Ticketing Submission. Rules

I am trying to submit my site http://www.ticketspot.com to the dmoz directory under the category Shopping > Entertainment > Tickets.

One of the rules is as follows for the ticketing category: "SUBMISSION NOTICE FOR THE TICKETS CATEGORY:

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."

I feel that this rule is the reason why my listing has still not been added to the directory. I would like to point out that although my site does use the TicketNetwork system, we are running our own system too. Here is an example of the exclusive inventory that our site offers: http://www.ticketspot.com/ResultsTicket.asp?evtid=354049

I guess what I am trying to say, is we do not fall under the "mirrored sites" definition mentioned above. If someone would please keep this in mind while reviewing my site I would greatly appreciate it as it is very important to us that we are listed in the DMOZ directory.

Thank you very much!

The whole point of rules is not to find some rule the site is NOT breaking--there are very few sites that break all the rules!

The point of rules is to follow all of them. The category charter was not designed to exclude your narrowly defined "mirror sites": that has not historically been a big problem there. The problems are, in my experience, "fraternal mirrors", "affiliate doorways", and "single-product-line time-limited sites." There's no point in telling people not to submit "fraternal mirrors": we just handle them in the usual process: whack the moles until we can murder their mother. The single-product-line sites go straight to the trashcan, with less necessity to track down the lair.

The relevant judgment call here is the "de minimus unique content," and the category charter was written with a view towards defining the concept of content in that context. That particular guideline is meant to handle the "substantively affiliate doorways".

It's always all about what's good for the surfer, and what's important for the surfer. (Nobody else gets a vote.) And it is obviously much much more efficient for the surfer to go to the major networks -- where they can see all the tickets any network members want to show online. And so there's a very good reason for the ODP to do everything possible to discourage what you're doing -- it's bad for the surfer.

This is not a tickets-only judgment call -- we don't list sites whose primary content is from the vstore catalog, we don't list e-bay doorways, we don't list MLM sites, and in general we have to be very very cautious with other network-able online sellers. This even impacts the review of real estate agents' sites. For the all-important benefit of the surfer.

It sounds like, according to the rules, your site doesn't qualify for a listing there.

If that is true, nothing else in the site review matters--nothing else at all. THAT is what EVERYONE needs to keep in mind.

My point was that my site does qualify because we do not fall under the mirrored sites definition. We are holding our own inventory and our own point of sale system. We are not a "reseller site" at all. I want to communicate that to the editor who reviews the Ticket category submissions, because at first glance they may not understand that.

Yes, I see your point. You have managed to find some rule somewhere that you have not yet managed to violate (and perhaps do not plan to violate...)

MY point is, if THAT is your site's best qualification, then it does not qualify.

"But ossifer, I wasn't exspeeding the seed limit, um, espeaking the sick limit, um, driving too fats. So why are you giving me a ticket for driving while intocisa -- insockit -- drunk?"


And, in any case, the ODP isn't so much rule-based as goal-based. The point is to find sites that have a useful presentation of significant unique content. The useful presentation of this particular kind of unique content is in the searchable database.... that is in your power, that is what you could do that would be best for your surfers.

Of course, that would not result in an ODP listing.

So, you go about doing something that's WORSE for surfers than a COMPLETELY unlistable site ... and you think that's MORE listable?

That defies all logic.

Another perspective on "rules" -- the ODP never will have the power to make rules about what webmasters do with their sites. Each webmaster sets his own rules, subject only to the laws of his country (and, of course, the laws of France, at least according to French courts....) And that's an end of it. You can make a mirror site, or a hundred mirror sites. You can make an affiliate doorway, or a thousand of them. In some countries, you can sell (or give away) child porn and/or antisemitic hate literature.

The ODP rules, such as they are, restrict the rights of ODP contributors -- editors in particular. Editors have no rights at the ODP, except to do things that help build the ODP. (Just like a volunteer at the local fire brigade doesn't have the right to use the fire engines for his own amusement or profit!)

But the rules also restrict submitters. Obviously, it's possible to use the ODP suggestion forms abusively, so the policies specify some things nobody, not even editors, should have to tolerate. But those rules are not exhaustive. They give examples of common forms of abuse. But occasionally, uncommonly abusively individuals have found unique ways of earning non-contributing ODP rights.

I hope this clarifies what the rules are about. They are made by the ODP sponsor to limit what editors can do at the ODP.

Webmasters as webmasters don't make them, and don't even have a way to discuss changing them. But since webmasters as webmasters are not affected in any way by them, they have no legitimate interest in changing them anyway.