Sub Categories

I submitted my wife's website that I am currently the webmaster for a few months back. She is in Real Estate and I tried to find the most relevant category but there is no category for the town we live in.

I submitted under a larger town that is really not in our area. The town we do live in has enough relevant websites to have its own sub category (there are probably over 20-30 real estate websites for our town).

Should I suggest a new sub-category?
If I do should I re-submit the website I am a webmaster for?
What about other relevant sites? Should I submit those as well?
I would obviously love to have my wife's site listed but I think it is only fair to submit all the relevant sites that have good content.

Obviously I can't submit anything right now, but I am thinking about what to do when DMOZ is up and working again.

As a side note, I am sure I would not be accepted to edit for this category, but would I be likely to be accepted to edit something I don't have a conflict-of-interest over? I could edit categories for places I have lived before or know well or for any of a number of topics I have knowledge of. From what I have read on here there is a great shortage of folks to edit the content of DMOZ.

Thanks,

Garrick

She is in Real Estate and I tried to find the most relevant category but there is no category for the town we live in.

Click to expand...

do you mean there is no Locality category for the town, or no Real Estate category in the Locality category?

If the first, we'd appreciate it if you suggested it to the next highest level (probably County) with a note that a new Locality needs to be created [place it in square brackets at the end of the description like this].

If the second, suggest it to the higher level category within the Town. (Generally the path will be Town_Name/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate) so to the Business_and_Economy sub cat if it exists, or to the Locality level if that sub category also has not yet been created.

If I do should I re-submit the website I am a webmaster for?

Click to expand...

Yes, please, but only once, and to the proper place as outlined above.

What about other relevant sites? Should I submit those as well?

Click to expand...

Even better, it makes creating a new sub category worthwhile to have more than just the single link.

As a side note, I am sure I would not be accepted to edit for this category

Click to expand...

Actually as long as you declare your affiliations when applying that is no barrier at all - note however it is very unusual to apply for a category that does not yet exist (the higher level one might be a good fit if it's small enough).

I submitted under a larger town that is really not in our area.

Click to expand...

this almost always guarantees a delay to listing as one of the first things checked when looking at a Real Estate site is the office location. Real Estate has very specific listing guidelines which you can see at http://dmoz.org/guidelines/regional/realestate.html . Note that there may be sites listed prior to this revision of the guidelines that would no longer be listed if reviewed today, and may even be removed if re-reviewed today.

Hope this helps.

Good morning, Garrick, .

In addition to the good advice editor gimmster just gave you.

We don't get into site specific information, but, as a Regional editor who edits four US states, I don't see that naming the town/state/country would be breaking our rules, as that has to do with the structural part of our editing, and not a specific site.

If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.

Sanford NC

We are located in Sanford, NC.

I have finally found the appropriate category but I had to navigate to North Carolina then Counties and then Sanford then Real Estate to find it.

I previously navigated to North Carolina and then Real Estate and then only found 6 large regions, none of which covers our specific area.

The average user would have a 50% chance of having the same problem. The two routes should give the same results but they do not.

The listings that are in the local section have a few errors but at least I found them. Now when the directory comes back I can suggest to the correct category.

I don't see an editor listed, should it list who the editor is if there is one? I am just wondering if someone is editing this category or not.

Thank you for pointing out that the difficulties you had in finding the right category. It is certainly something we try to avoid, so we'll check it out when things are working again, and make sure all the necessary links are in place. If you noticed mistakes, dead sites or other problems (there or anywhere else), we welcome comments in the Quality Control forum here.

I am just wondering if someone is editing this category or not.

Click to expand...

This is answered in the FAQ of this forum:

What you are seeing at the bottom of the category is that there is no editor named. This does not mean that a category gets no editor attention. Any editor "higher-up" the category tree can edit in a category lower down. In addition to this, there are two categories of editor, called Editalls and Metas who can edit any category in the directory.

Click to expand...

Altogether, there are over 200 editors who can edit there.

The errors are minor - some of the listings show office affiliations for people that no longer exist. I will probably just click the "update URL" link when the directory is back up.

I do see that our town has an editor, which is a good thing.

The drill down thing is an issue for some states (NC, NY, NH) but not others (TN, GA)

By that I mean that "Top: Regional: North America: United States: New York: Business and Economy: Real Estate" shows very few listings and no subcategories. If I was an agent in the Bronx I would be unsure what to do at this point.

"Top: Regional: North America: United States: New York: Localities: N: New York City: The Bronx: Business and Economy: Real Estate" shows many listings; the same agent from the Bronx would feel confident submitting to this category.

It seems like both should navigate to the same listings. For some states like TN ang GA they do.

Just my comments, which may or may not be valid or useful for someone.

I don't see an editor listed, should it list who the editor is if there is one? I am just wondering if someone is editing this category or not.

Click to expand...

The only time you will see an editor listed at the low level categories is when they are one of a few categories they edit, or it's a 'pet' category. Generally as editors get higher permissions they resign the lower level ones.

As an example I can edit that category, although my name is not listed as an editor. If you step back up the directory structure you will find editors listed who can edit all lower level categories - for me you need to step all the way back up to Regional/.

In addition there are many editors who can edit anywhere - admin, meta, and editall permissions, all of whom could potentially edit that individual category (but there are 600,000 categories, so they may not edit any specific category).

I previously navigated to North Carolina and then Real Estate and then only found 6 large regions, none of which covers our specific area

Click to expand...

This is a combination of problems - the fact many users have not learnt how to use a directory <added> obviously not the problem in this example</added>, and the structure not being complete. Sometimes reading the category descriptons will help http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_Amer...na/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate/desc.html , sometimes these also need updating as well.

The two routes should give the same results but they do not.

Click to expand...

Yes, yes they should.

In this case there are several links missing from the structure
Sanford/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate/ should link up to Counties/Lee/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate (which currently is MIA) and to Regions/Piedmont/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate/ . There also should be downward links from the higher level categories down to the County and Locality level.

Thats based off what I can see using the existing categories, since NC is not close to Australia my local knowledge may be a little skewed, but it should give you some idea of what the desired structure is.

"Top: Regional: North America: United States: New York: Business and Economy: Real Estate" shows very few listings and no subcategories

Click to expand...

They are there - By_County, By_Region, By_Locality although I could see a cse for adding 'Bronx, The@' in the By_Locality list (currently you need to use the 'New_York_City@' link as an intermediate step)

My point is "Top: Regional: North America: United States: New York: Business and Economy: Real Estate"

should have subcategories and it currently does not -- for example: counties: Bronx as subcatogories.

You currently have to navigate by"Top: Regional: North America: United States: New York: Localities: N: New York City: The Bronx: Business and Economy: Real Estate" to get there.

If you choose real estate at the state level one of three things happens
1) In states like TN you have full drill down (I would see this as the preferrable method as you get to the local listings either way)
2) You have no subcategories like in NY (At least here you can probably figure out something is wrong and navigate back up to where you need to be and then back down)
3) You have a few subcategories like in NC (This is in my opinion the worst if one of the subcategories does not fit your site as you may be left wondering whether to submit to the closest one or not)

Thank you again for the time you have take to analyse the structure in this part of the directory. Now that you have drawn our attention to it, you can be sure that when things are working again it will be examined by editors familiar with the area, and any missing links (I'll refrain from making the obvious awful joke!) will be created. It may not happen immediately, but it will happen.
The directory has grown exponentially since it was created, and many areas have fallen behind others in terms of navigation and how comprehensive they are. We are always looking for new editors keen to help improve an area they care about ...

gimmster said:

In this case there are several links missing from the structure
Sanford/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate/ should link up to Counties/Lee/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate (which currently is MIA)

Click to expand...

It's OK that the county category is MIA (that would be true in NA or in Australia categories) as we really don't need to create empty categories just to link together levels. But there really should be a By_Locality category at the state level.

Garrick said:

My point is "Top: Regional: North America: United States: New York: Business and Economy: Real Estate"

should have subcategories and it currently does not -- for example: counties: Bronx as subcatogories.

Click to expand...

The Bronx isn't a county and, as gimmster points out, it is accessible by drilling down through the New York City @link under By_Locality. By the way, what you're calling subcategories are actually @links, which are links pointing to categories that actually exist elsewhere in the directory.

Garrick said:

If you choose real estate at the state level one of three things happens
1) In states like TN you have full drill down (I would see this as the preferrable method as you get to the local listings either way)
2) You have no subcategories like in NY (At least here you can probably figure out something is wrong and navigate back up to where you need to be and then back down)

Click to expand...

Actually, New York is set up exactly as it should be with By_Region, By_County, and By_Locality level categories, which allows you to drill down by any one of the three levels. Tennessee looks a little different (though you'll notice it has a By_Locality category as well) because, since it only has 3 region-level Real Estate categories, the editors there chose to link to those directly rather than creating a By_Region category (it's also missing a By_County category and the @links in the various region categories need to be separated out into County and Locality links but those are issues to be resolved when the ODP is back up). For most states, there would be way too many region, county, and locality @links to put them all at the top level, which is why they are put tidily into the By_xxx categories.

North Carolina definitely will be looked at when everything is back up (as will Tennessee) but New York is actually set up just fine.

I'll try again

My point is "Top: Regional: North America: United States: New York: Business and Economy: Real Estate" should have subcategories and it currently does not -- for example: counties: Bronx as subcatogories.

It does have the sub categories, they are just grouped inside container sub categories to avoid having several hundred links on the main page. These container sub categories are By_Locality By_County and By_Region .

Whilst there are some problems (such as the fact there is no Bronx in the By_Locality list) the majority are listed. We don't notice missing ones unless someone points them out.

Try this
http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate/
http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_Amer...k/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate/By_Region/
http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_Amer..._City_Metro/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate/
http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_Amer..._City_Metro/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate/
http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_Amer...y/The_Bronx/Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate/

As I already noted NC has some problems, but unlil/unless someone volounteers to fix it, it's the best we have. Internally there are specific request threads for linking where the editors do not have permissions to do it themselves.
TN works, but that structure also cannot work in states wher the structure is more complex in fact looking at http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_Amer...Business_and_Economy/Real_Estate/By_Locality/ I see a mess of Localities, Counties, and Regions all jumbled together.

In addition if the state has counties that do not belong in one of the Regions, the drill down structure fails, which is why ideally it should be closer to the FL structure - Regions directly listed, Counties and Localities within the container categories By_County and By_Locality.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...