Regarding the frequent complaints about submission status

Readers of this forum, and especially the mods who hang out here, are no doubt painfully aware of how often people ask about site status. I can't even count how many times mods have had to quote the decision several years back to not provide status updates. I genuinely feel for the mods that have to deal with this, but I have to equally feel for webmasters who have to ask the questions and get the unsatisfactory (but accurate) response, given that I'm one of them.

So in reading thru the forums a bit looking for some answers for myself, I come across this: in the FAQ is says this (http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/faq.php?faq=status_faq_item)

Well, if you won't do status checks here anymore, why don't you provide an automatic status reporting system for URL listing suggestions?
We see no benefit to the directory and several downsides:
1. We have very limited programming resources and we prefer to focus them on improving the directory itself and the tools that our editors use.
2. We have finite server capacity. This would be adversely affected by automated status enquiries from anxious site owners.
3. Some areas of the directory suffer from a deluge of websites that don't satisfy our listing requirements. An automated status reporting system would make the resubmittal of declined websites more efficient. This is hardly constructive.

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I would love to volunteer my 10 years of web programming expertise to produce such a tool. It would ease alot of tensions for webmasters, and save alot of headaches and time for moderators.

To address the other 2 points:
#2 - this borders on BS. Assuming the database is not hideously badly designed (a very safe assumption I believe), the type of query required to execute a status check would be trivial.
#3 - spammy suggestors are always resuggesting their sites anyway, as can be gleaned by reading the forums, where person after person writes about how they've suggested their site multiple times over the last year (and getting the conflicting responses of re-suggesting having bad effects or not making any difference), so this argument doesn't hold water as far as I can see. Moreover, it wouldn't be hard to put in place algorithms that detect worthless re-suggestions and ignore them.

To attempt to address the other reason I expect to hear about why NOT to do this: "it doesn't do anyone any good". Completely false. Granted the ability for a person to see they've been accepted is pointless: you can tell that by doing a search (with some caveats). Letting a webmaster know their site is still pending review lets them know they just need to sit tight and be patient. Most importantly, letting a webmaster know their site has been rejected, along with a few words of why, is VERY useful, not just to the webmaster (granted, realistically it's the suggestor, not the webmaster, but we also know the 2 are very often the same), but to web users in general, as the webmaster can accept that as a piece of advise and improve their site accordingly.

I think the last point is one that seems to be missed in these forums at least: a note as to why a site wasn't listed isn't an invitation to argue/debate, it is an opportunity to improve a site. DMOZ mods are clearly people with significant experience with websites of a particular category, and thus their feedback is especially valuable. Any webmaster worth their salt would take that feedback, apply it to the site (where possible of course) and (legitimately) resuggest the site, in the reasonable hope that it is now of sufficient value for inclusion.

Seems to me that the above is a win-win-win situation for DMOZ mods, webmasters, and net users in general. Please remember, I'm not demanding more self-serving work from volunteers/hobbyists, I'm offering my time to help make their task less painful.

Cheers

How much are you paying DMOZ for this service you are expecting to be provided?

Clearly you didn't read my post very closely, or are not familiar with what I am talking about, as your reply is effectively irrelevant.

I would love to volunteer my 10 years of web programming expertise to produce such a tool. It would ease alot of tensions for webmasters, and save alot of headaches and time for moderators.

To address the other 2 points:
#2 - this borders on BS. Assuming the database is not hideously badly designed (a very safe assumption I believe), the type of query required to execute a status check would be trivial.
#3 - spammy suggestors are always resuggesting their sites anyway, as can be gleaned by reading the forums, where person after person writes about how they've suggested their site multiple times over the last year (and getting the conflicting responses of re-suggesting having bad effects or not making any difference), so this argument doesn't hold water as far as I can see. Moreover, it wouldn't be hard to put in place algorithms that detect worthless re-suggestions and ignore them.

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1. The editorial community does not want an automated system. There. Plain and simple. Even if it dropped in form the heavens totally free of charge, odds are it never get implemented.
2. No, you are the one slinging the BS as you have absolutely no idea of the amount of traffic your proposal would cause. Before you accuse the editorial community of misrepresenting the facts, you ought to have a modicum of facts behind your rhetoric.
3. The editorial has a number of tools and algos that do identify spam...the community chooses not to publicly share how this is done, nor how effective it is. So, since you have no facts to back up your opinions, you can hardly say that the editorial community's position does not hold water.

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OK, you're probably a pretty smart person, and if you've done web development for a decade, you probably have some pretty decent skills. Given that, you ought to know that you can't criticize someone's systems unless you know what those systems are, how they are programmed, what computing and storage resources are available, how much data is stored, and have a darned good idea of how much traffic there is and what form the traffic takes.

That the ODP editorial community and AOL have chosen not to share the majority of that data, then trying to take issue with how the directory is technically managed is an exercise in trying to make pigs fly.

You also forget to consider that in addition to the professional programming staff at AOL, a good number of the 7,000 plus editors are skilled tool builders, and you might not know that there is an entire library of editor-developed tools that are essential to the ongoing development of the directory. You might ask yourself that, if the editorial community felt there was a compelling need for a tool that provided status checks, then why didn't they develop it themselves. The answer is simple: there is no such compelling needs within the editorial community. Webmaster headaches are simply not a concern of the editorial community.

First of all thx for providing a meaningful response.

spectregunner said:

1. The editorial community does not want an automated system. There. Plain and simple. Even if it dropped in form the heavens totally free of charge, odds are it never get implemented.

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Suffice it to say this is disappointing to hear, as it would seem to be in their best interest (would eliminate half the posts in these forums).

2. No, you are the one slinging the BS as you have absolutely no idea of the amount of traffic your proposal would cause. Before you accuse the editorial community of misrepresenting the facts, you ought to have a modicum of facts behind your rhetoric.

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Step away from the hyperbole-inducing drugs my friend. I didn't "accuse" a whole community of anything. I quoted a particular passage in the FAQ and said that I think it is incorrect. It could simply be the result of someone taking a lazy programmer's word as absolute (and IME on both sites of the development game, there are ALOT of lazy programmers).
Back to the point: of course there is tons of traffic. But it's also not going to compare to the number of requests received by people viewing the directory. I would estimate the # of requests to a status system would be similar to the # of requests from the editors... tho there's a good chance it could be much lower, especially if the system emailed people upon status change, so webmasters wouldn't be checking every day in case it had just changed. More to the point: "SELECT status FROM suggestions WHERE id=1234 AND key='KJDFYW879D'" is NOT going to require alot of CPU resources, and that is pretty much the entire status check feature right there, at least if the database was designed sanely. And no, I don't know the details of how it is all implemented, but it is completely incorrect to say I don't have an idea of anything. I can see the basic data model and get some idea of volume from looking at the site, I can see it is written in PHP, and I can surmise from statistics that it is using SQL (regardless which database)... combine that with best practices and good design rules, which I would think such a major project run by a major company would follow, that tells me most of what I need to know.

3. The editorial has a number of tools and algos that do identify spam...the community chooses not to publicly share how this is done, nor how effective it is. So, since you have no facts to back up your opinions, you can hardly say that the editorial community's position does not hold water.

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I don't need to know anything about the spam filtering tools in place to know that having a system that tells less honest suggestors when their site is rejected need not make them more effective at spamming (or create more work for the editors). The problem and the conceptual solutions are pretty simple.

Given that, you ought to know that you can't criticize someone's systems unless you know what those systems are, how they are programmed, what computing and storage resources are available, how much data is stored, and have a darned good idea of how much traffic there is and what form the traffic takes.

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Absolutely, I would never draw a detailed conclusion without the details, and obviously I don't have access to ALOT of them. I thought I had peppered my original post with allusions to that fairly well. I'm arguably the king of NOT jumping to conclusions because I find that practice very common and VERY annoying. BUT... I do know enough about the field to make ballpark estimations 9 times out of 10, as could any person who has worked long enough in their field.

That the ODP editorial community and AOL have chosen not to share the majority of that data, then trying to take issue with how the directory is technically managed is an exercise in trying to make pigs fly.

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If I came across as taking issue with management, that was not my intention. I am simply looking at the history of the directory, and drawing a picture based on what I see there. Consider that status requests WERE provided until a few years ago, albeit in a labour intensive and frustrating (on both sites) manual method. Then they were stopped, with the primary reason of it not being within the scope of this forum's mission. And I quite agree with that. Status checks should clearly be an automated service of the directory itself. Bugging volunteer moderators with such time consuming and non-productive (and i'm sure not enjoyable) task is ludicrous. So I took that history, plus the discussions I saw, along with a specific indication in the FAQ of WHY such a feature was not available, and addressed them. Seems reasonable to me.

You also forget to consider that in addition to the professional programming staff at AOL, a good number of the 7,000 plus editors are skilled tool builders, and you might not know that there is an entire library of editor-developed tools that are essential to the ongoing development of the directory. You might ask yourself that, if the editorial community felt there was a compelling need for a tool that provided status checks, then why didn't they develop it themselves. The answer is simple: there is no such compelling needs within the editorial community. Webmaster headaches are simply not a concern of the editorial community.

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Of course there is tons of expertise within the community and company that could take care of this feature in a snap. But as you said, it's not a feature they care for, and I totally understand why not. After all the idea is to have editors suggest good sites, not be the #1 SEO tool. BUT... it IS in the community's best interest, because it saves the headaches of dealing with the constant forum posts of people either being morons who temporarily forgot how to read and asking for status (people don't read, it's an old axiom and it's sadly VERY true IME), or all the complaints about people whining that they don't know what's going on. And if you take a less adversarial approach and instead choose a more charitable one, what's wrong with reducing the considerable stress all those webmasters are running into as a result of this issue, when it (likely, based on what I can see) requires a darn small piece of code to change? Hey, I get plenty of stupid as hell users on my sites, but I still do my best to accommodate them and help them with their stupid questions, cause they're still people and I know they're not doing it maliciously.

As to the general (understandable) attitude I keep seeing quoted, about how this isn't an SEO/SEM tool for webmasters... people need to look out their idealogical porthole into the practical world outside and see that it IS one of THE biggest SEM tools for webmasters, regardless of whether that was even DMOZ's purpose. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

I was going to reply to the other post here but it has mysteriously disappeared. Rather a shame because it seemed to suggest my idea wasn't exactly out of left field, and politics/beliefs were, sadly not surprisingly, a big part of why it hasn't happened again.

I have to say I am very disappointed at the amount of politics and negativity I have seen displayed in these forums. It was not something I expected from the community that runs DMOZ, which is conceptually such a beautiful thing. I can fully appreciate that years of dealing with the less understanding, intelligent, informed, and certainly mannered webmasters posting here and otherwise communicating with editors can generate a steeled response, just as alot of cops get an a-hole veneer over time. But just cause it's understandable doesn't make it right. If an editor dislikes communicating with webmasters here, why communicate at all? PLEASE don't jump all over me telling me how wonderful the editors are... i'm sure alot of them are, in their own ways or in all ways, but what i've seen has had enough negative content to leave an overall negative impression. Let's skip the hyperbole in the interest of meaningful progress k?

Thx

Oh, and since I've sadly become caught in the negativity and now find myself being critical of some things, let me reiterate that i did not begin this thread to criticize anyone whatsoever. I just saw an apparent need, one whose fulfillment would benefit all involved, and an indication that it wasn't being filled simply for lack of resources, so I stepped up to offer to fill that lack. I did look to see if the issue had been discussed before but viewing recent threads plus the FAQ and status check discontinuation announcement didn't bring up any hits (I hate redundant conversations).

Cheers

If an editor dislikes communicating with webmasters here, why communicate at all?

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Because there are times when it can be useful. No-one forces any editors to come here, and indeed most don't. But those that do obviously feel it's beneficial one way or another.

You'll notice that discussion of specific sites is explicitly forbidden here. With the exception of those suggesting automated status checks and some other changes to internal processes they don't fully understand, most other communication here is useful. People can tell us about problems with listings in the quality control feedback forum, they can enquire about their applications to become an editor, and they can tell us about any technical issues with the dmoz.org site or the RDF data dumps we produce. All of these help us improve the project.

Just to add another 2 cents.

The only folk who have access to ODP's code base are AOL systems engineers. It follows that any so called 'simple changes' to please website owners might be simple to execute, but we first have to convince AOL that the change would be beneficial overall.

Websites are generally declined for only one reason - they don't meet our requirements. Website owners can check their websites against these for themselves. We don't decline websites for trivial reasons that an owner could easily fix; we decline them because their whole ethos is wrong. MFAs and fraternal mirrors etc have no place here, however pretty the design or good the spelling. The other side of that coin is that websites with a wealth of unique and useful information are welcome here, no matter how ugly the design (providing they aren't actively user hostile).

We aren't saying anything new here and neither are you.

Why am I responding to you at all? Because I'm on a break from processing editor applications .

Because there are times when it can be useful. No-one forces any editors to come here, and indeed most don't. But those that do obviously feel it's beneficial one way or another.

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Sorry, don't think i was clear enough. Of course there are lots of possible discussions that are valuable, I just mean that i've seen too many mods/editors that just seem to be angry when they post. For those, I question why they hang out here. For those that, sometimes even in the case of considerable disrespect, stupidity, or blatant rudeness, continue to keep a cool head and be helpful, I commend you. I've had my share of mod duties and it is not always fun.

The only folk who have access to ODP's code base are AOL systems engineers. It follows that any so called 'simple changes' to please website owners might be simple to execute, but we first have to convince AOL that the change would be beneficial overall.

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I certainly did not realize the size of the pro team behind this. I had the impression it was all strictly volunteer and likely technically understaffed. I would not have bothered to volunteer my time if there were already a team available. Perhaps I've been hanging around FOSS (free open source software) too long.

Websites are generally declined for only one reason - they don't meet our requirements.

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I'm going to avoid getting into a discussion about this, much as I would love to understand this better, but the short version is a) i think the breadth of the types of sites and criteria that the guidelines cover invariably mean this isn't as simple as stated, and b) it's very easy for webmasters to feel otherwise given their POV. I know for example that a site i've submitted is good enough. It abides by all the guidelines clearly (no chances of "judgement calls"), and is all but identical in category to other sites in DMOZ, the difference being the unique content. Yet nothing after half a year. Given how much a dmoz listing would help us, it is VERY VERY frustrating just sitting here and not seeing anything happen. I just feel bad for all the others who are in my shoes, and also for the mods that have to deal with the same questions from webmasters over and over.

Anyway, clearly this is a lost cause to discuss further. I'll just say that I certainly vote for this feature to be implemented, and all my 10 years doing exactly this kind of work suggests it _should_ be quick and easy. I hope I'm right.

Thx

The one important fact that is not easily to hand is that the majority of sites that are suggested are not listed because no one has reviewed them yet. Depending on whether a category attracts the interest of an editor, a suggestion can be listed within a few days or languish for years.

Personally in the areas I work in, I have rejected very few suggestions and, in those cases, going back to the webmaster would serve no purpose whatsover as they should know why the site is not listable. The commonest reasons are:

1) Site under construction or coming soon
2) I've listed one site of yours and am not going to list the other 427

After that there are sites that are not listed immediately because they are suggested to the wrong place - they all get moved and in some cases I am able to list them.

Then there are the very few sites which do need a change to get listed (usually a local person who has not put their address or contact details on their site - e.g. a club that had everything you needed to know about them and their weekly meetings except where they met). In these cases an editor might email the webmaster letting them know. This is usually safe if you are dealing with local tradespeople but not recommended if dealing with e-commerce entrepeneurs (who should have got it right anyway).

The point being is that I am looking at the sites, not from the webmasters point of view, but from how they would contribute to the category I am working on. In a small village, I can do with every viable site I can get and will 'go the extra mile' not to help out a webmaster but to achieve my goal of producing a good resource. (I am currently pondering whether an article on the discovery of a piece of ancient string is listable as if so it gives me three sites to create a village category).

So while I can appreciate your frustration and your suggestions as to resolving them, unfortunately they don't really mesh with what the ODP is all about. Though an important part of our work is to review and list sites we are not doing so in a manner that webmasters should regard as a site-review-and-listing service.

regards

[sorry about the spelling - my keyboard is wearing out]

I would love to volunteer my 10 years of web programming expertise to produce such a tool. It would ease alot of tensions for webmasters, and save alot of headaches and time for moderators.

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The ODP is owned by AOL. In the event that any such outward-facing tool were to be created, it would really have to be created by an AOL staff member, or at the very least by an editor with very high level access to the ODP backend.

I think the last point is one that seems to be missed in these forums at least: a note as to why a site wasn't listed isn't an invitation to argue/debate, it is an opportunity to improve a site.

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In an ideal world, yes. Unfortunately, our experience here was that it rarely resulted in that. Instead, we endured arguments about why the rejections were a mistake or our policies were wrong.

Suffice it to say this is disappointing to hear, as it would seem to be in their best interest (would eliminate half the posts in these forums).

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We're not having trouble keeping up with those few posts so that's not a huge issue for us. In fact, you'll frequently notice editors tripping over one another to answer.

I can see the basic data model and get some idea of volume from looking at the site, I can see it is written in PHP, and I can surmise from statistics that it is using SQL (regardless which database)

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The current ODP system is a Perl and flat file system that was initially created over ten years ago.

I know for example that a site i've submitted is good enough. It abides by all the guidelines clearly (no chances of "judgement calls"), and is all but identical in category to other sites in DMOZ, the difference being the unique content. Yet nothing after half a year. Given how much a dmoz listing would help us, it is VERY VERY frustrating just sitting here and not seeing anything happen.

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If you know that your site is listable per our guidelines, then there is really nothing that an automated system could tell you that you can't tell yourself -- if a listable site isn't yet listed then it usually means it hasn't been reviewed in the right category yet. Given the volunteer nature of the directory and the fact that editors are not required to edit anywhere they don't want to edit, there are going to be categories where no editor drops by for months or even years. So, if you know that your site is listable and it isn't listed yet, you know it hasn't been reviewed. And you can tell if it's been listed. There's your status check.

frEEk said:

I was going to reply to the other post here but it has mysteriously disappeared. Rather a shame because it seemed to suggest my idea wasn't exactly out of left field, and politics/beliefs were, sadly not surprisingly, a big part of why it hasn't happened again.

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It was my decision to remove that post because someone else had already responded to your question much faster than me and covered just about everything I said and more.

Yes I may have said it in a nicer way, but in the end... it is still something that would be rather difficult for you yourself to be able to implement due to the reasons specified above by other metas and editors.

Thank you however for your interest in trying to help the directory.

I don't need to know anything about the spam filtering tools in place to know that having a system that tells less honest suggestors when their site is rejected need not make them more effective at spamming (or create more work for the editors).

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We simply don't know that there ARE any honest, competent suggestors whose sites are being rejected. The first maxim of system design is, "if it ain't broke, trying to fix it is the prerogative of management" (and none of us are management.)

If submitters are not honest (and this IS an EXTREMELY big problem: there are thousands of people who would rather spend a lot of energy destroying the Open Directory than allowing it to exist uncontrolled by themselves), then there is no good telling them anything.

And if submitters are not competent (and this is not a minor problem), there's no point in telling them anything either: if they are doing their best, and their best isn't worth anyone else looking at.

This may be hard to believe--I have occasionally contacted webmasters because I thought they might be able and willing to create a listable site. Trust me on this, there is an EXTREMELY good reason why the experienced editors STRONGLY recommend that editors NOT contact site suggestors with information like this. You never can tell which ones will literally go berserk, or how physically they will react. (Real-life stalking is NOT an unknown issue!)

Consider that status requests WERE provided until a few years ago, albeit in a labour intensive and frustrating (on both sites) manual method. Then they were stopped, with the primary reason of it not being within the scope of this forum's mission.

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And, note well, a secondary reason was that by our experiment, we demonstrated to ourselves (and to any other observer: the archived forums were publicly visible for more than a year) that in fact, status reports did NOT do any good. Before the experiment, some of us (including me in particular) thought status reports might sometimes do good. We were wrong. We now know we were wrong.

And no amount of speculation after the fact can change our experential knowledge.

Eric-the-bin, motsa, firestorm, hutcheson, thanks for the considerate and useful responses.

I'm a little surprised at the perl/flat file implementation, pretty old school, but if that works, why change.

I think the most telling point I've seen here is that the primary reason for not listing is just lack of editors. I rather expected there was more picky quality control going on, the type of stuff where hints about why the site wasn't accepted would really help (ie. you have more than 2 ads per page... yes, i've had this as a rejection reason from a PAID directory). Sounds like I may need to try applying to the category I'm dealing with again, since clearly it isn't moving well. I know I've seen several dead/bad sites in the category already.

motsa, i have to agree on tripping over each other to respond situation, i've seen a fair bit of that happening. mildly amusing at times.

Thx again for the constructive comments.

you have more than 2 ads per page... yes, i've had this as a rejection reason from a PAID directory

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The ODP approach is: does the site exist primarily to drive traffic to ads?

If so, then ... why bother? (The webmaster has his purpose, it's not reasonable to expect him to change it. It's ESPECIALLY foolish to expect him to change and STAY CHANGED--sites modified "just to get in the ODP" tend to get modified right back after they're in.)

If not, then ... why not list it?

The people who are concerned about ads get all upset about the amount of advertising on "their competitors who are listed"--and therefore reveal themselves to be the sort of people who see the website primarily as scaffolding for ads, i.e. the sort of people whose sites we should ideally never list.

People who are concerned about content will be ignoring the ads, and won't be talking to us about them one way or the other.

This thread, amongst others, makes for interesting and disconcerting reading. I can totally appreciate the effort that volunteer editors make, and the time it must take to wade through endless site submissions.

There is, from what I've read, the very definite view among editors that this DMOZ service is provided for users/web surfers, as opposed to webmasters. Fair enough. Apart of course from the fact that webmasters themselves are in fact web users. Rather more significantly, the web surfer should be given the maximum opportunity to choose the sites he or she visits. By failing to list sites, commercial or otherwise, you remove choice from the user. Ultimately, anything and everything that might be of use to one person is potentially worthy of including provided it doesn't violate the reasonable DMOZ guidelines.

However, and here's where the DISadvantage of human intervention comes into play, it's clear that when a project is massively understaffed, unanswerable to anyone - webmaster OR web user, and subject to subjective opinion over objective fact, users won't in fact be well served. And it clearly IS a matter of subjectivity, as one forum post I've read today included a moderator making reference to still trying to decide whether to allow an article about old string. Well, if it doesn't violate the rules, include it. Someone might want to read it. If an architect submits his site, and it follows the guidelines, include it. Never mind the fact that DMOZ apparently isn't there to follow the whim of every webmaster, the very fact that the project has gained importance across the web gives you a moral duty to serve those honest webmasters and business owners. Because every time an editor thinks 'nah, maybe not, we've got seventeen architects listed already, there's nothing NEW here...', people's livelihoods are affected. Perhaps some editors have forgotten the maxim stated in 'About DMOZ': the aim "to become the definitive catalog of the Web." You can't be definitive if you reject perfectly valid submissions.

There's even one moderator in a different thread making a completely sarcastic response to someone's perfectly reasonable post (http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=53325. The opinion appears to be that you should get on with your work rather than worrying about not getting listed. A) Not quite the attitude is it? B), well, read the next para and you can see WHY someone might worry about not getting listed

If DMOZ were standalone and no wider bearing, the effect of having one's site overlooked would be minimal. But it's not. According to DMOZ' own information "The Open Directory powers the core directory services for the Web's largest and most popular search engines and portals, including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others." Inevitably it even has a bearing on Google. So every time an editor fails to pass a site through, or a category doesn't even HAVE an editor, people's livelihoods are affected adversely.

Of course I'm not just ranting here for no reason, obviously. I'm self-employed, and submitted my website for submission some 5 years ago when I traded part-time under a different name. Never got listed. Changed the name a couple of years later, redeveloped the website...never got listed. This February I've spent some time adding to my website, including a total redesign, and of course submitted my details once more. Of course you COULD argue that now I've submitted the same URL I've stuffed myself, but after three years you'd have thought someone might have given it the once-over...

Why do I care? Because I'm self-employed at a time when the economy isn't at it's strongest (I do like a touch of understatement), and because a lot of my competitors appear quite happily in the directory. Not quite fair eh?

Some years back I submitted my wife's website to a local directory (human-edited), and someone got in touch within a couple of weeks, having seen her listing, giving her core busines to this very day. Not only was it a regular and reliable client contact, but it led directly to further business with other clients. Every single potential client contact has a bearing on your success. So when the self-confessed source of core directory services to much of the internet doesn't provide the manpower or even the simple means of checking whether there IS an editor working on your chosen category, there's basically a dereliction of duty. If it can't be operated to commercial timescales, don't allow it to be the 'definitive' source of data for leading search engines. Because it isn't definitive.

Now as soon as some nice chap wants to drop me a line asking what my site URL is and how quickly he can get it listed, I'll be delighted

If it can't be operated to commercial timescales, don't allow it to be the 'definitive' source of data for leading search engines. Because it isn't definitive.

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1. We aren't commercial. We're a bunch of hobbyists making the results of our labours free to anyone who's happy to agree to our ToC.

2. Definitive doesn't mean complete. We don't guarantee to list every website and if a surfer finds 10 listings in our Henry VIII category, he'll probably be satisfied.

Essentially, you seem to be complaining that we aren't volunteering hard enough and thus not providing the service that you require. Well you have two choices. Find a commercial directory such as Yahoo! where you'll get the response times that you pay for or - come and join us. Become part of the solution.

I think there's still another level of confusion here.

One common idea is that there's a big problem with legitimate suggestions being rejected. This is simply wrong. For awhile we had a problem where dozens of duplicate suggestions daily required manual checks. So I had a second look at sites that had been suggested and deleted. Based on thousands of suggestions that I checked, maybe 1 in 100 had been rejected in error.

So there's no point in discussing this as a problem, or a potential problem, for two reasons:

(1) it's such a minor problem, compared to other problems (For instance, every year, 10% of good links rot. Is 10 bad links worse than one missing good link? No question!)

(2) any systematic effort put into doing better here, systematically degrades the productivity of editors ... and THAT means fewer unreviewed sites can get reviewed ... and EVERYONE agrees that there are MILLIONS of good sites, that have never been reviewed. (Thousand of those good sites have been suggested but not yet reviewed.)

The vast vast majority of listable sites that aren't listed, aren't listed because they haven't been reviewed yet. And the vast vast majority (99% or so) of reviewed-but-unlisted sites couldn't be made listable with any amount of pig lipstick.

So the real question is: how can site review be made more productive? Editors are always discussing this issue internally: since accomplishment is the only remuneration for editing, there's a high incentive to work efficiently.

The effects of having a site overlooked by ODP editors are exactly the same as having the same site overlooked in the absence of the ODP, or if there had never been an ODP. You can't blame a pre-existing condition on the ODP.

In your contrived (and probably mythical) example, it's vicious to blame the 18th engineer's poverty on the ODP, while not giving the ODP credit for the wealth of the first 17 engineers--when the simple fact is, millions of people who were never ODP editors have been even more inactive than those thousands who built the ODP as it is. Why carp at the few people who are actually doing part of what you want done, and ignore the many who haven't even started?