Suggesting Web Timeframe

I volunteered to be an editor in a category I am close to, and have an interest in submitting a site to. No one there knows me from Adam, so I understand why I cannot be an editor in that arena. I suggested 3 sites, none of which were my own, when applying to be editor. They were completely relevant to the topic - and stock full of good user information regarding that topic...information that is currently not being found, but I have received tremendous amount of inquiry over the past year for. I have a PPC campaign and gained over 6000 customers last year to my site. I think that speaks for itself that I have a relevant site to a relevant topic, and yet I was refused editorship of that subject and no one is apparently editing that forum. In this instance, since I did prove my objectivity with site suggestions, why wouldn't the DMOZ accept my volunteering over not having an editor? I agreed in my submission to volunteer to manage and maintain a category, and proved I could do it objectively with my recommendations. If I refused a listing because they were competition, I could be "fired" from editing - couldn't I? I wouldn't refuse a relevant website. I think the category needs relevant links to enhance the users experience. I really dislike getting link farms in the top 10 of Google's listings. There's even a link to a government page in the #1 spot that has "No information currently available" when you click on it. Now - that relevant? Refusing help when it's offered seems illogical to me. What say you?

What say you?

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I say that there are many possible reasons for an editor application to be declined and these are usually given by email. Not knowing you from Adam, I can't comment on yours - not that we discuss the details of individual applications here anyway.

So far today, I've accepted 12 editor applications - and I don't know any of them from Adam either .

Refusing help when it's offered seems illogical to me.

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Not if there's a reason to believe that there's a reason that the offer wouldn't bring a net benefit to the project. I don't know anything about your application, but you would have received at least list of common reasons for rejection even if there were no specific reviewer comments. For example, there's a lot of guidelines and instructions for an editor to learn and follow when they first start. If an applicant shows that they can't even follow the smaller set of instructions for the application process, we may conclude that they'd be a drain on resources as other editors would need to be constantly checking up on them and mentoring them after they joined.

Unless you were specifically told otherwise, you are welcome to reapply, after you've worked out the reason for the rejection and done whatever is necessary to correct it. You see, being able to critically evaluate your own work, read and follow instructions, and accept constructive criticism from other editors are all important skills for an editor to have. Showing that you can learn from a rejected application is a good way of demonstrating that you possess them. ;-)

My 2 cents

It would be nice to at least see by category the backlog of the number of sites waiting to be reviewed and an estimated lead time if a site was submitted in that category today, when it might be reviewed. At least we would have some reasonable lead time expectation that we can see updated, say on a monthly basis for each category.

I have to suspect a lot of the backlog is sites that have been resubmitted just because there is no feedback and the FAQs do not set a reasonable expectation of the time required to review a submission.

I know the all volunteer editors have no free time, but some sort of acceptance or rejection email notification would be welcome by all. I am sure that could be automated fairly easily.

Just my opinion.

An "estimated lead time" is something that's impossible to give -- editors are not required to review sites that have been suggested at all, let alone in a specific timeframe. All that knowing the number of unreviewed sites in a particular category will tell you is now many unreviewed sites there are in that particular category. It won't tell you why there are unreviewed sites there (were they suggested by site owners? unreviewed automatically by quality checking tools? unreviewed by an editor? sent from other categories?). It can't tell you how long it will take before an editor takes an interest in the category and the sites suggested there, and it certainly gives no indication of whether or not and when that editor (or anyone else) will get around to reviewing your site specifically.

It's not as though editors are working methodically and systematically through a series of categories, reviewing every suggested sites in a FIFO order. Editors are ultimately working in what to all intents and purposes is a random manner, editing where they want and how much they want.