Under construction

The Open Directory Project does not list sites that are under construction. We describe and categorize by the content we can see, not by the content we're told will be there someday.

Submitting a site and hoping to finish it before it's reviewed can be very counterproductive for you. Please build your site first, then submit it. Reversing that order reduces your chance of being listed.

>Reversing that order reduces your chance of being listed.

Not necessarily: that's not possible for some sites. Other sites have a better chance of being viewed sympathetically before their content is added.
But I must agree with your thesis. There are some stupid pests out there that repeatedly submit a site for 6 months to a year without turning a finger to actually create it.

Now, maybe these slimeballs think that their best chance of getting listed is by accident....and there's no point in developing 100 sites just to get one of them in by accident, when they could just develop the one that got in by accident. And they may be right.

But, for the rest of you who actually plan to develop the site regardless of whether it gets listed first: DON'T submit it first. Consider this scenario: editor reviews site, rejects saying "nothing there." Three months later, another editor reviews the next submittal, sees that there was nothing there before, and deletes without another review.

Result: a good site doesn't get listed. Whose fault is it? Not the editor, who has certainly kept full faith with the ODP social contract. They made absolutely sure that that submitted site had been reviewed -- and deleted a duplicate submittal to concentrate on sites that hadn't been reviewed yet. And the social contract doesn't promise a SECOND review of a site until we've finished the FIRST review of all the other sites on the internet.

Now, sometimes the site gets a second review -- even from editors like me that heartily contemn and condemn this antisocial submittal practice. But ... you are building a reputation for yourself and your site. Try and make it a good one.

One thing I wonder about is if webmasters, after reading that at the ODP sites typically spend many months to years sitting around in the queue before they get reviewed, submit while under construction on the theory by the time an editor gets around to it, the site will be up? For those reading, these times mentioned about how long it takes to get sites reviewed are an *average*. Delay times before sites get reviewed in the ODP are highly variable depending on what cat they are submitted to. For example, in the cat space I edit, which is a not insignificant 5,000+ sites, in most cases if it takes more than a week for a site to get reviewed this is unusual. I reviewed sites earlier today that had been submitted in the last 24 hours. Just because you read posts here by people who have had their site remain in the queue for a number of months, this might not be true in the cat you submit to. Definitely if I come across a submitted site that had been rejected before as having no content but "under construction" I'm going to to be hesitant and suspicious to add it. First thing that comes to mind when I see a site submitted under construction is that some scammer is hoping that some editor will approve it by click through editing, or fat finger things and add it rather than delete it. As such, better to actually get the site together first before submitting.

I agree with rfgdxm (for once <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />). We say that submissions typically take 3 weeks to be reviewed. If you do submit a site that is under construction, I'd suggest that you try to have it finished within 3 weeks. Usually if I come across a submitted site that is under construction in one of the categories that I am active in, I will give it this amount of time.

Neil is obviously one of our kinder editors. The submission form quite clearly says "Do not submit sites 'under construction'", and I for one have no patience with people that deliberately break the rules. If it has no content when I look at it, it gets deleted.

I don't have any patience either. Usually I have to create time in the day to edit. I won't waste it.

If I was the King of DMOZ, I would insist that all site submissions must be able to show they had made a best effort at meeting a liberal interpretation of the guidelines, and if they didn't, that they be deleted.. Titles would have to be titles, with no keywords dumped in, and descriptions would make a stab at following the guidelines.

It would not take too many deletions to drive the point home, and it would make everyone's life easier. As it is, when I open a big stack of unreviewed, I seek out the best titles and descriptions and edit them first, then, if I still have time, I do the rest.
<img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

rfg, I have to ask how you're getting your numbers of "average" time to be reviewed. You've already said that your categories are handled promptly -- are you keeping statistics or something of "days to review" of every listing you've looked at?

If I were *queen* for the day, I would delete all submissions that were duplicates, every submission that had a keyword infested title, and any submission that said anything like "Check us out! We're the best!"

Since I'm not <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />, I abide by the guidelines which clearly state that every site is entitled to a review, but not a listing. I routinely delete every title and description that is submitted, and I start from scratch. Because I do this, I am only able to review 1/3 of the sites that I would otherwise be able to do in my set amount of editing time. If every site that was submitted adhered to the guidelines, I would be able to review 3 times as many sites. Too bad, so sad for me... unfortunate for submitters and the public. Too bad submitters don't turn on each other (like they pick on editors) and accuse them of mucking up the process so that legitimate sites that deserve a listing don't get reviewed for a really long time.

&gt;Neil is obviously one of our kinder editors. The submission form quite clearly says "Do not submit sites 'under construction'", and I for one have no patience with people that deliberately break the rules. If it has no content when I look at it, it gets deleted.

And the guidelines say as editors we are supposed to review based on content. If the site is nothing more than an "under construction", then it has no content and is a no brainer to delete. As for the idea of hanging onto such a submission to see if they add content later, think about it for a second. On this logic, we should be waiting around on every site with minimal content, because it is always possible with any site they could add a lot more content later.

For an Under Construction site, I will give people a month from my first review to fill the site up. If no content is forthcoming, then see ya! It goes in the bit-bucket. If the site does eventually get a listing, then I will also re-review such sites every couple of months to see if they are the type that swaps their content to stuff we don't list, after being accepted. If they try to deceive, then it is another easy delete.

rfgdxm: I tend only to do this in my 'pet' categories where I keep a close eye on the queues. It's quite likely that I'd ditch such submissions if they were elsewhere in the directory.