Errors or Oversights

Hi

Three years ago I submitted a site within a regional section for Bournemouth, UK.
It was accepted and placed in the category I suggested. A year and a half later I re-branded my business in several ways, name, URL and brand image.

I came to DMOZ and requested through the form for a change in our listing and name.
Immediately within a couple fo days the name and url was removed and instead of complying with my request for it to be changed this was ignored and never was replaced.

Why have this function for updating a sites detail if you don't carry it out.

Since then I have been trying to get my site re-listed to absolute no avail. Further to this, it appears I can't get several of my clients sites listed.

Now it is appreciated that editors are busy, but are they that busy that they ignore their own guidelines? Take a site down and not replace it seems peculiar.

There are dozens of reasons a site might be removed from listing. Too many to try and cover.

You admittedly changed the focus of your site. Updates are by no means automatic. Updates normally are a priorty for editors but are treated just like other site suggestions. If the reviewing editor felt the site changed focus significantly and needed to be considered in another category, it would likely have been moved to a new category for a re-review. If the changes that were made to the site no longer met the criteria for a listing, then it would have been deleted from the directory.

Keep in mind, prior listings do not automatically guarantee future listings. Criteria and guidelines are constantly being updated and changed. Sites that were listable a year and a half ago, may no longer meet the listing criteria for a particular category.

Well, I hardly know where to begin....

Let's first try an attitude adjustment. What you are saying may or may not have merit if, and only if the ODP were some sort of listing service,which it definitely is not.

The submission of sites to the directory are simply suggestions, we toss them in a large basket and get to them when we get to them. Sometimes we are aggressive in getting to them, often we are quite passive.

The same goes with update requests. The operative word here is request. About 95% of all such requests are rejected in a matterof seconds, because they constitute an request by a webmaster or site owner to keyword stuff a title or description.

Yes, we editors are very busy, we are busy trying to enforce the editing guidelines against an onslaught of abuse from webmasters and site owners.

We don't arbitrarily remove sites from the directory, but often, upon rereview we may change the category (which means tossing it back in the basket of unreviewed where sites can languish for more than three years), or, if they no longer comply with our guidelines, we can and do remove them (as well we should).

>Why have this function for updating a sites detail if you don't carry it out.

How do you know it wasn't carried out?

Note that we do not assume the submitter is the webmaster -- it could be a competitor, or a casual surfer, or an editor helping out beyond his privileges -- we really don't care which, although of course the latter two categories provide the most reliable suggestions.

And the "Suggest URL" and "Update URL" are ways of helping the volunteers find sites that might be worth considering for a listing, or helping the volunteers find listings that may need to be reconsidered.

And what happens when the volunteer "considers"? That completely depends on the website. In this case, the most plausible theory is that the website's change of focus (or possibly the ODP's change of standards, or both) made that site inappropriate for that category. So the editor either deleted it altogether, or moved it to another category for consideration.

Wait a minute, you are talking about onslaught of abuse, this psot is not abusive, what on earth are you talking about? It's a legitimate query.

Let's get something straight here; I did not radically change anything, except for company name, and url, same subject. Now if you find that by writing to this form I have a bad attitude or abusive, then i'm dumbstruck because that was the least of my intentions. In actual fact when I was writing the original mail - knowing how sensitive it gets here - I wrote to make sure that nothing even hinted of offence.

Now I have a valid query and it has not been answered with clarity. Furthermore, I have done nothing to violate any rules; the only way it would be possibly thrown into your basket is by deliberateness. If that is the case, then you have way too much power for this directory and it needs to be reviewed.

I wrote to make sure that nothing even hinted of offence.

Click to expand...

Hmm - your original post actually implied that editors were guility of abuse

I would aslo like to know who deals with this section and why have they constantly refused to add our website when we know for fact they have added others who came after us in those sections regionally.

Is there a conflict of interest here?

------------

I thought Spectregunner was speaking in general terms, although perhaps he was referring to the multiple submission of your site. And the submissions of related sites. But I think this thread is tirning into a site submission status - which I though we just stopped.

Vinmar,

The rules of this forum say that we can't really get into discussions about specific web sites. i don't think anyone is accusing you of abuse, either on thos forum, or because of your website - they were speaking in generalities.

It's quite possible that the change in focus of the site may have made it not suitable for the old category. For example, you say you submitted it to Bournemouth - that's a regional category. To get listed there you need to have an obvious link on the site to the town - that maybe the address of the business, shop opening hours, for example.

Let's say that you rebranded to become an online-only site - suddenly you had no opening hours, no address. In a case like this (and this is just one example), an editor will move the site to the category where it belongs. Now, it is often the case that the editor doing the move does not have the ability to add sites directly to the category, and so it awaits review by another editor, who DOES have the privs.

So while it is possible that the site got removed, it is also just as possible that it got moved to a different category and it still awaiting review.

If you feel your site still has a connection with Bournemouth (that is obvious to someone looking at the site), then I suggest you resubmit to that category one more time.

Thanks.

Alucard said:

Vinmar,
It's quite possible that the change in focus of the site may have made it not suitable for the old category. For example, you say you submitted it to Bournemouth - that's a regional category. To get listed there you need to have an obvious link on the site to the town - that maybe the address of the business, shop opening hours, for example.

If you feel your site still has a connection with Bournemouth (that is obvious to someone looking at the site), then I suggest you resubmit to that category one more time.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Hi Alucard

Great post and thank you, clear and to the point. I was trying to get away from discussing a particular site. But, it does appear obvious which site I am referring too.
Okay, where does one end up? What if you are a business in let's say Bournemouth or any other regional city for that matter, and let's say you provide web services throughout the UK, multi-media, e-commerce development and other high-spec solutions. Where do you submit, In all those categories?
One gets confused, we offer for example full-on professional services and when it came to submitting was not sure where we go anymore. Sure, we would like to be in Bournemouth as this is where we are based and a majority of our work takes place in Bournemouth, Dorset. Having said that, we also take on work from other parts of the UK.

I'll re-submit to Bournemouth and see if it can make it there, if someone moves me then so be it.
Thanks again for your reply post which cleared a few things up without it going downhill for either of us.

VinMar said:

One gets confused, we offer for example full-on professional services and when it came to submitting was not sure where we go anymore. Sure, we would like to be in Bournemouth as this is where we are based and a majority of our work takes place in Bournemouth, Dorset. Having said that, we also take on work from other parts of the UK.

Click to expand...

In terms of listing in Regional, as alucard said you have to have a clear connection on your site showing where in that locality customers/visitors can locatate you (a brick and mortar location) that identifies with the location you are wanting to be listed in. We are not concerned with coverage or service areas in regards to a regional listing.

In some cases, sites may be eligible for a second listing under a topcial category. You could then also suggest to the best topical subcategory for consideration. There is still no guarantee for a listing in either, but in the end you might find it gets a listing in both. We don't review sites here, so one needs to find what they feel is the best locality (Regional) cat and the most appropriate topical and submit to them. The reviewing editors will decide if they should be listed, deleted, or perhaps moved to better locations.

Well, I have already submitted now to the Bournemouth section. Considering our name is a place in Bournemouth (Southbourne Internet Ltd) and we are based there, I could see no other way where to go unless we are generalised through the kind of work we do.

Actually, for the record, I had no clue to which site you were referring. I was merely giving a fairly typical "for instance". If it fit your case, well, I'm glad I could help!