The process is very counter-intuitive.

From my understanding of policies:

- You do not receive an email if you have been rejected.

- You do not receive an email if you have been accepted.

- Re-submitting an entry does not help your chances of becoming accepted; furthermore, it may actually hurt them.

So my question is, how is someone supposed to approach this? We have no way of knowing whether or not our site was rejected, which means that if we go by the "wait forever" policy, we may be waiting for nothing. The site may already be rejected and now the person has no knowledge of this and can't improve his suggestion.

My suggestions:

- Let people know if they have been rejected. No need to even go into detail about why they were rejected. Just let them know if they've been rejected.

- Let people know if they've been accepted. Search results don't appear instantly and you would have to visit the same directory page over and over again to find out if you've been listed.

Basically, make it a more transparent and open process.

And one more thing (sorry for the double post). I understand that using any methodology to accept or deny suggestions other than the objective application of your guidelines is considered abuse. That all actions are logged and abuse is handled by removing the abusive editor. My questions is: how do you log inaction? If an editor sees a suggestion that could possibly conflict with his or her personal interests, he can simply ignore it. This can be justified by saying that it is a volunteer job and the person is simply working on their own time. Can you see the potential for abuse here? Because of the huge backlog of sites, one does not necessarily need to take any specific action against a site to negatively impact it in a subjective and personal matter.

You can already self check whether or not your website is listable. Generally, a website owner knows that his website is still heavily under construction, contains no unique content or is using an unacceptable business model. Apart from the UC issue, there's generally not a lot he can do to correct the situation.

A suggested website is in one of these states.

- Listed. Check by using our search for the URL (eg mysite.com) - nothing for you to do.
- Declined as unlistable. Check as described above. Nothing for you to do.
- Pending evaluation. Nothing for you to do.

See? it makes no difference whether or not you know your site's status.

Had you thought that we might be besieged by spammers and that some of our policies are informed by this?

Around 200 of us can edit anywhere we choose - and we do. The inaction of one editor is not abuse.

Apolladan said:

From my understanding of policies:
- You do not receive an email if you have been rejected.
- You do not receive an email if you have been accepted.
- Re-submitting an entry does not help your chances of becoming accepted; furthermore, it may actually hurt them.

Click to expand...

Your understandings are correct.

So my question is, how is someone supposed to approach this? We have no way of knowing whether or not our site was rejected, which means that if we go by the "wait forever" policy, we may be waiting for nothing.

Click to expand...

The "waiting" is always for nothing. Even when you would know what the status of a suggestion is.

The site may already be rejected and now the person has no knowledge of this and can't improve his suggestion.

Click to expand...

Rejections are not done because of "bad suggestions", editors just improve such a suggestion.
Websites are rejected for one reason only. The content of the website is not the type DMOZ wants to list. There is nothing that can be changed about such a website to make it listable.
That is why there is no need to wait. A website is ether listable or it is not.

jimnoble said:

Had you thought that we might be besieged by spammers and that some of our policies are informed by this?

Around 200 of us can edit anywhere we choose - and we do. The inaction of one editor is not abuse.

Click to expand...

Right, but I doubt any editor except the category editor for aesthetic medicine, for example, will ever consider contributing to the listings there. There are millions of sites in the backlog, and only a couple hundred that can "edit anywhere." The brunt of the responsibility falls upon the individual category editors, who may come across a website that conflicts with their personal interests, and ignore it, thereby restraining it to the "pending evaluation" category.

I doubt any editor except the category editor for aesthetic medicine, for example, will ever consider contributing to the listings there.

Click to expand...

I reviewed the editing logs of a couple of it's subcategories, and ... the historical record says you're 100% wrong. Not only some, but ALL the edits shown on the current logs, were done by editors who were NOT the category editor.

It's always nice to be able to clear up misapprehensions with cold hard facts.

The brunt of the responsibility falls upon the individual category editors...

Click to expand...

Actually, no on several levels. Firstly, there's no responsibility and secondly, the bulk of the work is done by more senior editors. We have around a million categories and only around 5000 editors so only a small proportion of categories have named editors. Think Pareto in spades.

...who may come across a website that conflicts with their personal interests, and ignore it, thereby restraining it to the "pending evaluation" category.

Click to expand...

Is that what you'd do? If not, why accuse others of doing so?

Apolladan said:

The brunt of the responsibility falls upon the individual category editors, who may come across a website that conflicts with their personal interests, and ignore it, thereby restraining it to the "pending evaluation" category.

Click to expand...

Let's assume that you are right. What might be happening.

1) We many times hear things like "The editor is giving his own site an advantage by not listing my website." This ofcourse is based on the wrong assumption that a listing in DMOZ would give you a big advantage, which is known to be not true but the myth keeps living on. If the editor wants to give his website a imaginary advantage he would have to block all other websites from DMOZ for this subject. That is easely to see and would be abuse. But if the editor is listing several other websites this "advantage" is gone. So if the editor lists websites it can't be abuse, it just happens that your website is not listed yet.

2) An other option would be that an editor would have a personal grudge against you. How likely do you think this is in an international environement like DMOZ.

I do not say that there haven't been editors who tried to abuse the system in favor of their won websites but it the numbers are very low and it is impossible to hide such behaviour. They always will be caught and their wrong doings will be corrected. The majority of all accusations are clearly wrong and look more like paranoia. DMOZ does not provide a service to webmasters to list their websites but we certainly also do no have a hidden agenda to bother or to bully any webmaster.

jimnoble said:

Is that what you'd do? If not, why accuse others of doing so?

Click to expand...

Me? Personally? No, I wouldn't. I also don't commit crimes or fraud in real life, but there are plenty of people who do. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that there is a small percentage of DMOZ editors that operate to their personal benefit.

As for pvgool's comment, ("If the editor wants to give his website a imaginary advantage he would have to block all other websites from DMOZ for this subject") he is operating under the assumption that geography does not enter into the equation. If a DMOZ editor was in charge of a non-regional category where 100% of revenue comes from physical walk-ins (as is the case with many categories), all he would have to do to hide his corruption would be to accept other sites based in different regions, and ignore the requests from his own region. Are you telling me that this is an impossibility? Furthermore, if it is a possibility, would such specific and directed inaction be scrutinized and discovered as to warrant removal of the editor?

As I said earlier, failure to process a website is not abuse. Declining a website without a valid reason is.

Apolladan said:

As for pvgool's comment, ("If the editor wants to give his website a imaginary advantage he would have to block all other websites from DMOZ for this subject") he is operating under the assumption that geography does not enter into the equation. If a DMOZ editor was in charge of a non-regional category where 100% of revenue comes from physical walk-ins (as is the case with many categories), all he would have to do to hide his corruption would be to accept other sites based in different regions, and ignore the requests from his own region. Are you telling me that this is an impossibility? Furthermore, if it is a possibility, would such specific and directed inaction be scrutinized and discovered as to warrant removal of the editor?

Click to expand...

If geography is relevant for a website than it will be listed in http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/
A listing wil be done based on the city (or cities) the company is located in.
In such a category only websites from companies located in that city will be listed.
Which means that your assumption is impossible.

Outside Regional the geography is not relevant for categorization.
Except sometimes on the lowest levels of the category structure when a division by country (and states for USA) is possible. But such a subdivision is only done when no other subdivision is possible. The division is not done because of geographical relevance but because of the fact that otherwise the mother category would become to big.

jimnoble said:

As I said earlier, failure to process a website is not abuse. Declining a website without a valid reason is.

Click to expand...

Looking at a website, deciding that it conflicts with your personal interests, then indefinitely leaving a website into the unprocessed backlog without accepting or declining it is the same thing as declining it without a valid reason, except the action is not monitored or vetted by any editors.

pvgool said:

If geography is relevant for a website than it will be listed in http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/
A listing wil be done based on the city (or cities) the company is located in.
In such a category only websites from companies located in that city will be listed.
Which means that your assumption is impossible.

Outside Regional the geography is not relevant for categorization.
Except sometimes on the lowest levels of the category structure when a division by country (and states for USA) is possible. But such a subdivision is only done when no other subdivision is possible. The division is not done because of geographical relevance but because of the fact that otherwise the mother category would become to big.

Click to expand...

Absolutely wrong.

http://www.dmoz.org/Health/Medicine/Medical_Specialties/Aesthetic_Medicine/Physicians_and_Clinics/United_States/

These are clinics that get virtually all of their customers from the region in which they are located, yet they do not fall under the regional category.

Looking at a website, deciding that it conflicts with your personal interests, then indefinitely leaving a website into the unprocessed backlog without accepting or declining it is the same thing as declining it without a valid reason...

Click to expand...

Wrong. Some other editor will pass by eventually.

except the action is not monitored or vetted by any editors.

Click to expand...

Wrong again. Editors are monitored. Not in a Big Brother way, but they are monitored. Everything is logged here by the way.

Absolutely wrong.
Health/Medicine/Medical_Specialties/Aesthetic_Medicine/Physicians_and_Clinics/United_States/
These are clinics that get virtually all of their customers from the region in which they are located, yet they do not fall under the regional category.

Click to expand...

Wrong indeed. That's a Topical category that happens to have been subdivided by country as described by pvgool above. A clinic based in Topeka can additionally be listed in Regional/North_America/United_States/Kansas/Localities/T/Topeka/Health.

Much of this thread seems to be based upon misunderstandings of what we're about, misunderstandings of our motives and, sadly, misunderstandings of our explanations.

Bottom line is that we've been running this directory as a hobby for over a decade now and providing a service to our downstream data users. We do not attempt to provide a service to website owners - which is what you seem to be expecting. Nothing's perfect but we do our practicable best.

jimnoble said:

Wrong. Some other editor will pass by eventually.



Wrong again. Editors are monitored. Not in a Big Brother way, but they are monitored. Everything is logged here by the way.



Wrong indeed. That's a Topical category that happens to have been subdivided by country as described by pvgool above. A clinic based in Topeka can additionally be listed in Regional/North_America/United_States/Kansas/Localities/T/Topeka/Health.

Much of this thread seems to be based upon misunderstandings of what we're about, misunderstandings of our motives and, sadly, misunderstandings of our explanations.

Bottom line is that we've been running this directory as a hobby for over a decade now and providing a service to our downstream data users. We do not attempt to provide a service to website owners - which is what you seem to be expecting. Nothing's perfect but we do our practicable best.

Click to expand...

Bottom line is that I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall with Asperger's syndrome. You have not acknowledged a single point I've made. Instead you've ignored them, picked out a specific sentence out of context, then responded to that. You constantly use straw-man arguments.

For example:

"Wrong again. Editors are monitored."

I never made the statement that editors are not monitored.

"That's a Topical category that happens to have been subdivided by country as described by pvgool above."

Semantics. It doesn't disprove my point whatsoever. That business with a dependence on regional customers can be listed in categories that do not strictly fall under a regional category.

Anyway, I think the problem is mostly with your attitude. You claim not to provide a service to website owners, but that's exactly what DMOZ is. It is a directory. A directory serves to promote businesses, and to provide people with a listing of businesses should they need the services of one. Not to entertain people. Do you think AOL keeps the website running to support the "hobby" of editing categories? I think DMOZ was originally intended to be what Google is now, except it failed because the listings are handled manually by people instead of being processed by servers and algorithms. Now all that's left is an outdated philosophy and a couple thousand anal-retentive and cult-like "volunteers" who stick to the party line at the expense of the very people that use this website (business owners and customers). No one comes to DMOZ for information anymore. Take a step back and try to disillusion yourselves a little bit. Understand why you are relevant in 2011, and try to improve. Never think for one second that you are operating on someone else's dime for your own amusement. At the very core you are offering a service, and once that service becomes corrupt, slow, unwieldy, and impracticable, you are gone.

as jimnoble already wrote

"Much of this thread seems to be based upon misunderstandings of what we're about, misunderstandings of our motives and, sadly, misunderstandings of our explanations."


If you are not willing to accept what we are and what we do than there is nothing more to discuss.

If you are not willing to accept what we are and what we do than there is nothing more to discuss.

Click to expand...

Indeed. Closing. Please don't start a related thread.