Ticket site submission policies

>> What makes a site "listable"? <<

Unlistable means it is the type of site that we do not list.

Other examples of unlistable sites: for a directory about art, a site about hotel reservations would be "unlistable". It may be a great hotels site, but in the current context it would be "unlistable".

Nothing is implied about the quality of the site, or of the business, or of the operator, or of the merchandise. It is just "unlistable".

>> What makes a site "listable"? <<

A site that makes an editor go "Wow!!!" has a head start.

I recently listed a Chukchi-Eskimo Ensemble ( it even had audio clips of Chukchi songs! ). As the main site covered regional aspects (eg visa-free travel for natives between Russia and the USA) I also suggested it to the relevant regional categories in English and Russian. There are many such unique sites to be added to the ODP.

There are many more mundane sites that could be listed in the ODP but Reality intervenes as there are x000000 such websites (and growing). Reality also states that business type sites are less likely to 'wow' volunteers than say a Nepalese Folk Dance site. Practically the main reason why a suggested site is not listed is that it has not been reviewed yet.

The question also has an element of 'how long is a piece of string' to it, the only answer is 'it depends'.

regards

Thanks for everyone's replies .. I'm interested in hearing different editors opinions. If you would willing to offer your suggestions as to what about a ticket brokerage site would make it more unique & "viewer valuable" and stand out in your eyes it would be appreciated.

Zoot

as to what about a ... site would make it more unique & "viewer valuable" and stand out in your eyes

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Um.. a self-defeating question. For example were I to suggest adding a video clip of khanty mansi as being of prime importance, every webmaster would be scouring the internet for one, stuffing it somewhere on their site, and it would not be unique at all (and of course they would all demand a listing...).

Most editors have a good understanding of the pressures/difficulties that genuine people face when trying to earn a living on the internet and are reasonably sympathetic. However that sympathy does not extend to promoting any one particular business over others, spending hours battling the spam or effectively working for other people.

We have to (in self-defence) maintain our individual reasons for being part of the ODP, otherwise we would end up on a treadmill of drudgery. We pursue something that is a hobby to us and hope that our efforts contribute something positive to the rest of the world.

As you might gather I enjoy hunting out folk-dance sites, other editors have their own rationale for doing what they do and overall these have nothing to do with commercial interests. Ideally the net result of a large number of people each 'doing what they want to do' within a set of guidelines adds up to a representative directory of what surfers in general would find interesting. [This is of course totally different from what commercial interests would want people to find interesting... ]

The question you pose is, therefore, on another subject altogether which relates to the success or otherwise of your site. If there was a 'magic formula' for businesses on the website, we don't know it. To answer your question, you need to be getting the opinions of your customers.

The only thing an editor cares about is the 'uniqueness' of the information - not how well or badly it is presented ( there is at least one site I listed that is indelibly burned into my retinas). If the site has it, then it is only a question of when an editor will review the site.

regards

"Value" is such a nebulous term when you get away from cold cash (and we stay away from that.)

It's "unique content." What information do you have that nobody else in the world has?

For a business site, that's basically an answer to "who are you, and what would you do for money?"

That should be the primary purpose of the site. (One of our family doctors had a website -- I usually ask when I visit a professional. OK, so was the site listable? No, it wasn't, because it wasn't about him and what he would do for money. Instead, it was focussed on affiliate sales of nutritional supplements. One auto mechanic had a site, but it was nothing but contact information that would have fit on a business card.)

My interest is in promoting small to medium sized Minnesota towns in which I've lived in or around. I have a genuine passion for these towns and their people. The sites I've found and reviewed, generally have poor design and the content is lacking; however I feel they should be included in my particular category because these sites (and my community) have such a small visibility to the greater internet population and even in their own small community. What keeps me ticking is searching for that business or organization that deserves to be seen on the internet by being included in the ODP, regardless of how much money they can spend on a site and its marketing. I love my hometown and my category shows it. (or at least I hope it does!)

I think that there is a fundamental miscommunication about what is unique content. You've asked how a ticket broker could offer unique content. They can. But to understand how, you need to focus on "unique" being "one of a kind" - something no one else offers.

Consider a ticket to hutcheson's Southern North Dakota Symphony for tonight (6/23/06), Section 1, Row B, Seat 3.

Someone buys the ticket, and then enters it into the database. Immediately, hundreds (thousands?) of websites can offer that ticket. It is not unique to any one site. Someone who wants that ticket can go to many, many places to get it. Why is it helpful to the user for us to list thousands of sites that are all offering only this Section 1, Row B, Seat 3 ticket?

The answer is that it's not particularly helpful at all. I know I don't want to click on 20, or 200, or 2,000 sites only to find the same ticket for sale on all of them. What a colossal waste of my time.

Now, consider another ticket broker, who buys the seat at Section 1, Row B, Seat 4. This broker keeps the ticket in his hot little hands, and doesn't enter it into any shared database. It's only available from his business and his website.

That's unique. If I want to sit in Section 1, Row B, Seat 4 tonight, I have to go to him, and no one else. If he has a bunch of tickets that he - and only he - can offer, then we have a very good reason to list his site.

The problem is not that a company offers a database (lots of listable companies use the same back-end software), but that the database contents are shared, and that all the members are offering exactly the same products. This isn't even a case of very similar, almost identical, products, such as 2 copies of the same book, or 2 different tickets to the same performance. It's not a case where one company might be out of inventory, but another might have it. Every client of the database company can offer me Section 1, Row B, Seat 3. But none of them can offer the neighboring Seat 4. And when Seat 3 is sold, none of them can offer me anything at all. But the lone guy with Seat 4 could.

From our perspective, the database clients are all offering exactly the same product. If the database clients had one listing in our directory, and the other broker had one listing, a surfer could find the two available tickets in just 2 clicks, instead of hundreds or thousands. Our hope is that he could find all the available tickets (note: not necessarily ticket sellers), and still actually have time to get to the symphony...

We have decided that it is not in the directory's best interest, or the best interests of our users, to list hundreds or thousands of companies offering exactly the same product. That's not going to change anytime soon.

The database company stands to benefit (from increased sales through their database) by making a list of the businesses that use their site; we do not, and our users (the websurfers) do not. If the database company - or an association of their clients (that's you, by the way, hint, hint) - wishes to make a directory of agencies to help increase sales, that's fine with us. You (or any other company) can do whatever you wish with your own sites to market yourselves.

It is not our purpose to market anyone's business. We exist to help surfers find unique content. If some businesses benefit from our listings, that's entirely a side effect of our users benefitting from the unique content they provide, and our listing of the site. It's nice for everyone concerned, but it's not our raison d'être.

You may have an excellent site (I have no idea). If you do, and if you focus on useful marketing/promotional strategies, you will probably get lots of business. If the only content you have is from a shared database, I'd think twice about making Dmoz an important part of your marketing strategy, since it will not likely be listed. But I'd say the same to almost any business. There are plenty of other, more productive, ways to promote yourself. I'd focus on those.

Eric,
Thanks very much for your comments on this matter. Its appreciated.

hutcheson said:

"Value" is such a nebulous term when you get away from cold cash (and we stay away from that.)

It's "unique content." What information do you have that nobody else in the world has?

For a business site, that's basically an answer to "who are you, and what would you do for money?"

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Those things are addressed in the above replies. Not sure what else I can add.

That should be the primary purpose of the site. (One of our family doctors had a website -- I usually ask when I visit a professional. OK, so was the site listable? No, it wasn't, because it wasn't about him and what he would do for money. Instead, it was focussed on affiliate sales of nutritional supplements. One auto mechanic had a site, but it was nothing but contact information that would have fit on a business card.)

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Once again .. just about everything is above in reply. All I can add is that my site is much more than a feed to my customers and the site will continue to grow with show reviews ect ( which if I understand correctly won't matter in regard to listing because others will have posted reviews rendering mine not unique and of no value. )

Thanks for the response.

For a business site, that's basically an answer to >>"who are you, and what would you do for money?"

>>Those things are addressed in the above replies. Not sure what else I can add.

I'm not sure that was addressed in enough gory detail to make a website. But -- and this is the important point -- addressing it HERE won't help the website. The website is the best testimony to its contents, we accept no substitutes! It is the website that needs to give unique information.

Brill said:

My interest is in promoting small to medium sized Minnesota towns in which I've lived in or around. I have a genuine passion for these towns and their people. The sites I've found and reviewed, generally have poor design and the content is lacking; however I feel they should be included in my particular category because these sites (and my community) have such a small visibility to the greater internet population and even in their own small community. What keeps me ticking is searching for that business or organization that deserves to be seen on the internet by being included in the ODP, regardless of how much money they can spend on a site and its marketing. I love my hometown and my category shows it. (or at least I hope it does!)

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Thanks for the reply ... all I can add in reponse is that all ticket sites aren't alike. They are individual to those building them, running them and what they bring to the business in terms of service. ( Obviously this doesn't apply to the cookie cutter templates ( exact same as a 1000 others ) "They" are not unique in the least ( most set up by people who just reg a ticket name, sign up as an affiliate and think that constitues a business.. and I can totally understand them not being listed.

My opinion of the current tickets directories is that they do not reflect the US market well ... there is an abundence of UK/European sites ( why would someone in the US buy tickets from a brokerage in London to a Mets game? ) ... and sites that don't offer people a full selection ( sports, theater, concerts, ect ) of tickets or packages. Therefore they don't see the surfer well if they cant find what they need.

Again thanks for the example ...

izoot said:

My opinion of the current tickets directories is that they do not reflect the US market well ... there is an abundence of UK/European sites ( why would someone in the US buy tickets from a brokerage in London to a Mets game? )

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DMOZ is not focused on the USA. Neither is the ticket category. It is for sites from all over the world.

izoot said:

... and sites that don't offer people a full selection ( sports, theater, concerts, ect ) of tickets or packages. Therefore they don't see the surfer well if they cant find what they need.

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We don't force sites to sell tickets for all kind of events. Why else do you think that we have a special subcategory for sites only selling tickets for music events Shopping/Entertainment/Tickets/Music/

What all sites that are listed have in common is the fact that they sell their own stock of tickets.
From http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Entertainment/Tickets/desc.html

Please do not submit affiliate and reseller sites. We will not accept sites that are resellers of other sites selling the same tickets (e.g. Eventinventory.com, Brokertix.com, Razorgator.com, TicketsNow.com, TicketsUS.com, etc.) Sites that exist solely to drive traffic to another site's central ordering system for the purpose of commission sales are considered mirror sites, and the ODP does not list these sites. Thanks for your cooperation.

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Do you sell ticktes as a reseller? From what you have written yourself I think the answer is Yes. If that is the case the site is not listable in DMOZ. Nothing you can change on the site or you can try to explain here at R-Z to make it listable.
The fact that DMOZ will not list certain types of sites does say nothing about the value and quality of the site or of the business that owns the site. It just means that DMOZ won't list that kind of site.

The cookie cutter sites may not bring anything to the business. They may not say anything about the web builder or web maintainer.

This is not a defect at all. This is a feature. Freed from idiosyncratic obsession to inconsequential details, people who use templates can focus on providing unique content for the surfer. (If, that is, of course, if they have any, which is not invariably the case. But ... how is that different from idiosyncratic websites? Not at all. Of course.)

The problem is not template websites. The problem was never template websites. The future of the web will involve greater use of templates, at even deeper levels of abstraction.

I'd be happy to list many more websites created by people using the exact same page layout and database design -- so long as each database content featured their own idiosyncratic knowledge. Because generally, the kind people that have taken time to learn something worth communicating, aren't the kind of people who want to waste time performing the mundane and menial tasks of building and maintaining a website. Division of labor is a wonderful concept; every system involving widely variable tasks should support it. On the webs, one of the most important conceptual divisions of labor is between content generation and page layout -- that is, templates.

Consider another example: used bookstores. Every store has a different inventory. For remote-ordering, abebooks is the only way to go. It's just a searchable database. Template? In this case, who needs a template, because WHO NEEDS TWO COPIES OF THE WEBSITE ANYWAY? Think of it, if you like, as a "sui generis template instance."

Every bookstore has its own inventory, and PROVIDES unique content (its own stock of books.) That's a real service to the consumer. These bookstores may not offer their own online ordering, and why should they? abebooks.com offers a "form" (template) that serves the purpose just as well.

Online consumers are best served by going to abebooks.com directly, rather than by an ODP list of several thousand stores, each with its own subset of the abebooks database an its own copy of the abebooks ordering template. (And, obviously, the template is a BIG improvement over several thousand inconsequential but irritating handcoded variations on the same five steps of the order process!)

So, what (if any) place does a bookstore website serve? None at all, for online orders. But a bookstore may also be an important cultural and economic part of a local community. Abebooks.com cannot express that aspect, and so many bookstores have their own websites featuring what they are, and what they do (mostly for money, of course, but sometimes not), so we happily list bookstore websites in locality categories -- IF they have some significant information about their local activities.

A totally different business model was created, last millenium, by VStore: provide a product feed, hide it from the public, let affiliates build sites (handrolled or template: it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever(*)) showing all or part of the feed. There is no approach more antithetical to the ODP spirit. Even if vstore's catalog was entirely comprised of products available nowhere else, and even if all of its affiliates added other products to the VStore feed in their own websites, VStore would remain under the closest thing to an eternal ban that the ODP community can manage.

(*) Footnote. I said it makes no difference. It really does make a difference. The "template-driven" site gives MORE information than the hand-rolled site -- the template layout signals to all visitors that it's an affiliate site: an extremely important fact that hand-rolled sites conceal. To surfers, that is important information; to editors, it is extremely VALUABLE information! And the editors wonder: is that concealment accidental, or maliciously intended?

So, in addition to all the other merits of template sites in general, in the affiliate world the easily-detectable template sites are (and ought to be) treated with MUCH more sympathy than the intentionally-or-unintentionally-deceptive hand-rolled sites.

(*) Footnote. I said it makes no difference. It really does make a difference. The "template-driven" site gives MORE information than the hand-rolled site -- the template layout signals to all visitors that it's an affiliate site: an extremely important fact that hand-rolled sites conceal. To surfers, that is important information; to editors, it is extremely VALUABLE information! And the editors wonder: is that concealment accidental, or maliciously intended?

So, in addition to all the other merits of template sites in general, in the affiliate world the easily-detectable template sites are (and ought to be) treated with MUCH more sympathy than the intentionally-or-unintentionally-deceptive hand-rolled sites

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Well, I think this pretty much concludes any kind of conversation. You think more highly of assembly line template sites and your belief that a site that uses a feed to be better able to serve their customers present and future are being "deceptive". You may not think this an offensive thing to imply about everyone ... but it is.

No offense ... but you really don't know as much about the ticket business as you would like to think. Theres much much more to it than you think and imply with your analogies ... you leave no room for discussion. And honestly, rather than someone that is interested in provided the best access to info for surfers you sound like someone that has somewhere along the way been burned by someone. Its a shame that people that do their best to provide good service, prices, experiences ect are being penalized for that. Not everyone or every business is alike. I could be completely wrong ... but thats how it comes off.

I'll leave this conversation here as I can't think where else that it can go and sincerely thank you very much for the time that you and everyone has put into this thread.

While I don't agree with some of the rationale being used ... it was very informative. Its also reminds me of a saying by Groucho Marx “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” . This club seems to be a bit too elitest for the likes of a "deceptive" person like me that would dare use a feed to serve his customers better.

This club seems to be a bit too elitest for the likes of a "deceptive" person like me that would dare use a feed to serve his customers better.

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It's not elitist. We just have a policy by which a site whose content is feed-driven isn't going to be listable. Discussing it here isn't going to change that.

Since this thread outlived its usefulness days ago and you've expressed a desire to end it, I'm going to go ahead and close it.