Feature Idea - Site Status

Site Submission

Obrat: Why are you so nasty? I tried the Site Submission category, but none of the sub-categories matched mine. I requested a listing in Employment Law category - where should I submit my inquiry? If you are an example of the kind of people I have to deal with in this organization, which is supposed to be so "democratic" and "open", then I give up! Why don't you help instead of insulting me? Barbara Lifton

motsa said:

Except that we don't want to allow just the site owner to submit a site. Anyone who comes across a nifty site that they think should be listed should be able to submit a site to us.

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But is there a way for site owners to make changes to thier site listing that some random person has submitted to the directory? Before it's listed or after?

And how would an automatic status showing either 'waiting' or 'denied' give spammers clues on how you decided it was spam?

JDenny said:

But is there a way for site owners to make changes to thier site listing that some random person has submitted to the directory?

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Anywhere there are sites listed there is a link labelled "Update Listing" which allows one to suggest changes to a listing. Note, however, that updates are subject to editor review as well.

wrathchild said:

Anywhere there are sites listed there is a link labelled "Update Listing" which allows one to suggest changes to a listing. Note, however, that updates are subject to editor review as well.

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I agee. The site owner and editor should only be able to make any changes.

That is not the way it works.
Anyone can request a change.
Only an editor can make the actual change.

Yeah that makes the most sense.

The part of the process that needs improvement (in my opinion) then, is everything between suggesting a site and the site getting listed/denied.

Each category could have (rather than a Status forum) an automated status look-up script that checks the database of that category's submissions to see the status, actual title/description, and to allow people to suggest changes before it gets listed (which could help editors or hinder them depending on the number of suggestions!).

I can't see any way that your proposals would improve the process between suggestion and review. Keep in mind that DMOZ is not here to list sites for webmasters/owners. Our only task is to build the directory. And to do that we realy don't care how we get new sites. Suggestions is only a small part in this process. Therefore suggestions that would help the editors to build the directory are of the biggest interest to us. As we only have a limited amount of resources we are only able to implement those kinds of improvements. Suggestions that would make live easier for webmasters don't have a high priorty. This won't say they will never be implemented but at this moment there is almost no chance we will spend our limited resources on any of them. Because we know there are some webmasters that would like to know about the status of their suggestion we have created this forum.

It's just that you have to keep answering status requests manually, when the task is well suited to computers, I just think you'de have more free time or more time to build the database if you automated the status look-up.

The stats for number of submissions that need re-wording before they go in the directory sound high to me.
If the submissions could be modified by people they would have aple time to study the guidlines or chat on the forums then amend their descriptions to save the editor's time when he comes to that submission.
This would help mainly first-timers, I myself was in a rush when I submitted my site and I slipped a '...to your...' in, an editor retrieved the description for me so I could suggest to a regional category with the same data. Needless to say I changed the description for the second submission, but there's my first submission waiting for review, I know it's got a problem, if I could sort it out it would help me and the editor.
Plus if I could have retrieved my description through automated web pages it would have saved time for the editor who called it up for me.

How about having an status email option that the submitter can opt-in. This email will say something like: you on no 30 on our review list. This email can also be sent weekly so the submitter stays informed. Despite understanding the workload and the necessity, 6 months in the dark is not a viable option.

The order to which a site is reviewed is random based on the editor handling the review. Therefore to send an email that says you are 30 on a list of 200 is meaningless. Site number 200 could be reviewed with in hours of submission just as easily as Site number 1 that was submitted 6 months ago.

The submitter is suggesting a site that might be beneficial to the directory, that is all. Once the suggestion is made it becomes the job of an editor to review and either list or not. If the submitter has a personal interest in the site submitted then follow the guidelines for requesting a status, someone will look and confirm it is in the review queue. If the submitter wants to stay informed this is the best way to do so.

Someone will get to it, chances are several editors will look at it. Once you know it has been received, there isn't anything else you need to do. It will be reviewed and eventually added or deleted depending on if it listable or not. If you are curious about it check back within the guidelines time frame and request a status check.

It's very meaningless, I'm working in a area that is very backlogged. Yesterday I was reviewing a site submitted in 2002, with a very bad and confusing description, that caused it to be misplaced for a long time. I reviewed it and published it. It was actually #1 in date order, so the person would have got a status a year ago, saying it was next in line to be reviewed.

I then noticed a site submitted a few days ago, with such a good description that it caught my attention, so I review and publised it. That site owner would have got a message last week that he was #1085 in the list, and given up any hope of review.

In fact how do you number, I've actually given numbers above based on how I was reviewing, I was actaully looking at a high level category, and going through all the site of all the subcats in order. So what might have been #1 in a single category, could have # 700 in the list I was looking at.

So it is in fact meaningless.

ODP Suggestion

Forgive me if this has already been suggested and also for the fact that I posted baiscally the same suggestion + commentary in the site submission status area but here goes:

Maybe if there was a place to see newly listed sites with dates, we could see the progress that your volunteers are making towards building this directory. It seems only appropriate. A forum like this makes getting listed look like an impossibilty but having a place to see that sites are being added including submission date and acceptance date would be very motivating. We could then also look at those sites to see what characteristics they had to get listed. Looking at any site in a particular category won't have the same effect since there are so many stale/dead/no-complying sites still listed that have yet to be removed.

This can be very discouraging because in the same 6 month window of time required between status checks, a site/business that has found venture capital, designed a flashy/cool website, and taken their best shot at making their business work can dwindle and close down due to lack of traffic!

My two cents (amortized over 6 months plus interest...)

Possibly a site and business that depended on a DMOZ listing in order to achieve success, and folded through the lack of it was so badly thought out that our failure to list it was a service to the public.

Any competent webmaster or SEO advising the business would have known that getting listed in ODP is not guaranteed, and subject to extended delays, and if the SEO failed to advise the business of this, that was bordering on criminal. Failure to get the service of a comptetent SEO, would have been bad management.

Anyone with venture capital in these days of post .com demise who failed to ensure that the business had a competent staff of advisors to prevent this happening, was in fact throwing away his money.

Re: Suggestion

Well, I wasn't implying that ODP is the key to success for any business. I'm sure it's not. I was trying to point out that the time frame that it often takes to get listed can outlast the relevance of the listing whether the business was a flop and shut down or if if was a huge success, got acquired and renamed etc.

In addition, I didn't want my commentary about the time frame for getting listed to be the gist of any reply. What about my main point about letting us see the sites that have recently been accepted? Don't you think it would be motivating to all interested in ODP, editors and prospective listees alike if there was a place we could see all of the sites that are actually being listed with submission date and acceptance dates? This info will not help the spammers nor would it require extra work for the editors. In fact it may reduce the work as it would help submitters to check out what accepted sites look like. I wouldn't necessary described going to a given category and clicking on currently listed sites as the best way to do that as I mentioned in my previous post. But all sites listed in the last 1 month would certainly be timely and up-to-date. You never know, the quality of the submissions may go up!

For the most part in this forum, we hear from the people who haven't gotten listed or will never get listed and we can read their repeated posts month after month after 6 months. I, for one, would like to hear about the success stories with submission date and acceptance date because, right now from this angle, it looks grim at best.

Don't you think it would be motivating to all interested in ODP, editors and prospective listees alike ...

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But we aren't trying to motivate listees (what a great word ) and editors can already see all the information you're requesting about any individual URL.

Development resource has to be allocated where we think it's most needed and I doubt if many editors would put a recent listings report at the top of a wish list - indeed AFAIAA, none has.

...it looks grim at best.

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There are very many categories where acceptable submissions are routinely processed within a day or so. Nobody complains about those and about the same number say thanks.

There are many commercially competitive categories which attract high volumes of spam. It takes a special breed of masochistic volunteer to edit in such places and we don't have that many of them. That's why there are big processing delays in those areas and many complaints. The so called problem has been caused by the industry - except that we don't think it is a problem.

How about a much simpler system - send a confirming email of the submission where an email address is supplied.
"You're submission of http://samplesite.com/ to category /shopping/thingies/whatsit on dmoz.org has been received and will be processed in due course"
I'd find it useful - right now I have to make sure I copy my category before closing the browser.
It would also reduce (not, sadly, eliminate) the number of people who don't know where they submitted.

Are there any disadvantages? (I'm assuming the simple overhead of emailling would be minimal)

xixtas01 said:

The ability to check the status of submissions is one of the feature upgrades most frequenty suggested by submitters.
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For anyone to successfully make the case that such a feature is desirable, they would have to convince editors that it would have a positive impact on the quality or quantity of listings in the directory. So far, I haven't heard such a case presented convincingly.

I am very interested in hearing about ideas of features that would benefit the one-time submitter without making it easier to more effectively spam the directory with inappropriate submissions.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how we can attract and make it easier for the first-time submitter? Those kind of suggestions might find a more attentive ear among editors.

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Sure, I have three of them for you.

First, shorten the text on the site submission form. Visually it's a bit overwhelming, you don't even see where to put any of the information until the second screens worth of material. May not put me off, but it put my mother off when I had her try it a little while ago.

Second, allow them to change where it is being submitted to from within the submission form. Java selector or something along those lines.

Third, tell people what sections you currently need links for. Put up a big box or something on the page of that section for a week or two. I know, ODP editors usually don't plan out what they are doing, so this won't work for everyone, but or editors that do know they plan to redo this section next sunday on their day off can ask for links this way and I'd bet you get a lot of them. Trick is you can't over use this, because the public will stop responding to it if you do.

Last thought: allow the public to check the status of a site with only the URL. Think in terms of the modification system, but without the ability to change anything. Forget caring about who submitted it, let anyone enter a URL and see if it has been submitted yet, and what the status of it is. Gives people more of a sence of control, and that will encourage new submitters to keep submitting. Oh yeah, you might give yourself a way to turn it off for sections that get an exesive amount of spam.

Oh why oh why do we keep getting asked this question?? I guess those who don't know what editors have to do, think it's something we are going to do. It's not. This is not a new question. Here is another one from some time ago, asked by someone who was also clueless.

http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3976 post #11

Bottom line, is that it's not going to happen - and I now agree it should not.

Third, tell people what sections you currently need links for. Put up a big box or something on the page of that section for a week or two.

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How is that relevent?

Second, allow them to change where it is being submitted to from within the submission form. Java selector or something along those lines.

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See, the concept of a directory and all is that you'd actually navigate through the directory to find the right category before clicking on the "Suggest a site" link. So you shouldn't ever be in a situation where you need to change the category after you've started the process.