Will submitters ever able to check status?

Hi.

Quick question, does anyone know if submitters will ever get the option of checking their own status?

It would seem rather logical and relatively simple to me. I submitted my first site about a month ago, and while I'd like to know the status of the submission, it's really a little too early post a request in the 'other' forum. In other words, I'd glady bother a machine to look it up, but I'll hold off on bothering living breathing people for a while. (Hmm... there's a Terminator joke waiting in there somewhere).

LC

You check status by asking in the appropraite forum. Thats it.

If you follow the posting guidlines for posting, and use the required format then you are bothering no-one. Someone with a few minutes to spare and an inclination to look at it for you will do so.

There is no other way. No automated system is planned.

There are many disadvantages in having an automated system. They have been discussed in this forum, and several external forums, many times in the last year or two.

If we were a tiny directory maybe it could be done, but we aren't tiny.

I really don't see why it couldn't be done, or what downsides there would be to having an automated system.

Just query the editors mirror for the requested URL for a "status check". Then send an email back to the email address that was was used to make the original URL submission with a basic declined/in queue/accepted/published note as appropriate. No need to create user accounts or anything like that.

Then again, I'm no expert, so I could be over simplifying things somewhere...

As was mentioned, it's been discussed many times before (including a time or two here in these forums) and noone here really wants to rehash yet again why it something like that isn't feasible or desired.

Here is just one of the places it was discussed before.

Think... system resources and database issues.

Thanks for the link, that thread is quite an interesting read. Anyway, I didn't mean to rekindle old debates. Really. =)

Keep up the good work.

Let me add a suggestion that I didn't see in the other thread.

When someone submits a site, OPD gives them a whacking great long reference number.

They can then use that in a "check submission status" page in DMOZ. That screen will display a "please wait" message for about three minutes (just to discourage the impatient) and then reply with one of the following:

* You are listed in [cat]
* It's been less than a month since you last checked here...Please be patient and come back after [date]
* The submission was less than a month ago (we only have date of latest submission). Stop resubmitting and be patient!
* You are waiting in a queue of [about | more than | less than] n
* Your submission could not be found -- ask on RZ for details
* You've asked too many times so we've deleted your submission (only joking about this one)

That's about 70% of what is done on this site, with a three-minute response time. That's 100s of times better (in some cases) and would reduce the repetitive workload here.

And then, 70% of replies here could be "use your reference number to check on DMOZ first".

Yes, and it would bring the ODP servers to a grinding halt.
Have you any idea howmuch computer capacity will be needed for such a function.

Performance and volume are always issues for systems; and no, I don't know how much capacity. But I'm no convinced it would be that great an overhead.

** It could reduce checks -- I wonder how many people check DMOZ twice a day on the off-chance that their site is listed? It would remove some of that.

** One check a month is not a big overhead. In terms of looking things up on the database, it's what the responding editors here are doing on questioner's behalf, so it would replace much of that at no extra overhead.

** DMOZ runs some pretty hefty processes right now -- Robzilla, Cat moves, index builds, RDF dump etc. If the status check was (or became) a hefty process, it could be switched off at times while other ones are run.

The basic question at a systems level is "is status checking a service submitters want, and is it one that DMOZ wants to provide?"

The existence of resource-zone suggests a double "yes" to that question. My suggestion is simply one that might help automate the standard (and I'm sure tedious and boring and time-consuming) tasks undertaken by the responding editors here.

In fact, a lot of the routine enquiries could be automated here, provided R-Z had the "status" of a meta and could logon to DMOZ. Scripts here could probe DMOZ and find the simple answers and respond automagically, leaving the more interesting questions to responding editors, who'd have more time to answer them.

I don't want to suggest that my suggestions are *the* way forward -- just trying to contribute possible approaches for when staff (or editors here) have the time to consider a non-manual status checking system to augment the service already available at r-z.

"is status checking a service submitters want"
Yes, atleast some submitters want it.

"and is it one that DMOZ wants to provide?"
No, as far as I know.

"The existence of resource-zone suggests a double "yes" to that question"
Resource-zone has no relation with ODP as an organisation. It is a private initiative of some editors.

R-Z may be a private initiative, but the staff, right now, seem to be promoting it as the "public forums" for editors -- that makes for some sort of "fraternal" affiliation.

I don't think any sort of promotion or official statement is intended by that. Staff merely recognizes that a lot of editors come here when they can't access DMOZ for one reason or another.

I think it's fair to say that the (official) ODP doesn't object to submittal status being given TO MOST SUBMITTERS. (Yes, there are definitely exceptions!)

There is a great gulph between that and saying that the official ODP is willing to invest the programming effort (and server hamsters, if needed) to make that happen, while automatically avoiding automatically giving out status to spam submitters (which is not a simple thing to do).

If it were done, something like sunanda suggests (or even e-mail to address given on original submittal, after being checked against e-mail address given on status request) would handle the security at the user end.

But, as I say, the ability to NOT give statuses to detected abusers is one of the important aspects of the human-powered system. And I've given some thought to that aspect, but it's clear that it's not easily doable, and not yet clear that it is practical.

Staff has clearly stated in the (recent) past that this sort of thing is not something they plan on doing now, or in the future. Not much point in entertaining, debating, and discussing it.

The directory doesn't revolve around submitters, while editors are free to assist here it's certainly not our main priority. Our main priority is building a directory of sites for users; submissions are intended to assist in that process. We don't volunteer to help webmasters get sites listed in search engines, we volunteer to provide a resource to web surfers.

guess, that means, this thread is closed.

Providing a simple status check will not take as much processing power (and certainly not bandwidth) that everyone thinks it will.

First of all, another database will not need to be made. ODP maintains a DB of listed and pending sites, how else would people be able to "check" the status manually?

First off, look at the amount of traffic here for people asking about Domains. I've read through many threads here before, and notice that not huge sums of people are checking status every day. If an editor will "edit" me here and let me know if I am missing something,

When checking the status of a site submit, I imagine the editor goes to the category page, logs in to it, and is able to view the pending sites? So, the editor goes into the directory page, and then logs in (I’m sure with 128 bit encryption)? and then is shown a database driven page where pending sites are displayed, along with the dates of the site submit?

If a status check is being performed in an area where there are 300 sites pending, that is a TON of processing power devoted to SELECT * FROM tblpending WHERE site='"site"' and then the appropriate

do until pending.EOF
response.write "siteurl", "submitdate"
loop

This is obviously a very crude example of pulling out fields from a database to fill in a webpage to show the pending sites for that category, but no one said that a system for automated status check has to be complicated.

With an automated system, a user could go to the category page where he/she submitted, type in the URL he/she wants to check, and scan through the same database file. In this case, bandwidth and processing power would be saved by not needing to log into the site as an editor via 128 bit (= mucho processing power and some bandwidth transferred from user to server) and then pull ALL the pages waiting for editing.

Having a system where the checking mechanism ONLY checks, and does not write anything to a database (i.e. when the user last checked, how many times he/she has checked, etc) will save disk space, server processing cycles, and bandwidth.

If the way that editors here go about checking status of a submitted site is that they go to the category page (hence want a clickable link to the exact category submitted to), log in, and then look through pending sites. If more steps are involved, (e.g. showing all sites, and then having an area where an editor can enter in a URL to check status of), the amount of bandwidth used, processing power, and editor man-hours spent checking status would only increase.

By saying that "processing power and bandwidth would skyrocket" with an automated system is the exact opposite of what the case would actually be. Processing power and bandwidth would be SAVED by having an automated system, and not an archaic editor powered status check system.

Editors do a good job of keeping the ODP a great resource for the entire world to use, and multiple SE to provide relevant results. Having a simple site status check would not only save bandwidth, server power (= $$$$) but it would also let editors do what they do best; find good sites for the world to benefit from.

Many people in the IT world that I encounter at various meetings and seminars around the world are not too fond of ODP in the recent months. Everyone will certainly agree that the ODP is a great resource, and the editors do a great job, but the whole process is not as efficient as it should be (in some people’s words). Denying users of the ODP access to new sites for sometimes over a year is making the ODP loose creditability, and shows lots of room for improvement. (Again, in some peoples minds don't attack me for this statement!)

It would be interesting to here a description of exactly what the process that editors go through to check the status of the site, and guesstimate some processing cycles and bandwidth transfers involved, compared with a simple automated system, and see what would actually be "saving bandwidth and processing power"

"Staff has clearly stated in the (recent) past that this sort of thing is not something they plan on doing now, or in the future. Not much point in entertaining, debating, and discussing it."

-Debating and discussing things is what humans do best. To simple say that their is "not much point debating or discussing it" insults the evolution of man.

Thanks to all ODP editors who make this a better searchable web!

It should probably be noted that the dmoz system does not use a database is the strictest sense of the word. Data is saved in lots of flat files using the disk's directory structure. Even editors can't find out if a site is pending somewhere without knowing the category it was submitted to.

This doesn't mean that more effective means of checking site status (other than this forum) won't be developed, but the method that dmoz uses to save data, plus the other issues that have been brought up, means that there will probably never be an automatic way to check.

Dmoz has always had an anti-robot, anti-automatic-software-fix attitude--the slogan is "HUMANS Do It Better". Even the automatic link-checker--Robozilla--doesn't automatically remove bad links, it just marks them for editors to look at and then remove if necessary.

In many ways, this forum was founded using those ideals and principles. I think, personally, that some kind of tools could be made to make status checks easier on editors and submitters, and I've even made a start at the development; but two things slow me down.

One, I'd much rather develop tools to help editors list sites faster and more efficiently, removing the need for status checks.

Two, so far the forum here has served this purpose well, and has not become overloaded. Some people will bring up the point that editors might be able to list sites faster if they weren't here doing status checks, but there is a flaw in that. No-one can just edit, edit, edit continuously.

Even when I'm dedicating several hours in a day to editing, I have to take a break sometimes, and I usually surf around to forums like this one, even if I lurk more than post. Editors who do status checks here are quite often our most productive editors.

The problem is that it's really not that simple. There are many assumptions in that method that just don't necessarily hold true.

There are lots of possible statuses, and because the system of processing the submissio is so based on Humans, interpreting the status is more than a simple check to see if a site is waiting in a given category.

Also, as has been noted in the thread referenenced above, an important feature for us is "the ability to NOT give statuses to detected abusers" - and it would be hard to prevent an automated system from doing this.

Another reason is along the same reason the Restroom signs aren't huge in many Theme Parks - you end up seeking out a person who can help you.

As far as volume, the first post really sums it up - "In other words, I'd glady bother a machine to look it up, but I'll hold off on bothering living breathing people for a while." If there's an automated system, it would be hit by lots of people in the same situation, and perhaps even many times a day by automated programs. (Similar to those that monitor rankings in search engines).

So far, I think this system has been working relatively well - and you even get human interaction.