http://bar-stools-barstools.com was submitted May

http://bar-stools-barstools.com was submitted to http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Home_and_Garden/Furniture/Seating/Stools/ in May 2003.

The site is now extremely popular and active and selling bar stools like hot cakes to satisfied clients. Can we get listed asap?

No. And this forum is not a place where you can make such requests. It's waiting with about 10 other submittals, which have just as good a claim on the volunteer's attention.

When it's reviewed the editor will consider neither how much business it does or how satisfied its customers are -- because that information isn't on the site.

When it's reviewed the editor will consider neither how much business it does or how satisfied its customers are -- because that information isn't on the site.

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Just a note to mention that nor will that information be mentioned if it "were" on the site. We don't include advertising in descriptions.

Thank you for the update. Apologies if I've offended anyone. It's a great site which is why it's popular so I'm sure the reviewer will regard it favourably.

Can I get an updade on this, the submission is now seven months old?

The submission is still pending review.

status update

Our web site has now been established since March 2003 and offers an unrivalled range of bar stools , very competitive prices all backed by razor sharp customer services. We are very passionate about being the best site in this category and we feel we have worked hard to deliver what is now the best stools site on the web. Something in which we take considerable pride.

Is it possible to get a status update? The continued absence of this site from the directory category chosen is genuinely a dis-service to Internet users as this site is very much the leader that others follow and far and away the highest traffic site in the category.

elegantbarstools.com has only been online since Christmas 2004, has borrowed much from our site in terms of layout and product offering and categorization and overall concept. Why the preferential treatment?

Without checking editor notes: http://elegantbarstools.com/ claims to be a manufacturer, while you do not. Obviously, we'd choose the manufacturer over a reseller.

Nonsense. I welcome the promptness of your reply but the substance of it is ridiculous.

Elegantbarstools.com is not a manufacturer, whatever they claim. They aim to distribute products from exactly the same manufacturers as us. The manufacturers being Regal, Holsag, Grace Collection etc etc etc who are *not* represented here. Who edits the category? anybody with the faintest knowledge about stools could look at elegantbarstools and know that it is a drop-ship reseller.

The editor should have reviewed the quality of the content on this site and rejected it on that basis, take a peek at the "About Us" page to get a view of what I'm talking about.

My point is exactly that - most of the listings are resellers in this category, and poor ones at that. Many excellent resellers as well as ourselves are not shown here. The resellers that are shown are poor.

I don't want to start slinging mud at specific sites but this category is a poor representation of what is out there. By all means defend the editor, but stick to facts and a grounding of industry knowledge, not what is claimed on a newly developed site.

Is making spurious claims now the best way to get listed? Maybe we should claim to be a manufacturer too? Is it too much to expect the editor to actually know enough about the business to know the difference?

I have spoken to the owners of elegant bar stools, they ripped our site off and called me to promote it too - they wanted to steal not only the the concept from the site owner, but his staff too. If they got listed on the back of a spurious claim that they are a manufacturer then that is just sickening.

Please can you check the editor notes, as you say you have not done so and get back to us. Something is seriously awry here.

We don't reveal the contents of editor notes, and I don't edit in that precise area of the directory, so I'm not familiar with the particular reseller affiliates. I have brought the matter up in the internal forum, as your claim of stolen content deserves a hearing.

I don't know if the listing editor believes or believed Elegantbarstools.com to be a manufacturer.

status request

My original request was for a status update, which has not been provided, I have just received some speculation.

Are you able to provide some concrete information on the status of the listing request? Is the request *not* now pending review, nothing is stated to definitively confirm that is no longer the case although the very prompt appearance of the elegantbarstools site in the listings suggests that sites are being promptly reviewed.

This is a big business for us, many millions of dollars per year, you'll appreciate that we are serious about getting our questions answered in an objective way that does not leave us guessing what may or may not be the reason for our apparent omission from this category, which from my perspective appears entirely inappropriate.

We have many other furniture sites and are keen to produce content which the ODP "likes" as we respect the resource as an important contribution to overall quality of search results on the Internet. To this end we'd like to understand why our site is not listed. As stated to us this makes no sense at all.

We have many other furniture sites

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And that could be a problme. Please have a full understanding of what we consider unique and what we consider spamming before you submit them.

>We have many other furniture sites

No. You have, at most, one retail site. Anything else is merely deeplink spam.

are keen to produce content which the ODP "likes"

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A single site that covers all your furniture products. Do you have one? We don't list individual sites for single product ranges belonging to multiple product vendors.

This is a big business for us, many millions of dollars per year, you'll appreciate that we are serious about getting our questions answered in an objective way that does not leave us guessing what may or may not be the reason for our apparent omission from this category, which from my perspective appears entirely inappropriate.

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You are dealing with a non-commercial project staffed by volunteers who have absolutely no interest in your marketing, not a commercial listing service (they exist, you probably use them). Reviews are entirely random in terms of the order in which they are dealt with, editors have no priorities, direction, or management in any conventional sense, editing is just a hobby. Reasons for a site being rejected are, as a matter of policy, not usually disclosed. But in this case it is reasonable to suppose that if the site is rejected when it is eventually reviewed it would be because it is one of a stable of interrelated sites and we will only consider one. From our perspective, not being a commercial listing service only an "academic" project that is about as appropriate an answer as you are going to get. We simply are not interested, nor has it any relevance, how many dollars you make. Personally I'd rather list a couple of dozen small artisan workshops than one multi-million dollar furniture business - my choice, my free time to spend how I want.

If you want to rub editors up the wrong way then quoting how many millions you make and why that should entitle you to answers from a bunch of unpaid volunteers consisting of schoolkids, students, doctors, teachers, plumbers, artists, real estate agents, unemployed, those unable to work through invalidity, veterans, retirees, etc. is probably the quickest way to do it.

OK, at this point I think the level of mutual distrust has almost bottomed out. You've expressed what we see as distrust of the editors -- which you may, we take it as projection, though; and you just set off every "recidivist doorway spammer alert" alarm in the place with your question, which (you MUST understand and sympathize with this) we can hear in only one way: "You've got lots of sites: now just exactly what do you have to conceal or lie about in order to slip them past our spam detectors?" Yes, I know that's not your exact wording, but I say again -- you cannot phrase that question so that we do not hear it in exactly that way.

We can start repairing the damage, though.

Provide, in an objective form that can be easily checked through reliable records, a complete legal and corporate identification for the "us" you are talking about, and a complete list of your websites.

We'll be happy to explain how we'd go about picking the most appropriate one to list.

Follow-up: a bit of checking reveals that whatever the corporation's site is, this is not it. This is not a listable site. It is not a "borderline listable site" requiring editor judgment. It is a "specific product line" vanity domain. We have had repeated explicit and specific injunctions from ODP staff, NOT to list such URLs, whether they be on separate domains or not.

The submittal policy provides that if anyone (that is, you) submit related sites (that is, same company and same general purpose, retailing specific product lines) there is a sanction -- you could get the company permanently barred from the ODP.

This is as specific and objective a decision as an editor ever has to make.