Is it possible to check if a site is banned?

I first submitted my site to DMOZ about a year ago.

At that time the DMOZ instructions were to wait a month before resubmitting. As my site was quite young and I was added to it constantly, I duely submitted every month or so, hoping that I would have crossed the quality threshold were I could be added.

Earlier this week I was going through the forums (for the first time in many months) and found out that the policy had changed. The threads I read said that one was to submit only once, and that submitting multiple times would result in the site being banned.

Consequently, as I hadn't checked the rule changes, I may well have inadvertently put myself in the position where I would be banned as a spamer.

To make matters worse, I've submitted some sub-pages. For example, while my site focus is 'French Property', I have an area on my site with over 100 maps of France. As I considered this worth listing, I submitted it. I didn't think there was anything wrong with this as there are a lot of sub-pages listed in DMOZ (including many that have been recently added). However, this perhaps is a banable offence as well (I don't know).

So I've given up on submitting my site and I merely hope that someday some editor will come across it and add it. However, if I've been banned, I suppose that any editor that comes accross my site will just move on (why invest time looking at a banned site?).

Is there anyway to make amends and get myself unbanned (if I actually have been banned; as status checks are no longer available, I don't know)?

Regards,
Doug

There really isn't a way. We do the minimum required to protect editors from, um, aggressive suggestions, and it's surprisingly rare that a potentially listable site gets "banned." If you haven't tried to bribe or threaten an editor, threaten legal action, it's well-nigh impossible. What you describe doesn't, I don't think, add up to a ban for a listable site.

Beyond that, we really prefer not to talk about the details.

Doug Stewart said:

At that time the DMOZ instructions were to wait a month before resubmitting. As my site was quite young and I was added to it constantly, I duely submitted every month or so, hoping that I would have crossed the quality threshold were I could be added.

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There never has been a instruction to suggest a site every month. A year ago you could ask for status each month, which is something completey different.

Doug Stewart said:

Earlier this week I was going through the forums (for the first time in many months) and found out that the policy had changed. The threads I read said that one was to submit only once, and that submitting multiple times would result in the site being banned.

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Also not correct. Suggest a site once is correct. Suggesting it more than once to the same category will only overwrite your previous suggestion and the result could be that you have to wait longer before an editor will look at the site. Suggesting it many times to many different categories could get you banned (could is not the same as would).

Doug Stewart said:

To make matters worse, I've submitted some sub-pages. For example, while my site focus is 'French Property', I have an area on my site with over 100 maps of France. As I considered this worth listing, I submitted it. I didn't think there was anything wrong with this as there are a lot of sub-pages listed in DMOZ (including many that have been recently added). However, this perhaps is a banable offence as well (I don't know).

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When you suggest a site you are asked to read the guidelines. If you have done what we asked you to do you would know the answer. Never suggest deeplinks.

Doug Stewart said:

So I've given up on submitting my site and I merely hope that someday some editor will come across it and add it.

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And that is all you can do.

Doug Stewart said:

Is there anyway to make amends and get myself unbanned (if I actually have been banned; as status checks are no longer available, I don't know)?

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Getting banned is not easy. Getting unbanned is alsmost impossible.

However someone who ignores the guidlines that very clearly say to not keep resubmiiting can end up effectively banning himself.

How can this be?

An editor might choose to work through a category in date order. It's quite possible that even though the editor works at going through the unreviewed, he never quite gets to the end of the list. The person who keep resubmitting every month may end up pushing his site to the bottom of the list, and the editor never ever gets to it.

hutcheson said:

and it's surprisingly rare that a potentially listable site gets "banned."

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Non-sense. All a senior editor has to do is write something negative in the sites comments and presto - its effectively a ban for life!

>All a senior editor has to do is write something negative in the sites comments and presto - its effectively a ban for life!

Nonsense! As a senior editor, I've been contacted, multiple times, about notes I wrote in the site. Those notes, like anything else in the ODP, are open to discussion and revision.

What bans a site for life is a webmaster's lifetime commitment to exclusively non-unique content.

Nonsense! As a not senior editor i ahve leared that senior editors are infallable.

When I review site, I review the site. Critical comments for other editors only reflect the condition of the site when they looked at the site.

That is not to say that I won't agree when I review the site.



Added: I have even gone back and relisted sites that I previously delisted.

It's all about the content.

As a not senior editor i ahve leared that senior editors are infallable.

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I think you left out a "not" there

I skip words when I get excited.


Seriously, this is one of the things that take new editors a while to learn and appreciate.

The first time I re-edited a site that had previously been edited by a meta editor I was so scared that the world as I knew it was about to end that I actaully sent the meta editor a mesaged apologizing and justifying my action.

Her reply was alogn the lines of: "silly boy, don't worry, it if needed to be edited, then it needed to be edited. Don't ever be afraid to do the right thin, no matter who editied it previously.

Great words of advice then, and still valid now.

My biggest frisson of fear was the first time I amended a listing by RDK - completely unfounded of course.