Do we want or need a forum to critique sites?

Surely some of you have noticed that there have been a few threads running amok in the "site submission status" forum. Someone asks about their site, someone else answers that it's still waiting or whatever and then, occasionally, someone makes a really great comment about how the site does/doesn't seem spammy or unoriginal in one way or another. At that point the original poster responds to the criticism and ... and ... and ... you get the idea. These threads tend not to be flame-fests, but they get totally away from the purpose of that forum.

Do we need or want to set up a forum for folks to _ask_ for criticism of their site and whether or not it would be appropriate for ODP?

[Disclaimer: This query of mine is just to sound out the general membership about the desire to have such a forum or maybe just to try it out for a limited time. Even if everyone says YES, though, it might not be created. That would be up to the admins of resource-zone.]

 

[windharp]

I dislike threads that are moving around (that generates duplicate threads when the user checks for the thread in the wrong forum). And without moving threads over to another forum at some state, nothing would change

So I for myself don't see a need.

 

[alpine]

I must say that I found some of the longer threads quite educational in the ways and the thought processes of the ODP, in both positive and negative senses (mostly positive).

Whether or not you wish that to be one of the goals of the forum is, of course, up to you...

 

[just_browsing]

I hope that I have contributed to peoples understanding of what constitutes spam in a web site - I have certainly learnt a lot too over the past few months on how to pick them out.

Perhaps what has been demonstrated in "those threads" is that editing and picking out sites that are duplicate/mirrors/unoriginal/affiliates/etc is not either easy or self evident.

In the normal course of editing I suspect that a (large) portion of those sites that were found to be "spam" would have got through on the nod, not because an editor was "bent" but because there is not the time to dig into each site to check its full providence.

Therefore I hope that editors reading the threads have picked up some tips on how to spot such sites and how to check them.

I appreciate that it was not your intention to create such an "educational" forum, and that you have had a re-think on it.

I am not going to put up a suggestion as to what you might put in its place, but I do think you would be burying the germ of a good idea if you removed that part of this forum altogether.

You need an open forum so that your editors can learn to spot this stuff before it gets onto DMOZ. We could probably all agree that it is easier to stop it getting in, than it is to remove it once it is in,

There are many people outside DMOZ who can contribute to this understanding, it's up to you as to whether you want to take advantage of that input - or take the "safer" course and ban it.

 

Oh I want your contributions, it's just that a number of the meta-editors really don't want rancorous discussions to be occuring in a forum where someone just wants to know if his site is still waiting to be reviewed or not.

 

[giz]

It all depends on what is meant by 'status'. There have been a number of threads where submitters have asked about their site status, and have been told that it was waiting, and have been happy that it was in the queue, and left it at that. There have been others that have asked about updating a description, or whatever, and some editor has gone into the category and has found that there was a very small queue and has worked on all the sites that were waiting. On the other hand, there are others who have asked about status, and the reply has been that the status is that the site is affiliate spam that will not be listed. This has lead to discussion with both sides having their say. I think the forum is useful in reinforcing ODP policy, educating submitters, and although there have been some major differences of opinion between submitter expectations, and editor actions it is useful to keep all of this discussion in one place.... in the 'Status' forum. There has been some very interesting information in these fora, and it would be a shame if that information was no longer considered relevant/suitable/useful [delete as appropriate] for that forum topic.

 

My take, as a non-editor, is that site critique should be managed external to the forum. If web site owner "A" asks anonymous individual "B" to look at their site, all communication after the initial request should be via some mechanism external to this forum.

Perhaps a topic titled, "Site Critique" with text along the lines of "Post your email here if you wish someone to look at your web site. All further correspondence should be taken off-line."

Just my 2¢

 

[alpine]

Oh I want your contributions, it's just that a number of the meta-editors really don't want rancorous discussions to be occuring in a forum where someone just wants to know if his site is still waiting to be reviewed or not.

Hmmm, well, it hasn't stopped the simple answers taking place so I'm not sure about this rationale.

On the other hand, I can see the objection being
a)that prospective questioners are put off by the possibility of being drawn into a dispute about their site, and/or
b)that the "rancorous discussions" reflect badly on the ODP image, and/or
c)that comments are made in threads by non-editors which may be incorrectly taken to reflect ODP policy

Once again, from my point of view, this forum and the discussions taking place in it, especially the free and frank exchanges of views, are some of the best PR that the ODP could have.

Whilst I suspect some editors may be contemptuous of the concept of PR as it relates to the ODP, there are quite often comments made by editors that outsiders "don't understand", "don't appreciate" or "don't respect" what they do. This forum goes a certain way towards redressing that view of editors - and of the ODP in general.

(NB. That would be Public Relations, not PageRank <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

 

I'd say it is mostly (a) with a little of (c).

 

&gt;&gt;Perhaps a topic titled, "Site Critique" with text along the lines of "Post your email here if you wish someone to look at your web site. All further correspondence should be taken off-line."&lt;&lt;

I think that public comments about whether or not a site is suitable for listing in the ODP are educational for everyone. Some submitters really do want to know their chances of getting listed.

Perhaps changing the forum guidelines to encourage submitters to ask for those comments if they want them (privately if they prefer), and encourage editors to only answer the questions asked, would smooth over some of the difficulties.

(Then again, this is only my second post here, perhaps I'm missing some important clues or weak chum.)

 

[giz]

Something that I have been told that we cannot do, is to tell submitters that their web site doesn't work in certain browsers.

I was initially against the idea of having a separate forum for discussing anything to do with sites; but it appears that the exisiting fora are not to be used for conveying information about a site that could help the webmaster.

 

[windharp]

&gt;Something that I have been told that we cannot do, is to tell submitters that their web site doesn't work in certain browsers.

<img src="/images/icons/confused.gif" alt="" /> Who said that? I'm doing this quite often since I use Opera all the time. I really hate to put it away for reviewing sites <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" alt="" />

Anyway when doing so you should point out that this is nothing that affects the listing in general. But it may affect the time-to-list (Since people like me think "nah... Leave it for someone else to review" which may mean endless waiting in some branches where noone else edits <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

 

[beebware]

I'm agreeing with giz here. While I'm not sure if having a 'general critique' forum is a good idea - maybe once a Site Submission Status has been given and it's negative, then perhaps we can give the submitter 'ideas' on how to improve their site. I know most of the time it will be quite generic ("make sure it validates to W3C standards so _any_ editor can review it", "try and ensure it's got more unique content", "many people suffer from color blindness so green text on a red background is probably a bad idea") but it may help the poor suffering webmasters (there there) that want their site listed...

 

[apeuro]

One does not need to have a site that has "valid" code, or that is viewable in every single browser known to man, in order to be listed. Site critiques not only confuse posters who haven't ask for one, they also serve to confuse submitters as to what exactly it takes to get a site listed.

 

[donaldb]

I have to agree with apeuro here. I'm not sure what the benefit is to the submitters to tell them that they have invalid code. Aren't there other forums out there where people can discuss html code validation. It's a nice thing to give someone a heads-up, but is that really part of the mandate of this forum? I think that repeatedly telling submitters that their code is invalid only perpetuates a myth that we don't list sites if they don't validate.

 

My host www.powweb.com has a forum for website feedback...it is incredibly helpful. I think allowing others to review your site and give feedback is a great idea...and since this is a "voluntary" board, only interested members could participate. I vote "yes" to creating a "critique site" forum.

 

[donaldb]

Feedback is certainly helpful, but I don't think this is the place to dispense it. The mandate of this forum as stated in the Guidelines is pretty clear.
"This forum is here to provide an additional, unofficial channel of communications between the general public and the editing community, where advice on site submissions and placement, becoming an editor and other information about the directory can be dispensed."

 

[tac2502]

As someone who is currently engaged in a "discussion" in the "submission status" forum, I'll take the opportunity to weigh in with my 2 cents.

In my opinion, as soon as the conversation moves beyond "Are we there yet?" to "Whoa, I don't want to go THERE!", the thread should be moved to the "Submissions" forum, and a placeholder with the new location put in its place.

At that point, the definition of the "Submissions" forum could be expanded to something like "What belongs on ODP, and where to put it." Both issues; where a site should be submitted and whether its content qualifies should be addressed before someone even makes a submission. People could also ask hypothetical questions here "I have a friend with a website that does this..." before making their submission requests. This forum would then have an extrordinarily long retention (archive) and become the libary of previous decisions and precedents.

The down side to moving these discusions out to a different board is that they will get less exposure. The "Submission Status" forum is probably the most highly trafficed, and leaving these "teaching" threads there exposes people to "how it works", whereas once shuttled away to the less active "submissions" forum, they will not be seen by those who need to see it.

In all cases, I think ODP should avoid the term "site reviews" with a vengence. Layout, support for CSS, browser levels, etc would become the norm and bog people down. I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that some editors would end up spending an inordinate amount of time arguing about style issues that are nearer and dearer to their hearts, leaving less time to review applications and respond to silly people who question editors' wisdom (like yours truly <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

Tom "double-quotes" C.

 

To me, this idea seems like a never ending source of arguement and flaming. But that's just my humble newbie $.02

 

[christophermiles]

I am inclined to agree that this could be a source of significant flaming and confusion. On paper I love the notion of having a forum where people could get feedback on their site. I love getting feedback on my own, write me and I'll give you the URL Then I went to the link in a post above (www.powweb.com, you gotta dig for the forums) and looked at the sites that are being submitted for feedback. There is good feedback, awful feedback and a few flames.

I could see where there would be endless "will the large buttons you said were innapropriate affect my ODP chances?" or "If I remove the large pics (that load slowly from the home page) will I get listed quicker?" or even "If I use a orange font instead of bright yellow, that everyone complained about, will it speed up my listing in ODP?" type of questions.

Also, editors would be put in a position of sharing information/opinions that is not relevant or appropriate to their ODP responsibilities.

For instance, for the most part I cannot stand flash on websites and I _always_ click "skip intro". I have no problem adding a flash site to my categrory, but my personal/professional conclusion is that it doesn't play well with many search engines and I am not surfing to be entertained (so spare me your mini-movie, I'm in a hurry). This is just one technology that I am not a fan of, at least not for online retailers.

My bias does not affect my responsibility as an ODP editor, I would not hesitate to add a site that was 100% flash to my category. But if I made those comments public in relation to one who asked for their site to be reviwed then we'll start hearing about the ODP editor(s) who is a flash bigot and won't add flash sites. See where this could go? Now I'm wasting time overcoming/defending the impression that I am biased against adding sites to ODP that use flash.

I think a forum where one can get feedback on their website from others is a great idea, personally I don't think having that forum here is a good idea. Perhaps letting people know that such forums exist elsewhere is a better idea?

-Chris ps: you talented flash programmers need not flame me and yes i know that their are ways to code flash and not get overlooked by all search engines