(1) We don't reject sites for being submitted to the wrong category. We find the right category for them. (It may, however, take us longer.)
(2) As mentioned, the first status check must be at least ONE month after the LATEST submittal. FURTHER status checks must be SIX months after the LATEST STATUS CHECK.
(3) As to the set times, they make a lot of sense when you realize that about half our submittals are rejected for good cause; a significant number of those are from people who maliciously flood us with spam submittals to see what might get through. The longer it takes them to figure out what takes us longest to detect, the less effective their spam is. You can't possibly have any idea how valuable this is to us!
In fact, it is a constant question in the editing community: are we giving out too much information? And the trend is to give out less.
But think about it the other way: what is this information worth to YOU?
How would you act differently tomorrow if you knew whether your site had been rejected or not yet? (Of course, if it's accepted, EVERYONE knows almost immediately.)
The fact is, unless you're a malicious spammer planning the next sneaky scammy scheme, you're not going to change your actions at all in any way.
So -- that information won't do you any good at all, will it? (unless, that is, you're one of Spamford Wallace's spiritual children).
Note, I don't know that you are a spammer. Some people who cartainly aren't, ask the same questions. They may even be more puzzled, since they haven't gone through the analysis of how to use our feedback to improve their deviltry.) But until we know for sure, we won't know whether we can give the information. And after we know for sure, we still can't give the information any differently than we would for a spammer (otherwise the spammers could see by our response whether they'd been detected.) See, it gets complicated.
Anyway, that's the Scylla and Charybdis that we have to deal with when designing the forum policies.
