Unimpressed by lack of communication

I'm not very impressed by the failure of persons involved in this project to reply to my application. It has been many weeks.

Me too. My wife was made an editor many months ago. Before she even had a chance to learn about the process, her account mysteriously disappeared. She emailed them more then a dozen times to find out what was going on and never got a response. I have repeatedly submitted (usually about 2 months apart) quality sites that are all approved by Yahoo and every other engine or directory on the net to the OPD and they never seem to get listed. I am convinced that my competition is deliberately keeping me off the site. One of the senior editors for my industry sells private listings to others in my industry on his own personal web site! Is that a conflict of interest? You be the judge. Other friends of mine, in other industries around the country, are also experiencing similar issues and we are all FED UP.

I used to be an editor for the Real Estate and Home Inspection categories in the Austin Texas area. [No flames please - apeuro].

What does it take to get some honesty, consistency or God forbid even a response from this directory?

Brad Brusenhan is disgusted with the OPD,
brad_brusenhan@yahoo.com

Rhilton, in almost all cases, if you were rejected, you should have received an email telling you the reason why.

What category did you apply for?

First of all I applied for the category "Scientology". There was already one editor but it is quite large and there was a notice requiring more editors.
That was rejected after about a month with no explanation.
Then the "Scientology" editor was removed and some changes were made and I applied for the category "Scientology/freezone" many weeks ago but no-one bothered to reply.

Right now the Scientology is in the process of being heavily reorganized. We usually don't accept new editors in categories that are undergoing reorganziation - expecially in categories as contentious as this one. Secondly, the main Scientology category is too large for a new editor, which is why your first request was probably rejected.

Note that lack of reply *could* be due to an e-mail problem. There are sporadic reports of e-mail servers bouncing messages coming from the "dmoz.org" domain (for example, from time to time dmoz.org might be reported somewhere as an "open relay," meaning that it is a source of spam). Unfortunately, editors (including metas) don't see messages that are "returned to sender" at dmoz.

Brad
Have no idea about your situation. Your wifes' account may have disappeared for one of several reasons, including not making an edit in the period she was a listed editor.

Re: the conflict of interest - NO, listing on his private site is no different to you asking people to pay to be listed on your site. There would be a problem if they were asking to be paid to list in the ODP directory. If you have proof of this mail one of the meta editors or staff@dmoz.org.

With all due respect, I cannot see how there is not a conflict of interest. If he is accepting money to have other industry professionals listed on his personal site, but REFUSES to add my site, which has a similar service, to the OPD, that goes beyond a conflict of interest. It is flat exclusionary and therefore unacceptable to me and should be to everyone else that works so hard to make this a quality directory.

Thanks,
Brad

P.S. My wife's editor status was removed within one week of being added. I helped her with her first editing session and know that she did not break any rules. She knew good and well that her activity would be monitored by others in the ODP. By the time she sat down for her second session her account had been removed. When she requested an explanation, she never received one.

Brad

brad: Please contact any Metaeditor reading these forums and ask him/her. Tell the Editor-Name your wife used and I'm sure you will get an answer.

[Edit]
The problem with requesting feedback is: Who did she request answers from? Staff is very unlikely to answers mails, they get tons of it. They try to process only the ones, noone else could deal with (abuse reporting, ...)

Keep in mind that talking about "staff" is not talking about a big group but was just 1 person for a long time...

Staff and meta editors don't answer questions about editor removals as a matter of policy. You probably might also want to read Editor Removal Explained by arlarson.

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr><p>Quoth Brad:
With all due respect, I cannot see how there is not a conflict of interest. If he is accepting money to have other industry professionals listed on his personal site, but REFUSES to add my site, which has a similar service, to the OPD, that goes beyond a conflict of interest.<p><hr></blockquote>It would only be a conflict of interest if his listing or not listing a site on his personal site must have an influence on how he lists sites on ODP. However, an intelligent and ethical person could easily separate the two things in his/her mind, and not let one have an influence on the other.

Of course, he could have quid pro quo type situation where if you buy a listing on his personal page, he'll add you in the ODP, but that's just another form of bribery. If you have any evidence that this sort thing is happening, then please submit it to a meta-editor.