Why can't I have feedback on my rejected site?

If not, I hope someone might tell me why(even if it should be obvious) so I can correct it.

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I think that if one looks at a lot of the threads, if the reason that a site is rejected is quickly fixable, then the editors often drop some pretty broad hints.

How, though, do you politely tell someone that their site has no socially redeeming value in terms of unique content, that it is a mass of advertising, it only is designed to redirect users to another site, that it redirects to a site that we would never list, and that it has so much Flash as to be useless?

The very real fear (proven by experience) is that if you tell someone that their site was rejected for reason A, it is almost like a loudspeaker announcement "let the games begin." and entirely too many submitters try to do a minimal fix and then demand to be listed.

The editors also do a bit of "invisible fixing" on their own, by moving sites that are incorrectly submitted, or even by sending e-mails to submitters telling them how to fix their sites. Even then we get some pretty abusive responses.

A quick side note: when a submitter starts quoting the guidelines back to us here in the R-Z, there is about a 99.98% chance that they are doing some very selective reading and quoting to tryand justify an untenable position.

When we used to have poetry workshop classes back in college, it was a hard-and-fast rule that the poet was *not* allowed to respond to the readers offering critique and opinions. Why not? Because human nature is such that authors want to argue in favor of their manuscripts. Bad-tempered ones may snap or seethe, sure, but even the mellowest and best-intentioned ones just naturally want to explain their work: "Oh, well what that metaphor was REALLY supposed to mean was..." or "It's a reference to John Donne, didn't you get it?" or "Okay, I know the sentences are sort of stiff and convoluted, but I had to do that so that the lines would rhyme, see?" The authors put hard work into their poems and feel creatively attached to them; even if they're complete pieces of garbage from any objective or subjective standpoint, even if they have no content, even if they're largely plagiarized from Emily Dickinson, the author is still hoping that the parts they did spend time and effort on are going to be rewarded or at least noticed, and given the chance, will bring them to your attention himself.

It seems to me that webmasters feel about their sites much the same way as poets feel about their poems. Even if they're an affiliate seller of the same wares that are available on 250 other sites, they want you to admire their fine layout and nice logo and nifty little inviting biography of themselves on the About Me page and so on, and if their sites are rejected, I'm willing to bet that engaging ANY of them in a discussion about why would result in an argument, the same way inviting ANY poet to respond to a critique would.

It doesn't mean they're bad people, but I think the only possible solution is to simply avoid ever having that conversation in the first place, the way we did back in school... and the way we do here.

Why is'nt there a open forum link on the front page of DMOZ.com or listed as a strong sudgestion as part of the submission process. I found, as a novice, that the forum was the best help in seeing what was important and in helping me not to repeat some of the most common mistakes. It also let me view some of the "culture" of the ODP and got me more excited about the whole process instead of frustrated. Just a thought anyway.

ODP responses

I have really enjoyed this thread and found it to be very helpful, and agree very much with the comments by longcall911 and luggagebase and can really sypathize with the delimma the editors must face with the spammers and affiliates. I must confess to having breezed through the "How to suggest a URL" instructions the first time I submitted my website well over a year ago, and assumed I had done something wrong when there was no listing, so I submitted again, and because I was unclear on the categories, re-submitted again (sorry). I like the suggestions to make the forum easier to find, and to have at least some sort of automated aknowledgement for the submission, and if this thread were mandatory reading, I probably would have made some editor's workload a tiny bit easier by not doing multiple submissions.
Fortunately, it sounds like you don't need the universal panacea for all ills - money. It would seem the solution is to have a lot more editors. Maybe you could advertise more and require your directory listings to have banners, pop-ups, pop-unders, whatever, to get more help................... just kidding.
How do editors search for sites that are not suggested? Random? Do they edit categories they have expertise in? Could I be an editor, and have a website submitted to that category at the same time?

Editors should draw from a variety of sources, including search engines, hand-spidering, personal knowledge, printed sources, and submittals. Where any particular website comes from doesn't matter so much as that it's a good site.

The importance of using a variety of sources is that any one source will be inherently skewed in one way or another; using different sources cancels out some of that bias.

The ideal is for editors to have expertise in their categories. In reality, that is not always possible; and we do the best we can.

You can be an editor and add your own site (that comes under "personal knowledge"). But obviously that's a VERY skewed source of URLs, and the guidelines prohibit giving preference to your own sites. (So you'd have to draw on other sources to make up a comprehensive category.)

As for mandatory reading, sigh ... some people can't be stopped from reading, and then there's Dorothy Parker's horticulture. There's definitely no silver bullet. I don't know the solution, other than ... give the information out in as many ways and venues as possible.

I'm very dissappointed with the tone of voice used in this forum by editors of the ODP - It is obviously a tough job, but stop complaining - you volunteered to do it didn't you?

I'll tell you how to stop all this spamming - stop Google from spidering your pages (I'm sure that's within your abilities) and no spammer would bother trying to get their sites listed in the first place. After all - most normal (non-technical) people use search engines to find sites anyway and haven't even heard of DMOZ.

Soon enough reports of long wait times for listings, superior and self motivated editors, poor quality categorization and a general move towards paid marketing will force Google and the other search engines to re-assess the importance of DMOZ anyway.

That my friends, is a shame.

matti, I appreciate your post, but I've said several times that I'm not interested in the spammer's viewpoint -- except, that is, that all expressions of spammer frustration with the ODP are indications that we are doing well what we set out to do. So, for what it's worth, thanks for your vote of confidence.

You do raise another point that deserves refutation, though. Contrary to your assumption (and no doubt contrary to the experience you have had with your friends and associates) most submitters are NOT spammers. (I've done enough edits to declare this with confidence!) Truly, the spammers make up in vigorous and blatant disregard for manners what they lack in numbers, and so provide most of our submittals. But nonetheless you spammers are a very insignificant and dispensable part of the net; and our only concern in this thread is the REST of the net.

I am most certainly NOT a spammer and never have been - I have submitted one site to the ODP in my life which has been listed. thankyou.

You have jumped to an incorrect assumption which is exactly what I'm talking about when I referred to tone of voice (most notably your air of superiority) - You therefore seem to hold the assumption that all people out ther ARE spammers otherwise you would not of accused me of being one without a shred of evidence!

If you made this assumption so quickly how can the ODP be sure that it's editors (if you are representative) can identify spammers correctly in the first place and keep the ODP true to it's values?

I am a regular user who listed a site for the right reasons and I am airing my non-spammer frustrations!

No, matti, you aren't even close to the truth.

(1) To the point of the discussion, no editor volunteered to give feedback to any submitters. In fact, the editors' guidelines (which anyone can read before volunteering) clearly discourage ANY e-mail contact. Editors who've had experience know why this is so.

(2) To your off-topic point, no editor even volunteered to review submitted sites! Yes, an editor can be a perfectly good, highly respected editor, amass thousands of edits, and even be appointed editall without reviewing a single submittal.

(3) And from an editor's point of view, you're a control freak. You're the Pharisee of Jesus' sarcastic scorn who dump heavy burdens on other people's backs, while you don't deign to touch them with your little finger. You'll sit in the shade sipping your mint julep, and tell the overseers how hard to work the slaves today. This is not an attitude well-chosen to win you sympathy.

(4) Frustrations with WHAT? Someone, who has given strong indications of a mendacious streak, has told us your one site was already listed. All that is left to be frustrated about is your assumption that you had an innate right to tell other people what they had volunteered for, and when, and how much. I submit that is another problem that would best be addressed in therapy.

well hutcheson

1) Yes I am off topic. So sorry.

2) You are probably quite right here - not sure how it applies to my off topic post.

3) Classic! this is exactly what I'm talking about: "You're the Pharisee of Jesus' sarcastic scorn who dump heavy burdens on other people's backs" a little harsh I think...

4) You are calling me a liar now... Really, please grow up.

Now, let me tell you why I'm frustrated - and this is nothing personal, but a mature, measured observation in accessible language:

The ODP is a great idea - fantastic in fact, and I approve, which is why I have voluteered a number of times to be an editor (unsuccessfully so far) - now I'm not frustrated about not being rejected, I will stop trying after having seen this forum and read a number of the posts.

Most of the submitters are moaning about how slow the process is and the rest of the forum seems to be full of editors moaning about spammers, becoming an increasingly frustrated on all sides by submitters, SEOs, bad editors etc

ODP can stand on it's own - lose Google and you will lose the problem, lose the phoney editors, the spammers, the frustration.

I am frustrated and concerned for the future of the ODP, I don't need therapy at all. I'm actually a rather balanced individual.

Now I'm going to turn off the computer eat my dinner, do the washing up and sleep with my girlfriend. Quite normal.

stop Google from spidering your pages

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Indicates that you have a basic misunderstanding of what Google does with ODP data, and why ODP can't stop Google [without going into a discussion of whether they should or should not try to stop Google]

As part of the social contract upon which ODP was founded, ODP agrees to make available its database to other users. A copy of the ODP data is produced once a week, and anyone can use that providing they follow the guidelines for usage.

Google is one of the main users of that data, and it's up to them [not ODP] whether they choose to use that data, and in what manner, and how often.

Google directory entries are made from that data, not from spidering DMOZ.org and therefore putting in a robots.txt to prevent Google from spidering is of no avail.

In addition there are thousands of other users of ODP data who make that data available on various web sites, and Google does in fact spider those sites and include those results in searches. We cannot stop that.

It's very simple. The problem really isn't that we don't have enough micromanagement. People who have to be micromanaged can wander away, and we'll put our managers to constructive work. We'll get more done that way.

And you don't have to start volunteering with the ODP. I didn't. There are innumerable other opportunities to get started. Yesterday I read an article about a hurricane cleanup "program". Somebody announced where the buses were going to be, and said, "bring your tolls and we'll go clean up."

The participant who wrote the article was amazed. People brought all kinds of tools, from chainsaws to window cleaner to Mark IV digits (10 each, symetrically attached.) No bosses, no supervisors, no coordinators, nobody telling anyone else what to do or how much -- except that some people, however, were telling other people to work less because of incipient signs of heatstroke. They just dumped everyone at the end of the block and get out of the way.

It works. It just works. It doesn't work better if you take the most productive workers and assign them to watch the others. It most CERTAINLY doesn't work better if you take the LEAST productive workers and assign them to watch over the others. (Both strategies, by the way, common in industry...)

Check out Project Gutenberg, for instance: every page is proofed at least twice (their protection against carelessness or sabotage) so it's easy to get in. Proofread a page, or a dozen. Do it every day or once a ... dunno how long. Just don't tell the others how much they have to do, or what they have to do first. There are ten million books out there, take your pick and someone will probably help. Or help someone else, your choice. And let them make their choice.

Or keep applying to the ODP -- save your old applications, for future reference (either good or bad examples).

I should also mention that even non-editors can see quick results by picking an ODP category, rechecking all the sites, and reporting the bad links in our "Abuse" forum. (Yes, we know they may not have been abuse. But we want to fix them quickly.)

Hi, as a newbie I thought I might add my . I think the trouble is too many people submit after they have created their sites.

Now, I know they can't submit before the site is built but, they could 'like I'm doing' come here a check out the 'how to' stuff before hand, saving themselves a lot of time & upset.

Just a thought

Caspro

caspro said:

Hi, as a newbie I thought I might add my . I think the trouble is too many people submit after they have created their sites.

Now, I know they can't submit before the site is built but,

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Don't be so sure. I've seen a few submissions when there was no site there. I couldn't swear that that was before the site was built -- it might have been after the site was abandoned.

The ODP site submission guidelines are quite clear on not submitting sites under construction. Asking for a review to see how you are doing, just doubles the work for us.

I've deleted at least two newly submitted sites in the last two weeks, that I know were submitted too soon, cause I checked the URL registration, and they were newly registered in July.

I am quite tolerant of sites that were reviewed and accepted, and then something goes wrong with the site, I will unreview them and check in a couple of weeks to see if they fixed the problem. But I have zero tolerance for someone submitting a new site that is still a work in progress, so that means it gets deleted and a note attached to the name, so that when it's submitted again, it already has a warning registered against it.

Likewise submiting sites hoping to add content later is not good, if you get refused for lack of content, then when you submit again, you have already been labelled as a premature submitter.

We are not a peer group review team, if you need that, find one of the many SEO forums, that have members who are willing to review your site.

bobrat said:

submiting sites hoping to add content later is not good, if you get refused for lack of content, then when you submit again, you have already been labelled as a premature submitter.

We are not a peer group review team, if you need that, find one of the many SEO forums, that have members who are willing to review your site.

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bobrat, I'm confused are you repling to my post because I was not asking for a site review, see below?

Caspro said:

Hi, as a newbie I thought I might add my I think the trouble is too many people submit after they have created their sites.

Now, I know they can't submit before the site is built but, they could 'like I'm doing' come here & check out the 'how to' stuff before hand, saving themselves a lot of time & upset.

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If you were then I suggest you read the full post next time. If you weren't then I apologise & I'm still confused.

I feel safe in saying that my buddy the rat was not answering you, per se, he was making the general statement that if you (not you personally, but you the given/global webmaster) are looking for someone to review a site, submitting it to the ODP is definitely the wrong move, rather webmasters seeking review and feedback should find a nice, friendly webmaster or SEO forum where other webmasters and seos are willing and able to share their views

caspro]Now said:

'like I'm doing'[/I'] come here a check out the 'how to' stuff before hand, saving themselves a lot of time & upset.

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I think caspro is misunderstood. Not sure, but he/she probably didn’t mean "can't" but "shouldn't". (Correct me if I'm wrong) Most people understand that even if a few mistakenly or purposefully do so.

But the point being made has been overlooked: It is very beneficial to both the submitters and the editors if the submitter is able to view several threads to better understand the objectives of the ODP and to recognize common mistakes to avoid. It is helpful to understand the other side of these issues in order to avoid pitfalls (many of which I myself fell into). You know, "I submitted my site a year ago and haven't been listed, I guess no one got it or saw it, so I'll submit it again" and every year there after. OUCH!

luggagebase said:

I think caspro is misunderstood. Not sure, but he/she probably didn’t mean "can't" but "shouldn't". (Correct me if I'm wrong) Most people understand that even if a few mistakenly or purposefully do so.

But the point being made has been overlooked: It is very beneficial to both the submitters and the editors if the submitter is able to view several threads to better understand the objectives of the ODP and to recognize common mistakes to avoid. It is helpful to understand the other side of these issues in order to avoid pitfalls (many of which I myself fell into). You know, "I submitted my site a year ago and haven't been listed, I guess no one got it or saw it, so I'll submit it again" and every year there after. OUCH!

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Thank you luggagebase You are right of course, the point I was trying to make was being overlooked, due no doubt to my newbie status and inability to understand the finer points of this forum. However, I am learning fast so beware the pedants

So, what about answers from non-ODP people? I mean, I think I understand the submission guidelines pretty well. If someone asks why they were rejected, do you think it would be OK for me to tell them? I recognize that it would probably be unwise, and of course I'd have to include some kind of "I'm not an editor" disclaimer. But what would the mods think of such a thing?

And as a follow-up question: Is there *anyone* these submitters can turn to with their questions? IE, are there any SEOs or savvy web-design companies who can read the guidelines to the submitter and explain them word by word? If not, I suspect somebody could make a *lot* of money by explaining the word "affiliate" to people.

Nareau