority of submittal-losing activities (99+%) are caused by the nut behind the keyboard: editorial mistakes: there are probably a dozen or so such mistakes made every day. E-mail to a submitter would not prevent this, nor would it report it.

And even on the remaining 1% or less of lost submittals, we don't even have enough adequately reported incidents to form a fair judgment, but there's no a priori reason why making the submittal process MORE complex would make submittals LESS likely to be lost: nor is there any reason at all to suppose that these losses (few as they are) occur BEFORE the stage in the process at which an e-mail would be sent.

In other words, an e-mail isn't necessary to provide any possible information about any such presumed problem, nor is it sufficient to prevent any such problem, nor is it efficacious in limiting it in any way.

So I'm somewhat baffled at why people (you're by no means the first) keep asking for something that couldn't possibly do any good. Is it some kind of bureaucratic power thing? "I don't have a clue what's going on, but I can make people work harder doing irrelevant things, so less will go on that I don't know about. And if they are doing irrelevant things, the mistakes they make will be inconsequential. So in my own way, I'm decreasing the number of significant mistakes that are made: and isn't that management's primary function?"

hmm I didn't get the "thank you for your submittal ... bla bla bla." message. It bounced me back to this page: http://www.dmoz.org/add.html

I've retried a few times but everytime it keeps bringing me back after I've waited for a minute or so for the add.cgi (if i'm not mistaken) script to add my submission to the queue.

And since a message is the only confirmation (as it doesn't send out emails), I wouldn't know for sure if my site was actually submitted. Should I keep on trying until I get the confirmation message?

Thanks!

I doubt sending an e-mail would inconvenience DMOZ as much as it might reduce premature requests by people inquiring as to whether or not their site has been submitted correctly.

A little automated communication between DMOZ and the submitter would not only reduce the usage of this forum, but provide re-assurance to the submitter that they are indeed submitted, and also waiting in a pool.

A majority of guidelines that seem to be overlooked by submitters could be sent with every submission request, and since these requests pertain to their specific submission, it is more likely that they would read it more carefully.

Again, this would remove much unnecessary communication between editors and submitters.

I doubt sending an e-mail would inconvenience DMOZ as much as it might reduce premature requests by people inquiring as to whether or not their site has been submitted correctly.

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But it would definitely aid the spammers and bulk submitters -- and dealing with even more of their spew will definitely inconvenience us.

A little automated communication between DMOZ and the submitter would not only reduce the usage of this forum

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From a logical perspective, this would make sense, and I appreciate your thought. In reality, though, we'd rather have communication here than buckets of willfully malicious submission into the directory.

What happens is that the innocent webmaster is caught up in the protections that we have had to institute to protect the directory and its editors from people who want to do us harm. I personally resent it when I have to take my shoes off at the airport, but there are prople who want to fly airplanes into buildings, so I have to suffer along with most everyone else on the airplane. Most editors would agree that our sumission process is not designed for efficiency, but rather for self-preservation.

I know you don't like it. I wouldn't. But from our perspective, it is a necessary evil.

Thank you for sharing your concerns and ideas. I appreciate the thought you put into them, its just that we have this really big monster hiding in the closet....

But it would definitely aid the spammers and bulk submitters

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I don't see how this would be the case at all. Spammers would likely use unchecked e-mail addresses to begin with, so an addition such as this would almost certainly target genuine submitters.

In reality, though, we'd rather have communication here than buckets of willfully malicious submission into the directory.

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Again, I don't see how sending courteous e-mails explaining the submission process to submitters would in any way increase spam or malicious submissions.

I know you don't like it. I wouldn't. But from our perspective, it is a necessary evil.

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It's not a question of not liking it... I am theorizing on how to improve on our methods to promote efficiency for both editors and submitters. As of yet, I do not see any logical reason why automated communication is a bad thing.

Editors have discussed that at length in the internal forums, and it's not likely to happen for various reasons.

Well, that's a relief. Thanks for that contribution, Bob.

I really appreciate all the input on the topic. The reality is I was thinking that an auto-response type of confirmation would aid the submitter in tracking what they have submitted, what directory they submitted to and what date they made the submission.

I completly agree that if it will put DMOZ at risk with Spammers etc. it should not be done. Furthermore, the last thing I want to see is any beauracracy - the more streamlined the better.

So, my idea was to help put the responsibility back on the submitter. When someone is looking for a status part of the policy could include asking them to cut and paste their submission confirmation and remind them on the expected time tables.

Has DMOZ played with the idea of having submitters register (something like this board). They could then track what url they submitted, what directory they submitted to, what date and if DMOZ wanted to get fancy they could add a field "Under Review, Accepted, Rejected". Then the submitter could jump on the forum here and ask more relevant, time efficient questions.

Just a thought and thank you again,
coverall

These are all great ideas - in particuler requiring opt-in regitration to get emails - and have been discussed. However, even it we wanted to, it requires money and manpower which is in short supply and better put to other tasks.

One of the major ideas is that anyone can suggest any URL. Anonymous if he prefers to. Anything more than the current system would spoil that idea.
Apart from that we see public submission only (and that is meant as a restrictive only ;-) ) as an instrument to help editors do their work.

>Has DMOZ played with the idea of having submitters register

Dunno if DMOZ has. I have. (You probably know that Zeal has something roughly equivalent to this.) I haven't figured out how to make it work for us.

Your biggest problem is emotional: you want to know things we can't tell you, and -- frankly -- that cannot possibly make any difference in deciding what you need to do. (If you have a business, you need to be promoting it regardless of what the ODP does. If you have an informational site, you need to be telling people about it.)

Our biggest problem is spam. Doorway/affiliate spammers really do need the information you're asking for. They want to know what spamming techniques are hardest to detect, what spamming techniques are ineffective, and the information you're asking for is exactly what they need in order to figure that out. For spammers, our actions really do make a difference, since nobody will ever promote their sites, or even go to them if they didn't obtrude themselves in front of the real content-providers. Their ONLY hope is to fool disinterested parties like the ODP or Google. And every time we speak to submitters, this question has to be uppermost in our mind: "If a spammer hears this, will it help him get past our review process?" Every time.

So if you feel you're treated like a spammer: you are, in some ways you really are. We have the ability to review 20-50% more legitimate sites than are submitted every day: it is spam, spam alone that causes all the delays you face, all the frustrations you feel, and all the reserve with which we receive all your communications. We have to ask of every single submittal "how could they be hiding spam under this one?" Only after your submittal has been reviewed and declared spam-free can we treat it as an honest submittal -- but by that time you've gotten what you wanted, and there's no reason for any more communication between you and us, ever!

hutcheson,

That is the best explanation I have heard.

Nicely written, polite and simple to understand. Many of your colleagues could learn from that.

I genuinely do understand that you must get 'racked off' with the spammers, but there are some of us who are desperate to get on the directory, simply because that IS the way to get the message out there, that IS the way to get more business, as you will have more chance on Google et al.

I believe however that it is the cloakedness that causes people to spam in certain cases. I dont consider myself a spammer, but having read this thread, I could perhaps be. This is not something I endeavoured to do, (I have only submitted about 10 different sites in a couple of years - I think), but it would appear that I could have accidentally done so.

Its a wonderful case of catch 22. I want more information to totally understand the open directory, I cant have more information as that would assist the professional spammers.

Anyone got a solution for everyone!?

I think that one of the problems is that many people who suggest their website slide right by our submission guidelines whilst acknowledging that they've read and agreed them as part of the process.

We find that people who spread their website over multiple domain names think that they are eligible for multiple listings and make multiple submissions, oblivious of our attitude to this.

xx0033 said:

hutcheson,

but there are some of us who are desperate to get on the directory, simply because that IS the way to get the message out there, that IS the way to get more business, as you will have more chance on Google et al.

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That is a view that unfortunately dominates this forum. In fact, I use to think the same way once. Ok maybe twice . From what I have observed and experienced first hand, an ODP listing helps very little in comparison to all the other venues that can and should be taken to acquire traffic to any particular site.

Yes, I understand desperation. But, in my experience, webmaster desperation is strongly and negatively correlated with website value to surfers. So ... sympathy is strongly contraindicated. I sympathize for the surfers who can't find a Las Vegas hotel site in Google without clawing past several thousand webmasters desperate for money--not deserving of money, just desperate for it. I sympathize with the surfers who can't find an online text of a book without going past dozens of booksellers' online catalogs (and I DO buy books online!) I sympathize with the surfers who can't find an honest craftsman online without going past thousands of Vstore Vaffiliate Vspammers.

And pretty soon, my sympathy is used up. And I go back to focusing on MY internet mission (which happens NOT to make me money, but which HAS made an online impact in my topic of focus.)

more improvement! more perfect!
waiting good news.

jimnoble said:

We find that people who spread their website over multiple domain names think that they are eligible for multiple listings and make multiple submissions, oblivious of our attitude to this.

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Personally Jim, I think that sites that have good enough content should be able to be submitted to the DMOZ, but as I say thats my personal opinion.

You know that I have lots of sites, but they are not all linked to each other, nor are they linked to each others business. I have different domains that I use a lot, but want to seperate them into their own divisions of the main business. I can do this in the business world, (and have done), but cannot do this on the DMOZ, as it is considered spam. All my sites have original content and are informative - I believe.

The annoyance for me and for other people involved in websites, (not necessarily webmasters), is there are examples of other organisations with multiple listings that are above and beyond the regional, language and specific catagories.

It is the inconsistancy that annoys, rather than the guidelines.

Here endeth the rant....

Simon

I normally use words with great care and perhaps you should do the same when reading them.

Multiple listings are at the discretion of the editors, not the website owners. It's multiple submissions and submission of related domain names which are forbidden (with the exception of dual submission in Regional and Topical).

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