Discontinuation of site status checks?

I decided to come back after another 6 months to check on my site status. Now I see that site status checks are no longer provided.

This makes total sense to me, seeing as I spent 4 years trying to get 1 simple website added to this directory, which was a total waste of time. In many ways I am glad you stopped checking. My site was never going to get added anyway (my category editor was AWOL), and now I don't have to bother coming here every 6 months anymore.

Thank you very much! Great job!

Now that editors aren't spending vast amounts of time telling people that their submission was received, they now have much more time available for doing other things.

We never did want to tell spammers that we had detected their spam, but we did want to help genuine people with genuine sites if they had problems. It was rapidly found that most of the enquiries were for sites we considered spam, and most of the requests were from people trying to game the system. So, after a couple of years, the facility was terminated.

Editors don't miss it. At all. And genuine webmasters who know that their site really is listable can relax and realise that if it is listable, then surely, eventually, it will be listed, and the submission to the directory made the site just that little bit easier to find when the time comes that someone decides to work in the category that it was suggested to.

If your site isn't listable, then we don't want your suggestion, and we don't want to tell you what we did with it, or when...

giz said:

It was rapidly found that most of the enquiries were for sites we considered spam, and most of the requests were from people trying to game the system. So, after a couple of years, the facility was terminated.

Click to expand...

I just went back and read some of the posts in the Status Check forum and found that all of the inquires were very polite and they were for real sites, not spam.

What you can't see from looking at those archives is how many times and to how many grossly inappropriate categories some of those sites were submitted.

locust, there's no doubt there were real sites in most cases (but your definition of "spam" may be different than ours, and you certainly aren't as good at spotting carefully-disguised spam as giz is!) And, as giz stated, we often felt (with reason, with GOOD reason!) that our courtesies were being abused by spammers trying to figure out how we spotted their spam so quickly, even though it would not have been detectable to the typical user.

As someone might say, we were being "gamed." People lied to us through their teeth: sometimes insultingly stupid lies, sometimes more clever or plausible ones. I was fooled, all of us editors were fooled (fortunately, not all editors were fooled at the same time!) And all too often, we went away from that, feeling dirty, dirty beyond what a mere acid bath and shower can clean.

There is no doubt that some legitimate sites were inquired about -- there is even no doubt that in a very few cases we found problems that were resolvable. But in only a fraction of a percent of the threads resolved real problems that could not have been better handled some other way. The real, listable sites -- it helped them nothing to be told they were still waiting for review! And they were basically never told they were rejected. So -- logically, what could the forum have told people? Just this: that in reality, there's no way we can tell when sites will be reviewed. So there's no reason to panic, just get on with your life.

We have enough examples to show all those messages: anyone may see them in the archived posts. And ... let's get back to the real work of giving surfers comprehensive and accurate listings of websites with unique information: categorizing the sum of human experience on the web.

Obviously, a lot of editors can't tell the difference between spam and Prime Rib.
I have had sites, obviously rejected because of multiple clients sharing one building. The guidelines suggest that two sites with the "same address" are spam and duplicate submissions. I won't ask about my site submission, but I will ask that you idiots look at the whole site, and not just the address of the business.

Usually, it's not the shared building that's a problem: it's the shared toothbrush and gall bladder.

I'm not sure why you would want an idiot to look at your site.

Ah, but previous cases(*) like the mortgage advisor who just happened to have the same address as the insurance salesman (who he claimed was his brother, and his brother ran it as a separate company), and the same address as the tax consultant (who is said to be renting a room "out back", and not a member of the same family at all), all clamoured for three listings.... and through various checks it was found that all were being economical with the truth, and only one, or less, listings, were going to be made. Prior events like this make editors wary, very wary, and so it is possible that occasionally mistakes do happen. However, that would be a rare event.

I am not so sure how you "know" that the sites are rejected, and not yet merely still awaiting review. Moreover, I cannot understand at all how you have any clue, if they are rejected, exactly what the editor was thinking at the time. Most people who have previously taken such a guess, have been very wide of the mark.

(*)All industries and names have been changed to proect the guilty.

Or the guy who claimed to be in one town but was in another, and I hiked by his house, so I know where he really was. Or the person that claimed to be delivering flowers from one country, but happened to live near me. Of the person who claimed to be in a major city, but was in a suburb, that I caught with the wrong postal code, and a lookup in another directory of his phone's address.

Us here idiot's don't always believe da addresses posted on a site.

Always be sure the editor that reviews your site does not live across the street from you.

Obviously, a lot of editors can't tell the difference between spam and Prime Rib. I have had sites, obviously rejected because of multiple clients sharing one building. The guidelines suggest that two sites with the "same address" are spam and duplicate submissions. I won't ask about my site submission, but I will ask that you idiots look at the whole site, and not just the address of the business.

Click to expand...

Aaah, such sweet talk I'm just feeling all warm and fuzzy now. This "idiot" has logged over 50,000 edits, been around for five years, and tends to edit in high spam areas and I can honestly say I've never seen this be a problem. Editors actually look at each site, that's the beauty of a human edited directory. From the previously offered area of status checks I do realize, of course, that people trying to sneak in spam are usually the quickest and loudest to cry "foul".

If you think there is abuse fill the an abuse report form and an impartial party will review the allegation. Mistakes can happen, but in my experience your statement couldn't be more wrong. Some might wish those who review their sites were idiots, but if that was actually the case they'd likely be approving all those spammy affiliates people liked to submit