Email an editor

Hi there,

I've read several threads advising to contact the dmoz editor for a given category after been through several steps to get your website listed. I really took a careful look at the category page but I can't see any contact details that I can use.
Is contacting editors still possible? In this case could you please help me to do so?

Best regards

Nicolas

No, please don't contact an editor, whoever told you that or wherever you read that is wrong.

To get your site listed, follow the guidelines which are published by DMOZ, no-one can tell you if your site will be listed. Submit your site, and forget about it.

It will help to read these as well.

How to get your site listed FOUR times faster!

Note: These threads are NOT for Submission Status!

You can send feedback to editors using the link at the bottom of the page (if there is one) and it'll probably get through despite the erroneous server error messages.

However, editors aren't obligated to read such feedback or act upon it. Further, we discourage editors from responding because such conversations have a nasty habit of turning bad. Threats of physical harm and actual stalking are not unknown.

Many website owners think that their website is the most important on the planet but they can't all be right . We have perfectly good mechanisms for suggesting websites and requesting listing changes. What else could the website owner want to communicate about?

Unfortunately I'm not able to find amy link at the bottom of the page. I submitted a site months ago but I did not get a chance to le listed in the directory.
I fully understand the rules and this is selection of good quality websites that makes ODP so valuable.
I plan to suggest a new one in a couple of weeks but it will be in the same category and I suspect the editor for that given category is not active anymore. I know it sounds strange but I've been through a lot of listed sites within and many are quite old, sometimes not even in place.
This is the reason why I wanted to contact the editor for the category.

>I submitted a site months ago but I did not get a chance to le listed in the directory.

Since there's no global priority on volunteer activities, you can't really tell anything about when one volunteer activity (reviewing a site) occurs, by counting days from a different volunteer event (suggesting a site) occurs. In fact, the events could even happen in either order, at almost exactly the same time, or years apart.

>I plan to suggest a new one in a couple of weeks but it will be in the same category...

Normally[*], sites on the same subject from the same source are considered "related". As editors, we'd consider them like a single site; the submittal policy _strongly_ recommends that (for site suggestion purposes) you do the same.

So long as two sites you control are linked to each other, then one listing serves Open Directory users well--and also serves surfers who arrive from some other direction.

[*] There are a few exceptions: for instance, a professional website designer in a small town might create and suggest several sites to his town's business category--each site is in the same category but is really about a different subject (i.e. each site is about a different person's business.)

Thank you for your reply. But I still don't know if the category is still maintained. For instance there is a link offering to volonteer as an editor for the category. Does it mean that the actual editor is not active anymore?

As the first site has been refused I guess there is no harm to suggest the second one? (which is kind of different!)

Had you thought of looking at this forums FAQ for such questions and answers?

Does it mean that the actual editor is not active anymore?

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Not all categories have named editors and these are usually edited by editors with permissions in the parent categories or by the 200 odd who can edit anywhere they choose.

As the first site has been refused

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I can't imagine why you'd think that.

I guess there is no harm to suggest the second one? (which is kind of different!)

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As Hutch just pointed out, your guess is wrong.

Boilerplate ahead!

You might have misunderstood our objectives and how we operate here. ODP is a volunteer organisation building a directory as a hobby. Editors edit where they wish, when they wish and as much as they wish within the constraints of their permissions. We have no schedules or systems to force people to do work that they don't volunteer to do. ODP is not primarily a free listing service for website owners and it does not attempt to process their listing suggestions within the time scales desired by them.

Some volunteer will process your listing suggestion in time but we can't predict who or when that might be. Elapsed times can range from a few days to a few years. There is no need to re-suggest your website and doing so could be counter-productive because a later suggestion overwrites any earlier one.

Honestly, that would be really cool to know when a site is refused, for example if it would be automatically published on a dedicated page. It would avoid many people to wonder if their site is still in the queue or not, why had been been refused, what can they do about it....
It would also prevent us from hassling you all the time asking about our personal pages.
In my case I don't know if the previous site is still in the queue but I would like to register a completely different one, despite still music related. But I don't really need the first one to be listed anyway (I guess very few chances as it was submitted about 7-8 months ago I think).

>what can they do about it.

This is, of course, the core of the matter. Everything else is just trivia.

What you can do, is, if you share the goals of the OD Project, volunteer to help--show evidence of honesty and competence, and make a commitment to help build a category.

There may be many valid reasons why you can't do that. And that's OK.

But if you aren't willing to show those evidences, there can be no possible reason that the community would allow you to "do anything about" what they do to accomplish the mission.

(I guess very few chances as it was submitted about 7-8 months ago I think).

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It's not based on chance. It's not based on time. It's based on unique content on the website.

dj-henoch said:

Honestly, that would be really cool to know when a site is refused,

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Why? How would that be of any use ot you?

> why had been been refused,
This information is available for anybody.
The guidelines which sites we include and which not can be read on
http://www.dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html

> what can they do about it....
If a site is rejected there is nothing that can be done.
A site is listable or it is not.

> It would also prevent us from hassling you all the time asking about our personal pages.
We tried providing status of suggested websites some years ago.
People kept on camplaining/hassling. "why is my site still waiting" "why was it rejected" "you were wrong in rejecting my site"
When we stopped providing status the hassle decreased enormously.

> In my case I don't know if the previous site is still in the queue but I would like to register a completely different one, despite still music related.
And you have been told that you should not suggest sites that are related. Doing so is a breach of DMOZ guidelines.

> But I don't really need the first one to be listed anyway
We don't list websites because their owner needs or wants it to be listed.

>I guess very few chances as it was submitted about 7-8 months ago I think).
You think wrong. Times can vary between a few days and several years.

Why? How would that be of any use ot you?

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I don't know if you have already waited for a long time for something to happen to you that you really want... But it looks like a no.

Being informed that it will not happen can be a great help because you just stop waiting for it instead of remaining uncertain.

Being informed that it will not happen can be a great help because you just stop waiting for it instead of remaining uncertain.

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Remember that almost no editing decision is permanent. Listed sites are removed daily. And many sites that are listed, had previously been reviewed (in some context) and not listed. If your site gets listed, you'll just have to start worrying about when it'll be deleted.

Certainty is a delusion. Uncertainty is a necessary part of a working relationship with reality. Learn to cherish it.

Waiting, however, is a waste of time. Get on with your life, and your mission. If you have some personal or business need for promotion, don't depend on volunteers who cannot possibly share that need--obtain it from people who offer it.