jimnoble said:
What was tough to know? Our submission guidelines? They are linked on the submission form and submitters have to acknowledge that they've read and agreed them in order to proceed.
Jim,
I owe you that much for all that you and the others here have done so far, but you may want to move this thread to a more apropreate forum (I will leave that up to you).
Procedure After Your Site is Submitted
An ODP editor will review your submission to determine whether to include it in the directory. Depending on factors such as the volume of submissions to the particular category, it may take several weeks or more before your submission is reviewed.
This statement gives your average person the impression that sites are reviewed
on average in a month, maybe three. You can argue all you want about ODP's meaning of 'or more' means in this context, but try showing that page to your average web surfer and asking them what it means in the context it was printed. Most are going to say 1-2, perhaps 1-3 months, because thats what it usually means to the rest of the world. If you mean "a few weeks to several years" then you should say that. Otherwise, this reads as ODP saying that they will review sites within "several weeks or so" (I assume that if ODP said "several weeks to two years or more to reveiw" on that page people would not be nearly as willing to submit sites, and end users would start asking AOL, google, etc to use something 'more current,' siting this as a big reason.)
Please only submit a URL to the Open Directory once. Again, multiple submissions of the same or related sites may result in the exclusion and/or deletion of those and all affiliated sites.
This part reads clearly on its own. But now lets take it in the context of the first statement. If the site has not been reviewed after a reasonable period, the logical thing to assume that something went wrong with it. The logical first assumptions are that their was some kind of error in ODP's system and they lost it, and the logical second assumption is that you submitted it to the wrong place. So you go and look for a more apropreate place to put it (remember, it does not tell you that the editors will move it to the correct the location if you put it in the wrong place).
Disguising your submission and submitting the same URL more than once is not permitted.
No funny buisness, no problem. Note however that because ODP does not specify a time frame of any kind other than "several weeks or more", it is logical to apply that time frame to this. Remember, those outside of ODP have no way to apply the social values of ODP to these statements, they must base their understanding on the more widely accepted meanings.
If a site you submitted has not been listed after a month, you may check its status at the dmoz public forums.
This tells me that it IS official ODP policy to give status updates, and that I AM entitled to it. It does not say I can request the status and maybe some one will answer, it says that I can
check its status (you guys do a good job of this from what I see, but I refer you to all of the threads where editors tell people that it is NOT official ODP policy to give status updates, and that they are doing this 'on the side').
Now, I don't remember reading this a year ago, but it is possible I missed it. Not to say I cared enough then to do it, but thats another story.
It
IS also intresting to note that these are refered to as the "dmoz public forums" and not as a seperate project done by a group of editors. It would sure seem to me from reading that statement that DMOZ (not just a group of editors) that sponcers these forums, and that it is an official part of the project.
