Editor either not available or having competitive commercial interests.

I have been submitting a site for over 18 months now to the following category.

http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Clothing/Undergarments/Sleepwear/

The Site is

url deleted

I am beginning to suspect that there has either been NO editor assigned to that category OR the editor has a commercial interest in not allowing additional competitive retailers from being listed, as the category has not changed in this time period.

I am certain that this site would be listed as it is perfectly relevant, highly ranking, matured and of the best quality in the retail vertical.

Can someone help me understand how an organization with such material impact on the ranking and success of online businesses can appear so absent,or in the worst case, unethical.

I am obviously frustrated and either want to shed light on a possible misgiving by the assigned editor or gain the knowledge to understand what other reasons qualify for our being ignored.

Any advice/comment will help.

Thanks in advance.

Ralph M.

Editors are not assigned categories, they request permission to edit in catories they are interested in, and are either granted or not granted permissions to edit there.

There is no resident editor in that particular category, but, there are other editors listed in higher categories that edit there, and there are also 200-300 other editors who can also edit that category, should they be interested enough to do so.

The most likely reason that a site suggestion hasn't been listed (if it qualifies in our eyes, not yours), is that no editor has been interested enough in that particular category to bother editing there (I'm certainly not).

Another reason might be that your site just wasn't unique enough to be listed, in our eyes, and it was subsequently deleted. No site has a right to be listed, it gets listed at our sole discretion.

If you submitted your site 18 months ago, I would suggest you submit it one more time, and if you have any evidence of editor abuse, other than unfounded suspicions, you should report it using the abuse form. We don't like crooked editors either.

In addition to what crowbar has said, sites which are either incomplete (ie: under construction) or defective (ie: returning error pages) for important sections are unlikely to be listed...
On the other hand - neither the presence of advertising, nor the design itself matters as long as it has visible useful content...

I'll offer one more point as well. Sites suggested to the Shopping branch need to meet the criteria for listing which basically consist of unique content, a catalogue of products with prices, a way to order from your own home (online cart, email, fax, mail, phone order), and offer international delivery for non US sites, or delivery to the mjority of the US for US sites.

Failing any of these factors may make the site unlistable in Shopping, but listable elsewhere (in which case the suggestion will be moved to a more appropriate category where it will wait for re-review).

For exaple if you only sell sleepwear online, but deliver only within Australia, you would not be listed in http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Clothing/Undergarments/Sleepwear/, but in http://dmoz.org/Regional/Oceania/Australia/Business_and_Economy/Shopping/Clothing/

Further information is available by reading the Shopping FAQ http://dmoz.org/Shopping/faq.html

Still unsure.

Thanks all for the replies.

Again. Despite considering the flisted actors that might point to our submission being ignored/refused, I am still of the belief that our site would easily and completely qualify as none of the "reject" issues mentioned reside with our property.

I guess, while our submisssion status will not change, my opinion of dmoz certainly will.

Every site owner thinks their site is the most wonderful on the net, and they should, , they've put what they consider a lot of work into it.

But, to insinuate that volunteer editors, who work for free as a community service to web surfers, (in areas that interest them) must be dishonest because your particular site hasn't been chosen for inclusion, is not only unfair, it's an insult to all of us.

I have no websites, so my own honesty is unquestionable and provable, but even if I did, I and every other editor take being impartial in our editing very seriously, and especially in areas where we might have some self interests.

To be perfectly honest, our interest is in building a good Directory for the benefit of web surfers looking for specific information, not pleasing site owners, web masters, or SEOs.

It's very understandable that persons like yourself have a different view of the ODP because of their self interests, but, your view is entirely incorrect, we're not here for you, but for web surfers, so what you want really isn't a consideration for us.

agreed.

Crowbar:

I concur with your statements. However, I challenge anyone to look at the current dmoz site's listed in our category, review our site, and then tell me that the site's listed, and more importantly, the one's excluded are in the best interest of web surfers.

Frankly, any surfer will find the majority included amateur and second rate.

So, it's by your standards that I assert our inclusion, not mine.

We develop a Site with high standards because we agree that there is too much crappy internet property out there. I know I'm biased, but I still assert that no editor without other interests would refuse our site's inclusion based on what's already listed.

Thanks for your candor.

Well, I haven't looked at your site or that particular category, so, you could very well be correct, , and when an editor does start working in that area, you might just see quite the house cleaning, . I know what category it is, but, I haven't investigated what's in it.

Though, I have to tell you, we don't judge site suggestions by the expertise of their design, but by whether they have unique content. Some of the very best site suggestions I've seen were very simple in design, but, very rich in useful content and the information was presented in an easy to find format.

I know in my own, non editor, personal searches, I really enjoy a site that gets right to point, and hands me the information I'm looking for without any frills. I guess I'm just too lazy to want to dig through a lot of stuff to get what I want. Sometimes less is more powerful than more, .