Very popular site in its category; can't get listed

hi,

i run a website called Ballardian: <url removed> it's about the writer JG Ballard. it's very popular. it's linked to by all the other major Ballard sites. it's number 4 or so on google, occasionally it's top listing in yahoo, but this fluctuates. it's the only ballard site that gets updated weekly, sometimes daily. by contrast some of the ballard sites listed by DMOZ haven't been updated for years. we have had major interviews with writers about ballard's influence, including bruce sterling and iain sinclair. we are conducting an interview with ballard himself. content is clean, well organised and very simple to navigate. there's no flash -- the site loads fast.

but we can't get a listing in Open Directory. i submitted the site to the "jg ballard" category a couple of times over the last year and half -- nothing excessive -- and we're still not listed. it's impossible to miss our site when searching for 'jg ballard' on google or whatever search engine.

now, i've waited patiently and refrained previously from posting on here, as i know you guys don't like to be bothered about submissions. but i'm curious now, because i see that i see the JG Ballard category was updated on "April 2, 2006' -- and still we're not on there. so, subsequently, i hope you don't mind me publicly asking here why we can't get a listing?

with best wishes,
simon

If you read the announcement stickied at the top of every forum, you'll notice that we stopped giving site suggestion status checks, which is what you're asking for, well over a year ago so we can't answer your question for you.

To give a general answer, the most likely reason is that no editor has recently volunteered to process every website awaiting evaluation in the JG Ballard category. The last updated date merely implies that some work was done there, not all possible work.

Had you though of reading the forum FAQ? Most questions such as yours are answered there.

yes, jim. and yes "motsa". i've read through all the FAQs because i know how much you all hate these kinds of queries. i was not asking for "site submission status". in fact, i couldn't find an answer relating to why the last update did not include a site that has not fallen foul of any of the guidelines for submission that have been posted in these forums. To me, this is a query that falls under the rubric: "We welcome questions about how the ODP works" -- the rationale for this particular forum.

OK by you? please allow us some credit.

jim, you answered: "the last updated date merely implies that some work was done there, not all possible work". great, thanks. that answers my question. i couldn't find anything to do with this in the FAQs. thanks for being courteous. you answered my question without recourse to the usual flame-throwing tactics.

i took a very deep breath before i posted here.

best wishes
simon

i couldn't find anything to do with this in the FAQs. thanks for being courteous. you answered my question without recourse to the usual flame-throwing tactics.

Click to expand...

What flame throwing tactics were used here? The only question actually in your post was "i hope you don't mind me publicly asking here why we can't get a listing?", which really can only be answered by giving you a status check. That is the question that I was responding to. Though you mentioned it very briefly at the end of your post, you didn't actually ask what the last updated date meant so it wasn't clear that that was the purpose of your post.

no problem, motsa. i wasn't referring to you with that comment. in other threads i've seen some frustrated, heated exchanges from both sides on this site -- it can't be denied -- and that's why i said i was wary of posting without doing my research.

i have absolutely no desire to engage in the frustration of arguing online with people i've never met and i thanked jim for answering my question in a courteous manner. i'm grateful my intelligence wasn't insulted.

thanks for your time, too, motsa. hopefully my site will appear in DMOZ soon.

all the best
simon

One other thing to bear in mind here, is that there is a (guessing here) 30 to 50% chance that the person answering your question is not a native English speaker (though all those that do post here do seem to have a very good grasp of the lingo).

From that you can probably see that sometimes people pick up the wrong meaning of a question; they read exactly what was written, not what might have been implied; and in exchange, editors answers might seem terse or unhelpful when in fact they focussed on just answering exactly what was asked.

There is not any intention to upset people who ask questions, just answer stuff (well the stuff that we can answer) in an efficient way.