It's been so long

I've tried to get listed in this directory for a very long time without so much as a visit from an editor. I don't know if I'm posting in the wrong category, or if DMOZ is just so bogged down nobody has ever seen my request.

My site allows users to compare prices, plans, and other things, plus there are reviews and ratings, and a community with Answers, forums, a blog. There is a lot of great information there, and I've worked very hard to make the site of the highest quality.

I'm just lost. I wish there were some way to find out what is going on. If there is an editor here reading this, please give me some advice. Your help is much appreciated.

You might have misunderstood our objectives and how we operate here. ODP is a volunteer organisation building a directory as a hobby. Editors edit where they wish, when they wish and as much as they wish within the constraints of their permissions. We have no schedules or systems to force people to do work that they don't volunteer to do. ODP is not primarily a free listing service for website owners and it does not attempt to process their listing suggestions within the time scales desired by them.

Some volunteer will process your listing suggestion in time but we can't predict who or when that might be. Elapsed times can range from a few days to a few years. There is no need to re-suggest your website and doing so could be counter-productive because a later suggestion overwrites any earlier one.

I might suggest that the site you describe is what roughly 99% of the affiliate marketroids are trying to imitate: so it won't ever be a pleasant task to weed through the gross (and it is very gross) to find the slightly-less-gross.

The editors, naturally and properly, tend to focus on areas where surfing is more congenial and more productive--rather than letting themselves be victimized by the overwhelming effusions of affiliate spammers.

The second class of victims of the spammers are, of course, entities with a genuine, significant source of original product reviews: their websites are INEVITABLY buried in the gross.

(The third class of victims is surfers, of course.)

Nobody has solved the problem yet: until people learn not EVER to click on advertising links, it'll be with us.

Thanks for the quick reply guys. I do understand editors here do this on a volunteer basis. I don't really need DMOZ, it would be more less a trophy to say I've done good work

hutcheson, I totally understand where you're coming from. My reviews and ratings are independent, which is hard work. Really hard work. Unlike the cookie cutter sites out there I don't import review from larger review sites, or share my reviews with other sites. The same goes for the rest of the community apps.

Yes, but writing a review you know is original, on a product you hold in your hand, comparing it to other products that you are very familiar with, is a piece of cake compared to looking at someone ELSE's review and figuring out--

(1) Whether it's original, or copied, plagiarized with rewording, pastiched, or merely invented out of whole cloth from a diseased imagination
(2) Whether there's any insight based on actual use of this and other products.

I remember reviewing one website of car reviews. I think (although I'm not sure) the guy had actually sat in the driver's seat. I saw no indication that he'd ever started the engine.

And then there was the travel site. I learned that City X "had everything" -- including shopping and, um, a (specifically named) major-league sports team. And more shopping.

Or another review of a tourist destination, explaining that it had wildlife, including birds and plants (but no more specifics were given.) [If my sister can be in a certain state park three days and whine about not yet having seen a pileated woodpecker, and your review purports to discuss wildlife, I expect to see PW's mentioned, if not illustrated!--and the equivalent for other parks...in other words, show proof of actual firsthand contribution to human knowledge!]

Or the other travel site, which was intended to promote a (perfectly legitimate) tour--which had a link back to the tour guide's site. And, lo and behold, I found an other OTHER site, promoting a second tour by the same guide, and also linking back to the main site--all very legitimate. But the main site didn't link to either of the other sites. So neither "tour" site was listable (because related to the main site), and I listed the main site--but because of an idiot webmaster his other content wasn't visible.

So, yes, the problems are understood by website reviewers--much better, unfortunately, than by most website owners.