Submission and Review Process... Suggestion

Hi,

I'm new to these forums, but part of my reason for joining is to ask a question/make a suggestion.

I have to say that I find the whole 'process' of submitting a site to DMOZ which is then reviewed to be rather odd, in the sense that there appears to be no 'visibility' once you've clicked the submit button. There is simply no feedback, other than if you happen to get accepted eventually and then listed (in which case you need to visit the site and search for your site on it before you get even 'that' feedback).

DMOZ essentially tell us:

1. Follow the guidelines, else you may get rejected
2. Submit your site, then wait.... for an unlimited amount of time. It could be weeks, but it could be years. Don’t bother resubmitting.
3. We won’t inform you if your site is accepted... of if it is rejected.

But that leaves us in the seemingly crazy situation where the following sort of scenario can easily occur:

1. I submit a site to DMOZ, attempting to follow the guidelines, and choosing a category I consider appropriate for the site.
2. After a while (say a couple of months) an editor reviews the site. In his judgment the site does not suit the category I chose and he rejects it.
3. I patiently wait for a whole year, not knowing that my site has been rejected, and having no idea of why.

The simple fact is, that if I were sent a short email at the point of rejection, with a simple reason given (regarding the category) then I would know to re-submit the site under a better category, two months after my original submission. As it is I could wait for a year, or two, or FOREVER, and never know whether I am still ‘in the queue’, or have been rejected, or, if I HAVE been rejected, why.

Is not this a situation which could at least be improved upon? I can’t quite believe that a site like DMOZ operates according to such rules, and that large companies like Google actually use its database and make any serious use of it as a result. Surely a better process of informing applicants about acceptance or rejection would not only be helpful, but really is quite essential. The current process just seems a bit silly. I realise the editors are volunteers and so on, but this isn’t a question of their time or workload, it is simply about the process DMOZ follows. It really should introduce some form of email (or online) notification about acceptance or rejection – probably sent out via a standard DMOZ email address to avoid any personal interaction with the editors involved (or alternatively have a page on the site where you can enter your URL and see if it was accepted or rejected).

Could this not be considered please?

(Because surely if DMOZ is an 'open project' then visibility regarding this process should be part of that openness? Currently there appears to be a degree of 'secrecy' (not necessarily intentional, but there all the same) in the process which seems at variance with the whole idea of an 'open' internet.)

Thanks for listening... I look forward to your response.

Ian

BTW.... I read the following in one of the threads here:

"Being listed in DMOZ is not a big deal. It won't bring you instant succes or wealth. It even won't bring you a magic change in how search engines will position the website in their results."

Is this really the case? It seems to me that Google do seem to take being listed in DMOZ quite seriously. I can't put any 'figures' on how it affects your ranking on Google but I'm sure it does.... and I can give an example of why I think so.

My site lists reasonably in Google, based on the keywords and general SEO that has been done on it. But when I search on Google for various phrases I can see several other sites listed immediately above it which, to be plain, are 'awful'. By that I mean that both their content and their layout/design is awful. When I examine the sites I can't see that they have as many pages listed in Google's SERPS as mine does, nor is their usage of keywords any better. The main difference I can see is that they have a higher PR value (you can check it using various websites), and the only real reason I can see for that higher PR is the fact that they are listed in DMOZ. I can see relatively few backlinks to these sites (via link:URL on Google) and the links they do have aren't from particularly high ranking sites..... so I do think that the inclusion in DMOZ is a big factor.

Is not this a situation which could at least be improved upon?

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It was, over a decade ago.

Assuming that your website is listable (self check):

- We don't decline a misplaced listing suggestion; we move it to the correct category for evaluation.

- We don't decline to list a website with non-compliant title or description; we rewrite them.

- We don't decline to list a website on a whim, we follow our Editor Guidelines.

You might have misunderstood our objectives and how we operate here. ODP is a volunteer organisation building a directory as a hobby. Editors edit where they wish, when they wish and as much as they wish within the constraints of their permissions. We have no schedules or systems to force people to do work that they don't volunteer to do. ODP is not primarily a free listing service for website owners and it does not attempt to process their listing suggestions within the time scales desired by them.

Some volunteer will process your listing suggestion in time but we can't predict who or when that might be. Elapsed times can range from a few days to a few years. There is no need to re-suggest your website and doing so could be counter-productive because a later suggestion overwrites any earlier one.

I posted the above before your addendum. We have no interest in PR or SEO. Those are matters better discussed with the folks that have.

Thanks Jim for your swift reply. I appreciate it.

BTW... My post and suggestion is not meant to be 'critical' but simply a suggestion of how the process could be improved, which I think would be helpful. I posted after having read a number of threads where I could see that many users were getting frustrated by the same feeling of there being a 'black hole' into which submissions went, with no feedback.

jimnoble said:

It was, over a decade ago.

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But there is still no actual visibility regarding particular submissions. I do think a short email would be helpful. I don't know what 'UI' the editor works with, but presumably they have access on DMOZ somewhere to a submission and can edit it and approve/reject it. Could not the DMOZ website simply send an automated email to the site submitter's email address (which they could enter on submission) at that point. This would require no extra workload from the editor.

Assuming that your website is listable (self check):

- We don't decline a misplaced listing suggestion; we move it to the correct category for evaluation.

- We don't decline to list a website with non-compliant title or description; we rewrite them.

- We don't decline to list a website on a whim, we follow our Editor Guidelines.

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That's very helpful, and encouraging to know. At least any mistakes in those areas shouldn't affect things.

I suppose though it still leaves another question. The fact is that if a site is rejected there will be a reason. It may be according to the guidelines, but the submitter may feel that they followed the guidelines and be surprised if the site is rejected. At least if they know it HAS been, they can go back to the guidelines document again and try to figure out where they may have fallen foul. The point here is that websites don't remain 'static'. They change and improve over time. So it may be that a certain website is rejected at one point in time, but subsequently changes have been made and the site is 'now' listable, and hence re-submittable. But the user won't know that they can if they haven't been told of the rejection.

You might have misunderstood our objectives and how we operate here. ODP is a volunteer organisation building a directory as a hobby. Editors edit where they wish, when they wish and as much as they wish within the constraints of their permissions. We have no schedules or systems to force people to do work that they don't volunteer to do. ODP is not primarily a free listing service for website owners and it does not attempt to process their listing suggestions within the time scales desired by them.

Some volunteer will process your listing suggestion in time but we can't predict who or when that might be. Elapsed times can range from a few days to a few years. There is no need to re-suggest your website and doing so could be counter-productive because a later suggestion overwrites any earlier one.

I posted the above before your addendum. We have no interest in PR or SEO. Those are matters better discussed with the folks that have.

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Well, I hope I haven't misunderstood. I appreciate what ODP is doing and the time put in by volunteers to build up a useful resource. I simply think it would be even better if it provided more feedback to those submitting sites to it.

I take your point about re-suggesting sites possibly overwriting earlier suggestions.... but that's where the need for feedback comes in. No one wants to re-submit after 3 month's of silence if they are simply in a queue. But if they know they have been rejected, and have since gone off and altered their site and made it listable then surely it is acceptable to re-suggest at that point?

Finally, I recognise SEO and PR are outside your scope.... so perhaps I'd need to post in Google's forums about that. But the fact is that DMOZ IS used by Google and many, many, website owners will have an interest in DMOZ listing as a consequence.

Thanks again for the reply.

In our experience the website owner already knows why his website is unlistable so we don't believe that an email adds anything (apart from telling him that he's been busted).

It's often a business model that we don't accept (such as MFAs and doorways). There's not a lot the owner can do about that - and we don't want to encourage him to try again.

A website that's down or under heavy construction when we try to evaluate it doesn't impress either. We're looking for stable and usable websites. That too is in the website owner's control.

Then, there is the huge amount of fraternal mirrors, disguised deeplinks and spam that gets suggested. We don't want to encourage them either.

We actively discourage editors from corresponding with website suggesters because the resulting conversations have a habit of ending badly. Mail bombs and threats of violence are not unknown and there have been several actual stalking incidents. All of these tend to demotivate.

jimnoble said:

In our experience the website owner already knows why his website is unlistable so we don't believe that an email adds anything (apart from telling him that he's been busted).

It's often a business model that we don't accept (such as MFAs and doorways). There's not a lot the owner can do about that - and we don't want to encourage him to try again.

A website that's down or under heavy construction when we try to evaluate it doesn't impress either. We're looking for stable and usable websites. That too is in the website owner's control.

Then, there is the huge amount of fraternal mirrors, disguised deeplinks and spam that gets suggested. We don't want to encourage them either.

We actively discourage editors from corresponding with website suggesters because the resulting conversations have a habit of ending badly. Mail bombs and threats of violence are not unknown and there have been several actual stalking incidents. All of these tend to demotivate.

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Well, in that case... in my case... it's just a matter of patience. I originally submitted a year ago, but not there yet. I see no reason why not though. There are similar sites already in the list, of poorer quality and content. So all I can say is, if my site WAS reviewed and rejected... I'd want to know why, as I can't understand why it should be based on your guidelines. So I have to assume it just takes an awfully long time....

But... I still don't see why a courtesy email can't be sent out when accepted/rejected anyway.

go2holidays said:

But... I still don't see why a courtesy email can't be sent out when accepted/rejected anyway.

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There is one very simple reason.
DMOZ does not have a proces where you can submit a website to be listed in the directory.
DMOZ only asks people to tell us about website they know that could be of interest to us and our users. It was not intended to suggest the person's own website, but websites a person encountered on the web.
We do not offer any service to people who suggest websites (they provide a service to DMOZ). As a result there can be no feedback on that service we do not offer.

The suggestions are just one of many sources an editor can use to build the category. He can decide to use this source or to not use it. It is all OK for us as long as the editor builds the directory following the DMOZ guidelines.

Aha! Thanks for that explanation.

Well, based on that I can understand why no email notification is sent out.

...That said though, I wonder whether it would be useful on the suggestion form to actually offer a check-box to tick if the suggester is the site owner, and in THAT situation provide an email notification. I know you're going to say 'no.... that's not how we do it'.... but....

:mellow:

You aren't the first to suggest such a check box but development resources from AOL (the only people who have code access) are limited. Even if we wanted to implement such a modification, it's unlikely to rise to the top of the heap any time soon. I'd much rather see back end enhancements to ease editing tasks.

go2holidays said:

...That said though, I wonder whether it would be useful on the suggestion form to actually offer a check-box to tick if the suggester is the site owner, and in THAT situation provide an email notification. I know you're going to say 'no.... that's not how we do it'.... but....

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That would be very usefull.
It would give me the option to skip all suggestions made by people for their own website.

go2holidays said:

I wonder whether it would be useful on the suggestion form to actually offer a check-box to tick if the suggester is the site owner

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If you look at it from an editor perspective, the fact that a submitter ticks on a check-box does not mean anything.

jimnoble said:

You aren't the first to suggest such a check box but development resources from AOL (the only people who have code access) are limited. Even if we wanted to implement such a modification, it's unlikely to rise to the top of the heap any time soon. I'd much rather see back end enhancements to ease editing tasks.

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B) OK.... no problem.

pvgool said:

That would be very usefull.
It would give me the option to skip all suggestions made by people for their own website.

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Well, yes, of course it would. That's entirely up to you how you 'view' the fact that someone suggests their own site.

But really, in many cases, why should it matter? I have no access to statistics but it would be interesting to know how many of the suggested sites are suggested by site owners, and how many are suggested by visitors of their site (a quick glance at this section of the forum gives the impression that most people posting here at least are those who have suggested their own sites... and interestingly the top 'pinned' thread regards getting 'your' site listed 4 times faster... giving the impression that it addresses those who 'own' a site :huh: ). But really I don't see any 'problem' with the owner of a site bringing it to the notice of DMOZ. Surely what matters is simply the quality of the site suggested? Whether or not it merits inclusion?

mauri said:

If you look at it from an editor perspective, the fact that a submitter ticks on a check-box does not mean anything.

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Well.... it could do. It depends.

Take the following scenario (which I find interesting in the light of the recommendation not to keep re-suggesting a site)...

A site owner suggests their new site. They begin to get a number of visitors who rather like the site, and who decide themselves to suggest it to DMOZ. In total 5 suggestions of the same site get made over the course of a month, one of which was by the owner.

Now, if DMOZ had a checkbox, and logged a count of the suggestions made for the same site, it would then be clear that the owner of the site had only suggested it once, and the multiple other suggestions were merely from different people recommending the same site. This would mean that it needn't keep being put to 'the end of the queue' for review (which I presume could happen?). After all, it really shouldn't be as the multiple suggestions are coming from different people.

...

But regarding this, I notice that an email address IS requested when a site is suggested - even if not much use if made of it (in terms of notification). I suppose the email address could be used as a means of identifying whether the same person is re-suggesting the same site, or whether these are multiple suggestions from different people.

I raise that point.... because Jim did mention that re-suggesting a site can be counter productive. I hope that if a site gets re-suggested by different people that it does NOT count against it.... as that could simply indicate that it is popular, and should in fact encourage listing, not discourage. Very popular sites might even get repeated, regular suggestions, which (if it kept putting the site to the 'bottom of the queue') could hold a site 'down' from ever getting listed, when it may well be one which should be, given the mass appreciation!! So... I have to assume (hope) that re-suggesting does NOT automatically place a site at the 'bottom of the queue' but that some notice IS taken of the email address entered by the suggester to notice that it is not a site owner who keeps pushing their own site, but in fact their audience.

I'd be interested to know a little more about what happens in those sort of circumstances?

You're now getting into the territory of how we detect spam and how we differentiate it from third party suggestions. For obvious reasons, it's not a topic that we'll discuss .

jimnoble said:

You're now getting into the territory of how we detect spam and how we differentiate it from third party suggestions. For obvious reasons, it's not a topic that we'll discuss .

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Oh well, if you editors are having to deal with so much spam and disreputable site owners, then it appears that any of my comments or questions will, as it were, fall on deaf ears.

I'm not seeking to do anything other than make the simple suggestion I did in my original post that providing some feedback of when a site is accepted or rejected would be helpful - and I still think it would be (whether it is an owner or a visitor of a site, it makes no difference, each provides their email address with their suggestion and each would be interested to know if and when it is accepted or rejected). But you've given your reasons why that isn't done, which is fair enough.

Kind regards

Oh well, if you editors are having to deal with so much spam and disreputable site owners ...

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You better believe it. In some 'popular' (ie profitable) categories such as travel and gambling, the spam level is so high that it's more efficient to ignore the pool of suggested websites and find suitable websites independently.

I won't work in such areas at all, finding it much more fun to build out Regional locality categories. As we probably said higher up this thread, editing is, after all, a hobby.

I raise that point.... because Jim did mention that re-suggesting a site can be counter productive. I hope that if a site gets re-suggested by different people that it does NOT count against it.... as that could simply indicate that it is popular, and should in fact encourage listing, not discourage. Very popular sites might even get repeated, regular suggestions, which (if it kept putting the site to the 'bottom of the queue') could hold a site 'down' from ever getting listed, when it may well be one which should be, given the mass appreciation!!

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There are a couple of clarifications I'd like to make.

The unreviewed section of a category has no real queue. The list or pool of sites there can be sorted a number of different ways, including by date the site was suggested. Yes, if a site is resuggested, the suggested date changes, which would put the site at the bottom of the pool if an editor were to sort the pool by date. However, few editors review sites by the suggested date. Even if an editor *were* to view the pool of sites sorted by date suggested, that doesn't in any way obligate them to review suggested sites in that order.

The best way to describe how editors work is "random". In that sense, multiple suggestions of a site in the manner you're describing would really have little to no effect on how long it would take for the site to be reviewed by an editor.

motsa said:

There are a couple of clarifications I'd like to make.

The unreviewed section of a category has no real queue. The list or pool of sites there can be sorted a number of different ways, including by date the site was suggested. Yes, if a site is resuggested, the suggested date changes, which would put the site at the bottom of the pool if an editor were to sort the pool by date. However, few editors review sites by the suggested date. Even if an editor *were* to view the pool of sites sorted by date suggested, that doesn't in any way obligate them to review suggested sites in that order.

The best way to describe how editors work is "random". In that sense, multiple suggestions of a site in the manner you're describing would really have little to no effect on how long it would take for the site to be reviewed by an editor.

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Thanks! That's a very help clarification. I appreciate it.