Editors with Conflict of Interest??

C

crowbar

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You have not attempted to address the specific issue of how a site can be listed just after being registered when it has no content, just some gibberish pages and some links of which a few are ontopic.
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We don't pay any attention to when a site was registered, it's a non issue for us, and a lot of us, like myself, don't even pay attention to the date of submission, it's another non issue.

As far as the content on a site, I think an editors unbiased opinion about that is much better than a non editors opinion would be, because we understand what it is we're looking for. :)

No site has a "right" or a "promise" to be listed in the Directory, they are listed at our sole discretion, and it isn't a collaboration between us and the submitter. The submitter has no say in the matter at all, and we are not accountable to any non editor, like yourself.

If you're insinuating editor abuse, then file an abuse report with your proof, that's what the abuse report is for, but, don't make the mistake of thinking that because a site you don't think much of, got listed and your site hasn't, that it constitutes editor abuse, because it doesn't.

I've listed sites that had been waiting only one day, and others that had been waiting a couple of months or years, it's another non issue. You're waiting period, or your desire to be listed is also a non issue. We build categories based on unique content, in our opinion, not yours. Site suggestions are only one of our sources, and not the best source.
 
nea

nea

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You have not attempted to address the specific issue of how a site can be listed just after being registered when it has no content, just some gibberish pages and some links of which a few are ontopic.
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Several of us have said that sites can get listed by mistake.

Which does not mean that if a brand new site is listed, it is a mistake - but if a contentless site is listed, it is either abuse or a mistake. (Or an older listing where the URL has changed content.) And long experience has taught us that mistakes are much, much more common than abuse.
 
spectregunner

spectregunner

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Haha. Brilliant stuff as an example of a non-reply dressed up as an authoritive statement and meant to pout down the poster. A prime example of what was said in the post just before it. You state when a site was registered as a non-issue. That’s brilliant. Well of course you do since that avoids trying to explain how a site can be listed IN THE REAL WORLD within days of being registered in a competitive cat with no content. Not once has that been addressed. You guys come back with imaginative scenarios but do not address the very question. This is what lawyers do when they have no real defense. What you do is take one small part of the post and make some roundabout remark about that. So the post says the site has no content and then you post a site can be registered very quickly over others as your looking for good content. So then again I point out the site didn’t have content and you address a different part of the post or say its my opinion. This has been another fallback through this thread, always telling the poster HE is the one biased and he just wants his own site included blah blah blah. Always doing the smoke and mirrors thing and not focusing on facts or the actual post.
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OK, I'll try, but I'm sure you won't like this answer either.

Editors do not look at the date that a site was established or that a domain was registered except in cases where there is something about the site that warrants further investigation. Two big reasons: it is irrelevant to the issue of content, and it is (expect when doing additional investigation) a waste of time.

Few experienced editors spend any meaningful amount of time looking through the pool of unreviewed sites -- rather they would prefer to go off and find sites on their own. How do we do this? Every method imaginable. We read billboards, we pickup advertising flyers, we actually page through those free newspapers you find at restaurants, truck stops and street corners. We visit the public and corporate libraries and peruse through popular and industry periodicals. We never fail to pick up business cards, we read the advertisements in public transportation with notebooks in hand. We use all the search engines, from Google to many you have never heard of. We talk to people at work, on the golf course, in restaurants, and they tell us about new or interesting sites. We scour chamber of commerce sites for good links. We look through competing directories. None of these sources use the date of a domain registration because it is irrelevant.

And when we do look through the pools of unreviewed sites, we certainly don't go through top-to-bottom, and most editors do not sort by the date they were suggested -- as that is totally meaningless to us. I tend to sort by Title or URL because it is useful in spotting and killing duplicates. Then I look for suggested sites that have what appears to be a guidelines compliant title and description -- it is a pretty good hint that the person suggesting the sit actually took the time to read the guidelines. I tend to ignore suggestions when the title is a list of keywords or completely promotional, and I also tend to generally ignore suggestions where the description is full of exclamation points. Oh, I may look at them eventually. I may also grow a full head of hair again.

The point is that the date of domain registration has absolutely nothing to do with the date that a site gets reviewed. Absolutely nothing.
 
M

motsa

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You have not attempted to address the specific issue of how a site can be listed just after being registered when it has no content, just some gibberish pages and some links of which a few are ontopic.
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As nea has pointed out, that's already been addressed, by a couple of people.

The cat being within a very competitive area (one of the biggest cities for city accommodation searches and yet questioned as to whether it was prime or not).
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It's not a prime category if you judge primeness by how many sites are suggested to it daily/weekly/monthly/ever. It's not a prime category if you judge primeness by how many sites (as opposed to subsections of other sites) exist that might actually belong there.

Well no it couldn't be an explanation because there was now way to find that site and even if there was it wouldnt be justified an inclusion either on its own merits or by a comparison to the 1000's of sites that are ontopic for that niche.
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Again with the "1000's of sites". There just aren't thousands of even close to listable London-only lodging directory sites out there. There just aren't.

cant be bothered any more
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That's probably best if you're not going to be open to what people are writing here.
 
C

crowbar

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I'm afraid I didn't show enough warmth in my reply, I apologize, I sometimes react to the attitude I'm presented with, ;).
 
C

crowbar

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Semper Fi, Bro. How come veterans always have to work on Veterans Day, and non veterans get the day off, :D. There's somethin wrong with that picture, :rolleyes:.
 
Callimachus

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Semper Fi, Bro. How come veterans always have to work on Veterans Day, and non veterans get the day off, . There's somethin wrong with that picture, .
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What's that old saw .. "six days shalt thou labour, the seventh the same and clean out the stable"? :)

Semper Fi
 
N

nicetoseeyer

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OK, I'll try, but I'm sure you won't like this answer either.

Editors do not look at the date that a site was established or that a domain was registered except in cases where there is something about the site that warrants further investigation. Two big reasons: it is irrelevant to the issue of content, and it is (expect when doing additional investigation) a waste of time.

Few experienced editors spend any meaningful amount of time looking through the pool of unreviewed sites -- rather they would prefer to go off and find sites on their own. How do we do this? Every method imaginable. We read billboards, we pickup advertising flyers, we actually page through those free newspapers you find at restaurants, truck stops and street corners. We visit the public and corporate libraries and peruse through popular and industry periodicals. We never fail to pick up business cards, we read the advertisements in public transportation with notebooks in hand. We use all the search engines, from Google to many you have never heard of. We talk to people at work, on the golf course, in restaurants, and they tell us about new or interesting sites. We scour chamber of commerce sites for good links. We look through competing directories. None of these sources use the date of a domain registration because it is irrelevant.

And when we do look through the pools of unreviewed sites, we certainly don't go through top-to-bottom, and most editors do not sort by the date they were suggested -- as that is totally meaningless to us. I tend to sort by Title or URL because it is useful in spotting and killing duplicates. Then I look for suggested sites that have what appears to be a guidelines compliant title and description -- it is a pretty good hint that the person suggesting the sit actually took the time to read the guidelines. I tend to ignore suggestions when the title is a list of keywords or completely promotional, and I also tend to generally ignore suggestions where the description is full of exclamation points. Oh, I may look at them eventually. I may also grow a full head of hair again.

The point is that the date of domain registration has absolutely nothing to do with the date that a site gets reviewed. Absolutely nothing.
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ok i can see i need to make things as simple as possible. Its about the coming together of several facts and if you only address one at a time (and even then wrongly) you paint a different picture. But perhaps thats what you intended to do. The crucial point about date of registration being when that date is almost the same time its posted to odp WITH NO CONTENT TO SPEAK OF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lets not forget the example was removed and wewere told by the editor that he had no interest in looking at it..but every interest in spending days defending it! i mean hello?.....time zone moment or wot!
lmao!
 
N

nicetoseeyer

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We don't pay any attention to when a site was registered, it's a non issue for us, and a lot of us, like myself, don't even pay attention to the date of submission, it's another non issue.
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Sigh! Well I addressed that in my last post. Hopefully you’ll take time to absorb it.

As far as the content on a site, I think an editors unbiased opinion about that is much better than a non editors opinion would be, because we understand what it is we're looking for. .
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Im glad you added “an editor’s unbiased opinion”, thus admitting there’s more than one kind of editor opinion. Nice one! You also say that since so many editors have a professional interest in their section they would have a good/better understanding of the sites than a joe blogs who doesn’t follow the sites and section for a living.

No site has a "right" or a "promise" to be listed in the Directory, they are listed at our sole discretion, and it isn't a collaboration between us and the submitter. The submitter has no say in the matter at all, and we are not accountable to any non editor, like yourself. .
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That’s all very interesting but perhaps you could post that as a reply to someone who had mentioned having a right in the first place. If you just add interesting remarks for no particular reason people will get very confused.

If you're insinuating editor abuse, then file an abuse report with your proof, that's what the abuse report is for, but, don't make the mistake of thinking that because a site you don't think much of, got listed and your site hasn't, that it constitutes editor abuse, because it doesn't. .
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Oh dear, your counter argument takes a real nose dive (s though it hadn’t already) when you have to suggest I was saying something and then replying to your own suggestion of what I may have been saying. Can I also point out this is a discussion forum, I am discussing. Further, this was an ongoing thread titled editor bias. Im sorry that you don’t like people coming to a discussion forum to discuss matters on relevant threads but that’s life!

I've listed sites that had been waiting only one day, and others that had been waiting a couple of months or years, it's another non issue. You're waiting period, or your desire to be listed is also a non issue. We build categories based on unique content, in our opinion, not yours. Site suggestions are only one of our sources, and not the best source. .
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Oh dear you’ve lost it again. How long your personally have taken to list a site has nothing wotsoever to do with this thread. But not the first time that’s happened so join the club. Yes you don’t build it on my suggestions. Interesting point yet again but since nobody mentioned my suggestions for adding sites I really don’t know why you are telling me.
 
C

crowbar

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The title of the thread is "Editors with Conflict of Interest?? "

The answer is:
If you suspect an editor has one, file an abuse form with some kind of proof that can be followed up on and investigated.

That doesn't require discussion, only action on your part.
 
chaos127

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The crucial point about date of registration being when that date is almost the same time its posted to odp WITH NO CONTENT TO SPEAK OF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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In terms of acceptable editing the date of registration is largely irrelevant as others have said. Adding a good site is adding a good site, whenever it first went live. (In the thousands of edits I've done, I don't think I've ever looked at the initial registration date of a domain. I'm sure many editors wouldn't even know how to find it out.)

However, what I think you're suggesting is that some editors may be giving preferential treatment to their own sites, either by prioritising them above others or by listing them when they don't have sufficient content. This is a problem, and something that the meta editors would like to hear about, so we can take the appropriate action.

However, just because a fairly new low-content site gets listed it doesn't necessarily mean that it's down to editorial abuse. The site may not in fact be owned by the editor who listed it, and your definition of "low-content" might not be the same as ours. On the other hand, maybe it was an inexperienced editor who came across the suggestion by chance and listed it by mistake, or even accidentally pressed the wrong button. We're all human, and we all make mistakes from time to time.

By all means use the registration date to flag up suspicious sites to investigate further, but by itself it's not a sure sign of abuse. If you find a low-content site that's been quickly listed and you have evidence to suggest that the editor of the category is connected to the site, then the appropriate course of action is to file an abuse report at http://report-abuse.dmoz.org/ . Your report will then be investigated by one or more meta editors.

If this isn't the issue you're referring to, then I think you'll have to try to explain things better. Perhaps if you start off describing what you've observed (in general terms -- no need to mention specific sites), what actions you are assuming caused what you saw, and which of our editor guidelines those actions violated.
 
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motsa

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ok i can see i need to make things as simple as possible. Its about the coming together of several facts and if you only address one at a time (and even then wrongly) you paint a different picture. But perhaps thats what you intended to do. The crucial point about date of registration being when that date is almost the same time its posted to odp WITH NO CONTENT TO SPEAK OF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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They are two separate things -- date of registration is irrelevant; insufficient content is relevant. That's the point we've been trying to make here.

lets not forget the example was removed and wewere told by the editor that he had no interest in looking at it..but every interest in spending days defending it! i mean hello?.....time zone moment or wot!
lmao!
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I haven't spent any amount of time, let alone days, defending the specific site you'd posted about. No one has. We've been giving you general information. You've been told the right way to report what you feel is an inappropriate listing.
 
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motsa

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Meaning?

Very few reports of abuse via the public abuse reporting system turn out to actually be abuse. Most reports don't actually involve an actual problem at all, let alone abuse, but rather involve people speculating that the reason their site hasn't been listed yet is because some unknown editor in the category is a competitor. The infrequent reports of actual problems rarely involve editor abuse; they're usually sites whose content changed over time or sites that were listed (or delisted) by mistake.
 
N

nicetoseeyer

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Meaning?
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and there you have it. The simplest of questions only met with suspicion (or deflection depending on your point of view) and a lot of hot air. Straight back to 'YOUR SITE' syndrome, which is apparently your catchphrase.

Very few means what? put a number on it.
 
nea

nea

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Sorry, but I agree with motsa - your question was hard to understand. What do you mean by "upheld"? (I interpreted it as having to do with "hold-up", and thought you were wondering if it was common that abuse reports were blocked or whether it was common for us to take a long time to process them.) Could you please and without hostility rephrase your question?
 
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