Is there any way to establish if a site has been turned down?

I'll share another tidbit of "unique content" - see her photo (right there to the left)? There's not another one like her anywhere in the world - oh maybe one might look like her, but there's only one Kupkake. I'm a breeder - no one else on the internet or on the planet or in the universe owns a stallion just like mine. No one else owns the mares I breed to him. (Well except my partner - but we share the same website ). There are close to 6000 other breeders listed - not a single one just like the others.

Sorry Meta Motsa, that I appear to be hounding you or dumb about the "unique content" specification. I have no reason to be offended by DMOZ as I have done very well by it. You selected one of my websites as top ten in a specific category, and from there the listing appears to have propagated to some 1400 other directories. First it was up on Yahoo, and then I submitted to DMOZ-ODP and a month later it was listed. Actually I received an award for that site. Thanks for that.
However, it is that power to propagate to other directories and to shape the web internationally that concerns me. You say, "courtesy does not in any way obligate us to look at, list, report on, or otherwise do anything with a suggested site" and that must be as you say. Yet I would hope that you do have some obligation, some responsibility to site creators to include them (if warranted) in the directory and the same obligation or responsibilty to web users to exclude them if necessary, and visa versa. If DMOZ, the governing body of the directory, were to change its policy on that, I believe we would have have a much kinder and gentler internet world.

So you have about 1000 suggestions every day, if I remember correctly. That is a whole bunch of reviews, isn't it? Why do I suggest going to the World Wide Web governing body, or the International Standards Organization to create a directory? Doesn't that make sense, in the light of the incredible power of the directory. It isn't because they are more commercial or more professional (I don't use the word amateur as an insult -- the olympics are essentially amateur athletics) but because applying standards in detail insures fairness, and good practice. Does DMOZ have an appeals board? I think not. So nop, I not going to yell at you, I am making a suggestion. That would make the directory operation standardized as HTML is, as JAVA is.

Feed back and status could easily be done if you could get a copy of MSNBC letters to editor control database. Else you use ASP.NET and SQLSERVER. Piece of cake. have a good day.

Yet I would hope that you do have some obligation, some responsibility to site creators to include them (if warranted) in the directory and the same obligation or responsibilty to web users to exclude them if necessary, and visa versa.

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Our only obligation as editors is to contribute to the net growth and improvement of the directory. That does not obligate us to review any specific site (suggested to us or found by us) or even any specific category within a specific timeframe.

Doesn't that make sense, in the light of the incredible power of the directory.

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Not to me but, then, I don't claim to be on the same wavelength as you.

That would make the directory operation standardized as HTML is, as JAVA is.

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If you can't see the difference between something like a programming or markup language and a directory of web sites, then I'm afraid you have more problems than we can possibly help you with.

Feed back and status could easily be done if you could get a copy of MSNBC letters to editor control database. Else you use ASP.NET and SQLSERVER. Piece of cake. have a good day.

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No one said feedback couldn't be done. What we said was that it wouldn't be done.

"[url=http://resource-zone.com/forum/member.php?u=40145]poowyll[/url]" said:

Such as it is, this directory really ought to be taken out of the hands of arbitrary (and somewhat self satisfied--albeit good willed amateurs) and placed into the hands of ISO or WWW, and given statutes, timetables, and an extensive rule book.

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Great idea!

Take the latest RDF dump, produced weekly, and do with it whatever you want. Anything, merely provided that you give the required attribution. Want to use it to seed a new poowylldirectory.org? Buy the domain and do it. Or do something different.

Readers of this forum might have some slight curiosity about whatever you do, but probably not more.

I fully realize that some people are annoyed by threads like this but I think that the guy has a point. As issues of both quality and courtesy, people should know that there sites have been rejected, given a general reason why and the earliest date that they can re-apply. This would save time and effort in the long run. Moreover, it would considerably reduce frustration.

Yes, I know that these reponses could engender an argument by some who are declined. My own experience comes from running a DNSBL. We get a bunch of removal requests every day. For some people these are mission critical because a growing number of companies - large and small - use our blacklists.

Nevertheless, I have found that by being polite and specific and by providing a review date I am not getting into any unpleasant food fights. Anyone who tries to "exessively annoy" me is simply ignored.

eyecon said:

people should know that there sites have been rejected,

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People can already know their site will be rejected before they suggest it. Just read the DMOZ guidelines. Nothing hidden about them. And nothing fifficult to understand.

eyecon said:

given a general reason why

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Either not enough unique content or a type of site DMOZ won't list at all.

eyecon said:

and the earliest date that they can re-apply.

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Preferably never. Unless the site has added the unique content it hadn't before.

eyecon said:

This would save time and effort in the long run. Moreover, it would considerably reduce frustration.

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Reading the DMOZ guidlines and FAQ here at R-Z would eliminate their wrong assumptions about DMOZ and would reduce their and our frustration.

I think your use of the word "application" betrays how badly you misunderstand the ODP suggestion box. You can't "apply" for a listing! You can't do anything to promote a site listing (or at least, we do our imperfect best to make sure you can't.) The site is its own best and only recommendation.

What you can do is suggest a site. That helps us find the site. (After that, it's on its own.) If it's your site, you can suggest it twice (with a few fairly specific exceptions.) That would be a contribution (a help to editors to find the site), and not an application (a request for help) And after that, it's no longer helping.

So what you're asking for is a polite answer to the question "I know I'm not helping you at all, and I know I was wasting your time before (when I was pretending to help), and I'd like to waste some more of your time as soon as you'll allow me. So when can I next badger you about your not doing what I want?"

And, you know, editors being human and all, that kind of question tends to trigger responses that range all the way from, um, sardonic to sarcastic.

Anyone who tries to "exessively annoy" me is simply ignored.

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We just leave out the "excessive" part -

I just couldn't resist

Thanks eyecon for your support, it appears to me that Motsa and Hutcheson are trying to stamp out those who are mere members. It is if they caught us trying to cheat on the Lawyers for Site Submission exam.
Hutcheson says
Originally Posted by eyecon
"people should know that there sites have been rejected,"

People can already know their site will be rejected before they suggest it. Just read the DMOZ guidelines. Nothing hidden about them. And nothing fifficult to understand"

This is only true if all editors were perfect, and as there are some 7000 of them in thousands of categroies surely a teensy weensy few of them make mistakes or misinterpret their mandates.

That kind of perfection that is assumed is of course extremely FIFFicult to achieve. Isn't it?

hutcheson said:

I think your use of the word "application" betrays how badly you misunderstand the ODP suggestion box. You can't "apply" for a listing! You can't do anything to promote a site listing (or at least, we do our imperfect best to make sure you can't.) The site is its own best and only recommendation.

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I think that betrays how badly you want to employ ad hominem in any discussion that challenges the status quo. That is impolite, unwarranted and counter-productive.

What you can do is suggest a site. That helps us find the site. (After that, it's on its own.) If it's your site, you can suggest it twice (with a few fairly specific exceptions.) That would be a contribution (a help to editors to find the site), and not an application (a request for help) And after that, it's no longer helping.

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That presupposes that people have confidence that their submissions are being reviewed. They are not even acknowledged.

In my cat, there is a single page site on Tripod with a list of about 15 ISPs that the author feels are spam friendly. There is a link to internic whois for each site. Aside from lack of content, the information is irrelevant since anyone blocking these IPs would create an email intra-net. Our site provides dynamic content that is unailable ANYWHERE including graphs, charts and access to our database. Want to know who is spamming from Dubai, our site can tell you. Static content includes, for starters, a group of Linux tutorials that I authored. They are frequently referenced in other forums. We remain unlisted. Yet, there remains no way for me to find out why. It's a non-commercial site so I have no economic axe to grind.

So what you're asking for is a polite answer to the question "I know I'm not helping you at all, and I know I was wasting your time before (when I was pretending to help), and I'd like to waste some more of your time as soon as you'll allow me. So when can I next badger you about your not doing what I want?"

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No. That reflects YOUR negative attitude; not mine. What I am suggesting is that I agree with the OP. It would be nice to know why a site is rejected. That can only improve the quality of those sites and the ODP. Then I am suggesting something like "feel free to suggest the site again in _ months providing that you have addressed these issues."

lmocr said:

We just leave out the "excessive" part -

I just couldn't resist

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Are you aware of the Fido reference? In some ways, Fido was the predecessor to the Internet. The golden rule was basically "Do not be excessively annoying and do not be too easily annoyed."

There is no such thing as "site submission" in dmoz. If you would just comprehend that small detail, much else would become clear.

We offer a way for the general public to suggest sites they think we might want to list. People who misinterpret that as a site submission must really want us to offer such a thing. We don't, and we won't.

Suggest a site: Fine. We'll look at your suggestion, and decide whether we want to follow it exactly, follow it with modifications, or not follow it at all.

Suggest a site a zillion times: We know how to deal with spam.

Suggest a site and then whine and pester us about how long it takes us to think about it, or whine and pester us because you don't like the fact that we didn't follow your suggestion? Just look around this forum to see how we feel about that.

Suggest a site and ask us what we think of the suggestion: We'd love to respond. We've tried responding. The results were not good. Nine times out of ten, we ended up with a pointless argument. Actually, nine hundred thousand times out of a million more accurately presents the problem that attempt gave us. Finally, we gave up.

We remain unlisted. Yet, there remains no way for me to find out why.

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That's true. And no matter how long or hard anyone argues here, that will remain true for the foreseeable future. People post here demanding we do things the way they want us to (by way of insistent "suggestions" for improvement) and then get angry when we say (bluntly or sugar-coated) "No thanks." There's no harm in making a suggestion (even one that has been made many times before). But when you're told that your suggestion has been considered and rejected, have the grace to let it go.

There really are only four reasons for a site not being listed.

(1) As yet unreviewed -- and it's just flat insane to expect us to check thousands of active editors to see why each one of them found something else more important to do.
(2) Rejected for insufficient unique content, which would be 99% of all rejections. And ... it's insane to ask US why the webmaster didn't post enough content?
(3) Webmaster being a major pest -- spammer, violent, threatening, or all of the above: and it would be insane to ask anyone to court contact with such a person -- what such a person deserves is not legal for us to give.
(4) Editor error -- this occurs, but it's rare (several cases daily, if my experience is any judge). At this point, in the judgment of the community and in our experience, webmaster feedback is absolutely certainly not an effective or efficient form of quality feedback (but it is an effective channel for abuse, malicious insinuations, and spam.) So it is not a procedure that we'd consider supporting.

Is that a suggestion as to a website directory listing or a suggestion about the order of things, if a website well OK, otherwise it is you that is out of line. How else would you interpret "Open Directory Project" forum.

Feedback is of various kinds.
"Suggest a site and then whine and pester us about how long it takes us to think about it, or whine and pester us because you don't like the fact that we didn't follow your suggestion? Just look around this forum to see how we feel about that."

People are suggesting change to the DMOZ/ODP order and yet for some obscure reason (in a forum) you act like you are the law, the court of last resort instead of producing reasons, pointing to current documentation on decisions already made.

Is it so easy to set up a system for reviewing/editing that includes a checkbox autoresponder, set out the reasons for the "no listing", the options for appeals and/or change and resubmission and of course, doesn't listen to complaints. Then the suggestee could make plans to revise his site or change his ways or whatever.

I asked you, firstly, for a reference to the definition on "unique content" but three editors write to me telling me about it and ignoring whatever I said about the nature of my website. Why don't you just point to the section where you have defined or described this and give any cases related. As for example in this thread there was a case in 2002 where a website listing was rejected because the webmaster had used partial content from another of his sites. I doubt that you expect me to read the whole forum, and yet you didn't tell me about it yourself. You failed to be a good moderator.

I you expect me to be submissive about suggestion I suggest you not act like a tyrant of the forum, but rather promote understanding good ideas and possible changes that might improve the overall performance of the ODP.

poowyll, there is nothing obscure about the reasons involved. Nobody expects YOU to read the whole forum -- but we DO expect you to read the forum policies and announcements. And they, by themselves, answer the questions you've raised so far.

naahhh, it didn't. since Bobrat and eyecon seem to be the only resonable people in this thread I think I'll just check out. I'm tired of hearing whining pestering, insane and any other deprecation from the DMOZ elite crowd.
Good day to you.

Is that a suggestion as to a website directory listing or a suggestion about the order of things, if a website well OK, otherwise it is you that is out of line. How else would you interpret "Open Directory Project" forum.

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If you're talking about my post, the context would tell you that I was talking about making suggestions for the so-called improvement of the directory. And apparently you interpret the Open in Open Directory Project as something different than we do.

Is it so easy to set up a system for reviewing/editing that includes a checkbox autoresponder, set out the reasons for the "no listing", the options for appeals and/or change and resubmission and of course, doesn't listen to complaints. Then the suggestee could make plans to revise his site or change his ways or whatever.

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It's not about easy or hard. It's about "do we want to do that" or "do we not want to do that". If you read this thread, the FAQ, and other bits and pieces of this forum, I think you can make an educated guess as to which one it is.

I doubt that you expect me to read the whole forum, and yet you didn't tell me about it yourself. You failed to be a good moderator.

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How's that? It's not the job of a moderator to search the forum for you.

I you expect me to be submissive about suggestion I suggest you not act like a tyrant of the forum, but rather promote understanding good ideas and possible changes that might improve the overall performance of the ODP.

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I don't understand what the point is in discussing suggestions that have already been made, considered, and rejected (whether permanently or for the time being) many times over.

Hmm, it isn't the International Standards Organization, but it is the International Organization for Standardisation. And no, that would never be a good route. Each listing would probably have to go through 22 committee stages and 5 votes before being accepted.

At the ODP end, one editor looks at a site and lists it. If they aren't sure about listing it they might check with other editors that they keep in touch with, or post a question in internal forums. Only if they are certain that it isn't listable, does it hit the bit bucket.



>> Is it so easy to set up a system for reviewing/editing that includes a checkbox autoresponder, set out the reasons for the "no listing", the options for appeals and/or change and resubmission and of course, doesn't listen to complaints. <<

The problem is, is that this topic has been discussed probably 100 times before in this forum. It comes up every couple of weeks or so. The topic is old; no, it is positively ancient.

The bottom line is that any spammer submitting several sneaky schemes (and 90% of what is submitted is spam), and then getting feedback as to which schemes have been spotted and rejected, and which schemes are still in with a chance is merely being giving the spammer a better chance to spam us with ever more sneaky spam - and we aren't going down that road. No feedback will be given on individual sites.


Over the last month or two I looked in on a category and picked out some of the stuff that had been suggested. After reviewing about 150 sites, I think only 9 or 10 were listable where they had been submitted, and a similar number were moved to related categories for someone over there to take a look at a possible listing (at some indeterminite time in the future, which I will not check back on).

All the rest of the suggestions were for unlistable sites, almost all of it complete spam. It was all deleted, and will not be reconsidered. The owners already know that their sites were unlistable, and so we have no need to feedback that information. We don't want them to resubmit anytime soon, or anytime later for that matter.

poowyll said:

Can we get more on unique content rules (or philosophy) somewhere?

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Well I throw 2 cents in here and say: FLASH!

Get one of those FLASH developers that love designing "cool Flash graphics" [which don't do anything other than LOOKS COOL] and come up with some unqiue interactive applets that turn purely lame text & image website pages into GREAT web resources.

Not only will they "raise the eyebrows" of a reviewing editor - they are "LINK BAIT" e.g. you will get a ton of links that you never asked for from 'all over the web'.

Pick the right developer, and the right project that truly instills "learning something about your industry", and when completed and on your website - submit it to Macromedia - and you can get some great links from them too!

Some great ideas here: http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/showcase/index.cfm

While nothing guarantees a listing - if you can get Joe 'flash Cool' to develop something useful - it will more likely than not raise the bar of excellent in your category.