I hate to depress you guys... but

I first submitted a site for a friend back in 2003 and have every few months checked on progress... still nothing.

It's very depressing to do everything by the book, not over requesting updates, checking in the right category.. even volunteering to be an editor. And here we are approaching 2006 and still nothing.

It would'nt be so bad, but its a great site, one of the most informative within its subject on the web.

The original thread has now been archived, but if you do a search on www.aplacefortheheart.co.uk you should find it.

I would however like to thank the editors on this forum for taking the time to at least provide some sort of contact with us.

Anyway, I reckon I must be going for the record! Has anyone elses site taken longer to get looked at? Let me know!

Unfortunately, if no one wants to edit a particular category then it will tend to sit for quite a while. There's not much you can do about it.

It's OK, we already had strong suspicions that there were still a million (or three) good sites we hadn't found or listed. One more or less, isn't going to affect serotonin levels drastically.

But thanks for the concern.

Well, nobody starts counting when the site is suggested -- that's an irrelevant and even incalculable date! (Later suggestions overwrite earlier ones, so we can't even TELL when a site was first suggested, if it mattered, which it doesn't.)

What matters is when a site was first published. (And yes, I know that makes your timescale longer.) And yes, we still occasionally run into suggestions from the 2001 time frame.

But think about it this way. The greatest and most influential poet of his century, just had a link to his most important work linked this year -- 1400 years after his death. The legendary Sumerian king Gilgamesh STILL isn't properly represented online, going on 4500 years, plus or minus several centuries. Isaac Newton's work should show up any time now; Dr. Venn (of Venn Diagram fame) is still waiting.

Every editor has different priorities, of course. For me, personally, in addition to my own priorities, multiple people are after me to get significant corpuses of 19th-century content online.

Perspective is everything.

Thanks for making me smile... but

It's not your serotonin levels I was concerned about! It's mine.. and all the other submitters out there left in the dark ( not a dig a you guys btw)

I think your wrong about people counting from the date the site was suggested... I was prompted to post by someone moaning that they had had to wait a week and this forum is full of people like me wondering when someone is going to bother to look at their site.

So I think how long you have to wait is a really interesting question, worthy of a competition to see who has had to wait the longest. King Gigamesh SHOULD definitely enter, he might even get close to winning!

All joking aside, let's not have a competition or encourage people to complain about how long they've been waiting. As I said, there's nothing you can do that you haven't already done and all you can do now is forget about it and move on (I'd've said "all you can do now is wait" but that's just begging someone to come along and say that you shouldn't waste your time waiting ).

Well, I understand that you wonder. I have some content I'm waiting on someone else for -- and yes, I wonder. I chafe because only one action has been taken in 10 days, and at that rate it'll be more years than I can count without taking off my socks.

That's life in the volunteer information society. "You each donate one hour of work, and you each get a thousand hours of work back. The problem is, it's not exactly the thousand hours any of you would have chosen.

But it is weighted in favor of the work more people would have wanted. Think of it this way, and this is what all those webmasters DIDN'T think first: you aren't the consumer. You're the supplier. And ... all those customers out there waiting almost two centuries for Gilgamesh and Enkemi -- and YOU ... DIDN'T ... SUPPLY ... IT.

Hey, man, you got to get to work, you're causing mass frustration among your customers!

You're so right! You make my point exactly... Some of us webmeisters supply information that people really want... but it's not just the suppliers left waiting... it's the consumers too! Even if Gilgamesh or Enkemi had submitted all their info back then; they might still be found posting here now.

Luckily for me, my work day finished some time ago (I'm on UK time), so I'm off to see Harry Potter at the Cinema and shall leave you guys in peace!

Seriously though, if you have any influence with the powers within DMOZ, perhaps you could feedback that something should be done to stop categories being effectively abandoned. Failing to deal with the issue will only cause frustration and people to attempt to circumvent the rules or post into a less suitable but more active category.

Still think the competition was a good idea

Well, we tried chaining editors to their keyboards, but they tend to get stubborn and just play solitaire.

My personal opinion is that unreasonable expectations cause frustration -- both for people who have them and for people who try to meet them. As I'm on both sides of the fence, I just try to make my expectations reasonable; it saves me frustration all around.

I also try to explain to people that "past category activity is no predictor of future activity." In other words, you can't post to a "more active" category because you can't tell where the activity will be tomorrow.

As for posting to a less suitable category, that's stupid-squared verging on loony. You wait for a review which will result in moving you to where you can wait for a review ... (repeat an indefinite number of times, depending on how far the "less suitable" category is from the right category) ... to get to where you START waiting for a review to be listed. And that's just the most obvious and most certain of the many risks this behavior runs.

There's nothing the ODP can do to prevent insanity. We can prevent UNINFORMED insanity among sane people who want to be informed, and that's about all.

something should be done to stop categories being effectively abandoned.

Click to expand...

That's simple. Encourage more people to become editors in topics they are interested in. I'd guess that a fair amount of editors sign up because they were looking at a topic interesting to them, found it lacking, and decided to improve it.

There's a lot of people out there wanting someone else to promote their website without understanding that there are a whole lot less people interested in doing that than they think.

That gets back to the "you website producers aren't producing what people want, even if you think you are" issue.

I'm with you on all of that georgez. It does suck having to wait.

It could be worse though... This will be the 3rd or 4th year we have been waiting for our site to be listed.

In 2004 I did the "sign up to edit this category," and they turned me down - an IT guy with 10 years experience and a good personality - go figure.

I do kind of feel bad for hutcheson though. Every 6 months when I come here he is always trying his best to help everybody out... until i check on my submission status and then he tells me to come back in 6 months LOL

So I guess if you get frustrated, just think of me!

have a good one,
dems

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I won't tell you to come back in six months.

As for editing, neither IT experience nor good personality is a requisite. Focus on the actual editing tasks: finding sites, reviewing sites, categorizing sites, describing sites succintly using formal grammar as specified by the editing guidelines. Years' experience in Library Science and professional copy editing, coupled with the sort of personality that spends time nearly-obsessively at a keyboard, is what we're looking for. Demonstrate (don't claim) those skills on your application!

Knowing that, you're welcome to re-apply.

Exactly, I have over 30 years IT experience, but that does not make me a good editor. My two years writing custom systems for the public library and being exposed to that environment is probably much more valuable. I'm also a lousy copywriter and unable to write promotional brocuhures - and that makes me better than a professional writer since I don;t wnat to write fancy prom descriptions.

I edit categories where I have no professional knowledge of the subject area, just a strong interest.

Same with you Bobrat, I have around seven years IT industry experience but I edit in a category under pet parrots

I couldn't think of anything worse than editing an IT category. You know when you get home from work and you don't even want to touch a PC?

Are you sure? There's no cure for INSANITY? ... now I'm really depressed! and as for all those editors playing solitaire, perhaps someone should tell them it OK to come out now.

You know, I generally agree with everything you said ... my personal take on it is this

Is it reasonable to expect submitters to wait YEARS for their sites to be reviewed - NO
Is it reasonable to overwhelm editors with work or chain them to their keyboards - NO
Does frustration lead to LUNACY - PROBABLY

So is the answer to just to say that's the way it is and do nothing about it?
- I DON'T THINK SO

If there is something that the ODP can do to prevent UNINFORMED insanity, I wish they'd get on with it, this forum is full of people who FEEL UNINFORMED and are probably bordering on insanity!

Now I probably rank as amongst the "uninformed" as I am not an editor, but what seems mad to me is for an editor to review a site, discover that it is in the wrong category and then just dump it to be reviewed again by someone else. I know the editors must love their work, but reviewing a site more than once seems a little crazy to me. Would'nt it be better just to complete the review and put it in the correct category; job done?

Actually I applied to be an editor in the category I have submitted to, like others on this thread, 20 yrs in IT, I tink I can spell and I'm sure they could'nt spot that I'm obviously completly insane. My application was rejected because they wanted me to try out a smaller category. The category I applied for had only 97 entries in it in 2004 with no editor. Here we are approaching 2006, guess how many entries are in that category now? you got it in one; still only 97 and still no editor!

I think lissa had a good point that editors need to be encouraged and that includes potential new ones!

So I think you should pass on to the powers that be in ODP the following

1) Frustration is unnecessary - automate the submission and submission status processes
2) Automate the management of the review process so that it becomes more equitable, transparent and efficient.
3) Provide more automated tools to assist your editors with the review process.

Now I know that ODP has its own agenda and really isn't that interested in ours that much. But I now feel that I've done my bit to try to "make a difference" by feeding back to you guys my thoughts. If you do your bit and feed it back then maybe we can all "make a difference" and make things better for everyone.

And who knows, whilst I accept that it's probably too late for me, the UNINFORMED insane might just be saved!

what seems mad to me is for an editor to review a site, discover that it is in the wrong category and then just dump it to be reviewed again by someone else

Click to expand...

What would be madder is for an editor with no knowledge or even a dislike of the subject to review the site .

Usually there are one or more communities of sites on a subject and when a site is good, then other sites will link to it. If some of these other sites are listed in DMOZ, then surfers can find the others that are not listed via those.

So it works.

georgez said:

1) Frustration is unnecessary - automate the submission and submission status processes

Click to expand...

I agree "Frustration is unnecessary".
How to solve this problem
- get informed about what DMOZ is and how it operates (this information is publicly available)
- get your priorities and expectations right

Would'nt it be better just to complete the review and put it in the correct category; job done?

Click to expand...

Probably but in most cases, the editor doing the initial review in the wrong category doesn't have editing rights in the right category.

My application was rejected because they wanted me to try out a smaller category. The category I applied for had only 97 entries in it in 2004 with no editor. Here we are approaching 2006, guess how many entries are in that category now? you got it in one; still only 97 and still no editor!

Click to expand...

And you didn't bother applying for a smaller category? Had you applied for a smaller category and been accepted, you could have worked your way up to the one you wanted and that category would be kept up-to-date. Instead, you didn't apply for anything else and, since no one else had any interest in the category in the meantime, the category has remained in the state it was in.

I think lissa had a good point that editors need to be encouraged and that includes potential new ones!

Click to expand...

Suggesting you apply again for something smaller *was* encouraging. But you chose not to do that.

So I think you should pass on to the powers that be in ODP the following

1) Frustration is unnecessary - automate the submission and submission status processes
2) Automate the management of the review process so that it becomes more equitable, transparent and efficient.
3) Provide more automated tools to assist your editors with the review process.

Click to expand...

You realize this is a "human-edited" directory, right? There's only so much automation you can implement before it ceases being human-edited. I'm not sure how you would automate the submission process -- all you have to do now is fill in the form and hit submit. And it would hardly be a human-edited directory if submissions were automatically listed, would it. And the current review process is eminently equitable and transparent (to editors).

1) Frustration is unnecessary - automate the submission and submission status processes

Click to expand...

The submissions/suggestion process is automated.
We have made a conscious decision NOT to automate submission/suggestion status. You are free to disagree, but that disagreement will not likely change the decision.

2) Automate the management of the review process so that it becomes more equitable, transparent and efficient

Click to expand...

Equitable/transparent/efficient. We review the sites we choose, when we choose and in a quantity we choose. We refuse to let outside influences dictate these choces. We are not impressed or influenced by SEO. There is not shortcut to the top of the line (there is no line).

It seems to me that the issue here is that we don't give the webmasters any leverage, and this is enormously frustrating to people who want to buy their way to success.

The review process is totally transparent within the project. It is intentionally not transparent to those who are trying to use the system to their own advantage. The ODP was nt built for webmasters, it was built for surfers, and the fastest way of destroying this project is to put it in the hands of webmasters who would quickly turn it into a SEO's mass of garbage. While this is enormously frustrating to webmasters, it is the differentiator that separates us from other directories where the inmates run the asylum.

3) Provide more automated tools to assist your editors with the review process.

Click to expand...

We have plenty of automated tools, which the individual editors may or may not choose to utilize.

The issue is simply not one of automation. It is one of priority. To webmasters,the pool of submissions is their #1 priority. the average editor views the pool of submissions as a large, low-quality, source of sites.

---

The level of frustration here should not be with the ODP editors, or our system, it should really be with your fellow webmasters and so-called SEO experts, who promote the blatant attempts at directory manuiplation and who are responsible for turing the pool of submissions into a fetid swamp.

The ODP editors are not the ones in the SEO forums telling webmasters to set up mirrors and to have dozens of redirected domains in an attempt to get multiple listings.

The ODP editors are not the ones telling real estate agents that content-free templated sites are wonderful, aer listable, and should be submitted to the incorrect categories.

The ODP editors are not the ones telling people to submit to the incorrect categories in the hopes of catching an editor's eye.

The ODP editors are not the ones telling webmasters to barrage us with update requests trying to turn perfectly valid descriptions into keyword-stuffed bags of garbage.

ODP editors are not the ones making e-bay postings offering bribes.

>what seems mad to me is for an editor to review a site, discover that it is in the wrong category and then just dump it to be reviewed again by someone else.

Ah, here's where your difficulty is. You're thinking editors are site reviewers. And we are not! We are "category builders." If I'm building the "variegated widgets" category, and I see a site for "homogenated gadgets", what is the rational thing to do with it?

Well, it's obvious. Skip it, do NOTHING with it, and go on.

Is THAT what you want us to do?

Or ... kick it in the right direction, wasting as little time on it as possible, and get back quickly to the next VW site I can find?

THINK, man! In the end, the only thing, the ONLY thing that affects average waiting time is: HOW EFFICIENTLY WE FIND AND REVIEW SITES! It's astonishing how many non-editors ignore this blindingly obvious fact, and blithely proceed to make all kinds of proposals that would depress efficiency by 50% to 95%.

And bear in mind, of course, that one usually doesn't have to spend much time reviewing a site to figure out it's in the wrong place.