Rules duly noted, but...

I have read http://dmoz.org/help/search.html#notlisted. Now here's my question:

The URLs in question (www.askjanice.com and www.noevirmo.com) have been dropped from http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Health/Beauty/Skin_Care/.

www.noevirmo.com is a Montana branch selling skincare products, but www.askjanice.com is more of an advice and information site.

I apologize if I missed a point in the article, but if I was to suggest a different category like http://dmoz.org/Health/Beauty/Cosmetics/Advice/, would you accept the submission for www.askjanice.com and allow www.noevirmo.com back into http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Health/Beauty/Skin_Care/?

Sorry if I got confusing in this message. If I did, just let me know, and I’ll try to clarify.
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&gt;The URLs in question (www.askjanice.com and www.noevirmo.com) have been dropped from http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Health/Beauty/Skin_Care/.

&gt;www.noevirmo.com is a Montana branch selling skincare products, but www.askjanice.com is more of an advice and information site.

This is a most puzzling post. In my native universe, neither site has ever been listed at dmoz.org. Here, askjanice.com could never be confused for anything but an affiliate sales doorway for an MLM program; www.noevirmo.com is simply a personal advertisement for the person who runs the other site (with links to affiliate shopping so predominant over other content that it's obvious they are the primary motivation for the site, and no indication that there is a storefront anywhere in Montana where you could walk in to buy stuff.)

The ODP submittal guidelines HERE, in addition to saying "do NOT submit affiliate, MLM, or doorway sites" (which both of these are) they also say "do NOT submit related sites" (and these are obviously at least "fraternal siblings" and more likely "Siamese twins") if you don't want all such sites removed from the ODP. (The last, I admit, is an empty threat because the sites should never have been submitted for at least two reasons, should never have been listed anyway, and in fact were never listed.

So my questions are:

1) What led you to suppose these sites were ever listed?
2) How could you read the rules without realizing that these two sites should never have been submitted in the first place?

Actually, I was starting to take this over from someone else, so I'm currently going on second-hand info.

I was told that this site was previously listed, and as this goes back a while (maybe as far back as 2000), I have to plead ignorance on most of it.

I'm in touch with the person who was handling this previously, and I'll get back to you with details. I may have gotten something wrong along the way?

I'm new on the forum, and learning the nuances as I go along.

I know you've said your piece on this, but in case there are other rookies out there reading this, I'll follow up and let you know what's going on.

Thanks

Well, the software has been known to lose audit trails, but there's no record of there ever having been a listing for either of them.

The ODP did contain some MLM sites back then, although it never condoned "fraternal mirrors."

I'd suspect either (1) lapse of memory -- site was in Altavista or some other such portal -- or (2) maybe they were listed under yet more aliases or mirrors for the same content.

It might have been one of the other URL's that had been in ODP, like www.noevirusa.com or www.anovagroup.com. Sometimes people lose track of which site was submitted.

Agreed...who knows? It's been a while, info could have been skewed along the way, and as I don't have all the info, it doesn't make sense beating a dead dog. All parties have been notified, and this could be put to bed.

Whatever happened, however it happened, we're all a little wiser for it now - I am, at least. Thanks as usual!