Is my site Not Good Enough?

hrozob said:

It should be the ethical process for every site to be revised in the proper way, with a proper protocol and in an ordered way to guarantee everyone that ODP is worth the wait.

Click to expand...

Worth the wait for what? I am really having trouble understanding the point you are trying to make here. I am trying, just not following it. The ODP exists to provide information to websurfers seeking it. It does not exist to provide every form of that information, only the most unique. Not every site will be listed, no site is guaranteed a listing, and public site suggestions are just one (small, and in some cases not very useful) way editors uncover sites that need to be listed. There really is nothing to wait for, hamboid has got it right. Suggest your site for consideration and move on to better ways of promoting it. There is no pot of gold at the end of the ODP rainbow, there is just another link.

Hamboid said:

Editors are voluntary and therefore are not in any way compelled or obligated to follow fairness etiquette or even to list sites that you and I think deserve to be there.

Click to expand...

To clarify, not in any way obligated or compelled to follow fairness etiquette by the definition you are trying to place on it. Editors are obliged to give each site a fair and honest review and to treat each site equally. If the guidelines say the site should be listed, when an editor reviews it, is will be. Otherwise the editor is not upholding their duty. There is no mandate for how an editor chooses the sites they want to review though. Some use the suggested sites, others choose to look for sites on their own and ignore the site suggestions. If you think you have a site or know of a site that deserves a listing-suggest it. I (and every other editor) thank you for your help. Someone will eventually get to look at the suggestion and if it fits the guidelines it will be listed, if not thanks for suggesting it anyway.

That was a good post, hrozob, and though I really don't enjoy editing in those categories, I will make it a point to do so from now on, , because I believe you're refering to a post I wrote.

As a very small business, myself, I do have great empathy for mom & pop outfits (meaning small entities with limited resources, as well as, small villages/towns). Though I try very hard to be impartial in my editing, I do enjoy helping the disadvantaged, and where I edit is my choice.

I can only speak for myself, personally, I have no influence over any other editor, or the Directory as a whole.

It should be the ethical process for every site to be revised in the proper way, with a proper protocol and in an ordered way to guarantee everyone that ODP is worth the wait.

Click to expand...

However, I totally disagree with this next post. There is no such protocol, and there is no such guarantee. Editors have complete freedom to use their own protocol, and we do.

The problem here is that we have absolutely conflicting goals. Some people want to use the site suggestion system to control what editors are allowed to do -- they want to prevent editors from reviewing the millions of great sites whose webmasters waste their time building content rather than promoting it. Their definition of "people who deserve fairness" is restricted to SEO professionals (who, of all the people on the earth, ought to need LEAST help promoting their sites.)

Editors, on the other hand, want information about sites that might be good -- no matter where that information comes from. We want to look for those great sites, using whatever combination of search techniques seems most effective. We want to be fair to surfers; it is our chief value in society that we are so effective at protecting the ODP from the crass commercialism of the SEOers, and the vicious biasses they introduce into search engines. Not only that, but for major search engines the ODP isperhaps the single most effective counterweight to the SEOing bias.

So...we trust editors, because it is editors who built the ODP to what it is. We don't trust suggestions, because in our experience the vast majority of them are deceptive. And therefore our protocol is NOT to systematically check up on editors before letting their work be added; and NOT to give suggesters a controlling voice in anything that is done; on the other hand, TO systematically check suggestions before letting them be added, and TO give editors a controlling voice in priorities of suggestions.

But, if you don't like it: no problem, there are thousands of directories controlled by webmaster suggestions. You can take all the time you were about to waste waiting for an ODP listing, and spend it all in controlling those directories that were set up for you to control. Go ahead, we won't be offended. The internet is big enough for all of us.