status on http://www.wi-fitechnology.com

festprint · Mar 14, 2003

I submitted the URL The Wi-Fi Technology Forum about 3 times since December, however no sign of its inclusion in the Cat below (which it said is needing a Volunteer). This non-profit and volunteers run site is so valuable to the wireless community and would beg you on a positive feedback.

http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Data_Communications/Wireless/

The Category is so small, and I can't see a big queue, hence that make me think there is an objection for including it. Is it because I use IE instead of Netscape and my IP is not recognized when submitting? or is it because we use Dynamic URLs. We managed to change most URLs and shorten them using SSI, hoping that would help.

Awaiting your kind and merciful response!

windharp · Mar 14, 2003

The category _has_ a huge backlog. Number of submissions does not necessarily scale with category size...

Apart from that - as you have noticed - your submission was put into a temporary storage area because your IP could not be determined. Where it still is, waiting for a precheck.

festprint · Mar 14, 2003

I don't quite understand the meaning of "IP could not be determined", I had this every time I submitted. Could someone throw some light as to what are the possible reasons for it. My IP address shows up in stats logs and can be traced to my ISP, possible also to the host etc...so why is it so?
Thanks for your reply.

hutcheson · Mar 14, 2003

In such cases, it usually means that your ISP is using proxies to support more users than it has unique IP addresses for.

Thatis, every time your machine sends a request to your ISP, your ISP server plugs in some free IP address from its pool of public IP addresses (meanwhile secretly memorizing your private IP address). When it gets the answer, it remembers your private IP address, and frees up the public IP address for someone else. Next time you send a request, it might go out to the world via some other of your ISP's public addresses.

And so the ODP server gets a request for the "add URL" from one IP address, and the filled in form from another IP address (both of them from your ISP's pool.) It never sees the IP address of your machine on your ISP's network (and it couldn't use that one anyway, since there's a machine in Kamchatka or Lagos or Boston already using it on the WWW.)

Not your fault, and -- as has been said -- not a big problem. Some sites get delayed by the extra queue, some sites get more quickly nudged into the right category. (Very) occasionally a site will even catch my eye and get listed right away.

festprint · Mar 16, 2003

Thanks for explaining, however, after submitting one's URL and info, a better way of handling the situation to prevent spam should be found. I heard (read) a lot of people going back and trying again and again thinking it is an error and ending up spamming the Dir when faced with the Ad-Hoc situation.

giz · Mar 16, 2003

Spamming is where someone submits the same site over and over to multiple categories, or submits multiple mirror sites to the same or related categories, or submits vast amounts of deeplinks to the directory. You have done none of these (as far as I know).

For submissions with the IP failure, they go into a temporary holding area specifically for this purpose, and it is plainly obvious that if you have submitted multiple times, that you were having trouble - that's why the submissions are in the holding area. You are unlikely to be considered to be spamming in that particular case. Don't worry about that.

The ODP has a range of facilities to counter automated spam submissions, and other junk. In having these a few legitimate sites fall through the cracks into holding areas such as these. It shouldn't cause you any problems.

festprint · Mar 18, 2003

they go into a temporary holding area specifically for this purpose

And remain there foreever?..That is the fate of the URL I submitted I fear!
I say this from experience, years ago (when DMOZ was a new thing) I submitted a site every month, the site was in line with the dir's guidelines, and never was listed. after 2 years I gave up!
I don't know what it is, but I do think probably UK based URLs residing at UK based hosts may be the reason, they have difficulty getting listed (I could be wrong there though)!

dfy · Mar 18, 2003

>> years ago ... I submitted a site every month, the site was in line with the dir's guidelines, and never was listed. after 2 years I gave up <<

I'm not about years ago, but if you were doing that today, there's a very good reason why you might not get listed. Each new submission overwrites any old one found in the queue. If an editor were to sort the unreviewed queue by date (which is the default setting), you would have been bumping your site to the bottom of the queue with each submission.

>> I do think probably UK based URLs residing at UK based hosts may be the reason, they have difficulty getting listed <<

This is not true. UK URLs are treated the same as any other country's URLs. UK hosting would be transparent to the vast majority of editors.

hutcheson · Mar 18, 2003

>And remain there foreever?

In most cases, no.

Sometimes they move directly to the Misplaced Submissions queue to fossilize.

hutcheson · Mar 18, 2003

>a better way of handling the situation to prevent spam should be found.

I may strongly agree with you, but I will fight to the death to deny your right to say it.

Unless you understand the problems and the technology well enough to know that there _is_ a better way, it's a very inane thing to say.

But there have been concrete proposals (or at least very viscous proposals) made by a number of people, and I think we are in the way of finding a better way.

giz · Mar 18, 2003

>> And remain there foreever?..That is the fate of the URL I submitted I fear! <<

I understand that many of these "misplaced" submissions are rerouted back to the correct unreviewed queue (which may or may not be the same as the one originally submitted to) within a few days, if the site looks like it is worth listing (ie, obvious spam, mirrors, and junk all gets deleted). A very few good sites are actually published directly to the directory from the holding area.

festprint · Mar 22, 2003

It seems to me that we are at a disadvantage here, and there is nothing one can do about it.
However thanks for the insight as to why a previous site was not listed after two years of trying. As I said, I waited a month everytime I made a new sybmission, now it looks like every one replaces the older one and litterally back to square-1 when it comes to the date of submission.

giz · Mar 22, 2003

Re: status on http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/

You can sort unreviewed sites by date of last submission, either oldest or newest first, in alphabetical order A to Z, or Z to A, and so on. Additionally editors work in many different ways. Some will start by deleting obvious spam, or duplicates, others will start oldest first, others will look for easy stuff to list first, while others will look for sites that belong in other categories and move them to the unreviewed queue there. Someone will eventually get to it.

festprint · Mar 30, 2003

Re: status on http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/

If the ODP was as organized as Looksmart's Zeal Directory, we would not read so much criticism all over the net as to the confusion and the uncertainty that it had always caused.
Saying that, I am also saying that many of the editors are to be respected AND PRAISED for their efforts. However, I wish the level of uncertainty and confusion will gain more of the senior editor's and staff's attention.
I am sure the majority of submitters, will welcome the idea of knowing in a set time whether or not they were successful at least!

motsa · Mar 30, 2003

Re: status on http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/

However, I wish the level of uncertainty and confusion will gain more of the senior editor's and staff's attention. I am sure the majority of submitters, will welcome the idea of knowing in a set time whether or not they were successful at least!

Staff and senior editors know that it is impossible for editors to give submitters specific timeframes for listing...and you'll notice than most of the editors telling you that here are "senior editors". Any push to get specific timeframes would likely result in something more like "We guarantee we'll review your site within the next 3 years." than "We guarantee we'll review your site within the next month.".

kokopeli · Mar 30, 2003

Re: status on http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/

We are volunteer editors, and do our best to get to submissions in a timely fashion. We do also all have jobs, families, and other interests. I imagine if I had to pay to have my site listed in Looksmart then a concrete turnaround is fair. If I want a free listing in DMOZ which then gets me in other search engines, that is something different.

I can understand your frustration that new submissions are overriding old but the reason for that is simple. Some pleople continually resubmit sites--which then increases the time others wait to have their site submitted because someone would have to take the time to go through and manually sort out all of those duplicate submissions leaving only one in unreviewed. That then takes up editor time instead of being able to evaluate and list sites. By overriding duplicate submissions it decreases the amount of needless time spent deleting all those duplicate submissions.

festprint · Apr 12, 2003

Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/

Thanks for the response, can someone please have a look and see if the URL http://www.wi-fitechnology.com is definitely in the queue. You see that's the trouble, one can not know for sure if it is in the queue or deleted. I am willing to wait an other month (been I think almost two months now), and then what should I do, if I resubmit I'll cause the delay again, if I don't, well...

dfy · Apr 13, 2003

Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/

Yes, I can see it in the queue, waiting to be sent off to the correct category for review.

festprint · May 6, 2003

Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/

Thanks, You are an Angel!

festprint · May 14, 2003

Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/

Would the submission appear in google and others only after they update their directory, i.e.. months later?

status on http://www.wi-fitechnology.com

festprint

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dfy

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