questions for the editors

I will add that to my many, many posts in other forums, keep smiling, but how you can beats me!

Just to continue...

This seems like a very interesting thread to voice my opinion which I have held back for a while.

The first time I asked about my site status, I had apologized to the editors if I had made a mistake in submission and also wanted to see If I could do something to help editors.

Hutcheson's reply to me was -

"It is waiting review there. You've done what you can do here: no need to do anything else at all. You are free to look for other profitable activities.

If that is the wrong category, but the site is listable, an editor will move it. This is not an unusual case: we handle it very efficiently, hundreds of times daily, without the necessity of additional assistance."

For a moment I was taken aback - I was like - why such rudeness? I mean all I did was to ask and offered to rectify or help, and I was treated with a hostile reaction ( well, hostile according to me ;-), and not necessarily the editors. ) .

Now I agree that this is a public service done by humans, and I really appreciate all the time and effort going into this. However, I see no reasons for a moderator / editor or whoever it is to become rude unduely - yes, rudeness has its uses, and I can completely agree with reactions when a person doesnt really understand what a editor is trying to say, but trying to shoo off people at very begining is quite hurtful.

Coming to site status - I cant understand why dmoz doesn't have a simple web application that just tells one of the status of site - enter a site name and see your status. You could build something with the application and say - "this site is under review - please check after 1 month. Please dont post a request for status in forum as it will not be answered. After six months, you can post a question in forum and ask your status". I can't figure out what stops DMOZ from doing this!

To me, more than 2/3rd posts in the forum serve no purupose as ppl keep asking site status, and editors keep replying no its awaiting inclusion. Then half the times there is an argument which editors, i must frankly admit love to debate. Wouldnt it be simple enough if editors simply ignored replying and proving the people wrong. I can't understand why the editor feels so compelled to stress his point to the person who asked questions and prove him or her wrong. A simple method would have been to ignore rather than provoke - not just the submitter but themselves too ;-)!

Please dont get me wrong ( and i have to stress that!), but I appreciate the work all the editors and moderators do in this directory. But I think while human edited directory is a fabulous idea, but a humane touch to it would help greatly!! Keep the good work going!

Regards,

Suyog

hutcheson's post was, I'm sure, not intended to be rude and I certainly wouldn't have taken it so. Perhaps there is a language barrier here. You had asked "However if we are wrong, please do let us know what we should do" and he had responded telling you that you need to do nothing, that editors deal with missubmitted sites all the time.

Coming to site status - I cant understand why dmoz doesn't have a simple web application that just tells one of the status of site...

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It's been brought up many, many times before (a look through this forum would turn up a number of instances) and has been deemed impractical for our purposes at this time.

To me, more than 2/3rd posts in the forum serve no purupose as ppl keep asking site status, and editors keep replying no its awaiting inclusion. Then half the times there is an argument which editors, i must frankly admit love to debate. Wouldnt it be simple enough if editors simply ignored replying and proving the people wrong.

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So, you would prefer instead that we be rude and not reply at all? Ummmm......

I fail to understand how Hutcheson's reply was rude. It was a direct answer, but seems perfectly polite to me.

why such rudeness?

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What in the heck was rude about the response?

He didn't call you or your mother names. He didn't suggest you were stupid.
He plainly and eloquently laid out the process so that you, and anyone browsing the forum would understand what the process is, and how it works.

You asked for the status and asked if there was anything that you could do to help. Let's look at the reply:

"It is waiting review there. You've done what you can do here: no need to do anything else at all. You are free to look for other profitable activities.

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The first sentence gives you the status. No extra words, no puffery, no flowery prose. It is waiting for review. Then he addresses the second part of of your question:

You've done what you can do here: no need to do anything else at all. You are free to look for other profitable activities.

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What could possibly be rude about that? He answered your question, didn't tell you to go away, but rather gently suggested that you not worry about your submission.

Then, as a bonus for you and for others, he added:

If that is the wrong category, but the site is listable, an editor will move it. This is not an unusual case: we handle it very efficiently, hundreds of times daily, without the necessity of additional assistance.

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Good information there, especially if one is worred that one might have submitted to the wrong category. This is a very common follow-up question.

Look, I know that sometimes we get curt with submitters we perceive as deceptive or particularly bone-headed. I've done it myself and I've taken some very well-deserved lumps for it. I suspect my sarcastic tone when I first partifipated in this forum is a "permanent black mark" in my ODP record that will take a very, very long time to erase. But this is one case where I think the criticism is very unfounded.

Now, why don't we have an automated system? It has been asked many times inthe past, so I will give you the sort answer. It gives too much information to the directory spammers.

You see, you are a victim of the people who want to abuse the directory We have any number of policies and procedures in place designed to thwart (or slow down) the spammers. If we give out too much informaton on our methods, it gives them additional information to exploit. Yes, the many are put at a disadvantage by the few. It happens in life (just go through any airport) and it happens in the directory.

Why do we respond? It is in our very nature to respond. We also have to "prove" people wrong because if their allegations on this forum go unchecked they will get repeated as fact on other forums. Remember, a given response is not crafted just for the individual, but for everyone who reads it. This is a valuable less that a lot of learned back in the glory days (pre alt.) of Usenet.

Your comments were received in spirit in which the were delivered.

spectregunner said:

He didn't call you or your mother names. He didn't suggest you were stupid.
He plainly and eloquently laid out the process so that you, and anyone browsing the forum would understand what the process is, and how it works.

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Thanks - this was just about the reply I was expecting. As I said in my previous post - rude to me may not necessarily be opinion of the editor himself. I made it quite clear that I felt it was rude, but I am also agreeable to the fact that the editor didnt think so ;-). But your reply seems to suggest that what you dont percieve as rude should NOT be percieved to be rude by me as well - that I am not agreeable. We can politely agree to disagree here ;-)!

spectregunner said:

Now, why don't we have an automated system? It has been asked many times inthe past, so I will give you the sort answer. It gives too much information to the directory spammers.

You see, you are a victim of the people who want to abuse the directory We have any number of policies and procedures in place designed to thwart (or slow down) the spammers. If we give out too much informaton on our methods, it gives them additional information to exploit. Yes, the many are put at a disadvantage by the few. It happens in life (just go through any airport) and it happens in the directory.

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I agree with you - yeah, maybe a complicated system might not worth the time and effort of anybody. I didnt think about spammers when I thought of it - u make complete sense above.

Your comments were received in spirit in which the were delivered.

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Thanks a lot!!!

Suyog

Forum posting is a strange form of communication. Without body language and facial expressions to go by it is very easy to be offended when none is intended. If you are going to use forums as a means of communication then you have to accept that and try always to read posts as being well intentioned and constructive, and avoid interpreting the words as rude. See a face with a smile at the other end and things become altogether different.

For those who suggest their sites and come here and heap abuse, have spammed the Directory, or are economical with the truth, they need not visualise the smile. All they do is make life difficult for editors and as a result prevent us from giving attention to websites that are truly original and informative. The genuine people who come here for a status check should be just as annoyed by their antics as editors are.

oneeye said:

The genuine people who come here for a status check should be just as annoyed by their antics as editors are.

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Who says we are not
But if you think the majority of editors does not come off as rude arrogant and condecending, you guys must have undergone some type of reverse sensitivity training

From the FAQ section:

Why are you people so blunt/rude in your replies?
Sometimes terseness can be mistaken for bluntness - it is, after all, difficult to come up with witty conversation when you are on your twentieth status request in a session. Sometimes there is more going on than can be seen on the board - maybe the user has a history on the forum, or maybe the site itself which has some history in the ODP which has been a source of frustration for editors. You might see "What is the status of www.mynicedomain.org?" get a terse reply and wonder why - what you do not see is that the content on that site is identical to thirty other domains which the user has been submitting once a week to the directory for the past six months. This example is not very far-fetched, either. We try to be as civil as we can be - but some of us have bad days, occasionally. Other things will rile editors - suggestions that bribery is the only way to get a site listed will usually get an extremely curt reply, for example. Most of the ODP editors are very proud of the Social Contract which guides the ODP and feel passionately about it.

Editors are rarely if ever impolite to anyone who has taken the trouble to follow all the DMOZ and forum guidelines. And believe me we know who has done and who hasn't, and appearances can be deceptive.

Oneye, maybe you have been trained to give those answers but I am trying to appeal to the human being within you.

He's a robot .

I am trying to appeal to the human being within you.

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Aha!

If we let our truly human side come out, many of our replies would truly be X-rated.

Arghh - www.human-resource-zone.com - a free for all, where there is no censorship, no more polite answers to site submitters - no more restraint and subtle humour - but honest answer from real human beings. What will they think of next

Sitetutor, your expression of your perception of the tone of the forums is lowering the tone of the forums.

Stop justifying your arrogation of the position of arbitor elegentiae; stop attacking the editors; if you have questions, we'll be happy to give you what information we have. THAT'S what the forum is for.

Yep, they attached electrodes to my transistors and kept jolting me until I got it word perfik (ow! stop that). Perfect.

hutcheson said:

Sitetutor, your expression of your perception of the tone of the forums is lowering the tone of the forums.

Stop justifying your arrogation of the position of arbitor elegentiae; stop attacking the editors; if you have questions, we'll be happy to give you what information we have. THAT'S what the forum is for.

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Nobody is attacking

How can holding you guys to the same standars as anyone else in forums be conceived as an attack?

WOW ... silence!

SiteTutor:

Please stop this behavior.

Thank you.

hutcheson said:

Sitetutor, your expression of your perception of the tone of the forums is lowering the tone of the forums.

Stop justifying your arrogation of the position of arbitor elegentiae; stop attacking the editors; if you have questions, we'll be happy to give you what information we have. THAT'S what the forum is for.

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First I would like to state that I know Sitetutor and he is well respected on other forums, yet to seem to want to attack him for stating an opinion about dmoz and the handling of submissions. If you havent noticed ther eis a lot of threads being started on other forums over the internet about ODP.

One such forum which I thought was very interesting was also pertaining to my city Las Vegas. Las Vegas has over 17000 real estate agents and is one of the biggest markets with real estate agents having websites, yet only only 185 of them including companies are listed in dmoz.

Instead of the editors so strappingly defending the status quo, perhaps they should genuinely listen to the Internet community. Remember the anecdote about the man that was drinking? If one man tells you your drunk he could be wrong, if ten men tell you your dunk its time to lay down.

Quote from another forum: I've been to that DMOZ forum before, I personally think the editors posting there are condesending to the point of being rude. I mean, would it be that difficult for them to actually be nice? What a novel thought. They have an awful lot of power, and they know it.

There are multiple ways for editors to find good sites for inclusion into the directory, but why spend hours surfing the net when you have hundreds of submissions on your CP in queue? That is just not very efficient IMHO.

BTW the editors DO know how many submissions are in queue for each of their categories, and the date of each submission. The queue can be sorted by date or alphabetically, ascending or descending at the push of a button.

An editors primary function is to add quality sites with original content and what better way to start that those already in queue on their CP every time the login?

If ODP were a business, how would you rate its performance?

Would you buy stock?

So point being stop trying to defend the odp and open up your ears and listen. With the preceived corruption within the internet community and others through other forums stating their opinions of the impressions they get from ODP editors as being rude, maybe the masses have a point.

I wont go into the number of sites I have submitted and had them rejected for the same comment unique content, which in my opinion is a cop out or you have an editor who is trying to prevent their competition or another editors competition from getting into the directory.

Sure there are other real estate sites that get listed, but I am sure none of those sites have a chance in %$#^ to get ranked on the search engines. somewhere around 80% of the sites you have listed for Las Vegas are not in the top 500 for the primary searched phrase for this city. Hence this is why I believe there are those out there that may only list sites that are of no direct threat to them...please I know you are going to say that is nonsense but do the research yourself.

Lets also not forget about the National Association of Realtors, who is hot on the tail of ODP for improper listings and descriptions. This comes directly from NAR.