Hi all,
Are there any sort of published guidelines that explain the criteria used by DMOZ editors to determine which sites they accept and which they greet with the terse "Rejected and not likely to be accepted anywhere"?
I'd like to get a sense of what sites you accept before I submit my own (and waste everybody's time if it turns out it's in violation of the guidelines), but I have to say the comments here are *extremely* unhelpful in that regard.
I've spent two hours now reading FAQ's, "Read Me Firsts" and quite a number of the replies to various "Why was my site rejected?" posts. I've also read the entirety of "Submission Policies and Instructions" on the DMOZ site. Not ONE of these locations has offered a link to the guidelines. (Or if they do, it's drowned in so much rhetoric about "our right to decide what we like and not explain ourselves," that I have been unable to find it despite determined searching.) There are a lot of cryptic references to "value" and "uniqueness", but I've looked at several rejected sites now and they look unique and valuable to my untrained eye. Since no efforts to train my eye appear to be forthcoming, the decisions just look capricious and I'm left with the feeling that submitting my site would essentially amount to a crap shoot.
I understand the desire to avoid flame wars, but doesn't this directory have thousands of editors? There must be some sort of guidelines issued to same: something that keeps all these thousands of people on the same page, looking for the same things, so that the directory does not descend into arbitrariness, whim, and chaos.
I would have thought a directory founded on the principle of openness would give a higher value to transparancy in its criteria for site selection and/or exclusion. I do still hope that uniform criteria exist and that someone can refer me to them, but the fact that the process has been so arduous... the damage to the cause of openness is already done.
Are there any sort of published guidelines that explain the criteria used by DMOZ editors to determine which sites they accept and which they greet with the terse "Rejected and not likely to be accepted anywhere"?
I'd like to get a sense of what sites you accept before I submit my own (and waste everybody's time if it turns out it's in violation of the guidelines), but I have to say the comments here are *extremely* unhelpful in that regard.
I've spent two hours now reading FAQ's, "Read Me Firsts" and quite a number of the replies to various "Why was my site rejected?" posts. I've also read the entirety of "Submission Policies and Instructions" on the DMOZ site. Not ONE of these locations has offered a link to the guidelines. (Or if they do, it's drowned in so much rhetoric about "our right to decide what we like and not explain ourselves," that I have been unable to find it despite determined searching.) There are a lot of cryptic references to "value" and "uniqueness", but I've looked at several rejected sites now and they look unique and valuable to my untrained eye. Since no efforts to train my eye appear to be forthcoming, the decisions just look capricious and I'm left with the feeling that submitting my site would essentially amount to a crap shoot.
I understand the desire to avoid flame wars, but doesn't this directory have thousands of editors? There must be some sort of guidelines issued to same: something that keeps all these thousands of people on the same page, looking for the same things, so that the directory does not descend into arbitrariness, whim, and chaos.
I would have thought a directory founded on the principle of openness would give a higher value to transparancy in its criteria for site selection and/or exclusion. I do still hope that uniform criteria exist and that someone can refer me to them, but the fact that the process has been so arduous... the damage to the cause of openness is already done.
