Suggestion for tracking tool.

There seems to be a fair amount of heat generated in this forum. Frustrated website publishers being a little too aggressive and Editors then being compelled to be a little too defensive. It doesn't really lead anywhere. I have read in a few places that useful suggestions will be better received than whiny or nasty complaints. So here is what I got.

I think without much trouble or added effort ODP could post a list of pending websites with the current status. The status is being tracked somewhere, so I cannot imagine it would be difficult to put it into a format that is appropriate for the public. Here is what I would envision it looking like:

• www.abc123.com submitted 10.10.07, awaiting review
• www.abc124.com submitted 01.01.01, rejected
• www.abc125.com submitted 02.02.02, moved from submitted category to
  category XYZ and awaiting review

Nothing fancy, just a glimpse as to what is going on with people's submissions.

Of course, as I have seen mentioned here repeatedly, you are not here for web publishers, but rather to build a directory for web surfers.

Understood. But what you do has an impact on web publishers and these same web publishers are often, like myself, really just web surfers who think they have something valuable to offer. So although it is not in your mission statement or part of the ultimate goal of ODP, it might just be a nice thing to do.

I think without much trouble or added effort ODP could post a list of pending websites with the current status. The status is being tracked somewhere, so I cannot imagine it would be difficult to put it into a format that is appropriate for the public.

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The idea has been suggested and considered many times before but, ultimately, it is always rejected.

I would, personally, like to see that happen, geoffandamy, and would have no objection to it, but, I think it's a matter of resource priorities, servers wise, .

> useful suggestions will be better received than whiny or nasty complaints
That is correct. IMHO not only here at R-Z but everywhere.

Could you explain what the use would be for:
1) DMOZ
2) the DMOZ editors
3) the users of DMOZ
4) the webmasters suggesting a website
As in all our discussions about this subject we could not find anything that would be usefull for any of them.

Ofcourse you are going to answer that webmasters would know the status of their suggestion. But what use will that have for them. Will they do things differently when they know their site is still waiting review or if they know it is rejected. Please try to explain as we never could find anything that they should do differently if they knew the status.

It's waste of time and effort. Speaking not from an editor perspective, but a site owner.

I know one directory that I submitted my site to in 2004, that offers that type of response. It was 'approved for listing' by one editor there soon after submission in 2004, I just checked because of your post, and it's still waiting for the second editor to list it.

Net use to me - none. Doesn't actually help to know, and if I was a spammer and knew it had been rejected, I'd know to try a different style oif site when aiming at that particular directory.

It's natural human 'want to know', but it really isn't useful information to an honest site owner.

You're right, gimmster. Now that I think about it, it's the "Are we there yet?" question. The answer then leads to other questions, "Why not?", When are we going to get there?", "Why's it take so long?".

If the site gets listed, it will be obvious, if it's waiting for review, we can't predict when, if, or how long it will be.

If it gets rejected, then the questions are "Why?", What's wrong with it?", "How can I fix it?", "Will you look at it again?", "When?", "Who is the editor?", "What did he say?", "Can I talk to him?".

It creates much more work, should we comply, slows down editing, doesn't satisfy the suggester, and slows the growth of the Directory, a lose-lose situation all the way round.

An automated system would avoid the answers to all these questions, geoffandamy, and your suggestion is a good idea on the surface, but, it would still create more questions than answers, in practicality, and I'm sypathetic to your view.

If the site is rejected, 99% chance is, the owner will resubmit.
That's lengthening the queue to the other sites that deserve review better.

Pvgool,

Well I can think of two things off the top of my head.

"At some point the submission status requests seem to have taken over and almost become the focus."

So officially you don't take the requests anymore. But I imagine that they still come in, and even if its just to push the delete button on you PMs, its still time editors spend dealing with such requests. A status listing would not cure this problem but hopefully it would help.

For the webmasters, it would at least assure them that the URL was submitted and accepted by the system, that they didn't make some mistake in their submission, like a URL typo, for example. If they know they were rejected, assuming that they are honest webmasters, they could re-look at the website, make changes and resubmit once they had corrected the problems.

When one thinks about that in terms of DMOZ, the above scenario would be a total victory. If the goal of DMOZ is to, in broad terms, make the end user, the surfer, have a better experience, what better evidence would there be than someone taking the information that their site was rejected and re-crafting it into something compliant. In terms of that website, DMOZ would have made a very positive impact for the web surfer.

Crowbar,

I may be wrong, but I would guess that the kind of questions that you described are already coming in on a regular basis. You probably ignore them now and would ignore them if a status list were published.

I can't speak for anyone else, but as a publisher of a small non-commercial site, I might not do anything different if I had the information, but just knowing, I submitted correctly, I had been rejected or not, etc. would at least be a warm fuzzy. And if you have the chance....what is wrong with giving out warm fuzzies?

> For the webmasters,
> it would at least assure them that the URL was submitted and accepted by the system,
You already know. An aknowledgement is shown on your screen after you made the suggestion.

> that they didn't make some mistake in their submission, like a URL typo, for example.
Just take more care when you fill in a form. In the few cases we get a typo a lot of times we are able to reconstruct the correct url based on title or emailadress.

> If they know they were rejected, assuming that they are honest webmasters, they could re-look at the website, make changes and resubmit once they had corrected the problems.
Why don't you make these changes without knowing the website is rejected.
In our experience there is no possibility to change a website in such a way that it becomes listable. (one exception: those people that suggest websites that are still under construction, agter they complete the website it could be listable, but why help these people that didn't follow our simple guidelines).
You can already know if a site is not listable before you suggest it, just read the guidelines.

> what better evidence would there be than someone taking the information that their site was rejected and re-crafting it into something compliant.
Totaly none. You should not create websites with the purpose to be included in DMOZ, you must create website for you and your visitors. In some cases these 2 don't match. Nothing wrong. Just not a type of site we want to list.

I still haven't seen any real reason to give status of suggested sites.

what is wrong with giving out warm fuzzies?

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Nothing but:-

1. Your suggestion provides no tangible benefit to anybody except the spammers trying to fine tune their strategies. Despite your desire for warm fuzzies, most of us see that as a downside, not a benefit.

2. We have very limited programming resources here. We strongly prefer to use them on things which improve directory quality and ease the editor's task. Warm fuzzies are not a priority.

>what better evidence would there be than someone taking the information that their site was rejected and re-crafting it into something compliant.

Let me emphasize: I've rejected tens of thousands of sites, and I could count the number of sites that (I THOUGHT) showed some evidence of being compliant, on my fingers. I wrote to some of those website developers, mentioning what might be done. I could count, on my THUMBS, the number of sites that had the necessary changes made.

THAT'S the voice of experience. There is no need to speculate about what webmasters might do. We KNOW what they DO. And there is no need for you to believe me. You can read thousands of archived status requests, and you can count the number of them that actually corresponded to your speculative case. And then you too can speak with the voice of experience: you won't need to speculate so wildly, and you will be back on speaking terms with reality.

And reality says: it would be insane to embark on elaborate development of processes and programs to handle a case that simply doesn't occur often enough to matter. We have problems that have occurred more frequently, by up to four or five MAGNITUDES -- THOSE are the problems we should be focussing on!

I can understand that is not the top priority. What if the programming skills and resources for putting such a list together were volunteered, so as not to drain the resources of DMOZ itself? Would that be viable?

And as far as spammers and other internet tricksters go, sophisticated ones have already found ways into the system, most likely even by exploiting DMOZ, we all wade through the evidence of that everyday. Please tell me if I am wrong but I assume that with a list or without they are and will continue to constantly try new means to 'crack' DMOZ.

PVGOOL,

I willingly and publicly concede that you will be able to find some negative angle in anything I suggest, so there really is no need to continue to demonstrate that ability.

I can understand that is not the top priority. What if the programming skills and resources for putting such a list together were volunteered, so as not to drain the resources of DMOZ itself? Would that be viable?

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Don't misunderstand -- lack of resources is not the primary reason why something like this hasn't been and likely won't be implemented. Yes, it is one considersation but elimination of that doesn't suddenly make the idea more desireable.

I assume that with a list or without they are and will continue to constantly try new means to 'crack' DMOZ.

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True, but why give more ammo?

As I mentioned before, this is a suggestion that has been made--and rejected--numerous times before.

I can understand that is not the top priority.

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Can you understand that it's not ANY kind of priority, any more?

We know what effect it has, and we aren't interested in having that effect.

Ok, well I will ask one more question. This idea has gotten shouted down pretty quick. What I was actually hoping for here is to make a suggestion, give my reasons, get other peoples opinions, and then perhaps have it turn into a productive discussion where maybe one of the guys in the know offers a viable counter suggestion which can be discussed, with the end goal maybe reaching common ground that can be implemented to make the DMOZ experience a little better. I am not married to the idea of this list, I am brainstorming with the hopes that our interaction might be productive. Is that type of discussion possible here?

One of the original goals of this board was to provide status checks. If it had worked out, we might have made automated status checks a priority. However, we learned that the only people status checks helped were the spammers and those trying to game the system.

We are not a listing service. We're a group of volunteers building a directory. People who complain that we don't give status checks or how long we take to list a site, almost invariable see us as a listing service. They are doomed to be dissatisfied since we never promised to be a listing service.

Is that type of discussion possible here?

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About topics that have already been discussed to death here numerous times, probably not.

About a new topic, maybe.

Please bear in mind that ODP is not providing a service to website owners and that the stakeholders (the editors and AOL staff) already have considerable internal dialogue.

That you are not a listing service and that you are not providing a service to website owners is clear.

i only suggest that, perhaps, what I see as the real goal of DMOZ, to provide a tool that allows internet users to use the internet to access the info they want without being buried in BS and spam, is probably the goal of many of the honest website owners out there as well. I can't speak for everyone but I know for example in my case, people entering keywords that could lead to me, must first sift through hundreds of spam and porn sites; that is frustrating as a webmaster and a websurfer.

So please don't take this as mindless complaining, in theory I think the ODP is a good idea, and I am confident that if editors and honest website owners work together ideas can be raised that benefit the end users, the directory and the honest website owners at the same time.

It will just take a little open-mindedness and maybe a step back from the sense of 'us vs. them' that I feel is present, at least to some degree, here...

geoffandamy said:

I willingly and publicly concede that you will be able to find some negative angle in anything I suggest, so there really is no need to continue to demonstrate that ability.

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Just the opposite. I am trying to find out why you think there are positive aspects about giving status reports. I am still waiting for answers on my initial question

Could you explain what the use/benefit would be for:
1) DMOZ
2) the DMOZ editors
3) the users of DMOZ
4) the webmasters suggesting a website
As in all our discussions about this subject we could not find anything that would be usefull for any of them.

I'll give a start as I see the answers
1) totaly no benefit, we need to spend a lot of limited programming power to build it and a lot of computer capacity to answer all teh request that will be made (experience here at R-Z have shown that people seem to think they have to look for status everyday)
2) no benefit at all, although you seem to think that we are in some way hindered by the few requests we are still getting. My guess (based on previous experience here at R-Z) is that we will get more messages because people are going to ask things like "why was it rejected", "you made a mistake, my site is the best", "the editor must be my compititor and for that reason rejected my site"
3) no benefit at all, they only care about the sites listed and if they can find what they need
4) many people seem to think that knowing a site is rejected is a benefit as they can start to change the site to make it listable. these people (you inlcuded) must first answer these questions:
- why did you build the website? for your visitors or for DMOZ
- why didn't you make those changes without knowing if your site was rejected by DMOZ? if the changes are usefull for your site, you or your visitors they should always be made. being minimalistic won't make your site a success, you (and only you) will have to work hard

So in my opinion there are no benefits at all for such a tracking tool.
Please show me that I am wrong.

I think you're one of the few who actually "gets it", geoffandamy, and your tone and attitude have stayed very reasonable in this thread.

It will just take a little open-mindedness and maybe a step back from the sense of 'us vs. them' that I feel is present, at least to some degree, here...

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I'm afraid that's true. Even the kindest hearted of us soon become a little jaded after hearing the same types of questions over and over, and certain phrases trigger an automatic understanding of where the poster is coming from and where it's leading to, and trigger a less than friendly sounding statement of facts from us.

I'm very aware of that fault in myself and I'm trying to correct it.

Having been one myself, I have no animosity and great sympathy for honest website owners and webmasters who aren't trying to work the system for themselves or their clients, but it's very difficult to know who they are.

As far as keywords, or any kind of search goes, the ODP only collects a pile of information, and sorts and organizes it in a way that benefits the whole Directory, and makes the whole shebang freely available for anyone who wants to use it. That's all we do.

How the downstream users of the information use it, like search engines, is of no interest to us, and isn't any kind of consideration at all. In other words, we have no input about it, and we don't tailor the Directory to their needs. We're a seperate entity.

To improve the chances of getting a site suggestion listed faster, submit it to the correct category, and go to the trouble of writing the kind of title and description that we want by reading our Guidelines, and checking the title/descriptions of existing listings in that particular category for clues to what we want. Doing this greatly increases your chances of being noticed.

For a professional webmaster, submitting client sites, it has an even greater chance for success.

I've run across two webmasters, one that specialized in car dealerships, and one that specialized in real estate sites. Both of them took the time to submit all site suggestions with proper titles and descriptions, which made my job much easier. A quick check of the site, and they were listed, not all of them because there were some mirrors in there that had to be deleted, but most of them.

I got so I always checked those two types of categories first, looking for those compliant site suggestions, which were quickly and easily dealt with, as are most site update requests we get, also.

As a Regional editor, I would say that at least 50% of all site suggestions, and perhaps more, have to be moved to the correct category. Sometimes, it's just that the suggester didn't understand where to submit it, but, most of the time it's deliberate because they want what they think is maximum exposure by being listed in a larger city or at the state level, which is a false assumption.

So, submitting to the correct category also greatly increases the chances of a possible inclusion in the Directory, and decreases the amount of time we spend doing that chore.

These are solid suggestions I can give you to speed up the whole process, .