clintrsix, I'd like to respond from a slightly different perspective. The fact is, we simply cannot respond as you wish and maintain any integrity at all to the directory.
No doubt that seems strange: how could a quick review of a legitimate business totally corrupt the directory?
First of all, there are two different issues here: the legitimacy of a business and the adequacy of a website, and there is no logical connection at all between them. (Many people assume that there is, and are offended when a website is rejected, thinking it has something to do with the business. And it doesn't, not at all, and we couldn't change that if we wanted to.)
But these are the facts:
1) It is possible (and in my experience common) for a legitimage business to have no listable website. So everything you say about your BUSINESS is completely, totally, inevitably irrelevant to us. Your legitimate efforts to provide good service (or even success at it), can't change this.
2) And it has to be. We don't review businesses. We review websites. We can't review businesses, and even if we could, there are other organizations that do a much better job. Your desires or mine cannot change these facts.
3) Now, the error rate you site is much better than we achieve at the ODP, and much worse than the last shipping business I worked with. I have no idea whether it's good or bad in your industry; I have no way of verifying it -- and if I announced I believed it and proposed to prioritize your site review -- have you thought about what would happen?
I'll tell you. Every spammer in known space would immediately run to these forums to lie to us about their error rate, in order to obtain good service.
I know, in a perfect world that wouldn't happen. But we're here, and it does. People regularly tell us all sorts of bizarre and incredible lies (or irrelevant truths), expecting to be able to manipulate us in some way. So we do the only thing we can do.
For the purposes of site reviews, we must totally ignore all claims made in any communications to editors. We just review the websites.
4) But suppose we decided to investigate all businesses from the standpoints you suggest. It would take ten times as long, and -- you'd be welcome to check your submittal status again in, say, 20 years. Is that really what you'd want if you had a choice? (Which you don't. Nobody has a choice as to what gets done except the people who do it. That's what "freedom" means.)
5) We don't give feedback on website reviews. There is no reason on earth why we should. The facts, again, are simple. 95+% of the rejected sites give no indication that the webmaster would be capable of creating any useful site with any amount of feedback. And since the guidelines are public, anyone may read them and tell why sites are rejected. Furthermore, most webmasters contacted with negative news have reactions ranging from anger to physical attack. Then why would any rational person waste MORE time reviewing sites which never should have been submitted in the first place? Talk about teaching a pig to sing... (And, of course, it would take much longer to give that response -- do you really want to wait another four years while editors craft letters to spammers? No, that is an absolutely insane idea from every possible point of view.
So the summary is: it would be catastrophic for the directory to distract our editors into reviewing business practices, accepting priority review requests or writing feedback to rejected sites.
This is because of human nature, not the internet or ODP design goals or ODP organization or editor motivations. We can't change it.
BTW, I've responded to your status request in the other thread.
No doubt that seems strange: how could a quick review of a legitimate business totally corrupt the directory?
First of all, there are two different issues here: the legitimacy of a business and the adequacy of a website, and there is no logical connection at all between them. (Many people assume that there is, and are offended when a website is rejected, thinking it has something to do with the business. And it doesn't, not at all, and we couldn't change that if we wanted to.)
But these are the facts:
1) It is possible (and in my experience common) for a legitimage business to have no listable website. So everything you say about your BUSINESS is completely, totally, inevitably irrelevant to us. Your legitimate efforts to provide good service (or even success at it), can't change this.
2) And it has to be. We don't review businesses. We review websites. We can't review businesses, and even if we could, there are other organizations that do a much better job. Your desires or mine cannot change these facts.
3) Now, the error rate you site is much better than we achieve at the ODP, and much worse than the last shipping business I worked with. I have no idea whether it's good or bad in your industry; I have no way of verifying it -- and if I announced I believed it and proposed to prioritize your site review -- have you thought about what would happen?
I'll tell you. Every spammer in known space would immediately run to these forums to lie to us about their error rate, in order to obtain good service.
I know, in a perfect world that wouldn't happen. But we're here, and it does. People regularly tell us all sorts of bizarre and incredible lies (or irrelevant truths), expecting to be able to manipulate us in some way. So we do the only thing we can do.
For the purposes of site reviews, we must totally ignore all claims made in any communications to editors. We just review the websites.
4) But suppose we decided to investigate all businesses from the standpoints you suggest. It would take ten times as long, and -- you'd be welcome to check your submittal status again in, say, 20 years. Is that really what you'd want if you had a choice? (Which you don't. Nobody has a choice as to what gets done except the people who do it. That's what "freedom" means.)
5) We don't give feedback on website reviews. There is no reason on earth why we should. The facts, again, are simple. 95+% of the rejected sites give no indication that the webmaster would be capable of creating any useful site with any amount of feedback. And since the guidelines are public, anyone may read them and tell why sites are rejected. Furthermore, most webmasters contacted with negative news have reactions ranging from anger to physical attack. Then why would any rational person waste MORE time reviewing sites which never should have been submitted in the first place? Talk about teaching a pig to sing... (And, of course, it would take much longer to give that response -- do you really want to wait another four years while editors craft letters to spammers? No, that is an absolutely insane idea from every possible point of view.
So the summary is: it would be catastrophic for the directory to distract our editors into reviewing business practices, accepting priority review requests or writing feedback to rejected sites.
This is because of human nature, not the internet or ODP design goals or ODP organization or editor motivations. We can't change it.
BTW, I've responded to your status request in the other thread.