How long to be patient??

I posted a request for my site to be listed somewhere around Dec 2003 and have patiently been waiting to try and get my site listed

http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=12265&page=1&pp=15

WHilst I appreciate that people are giving up their own time, will review in any order etc etc etc, surely at some time these editors MUST look at those that have been outstanding the longest and say "Well he's been waiting patiently, lets get his checked and out of the way for him".

My site has been requested for a section that has very few entries and very few added since I submitted. PLEASE CAN SOMEBODY REVIEW MY SUBMITTAL! It isn't a huge site and would only take a short while to review!

Come on guys, give us a chance!

surely at some time these editors MUST look at those that have been outstanding the longest and say "Well he's been waiting patiently, lets get his checked and out of the way for him".

Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but it just does not happen that way. There is no editing tool that looks at the directory as a whole and determines which sites have been waiting the longest. The entire concept is irrelevant, as ther length of time since submission is completely meaningless to us.

My site has been requested for a section that has very few entries and very few added since I submitted. PLEASE CAN SOMEBODY REVIEW MY SUBMITTAL! It isn't a huge site and would only take a short while to review!

Click to expand...

To be blunt: we absolutely will not do what you ask.

It is really quite simple: there is no queue, there is no line, begging won't help. We make no promises as to how long it will take to look at a given suggestion. You've done your part in suggesting the site, at some point an editor will either: discover the site on his/her own, or come across it in the pool of unreviewed sites. When either of those two conditions occur, it will either be added to the directory or declined -- or, the editor may choose to defer making a decision for an infinite period of time.

Come on guys, give us a chance!

Click to expand...

We did in allowing you to suggest the site.

It doesn't happen that way, and if you think for a moment, you'd realize that it can't possibly happen that way.

(1) The technology doesn't support that, and it couldn't possibly support it. Suppose it did, and I (as an editor) DID do what you suggest. Aha, the longest-waiting site is in, um, Czech. The next-longest-waiting is in, um, Hebrew. The next-longest-waiting is in an industry I know nothing about. The next ... porn. The next ... retail women's clothing. The next ... allegedly roman-catholic dogma, but how would I know. The next ... Extremely Silly Party of Northwestern Australia, presumably politics or a fraternity -- I don't know which. Then ...

Wouldn't it make more sense for me to just pick a category where I had some skills and interest, and start to work?

(2) In the real world, what would happen?

I've described the obvious ramifications in detail elsewhere, but the short answer is that affiliate-marketroid spammeisters would use massive spamming of the queue to control editors, thwarting any possible attempts to build a useful directory -- selling "site submittals almost ready for review" to the highest bidder, etc., etc., etc.

So, what you want can't be done, and oughtn't to be done. Other than that, it's a nice idea.

As a former member of The Extremely Silly Party of Northwestern Australia, I wish to strongly object to being associated with porn and/or womens clothing.

Please remove the partys name from your post, otherwise I will be forced to seek adjudication in a court of my choosing.

Sincerely
gimmster
(former member TESPONA)

What I actually meant was that the editors of a particular section view those sites submitted to their individual areas and not the directory as a whole, and keep an eye open for those waiting for review for an extended period....

"Wouldn't it make more sense for me to just pick a category where I had some skills and interest, and start to work?"

Yes please, PLEASE find somebody that will start to work reviewing the category I placed in, there certainly doesn't appear to be a great deal of movement in it!

You've given me a chance by allowing me to submit....!!!! Fat chance more like!

If it was in one of the categories that you suggest then I could understand it taking so long, just can't understand it here, unless of course the time being allocated to this category by those responsible is minimal (read NIL)

Ah, the real point of confusion. Nobody has ever been (and, I daresay, nobody will ever be) "responsible" for a category. So yes, what you are looking for is not present here. Editors are responsible for ... doing well what they do. That's all. That's what built the directory to what it is: editors focusing on what they thought was most important at the time: based on their own best judgment of their interests, the information available on the web, and the sites already listed.

And we pointedly DON'T look for people who will feel responsibility to "process submittals" -- but people who want to help build a directory by any means (and already have within themselves, without help, the means!) Those, we are happy to have anytime, ANYWHERE!

We're always looking for more of them.

Of course it often happens when an editor decides to review a site, the site does not work, or it's been hijacked and gets deleted from the heap.

With 10 000 active editors and 650 000 categories, some editors more active than others, and some with wide ranging "edit almost anywhere" permissions, and others with more narrow focus, see that there is no "average" amount of anything (time from submittal to review, average time between cateogry edits, number of edits per category, yada, yada, yada, ...).

Hello, I submitted my site a few years back and since, I submitted a few other times. I hope that an editor has not view my request, which I beleive would be consider spamming. I really apologize if a cause any trouble, could someone please view my request and remove the other several submission I did and removed them please, Thanks.

Well, the two year mark is rapidly approaching and still I await my site to be reviewed. Thank gawd I'm not a business trying to bring in trade is all I can say!

I know I cannot ask for status and I know the general "off the shelf" answer anyway, but surely for such a small section there MUST be some hope of having this reviewed before my hair turns competely grey!

The site listed on your profile appears to have been hijacked. http://shekou.freewebpage.org/ appears to be dead.

http://www.firework-china.com is listed in http://editors.dmoz.org/Regional/Asia/China/Hunan/Changsha/

I have also been waiting since around December 2003.

http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10791

I'm curious though, if there is no queue within a category, how does an editor pick a site to review? Completely at random? (so someone who submitted that day could get accepted if their site was ok and they got picked by the editor by chance?

johnny said:

I'm curious though, if there is no queue within a category, how does an editor pick a site to review? Completely at random? (so someone who submitted that day could get accepted if their site was ok and they got picked by the editor by chance?

Click to expand...

It all depends on the editor. Some do it completely at random. Some have another way they prefer to select a site from the suggestion pool. I myself look at the provided titles and descriptions. If these look compliant to DMOZ guidelines the suggestion has much higher chances to be reviewed as one with a description full of marketinghype.

To a volunteer editor, this is what help keep editing from becoming a job.

No one tells us how to go about doing our volunteering. We are given editing guidelines and an interface. Within the permissions we are granted, we are free to approach the task of editor however we wish, and do it differently eac time we log on.

If I want to process submissions, I can process submissions.
-- I can do them by date
-- I can do them by title
-- I can do them by URL
-- I can do every third one
-- I can randomly jump around
-- I can look for the ones with the letter 'W" in the title
-- I can do them any darned way I wish, even if it is totally random. I could be rolling dice or cutting cards to decide which site to review next, and that is perfectly OK. No one has the right to tell me "do that one next."

And, I don't have to process submissions if I choose not to. I can completely ignore the submission pool and contribute in other ways. I can build categories, I can search existing listings for changed or hijacked content, or sites that have gone back under construction. I can mentor/help newer editors, I can search for typos, I can move missubmitted sites to better categories, I can review update requests. I can....well, you get the picture.

I can even say "screw it" and not do any editing for a month or so, and no one has the right to say anything about my self-imposed absence when I resume editing.

Submissions exist. Some editors care about them, others do not. Those that care about them are free to handle, or not handle, them in any manner of their choosing. There is no concept of "I was here first" or "I've waited the longest" No single submission has priority or any "rights" over any other submission.

It is often described as random because you can't anticipate which interpretation of fair an editor will use on any particular day. But if you take the time and trouble to read and absorb the guidelines, find and submit to the correct category, and title and describe the site per the Guidelines most but not all editors will give you credit for that if they happen to be processing the pool of unreviewed sites. If they don't have a lot of time then they will pick on the easy wins and leave the ones that need more work for another day.

It's very simple, submit to Dmoz and simply forget about it, it's simply run by a couple of "I don't care about you guys, because I do this for free" muppets.

Doing things for free doesn't mean you should just make a mess of it or am I now exaggerating? I don't think so.

I've had a non-profit site for quite a while and I did listen to my visitors.
I'm happy to say that because of that attitude the site was becoming such a success that I was able to turn it into a large commercial organization.

I don't understand why Dmoz still exists. The idea is good, but quite often the information is outdated, not corrrect or links are dead. The fact that so many people complain that their site is not listed, even after several years, only confirms that Dmoz doesn't deserve the label "quality".

Question for those who are editor: why did you become and editor? 65+ and you don't know what to do with your spare time?

Sorry, no offense, but I truly don't understand why people join a sinking ship, what a waste of time.

Btw, Dmoz doesn't affect your ranking on Google or other sites all that much in my opinion, I'm still not listed after 2 1/2 year and a re-submission every 1 year and yet I'm #1 with most of important keywords.

Doing things for free doesn't mean you should just make a mess of it or am I now exaggerating? I don't think so.

Click to expand...

No, I agree - it shouldn't. We are trying our darnedest to make sure that doesn't happen. Many categories are in bad shape. Hundreds of people work every day to improve them, but you won't hear anybody say it's anywhere near perfect.

I've had a non-profit site for quite a while and I did listen to my visitors.
I'm happy to say that because of that attitude the site was becoming such a success that I was able to turn it into a large commercial organization.

Click to expand...

Good for you! It's not a route we would want to take (turn the ODP commercial and most editors would leave immediately) but that's by the by. Well done!

The fact that so many people complain that their site is not listed, even after several years, only confirms that Dmoz doesn't deserve the label "quality".

Click to expand...

Well, um, no, no it doesn't. Many many of those who complain have sites that have nothing to do with quality.

Question for those who are editor: why did you become and editor?

Click to expand...

For me, the reason was that it's the kind of hobby I love. Sorting things and classifying them - that's fun! And of course that's why I'm still around, more than three years later.

Btw, Dmoz doesn't affect your ranking on Google or other sites all that much in my opinion

Click to expand...

From what I know (which isn't much) you are almost certainly right. I understand that it affects ranking very little, if at all.

Answer: I'm under 65 and (possibly because I get out and work with volunteers) I'm NOT bigoted against people because of age. In my country, both young people and old people have lots of free time, but even most people in between often have several hours a week that could be better spent NOT watching television. And the ODP contains excellent contributions from 70-year-olds and 12-year-olds and everything in between.

I'm working to make information generally accessible, that I wish I had been able to access when I was in school. I prefer working with communities of like-minded people: they can often provide a stable framework for content development, and a stable repository for developed content. But through the ODP I can help promote the work of people who are out working on their own toward the same goals.

The ODP is (and has been for several years) the most comprehensive list of websites on more informational topics than any other online source. For many years I've been recommending it to people that ask me questions I can't immediately answer. On a very wide range of questions, "Asking ODP whom to ask" works better than "asking Jeeves."

That's my definition of "quality": we don't list websites because spammers complain if we didn't, we list them because they contribute something to the sum of human knowledge. Come to think of it, that's my definition of "purpose" also. (And I'm quite aware that many people consider it a waste of time, if not downright dangerous: there are even countries where using the ODP is illegal! But you're welcome to your opinion: in fact, I wouldn't have it for any price you could name.)

:yawn: *yawn* Another "Dmoz sucks and you guys are all luzers" post. How original.

Is it considered Spamming Dmoz if I submit my site more than once per year? I don't want to jeopardize my site for another decade by doing so.

Appreciate the help.