Some simple suggestions

1. I understand it is not possible to check the status of the submissions, and it may take upto years before it may even be reviewed. My suggestion is very simple, please notify the website owner if the website is not approved for inclusion in the directory. odp does not have to give a reason, just a courtsy letter denying the listing.

2. When submitting a website, provide a space where the User may give the competetion websites which are already be listed.

3. There is a space for upto 30 words to give the description of the website. Provide a space of about 100 words, to explain why the website should be considered for inclusion by the website owner. What unique information is included, and why? At least this gives the editor an oppurtunity to understand the the thought process behind the submission.

The editors can ignore the information given in items 2, and 3. At least, this will give the website owners an oppurtunity to express their 'purpose' for website inclusion in the odp.

Yogi Gupta]1. I understand it is not possible to check the status of the submissions said:

for inclusion in the directory. odp does not have to give a reason, just a courtsy letter denying the listing.

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At this moment we don't send notifications. And I doubt we ever will. There are some very good reasons not to send notifications. Just search this forum for many discussions about this subject.

Yogi Gupta said:

2. When submitting a website, provide a space where the User may give the competetion websites which are already be listed.

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We totaly don't care of competitors of a site are already listed or not. We determine of a site is listable purely on teh content we see at the site itself. External factors are of no influence.

Yogi Gupta said:

3. There is a space for upto 30 words to give the description of the website. Provide a space of about 100 words, to explain why the website should be considered for inclusion by the website owner. What unique information is included, and why? At least this gives the editor an oppurtunity to understand the the thought process behind the submission.

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The site itself must give us prove why we should list it. If we can't find the unique content the site won't be listed.

Yogi Gupta said:

The editors can ignore the information given in items 2, and 3. At least, this will give the website owners an oppurtunity to express their 'purpose' for website inclusion in the odp.

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As we are not a listing service we don't care about the reason for the website owner who wants the site to be listed.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

Suggestion #1 has been made, and discussed many times. On the surface it makes a lot of sense, and if the world were suddenly spammer free, we might even implement it. However, the spammers, who already account for more than half of all our submissions, would be able to use that information to increase their efforts, and would possibly make the entire submission process unuseable.

Suggestion #2 is interesting, but if a submitter does their homework, they are already sumbitting to the single best category, and thus that information would not really help the editor.

Suggestion #3 is also interesting, and parts of it intrigue me as an individual, but I would suspect that it would not be adopted because when we view the site review process as an editor, we are really trying to put ourselves in the shoes of the surfer, and I would content that the surfer really doesn't care what the site owners motivations are, and if the sufrer cannot find the unique content due to horrid navigation, over commercialization, or massive SEOing, then the site is not useful to the surfer and we would probably not want to list it. I liked the idea of increasing the size of the field; it would be fun to see how many more keywords someone would stuff in there. I would guess that there are technical reasons why field sizes cannot be changed, but I have no specific knowledge.

In any event, I appreciate the thought that you put into this, and please don't take the fact that these cannot be adopted personally. You cared enough about the directory to give us a well thought out suggestion for improvement, and we are thankful for that.

In Suggestion #3 - I continue to find submissions where the supplied description provides more information than the web site. It will explain simply and directly what the company does and it's target market. Unfortunately if I cannot find that same information on the web site, I cannot use it in the description.

If a web site owner would go ask a third party to write a description of what the site does, he/she would be often surprised to find how bad the site is in providing info.

So I would suggest that instead of providing that "blurb" to the editors, provide it on the web site, where not only the editor, but the target market will see it.

pvgool!
I had come to this forum only about two weeks ago. I did not propose any website.
I read a few threads, expressed my opinions.
Your arrogance in answering a few suggestions take the cake.
I do not come here to be insulted.
This is my last posting.
To others who are polite and understanding, thank you for the volunteer service.
I dont know how to close the thread. I am sure, some one will.

Bobrat...the suggestion about asking a third party for observations is right on the money. It really helps to get an objective inbiased opinion. And if you can, use fourth graders. I know it sounds weird. But they are young enough to speak their minds and old enough to not be so silly. And many of them know more than webmasters do(chuckle). If you can get a whole class of them to review your site, it is invaluable. They will find every mistake and also let you know if the site is comprehensive and informative.
Gupta, you have some good stuff there. I just didn't see the insult.

texasville, you are correct. As editors we see tens of thousands of websites, and it is simply amazing what we see on occasion. Too many businesses think that having a website is some sort of checklist item on the path to success. They fail to realize that evry website visit is a sale calls, and they need to put their best face forward.

So what do they do? They sign up for some service that offers them a choice of 16 different templates, using canned copy that goodness knows how many other businesses are using, and think that because it has their picture (sometimes they don't even change that) and their name, it is somehow unique.

But, I guess it is their money to waste.

Spectregunner, It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. The really sad part is when someone holds themselves out as a webdesigner and is hired by that business and puts up that website for them. So many owners of businesses don't know the difference. Most of them are out of touch with the web and don't realize the tremendous work that goes into a site.
My personal vision for a website for a local brick and mortar business is this:
It is the welcome mat for your business. It is the very first chance you have, (in this electronic age) to introduce yourself to new customers. Think local first, then regional and finally global. It should introduce them to your staff. And it needs more than a picture and a name. Give them a chance to see they are regular people. Maybe a neighbor or fellow enthusiast about some hobby. Particularly the staff that is going to have direct contact. Gives the public a chance to see they don't have horns and going to eat them when they walk thru the door. Give them some common ground.
Second you need to tell them what you are selling, Better yet, show them. And give them the particulars.
Give them information on the use of your products. If applicable, safety tips and maintenance tips. Give them links that will give them access to knowledge of the products. A good website never stops growing.
Show them how to get to your business.
Give them a way to contact you via the web. Some don't want to talk on the phone. Some are still afraid you are going to "sell them something". They want the anonymity.
Most of all, don't make it boring. Give them interaction. Now, this can be an argument, give them some color and design. (I overdo it) Make it easy to navigate. Pretend you can't see any pictures, jpgs or gifs on the page.And then give it to the kids to test run. They will find your mistakes. And they don't think about hurting your feelings. They can be brutally honest.
Lots more but that is the basics.
I'm sure that you know these things. It's for the people that don't understand.lol.

I think it is a shame that this thread has been reduced to a mocking session.

/*tom*/

Nobody but Yogi has insulted anyone here, and he has left.

Texasville and the gunner are both right. Lots of sites get listed (because they contain the minimal information) but yet do not effectively serve the purposes of bringing business to their business, and fail to include much information that would make them more valuable both to surfers and to the business.

First- thanks Hutcheson-appreciate that. Tom, I was just offering my own observations, theory and conjecture. I really wasn't trying to mock anyone. Quite the opposite. I find it very frustrating at times trying to explain what I try to do for a business with their website. As the gunner said...they just think it is part of a checklist. I believe, if done right, a business can use a website to bring as much business to them as opening a second brick and mortar site...at a much cheaper price.
As far as Gupta goes...I really think he misunderstood what the answers were. Really, I thought they were pretty concise and well written with no ill will. Sometimes the written word misses the inflection a conversation would carry. But, my apologies to anyone that thought I was spouting off. Sometimes I just get carried away.

hutcheson; I’m not disagreeing with the arguments made, rather I’m being critical of the manner in which some of those arguments are presented.

texasville; The two that rubbed me the wrong way: “It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.” and “It's for the people that don't understand.lol.”

In my view, comments like this are very unprofessional. More to the point, I think they hurt DMOZ in that they provide fodder for DMOZ critics. A few editors seem to be working hard at building the DMOZ image and IMHO this tends to undermine their efforts.

I realize that texasville is not an editor, but had an editor made a request to stay on topic I think it would have gone a long way in maintaining R-Z professionalism.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to make a bigger issue of it than it really is. I just feel that remarks such as the above do no one any good.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

/*tom*/

Helping Out the Editors For a Change

>>>We totaly don't care of competitors of a site are already listed or not. We determine of a site is listable purely on the content we see at the site itself.

Perfect...how about allowing site owners to do that work for you to save time? How about offering a field/link field so folks can describe exactly where to find that content?

Then the editors can go right to it...verify it...and if it's not what's said they get banned for some time. You say "what if the content landing page changes?" Fine. I'll create a page called www.mywebsite.com/dmoz.html which will contain the always correct links to the good stuff.

(Why? Because it's not a nice feeling when you write hundreds of pages of non-promotional content only to see your competitors get listed who have nothing that even resembles content. Of course I'll not detail where this is occuring so my post can stay credible and non-promotional as well...this is my first post.)

>How about offering a field/link field so folks can describe exactly where to find that content?

That would be a pretty useful thing for a website to have, no?

If it's not already obviously visible on the website's home page, then ... that's a rather serious user interface problem which is easily fixable.

If it's NOT already available on the website, then it is something that ought not to be part of a website review.

That's an interesting suggestion - but the ODP editors are supposed to look at a site the way a casual surfer would. If J Random Websurfer can't find the good stuff on a site, that site probably shouldn't be listed in the first place.

How about offering a field/link field so folks can describe exactly where to find that content?

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Not to be facetious, but it seems like the best place for that would be prominently on the root page of the site

Perfect...how about allowing site owners to do that work for you to save time? How about offering a field/link field so folks can describe exactly where to find that content?

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If you have to provide a guided map for editors to find the unique content (which is presumably buried under a lot of non-unique content), then there's probably insufficient content for listing (note: that's a general comment, not a comment targetted at any specific site.) In any case, people suggesting sites can use the description field to include a small note to the reviewing editor(s).

I agree with Yogi's suggestion.
Especially, that make some sense to those submitter there are problem with their site.
This would stimulate them to improve the information on their site.

I think this also would be a responsible manner for the user who adopt dmoz's statitics.

We have millions of sites to choose from out there. Any Google search will find dozens of useful sites that we might consider for inclusion.

Editors will spend time including things that are already worth including, not tutoring a webmaster on how to design his site.

longcall911 said:

texasville; The two that rubbed me the wrong way: “It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.” and “It's for the people that don't understand.lol.”

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Longcall forgive me if I am wrong but I think texasville was refering to the comments made before his post stating that many businesses use canned websites, not anything to do with the ODP... but I may be mistaken at least that is how it reads to me. Both comments made were in reference to the fact that the ODP editors have to weed through a lot of garbage to find good content sites, which I am sure you will agree... but again I may be completely wrong.

-Mayap

Jared, you are certainly free to create such a service for webmasters. The ODP won't compete with you, because it's set up to accomplish something else.

Despite the stringent policies and draconian penalties associated with such, ODP editors occasionally participate in volunteer internet activities other than the ODP.

If that service is something that volunteers consider worth doing, and if you make volunteers welcome and provide them effective tools for efficient site reviews, it is possible that some editors will participate.

But there's no reason to confuse that service to, um, motivationally-challenged webmasters with the entirely different service the ODP provides to adequately-motivated surfers!