No, its OK, just have some patience!
No sign it was ever received. I assume you submitted it over a month ago and not yesterday?
Sorry, the site isn't borderline, it is as far from listable as it is possible to get. To get a listing you have to abide by our guidelines, not ask us to bend to yours. If you want a chance (no more than than) at a listing you have to include lots and lots of high quality original content that cannot be found elsewhere on the Internet, including in chat rooms (it is checked). Keep the links if you want but don't let them obscure the real content we are interested in seeing. Hope that helps some.
I have read the the guidelines, and beg to differ. My site's content are the debates on the various forums that I initiated, guided, and participated in. Therefore, please prove that the content of my debates is not original.
Guidelines are but guidelines. Guidelines are not set in stone, by definition, because they are created by the DMOZ community and upheld, through individual interpretation, by individual editors. Your assertion that "guidelines" are written in stone is erroneous and anchronistic.
Let me make sure I am interpretating you right before I blather: Are you suggesting that if I remove the "useless" affiliate links, such as the Amazon links, and write a description under to appear under the LOVE OF WISDOM title, which clearly outlines the idea of my website, then my chances of acceptance will increase?
Cheers.
Hmmm, philosophy commentators are rare birds. Check.
My page creates a new category altogether. If people "value" commentators, which they do, and if people value participation, which they do, then my site is a shoe-in for the Chats and Forums category. Check.
Titles of debates: The Wisest of Men (Plato), The Herd (Nietzsche), Madness and Civilization (Foucault), Return of Religions (Jacques Derrida), Do Women Feel Free? (Naomi Wolf). The titles of the debates provide contrasting views on the issues, because 1) my topics are trans-philosophy and 2) anyone can particpate in my debates. Check.
My debates are will eventualy be available on at least ten different forums; therefore, since my content has already passed two of the site submission criteria, and since forum members can not access my content from one forum, and since I want non-forum readers to find my debate, a new category should be created in Chats and Forums entitled: Commentator. Check.
True, I have a google ad at the beginning of my site and a good search at the bottom, but that fact does not earn my site the label 'full of affiliate links'. Check.
My site is certainly not this. I am simply not listing affiliate links to make money thanks! Please read my debates before you judge (and contribute if you want). Check.
Again, the Amazon links are for book reviews and the 'about this forum' and 'wikipedia' links are there to educate the reader. I think it is a nice touch for a webmaster to provide a bit of educational information his or her offered topic. Surely Wikipedia and and the 'about pages' of the various forums I debate on would be useful for pontential readers? Of course, as I said, a descriptive paragraph will be added at the start of the page, hence eliminating any link confusion that might occur. Check (Affiliate links with purpose DO NOT constitute useless information)
My site falls into none of these categories. Check.
Please follow your own guideline. While viewing my website eliminate all links but my "debate links" from your mind. Blueskyboris'
) Nope. Check.
Unless philosophy is illegal, nope. Check.
Nope, none of these. Check.
Nope. Check.
Nope. Check.
Nope. Check.
Why?
Actually, I disagree. Ontology is the study of being. When you create a directory you are saying "this is this", "that is that", "this goes here", and "that is definately NOT this". In short, you are studying the beingof various types of webpages and indexing them accordingly.
Not really. My website is a derivative of the Chat/Forum format and since I am having a hard time finding a "philosophy commentator" DMOZ section I think it is natural, both ontologically and taxonomically, to create a new category in Chats and Forums entitled "commentators". My format fits this hypothetical category perfectly and would attract others who also want to commentate.
First off, it is not simply a 'personal page'. If it was I would have pictures of my family, cats, and favorite things. I do not. It is a commentator's page, like a editorial section in a newspaper or magazine. The big difference being: other people can particpate in my "editorials".
My 'personal mission' is like that of any other commentator: they want their words on a subject to be heard.
What type of philosophical discussion is that?
This much of your counter-argument is true.
Not if I provide them with a clearly written mission statement placed directly after the LOVE OF WISDOM title column.
Again, if you point me toward the "philosophical commentator's" category I will submit gladly.
Let me reiterate: your guidelines are but guidelines. They are only there to keep the directory quality as high as possible, not to destroy the imagination of the DMOZ editorialship. Think about it. You are index a medium that is in its infancy. The Internet is still growing its ideas and body, just as a small child does. Therefore, DMOZ editors have to follow a community prescribed body of guidelines while keeping their minds open to new developments in the medium. Non-corporate freecommentator websites are one of these new developments and are a direct result of another major development of Internet ideas and technology: the burgeoning forum scene. Finally, I find it very ironic that a directory created by the people for the people is so ready to block the creation of what will be a vibrant new existential category: Chats and Forums based commentation.
You see it your way, we'll see it ours!
Personal pages fall into many different camps - there are many dealing with specific issues, others into political commentary, why not philosophical commentary.
You understand that there needs to be substantial improvement to stand a chance so please don't submit before. Submit to the nearest category you can find based on the improved content - no-one can guide you without seeing content. As it stands the site is unlistable everywhere in the Directory.
They are and they give a certain degree of discretion to editors. But your site is as far away from listable, as it stands, as it is possible to get and there is not a single editor who would list it, amongst the thousands who are active. Until we have a listable site that we can't classify other than by creating a new category, there will be no new category. It's that simple and I'm not sure of the value of continuing this debate - there is not a chance that the decisions made in this case will be reversed until there is a site containing its own high quality original content for us to reconsider. You develop your site concept your way, we'll develop our directory our way, that they are currently incompatible is not a problem for us, and since there are other ways of promoting websites, not a problem for you either.
You do not have to tell me this; I have a sufficient knowledge of democratic institutions to infer it from your communities' philosophy (mission statement: To build the largest human-edited directory on the web), and is why I am providing such detailed counter-arguments to your site-submission guidelines.
If that is how DMOZ sees guideline interpretation than I suggest you abandon the project, because a quality directory is nothing but interpretation! Which is, of course, a gross over-simplification of 'interpretation' and 'subjectivity' and a big, bad load of bullocks. You could not create a directory without an 'Objective' understanding of what people consider 'useful'. Your project would be completely impossible if your interpretation was fully based on subjectivity. In fact, your editor selection screening is proof that you organization does not adher to radical subjectivism.
If you are willing to create that category, okay, but I still think commentation on a specific subject, such as philosophy, taxonomically speaking, should be part of the directory that covers the subject (philosophy), and not part of an unrelated category such as "personal pages". Since my site is wholly dervived from Forums and Philosophy I see no reason not to create a category there. It makes better taxonomic sense, and since taxonomy is a subcategory of Logic, it makes better logical sense. But if you want to be illogical...
Yes.
Again, you respond to my arguments without directly dealing with my main point: my site has content created by me on many different forums. The content is there, but not on the site. Are you agruing that you expect potential readers of my site to search for my debates on 12 different forums? How inconvenient! I thought search engines were about the convenient indexing of content packed pages! So you have, in one unreflected upon action, barred normal people from indexing their debates so that non-forum members can access them. Great. The irony of a democratic institution making an undemocratic decision.
Excellent.
Again, why? I have made complex arguments against your guidelines being interpreted a certain way; perhaps it would be better if I stop guessing and you tell me why "affiliate" links are so horrible?
Because I have gained your attention through complex, content-filled argumentation.
Again, your argument is full of holes. You are attempting, in affiliation with the major search engines, to create a high-quality directory through democratic action. You are a gatekeeper, and as such you have a responsibility to be just to webmasters, who have no better access to exposure than a webdirectory.
OK, that explains a lot. You have some made some fundamental errors in your assumption of what we are and how we operate.
We list sites with content on them, that is the incompatibility. Other directories, and search engines, may take a different approach, each has its own sets of policies and guidelines. We aren't the one for you, someone else might be.
Fully one third of your "content" are links to a commercial site from which you gain financially. This is an "affiliate link". The remaining two thirds go to a chat forum that we already list. In effect, because your site has no content of its own, we are effectively giving additional, and unwarranted (in our eyes), additional links to the commercial site and the chat forum.
Because we, as a community, have determined, without any dissent whatsoever from the 50,000 editors have or currently edit, that we will not list sites full of affiliate links.
What a thoroughly silly statement. You are not in a position to reject anyone's right to be an editor. We, on the other hand are in a position to reject your suggestion for a listing, and also to remind you that this forum itself has rules of engagement that specifically prohibit this kind of argumentative stance on your part. Editors have been very patient but there is a limit - there are webmaster forums where I am sure your views on DMOZ listing policies will find favour and sympathy, this isn't one of them I'm afraid. Best of luck with your site.
My bad. I mistakenly used 'search engine' and 'directory' interchangeable. Look over the thread; it proves i know the difference.
Yes, but you are in affiliation with major search engines, such as Google, which means you provide their directories for free. But moreover, you are site run by non-paid human beings as opposed to lifeless indexing programs. The advantage to using your site, and in the long-term, and its eventual popularity is the fact that the quality is kept high by real people.
http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Philosophy/Chats_and_Forums/
So you are basically corporate?
You index sites that exists in cyberspace. Cyberspace is the greatest potential well of knowledge our species have ever created! Therefore, since you are a major gatekeeper as to who is listed and not listed, you have a moral responsibility, in relation to other people, to be just.
Fair enough.
So centralizing one's content on one website is completely out of the question on DMOZ? Becuase there IS content in the links.
But isn't my authorship of that content pertinent? Isn't the fact that I write on many different forums an issue? Again, website forums are becoming popular, and with that popularity comes change. Some posters are putting a great deal of thought and time into their posts and may want to list them on a website in the future.
That is a tautology and an argument ad populum. Please tell me why MY affiliate links are low-quality.
I can on epistemological-moral grounds, though not on political grounds.
I am thoroughly aware of DMOZ's guidelines and I must admit I am scratching my head in wonder over the fact that this thread has not be locked.
Cheers, but I will point out that you never directly dealt with my argument, which is highly disappointing.
I have made my arguments; it is your right to ignore them.
I am not laying 'horrific evils' at your doorstep. I am laying them at the doorstep of those who decide what the guidelines should be. Unthinking rejection of 'affiliate links' is a major contradiction latent in the current idea of rejecting all affiliate links no matter what.
Your pointing out that me submitting my site to DMOZ is 'self-serving' is ridiculous. What else would my submission be?
No, i reject your rejection of my site on the grounds that my content (the forums did not create it) is on sites already listed. DMOZ does not have a "blueskyboris Internet Infidels" page, a "blueskyboris Philosophy Forums" page, and so on and so on. You reject my site on the basis that it links to another site already in the directory, but that is not so, because my website has been created by me and many different sites. I do not see what is so wrong with me wanting to organize that CONTENTFUL work onto one page and have it listed on DMOZ.
As I said, these pages should be in the philosophy directory, as people search that directory for philosophy, not in the personal pages directory.
DMOZ's idea of "site" is real-world, marketroid lingo. There is no real 'site' on the internet other than the ideas expressed, and the ideas expressed consitute the content. Are you arguing that my debates are contentless?
I am sorry, but I consider 'content' crucial to a directory that claims to be creating the highest-quality directory on the net. If you can prove that the content gained from my debate links is 'contentless' or that my wanting to centralize my work is erroneous, then I am defeated; if not, i have a case.