Requesting a New Category

Good day all,
I recently requested a new category be added for a site I wish to submit, however it was declined saying that categories are not added for only one website. The category I requested was the following:

Top: Regional: Europe: Croatia: Business and Economy: Event Planning

This is not an original category, as it can be found under many other countries such as the UK, Ireland, France, Spain & Austria to name a few. France only has on business listed within, and Austria has the category, but zero listings. So why can't the category be added for only one request?

I have since re-requested it again using the method in the FAQ, and while I realize it may take some time, just wanted to post about it here also. Thanks.

ryan.

Because there are several procedures to be followed when adding categories. There are cases when a category might be added for one sites, but that's only when that category has to be added for consistency with other category changes being made.

You might have seen http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/Slovakia/Business_and_Economy/Event_Planning/ - but that was probably created and then the sites that were placed there were removed later. At some point, if that happens, the category might get deleted.

These is the general rules

http://dmoz.org/guidelines/subcategories.html

Generally, subcategories may be helpful when the number of inks exceeds 20, but creating subcategories when there are fewer than 20 links generally will hinder users' ability to find the desired information. Once a category has 20 or more links, editors may see groups of links that can be easily organized by subtopic.

For Regional it's much more complex - but if you really want to read

http://dmoz.org/regionalguidelines.html

The bottom line is that the process involve a number of decisions. It's not simply adding a category for convenience.

Thanks bobrat,

That's fair enough and makes sense now that it was actually explained. Instead of my reply email just saying, 'no, we do not create categories for one site.'

I guess I will wait a bit and see if the category is created. I submitted a request, but noticed it said 'yes' or 'no' is not always conveyed via e-mail. Otherwise I would just submit to Business and Economy.

My only complaint is that of all the countries that I have found with this category (12, but never looked through them all), the only one that has more than 20 within Event Planning is the UK. Not even the U.S or Oceania has more than 20. So it doesn't seem to be based on the rules, as much as it is up to the editor.

Its where the parent category (e.g. Business and Economy) has more than 20 links its an indication that it is probably time to subdivide it.

You don't need 20 links for the subcategory, however you would generally hope for 4 or 5 to justify it being worthwhile.

Ahhh, I understand. Still, most I have seen were 0-5 for listings within the category. However, I guess that doesn't matter. Thanks for the clarification, I think I'll go ahead and submit my site to Business and Economy in a couple of days providing the category was not created. Is there a way I can request if someone is looking into that, or if they said no?

Submit your site now.

When subcategorizing, not only listed sites but submittals are distributed among the subcategories. And -- who knows? Perhaps several other event planning firms have already submitted, and when next the editor works there he may want to create such a category.

Better still: submit your competitors. If you can find half-a-dozen other event-planning sites and a dozen other Croatian businesses, you may trigger the subcategorization process.

It's not who you ask, or what you ask for. It's how you ask. "I want a subcategory for me" doesn't go over at all well. "You need a subcategory for all these sites I found" is a slam-dunk.

Sometimes even an empty category is valuable, too, if it has @links to lots of appropriate sites. http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Business_and_Economy/Event_Planning/, for example, has only two sites in it, but even if it had zero, we would still want it there--there are 46 event planning sites in http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_Amer...ork_City/Business_and_Economy/Event_Planning/, http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_Amer...ochester/Business_and_Economy/Event_Planning/, http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_Amer...g_Island/Business_and_Economy/Event_Planning/, and other subcategories which we want to help our users find from the New York category.

I'm not seeing a situation like this in Croatia right now, as there aren't currently any event-planning sites listed even in Dubrovnik... however, the Regional/Croatia editor may be inspired by your request to go out looking for some. (-: If you know of several, you can always help him/her along with that...

hutcheson, good point. With submissions, as most everything else in life, how you ask is just as important as what.

flicker, also a good point. I see the benefit of having a category listed, if only for having short cuts listing within.

As for submitting other companies, I am pretty sure we are the only one. I know of another, but they are already listed in another category and are more tourism than event planning. There is a third, but I won't bother as this would only make two

At any rate, thanks for all the help and information. I will go ahead and submit my site now. Cheers,

ryan.

Bear in mind that other some of the existing category structure you see may be wrong by current standards. The standards evolve over time, and what was ok two years ago, might not be ok today. Also editors can make mistakes in judgement or forget to follow the rules.

If there are 1000 similar sites on one topic, then we won't usually spend lots of time finding yet more sites to list once we have listed just a few hundred of them, further additions are not likely to add much more new information; however if there are only TWO sites on a particular topic, then we would usually want to list both of them. Submit them both.

How do I suggest a new category?

I am not an editor (although I have volunteered), and would like to suggest a new category. I do not see a way of doing so, thus I thought I would ask here. It seems to me there should be a new group for books on Website Content Management:

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Internet/Site_Management/Content_Management/Books

This is much more specialized and would not fit under the current Site Management Books listing:

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Internet/Site_Management/Books

If we get a submission that requires such a subcategory, we'll create the category.