Will submitters ever able to check status?

I don't think you're hearing what you don't want to hear.

All of that makes sense only if the feature is seen as valuable to the project. And ... we have no intrinsic defense against spammers. The only defense we have is that they don't know how [in]effective their spam is (not, of course, at getting listings, but in wasting editors' time). So much of the time they waste is ... just theirs.

Imagine how bad spam would be if every spammer could see instantly -- "no, they're defended there; I need to change positions for my next barrage"!

Since over half of all submittals are spam, sloughing it off efficiently is critical to ODP editing effectiveness.

I challenge you.

Find an honest submitter, you know, the sort who follows the submittal policies. (Yes, they exist.)

Ask him: "What will you do tomorrow if you find out your site is rejected?"

Ask him: "What will you do tomorrow if you find out your site is accepted?"

Ask him: "What will you do tomorrow if you find out your site hasn't been reviewed yet?"

You will get exactly the same answer in all three cases.

Therefore...that information has no practical value whatsoever.

So why do people keep asking for it?

There's only one logical conclusion I can see.

Dear Editor,

I submitted my site, www. unusualonline. co. uk under shopping, gifts back in december 04, since then, nothing. I then posted the status question on 28.4.05. but no reply, maybe it takes longer for a reply, not sure on that one. I then came across your post by accident and tried to find the "check submission status" page in DMOZ. Could'nt see it anywhere. Could you enlighten me please. I am getting very frustrated with dmoz. I want to believe it will be a benefit. What happens if I dont have the ref number you mentioned. Any ideas greatfully received. unusual

unusual said:

tried to find the "check submission status" page in DMOZ. Could'nt see it anywhere. Could you enlighten me please.

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There isn't such a page. Never has been, and very probably never will be.

status

thanks very much for your reply

unusual

you shoud get teh answers you seek in the other currently active thread.

I support an automatic status check.

I understand the politics and personal delicies of such an automated system. You can hide the editor's names.

I understand the DMOZ doesn't want to have to defend its practices publically to save labor and focus on the main task exclusively. Oh well.

I understand the labor to code such a page and the server resources. The above confirms server resources pale against existing loads.

Automatic status checks are an idea that has been talked about a lot in the internal editor fora. It has been decided not to implement them.

The primary reason is neither that it is complicated to do, nor due to a lack of resources.

The main thing that turns an editor non-productive is dealing with spam, and to an editor "spam" means sites that are not listable being submitted repeatedly to the directory. Each time we see it, we have to go in and review the site, and make a decision on whether it is now listable or not. (Because the site contents might have changed since it was last reviewed, so we can't just go in and mass-delete them - that wouldn't be fair to people who improve their sites.)

We have said multiple times on this forum that a new submission overwrites a previous one - the main reason this was done was to try to reduce the editors' non-productive time dealing with these multiple submissions.

The chief concern is that if we give a less-than-team-player website submitter a tool by which they can see exactly when their submission has been refused, they will nicely time it so they resubmit, thus causing the editors a ton of work.

We have many, many site suggestions awaiting review - it's one of our sources of sites that we list. We want to try to improve the quality of the sites that we list, without making the suggestion process any more cumbersome than it already is. The hope is that by not providing the aggressive submitters a tool where they can bog us down even further, that the editors can list more sites, and thus make it better for our users, and the webmasters that truly submit once and then accept the decision of the ODP.

Yes, it's a compromise, no question. We had to weigh up in our minds giving submitters the convenience of find the submission of their submission (which, has has also been explained here, really shouldn't affect their future actions, unless they are one of these aggressive submitters) and that of making the directory editors more efficient, so they can list more sites, and keep the sites we have listed as up to date as possible.

Please let me know if this doesn't make sense. You may not agree with the conclusion, but now at least you know the reasoning.

You can hide the editor's names.

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Sounds easy doesn't it. But people will assume, as they have done many times in this forum, that the named editor is the one responsible for the decision. Often that doesn't matter a whole deal but there are very aggressive, sometime threatening, submitters out there. Which is one reason very few editors respond to email these days. And then the spurious accusations of editor abuse follow, each of which has to be investigated.

Personally I think the biggest reason not to have an automated status check, or the manual ones we had here actually, is that it encourages people to think they have made a submission to a listing service and are somehow a customer of some kind. Which is the last impression we want to give because that simply isn't our concept. We are a research project listing unique content on the Internet, we welcome suggestions from the public to aid in that project, nothing more. A suggestion should have no status beyond that - thanks we'll have a look at it someday.

Find an honest submitter, you know, the sort who follows the submittal policies. (Yes, they exist.)
Ask him: "What will you do tomorrow if you find out your site is rejected?"
Ask him: "What will you do tomorrow if you find out your site is accepted?"
Ask him: "What will you do tomorrow if you find out your site hasn't been reviewed yet?"
You will get exactly the same answer in all three cases.

Therefore...that information has no practical value whatsoever.

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I couldn't disagree more. I think most (even the dishonest in many cases) would answer as follows:

"What will you do tomorrow if you find out your site is rejected?"

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Answer: Read the guidlines more closely, fix and re-suggest.

"What will you do tomorrow if you find out your site is accepted?"

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Answer: Pat myself on the back and hope that I am as successful in creating more unique content in the future.

What will you do tomorrow if you find out your site hasn't been reviewed yet

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(Might be better phrased as: "What would you do tomorrow if you knew your site suggestion had has been received and is awaiting review")
Answer: Keep waiting until I've received one of the above messages.

Forget the automated status check, it seems some sort of automated (cloaked/black-hole from/reply address) e-mail notification for each scenario would be the best solution.
1) It might really cut back some of the spamming as you would simply, generically, point the denied to the guidlines once again.
2) It would certainly cut down on webmasters thirst for status and
3) It would help those who are suggesting sites feel as though they are actually contributing to the community. (think of those folks that suggest sites having no affiliation with it).

Have I missed anything?

Oh, yes, those are mostly honest answers. But ... are they ODP-FRIENDLY answers, or are they deeply hostile?

(1) "Read the guidlines more closely, fix and re-suggest" is simply a non-starter. In 99% of rejections, the site couldn't be made eligible for listing without scragging the content developer and slagging the webserver. So the only thing "fix" can possibly mean is "do a more careful job of disguising the fact that the content is not unique, or not information at all, or both". Again, this generalization could be easily confirmed by reviewing a few dozen (then a few hundred) threads in the old "submittal status" forum.

And in practice, the "fix" step is often skipped anyway. So, for all practical purposes, this translates into "spam the ODP at the maximum possible rate that isn't automatically sloughed off by the duplicate-submittal code."

That is, to say the least, not the behavior we want to encourage. We'd rather that people who cannot be dissuaded from spamming us, operate in in ways that are less efficient for them, and more efficient for us -- that is, to submit too soon and feed the duplicate-submittal trashcan, or to submit later than necessary, giving editors a longer respite.

An the option "hope that I am as successful in creating more unique content in the future" in its own way also indicates deep malevolence towards the ODP also. In practice we call this "low-balling" -- that is, breaking content into the smallest pieces that can be weaseled into an ODP listing; or experimenting on ODP editors to figure out the pain point at which they start screaming.

And the third option, in our experience, never happens. Oh, people claim they will be, or have been, patient -- but invariably they show up in some forum demanding one of those answers RIGHT NOW.

The answer we want people to make in all cases is: "regardless of what I think or know about the status of the submittal, the ODP submittal policy serves the ODP best, serves surfers best, and in the long run serves eve n me as well as any alternative spam or scam I can come up with."

So that's the choice people will be stuck with: polite or rude, follow the submittal policies (whether enlightened by knowledge that they're the only sensible way of helping the ODP goal, or in complete ignorance -- the effect is the same) OR spam without having good information from the editors about about how much pain you're managing to cause them.

All this hasn't addressed the "what if my submittal didn't get received" question that you raise.

And this is a reasonable concern. The best way to handle it is ... surprise, follow the submittal policies. Submit, wait a few months, submit again if the site isn't listed yet. If the chances of one submittal going awry is 1 percent, the chances of two both going awry is only one in ten thousand. And that's lower than the chances of human error ... which will begin to rise as the number of submittals increase.

So, how about human error?

My take on that is: it happens, it's rare, and we can either double-check every rejection (thus cutting human error by say, 1 in 100, because it's not much more common than that) but it would take twice as much time on average to deal with spam.

Sorry, spam is our biggest problem, minimising the amount of time we spend on it is one of our major goals, and the simple fact is, surfers are better off getting 100 good sites reviewed but only 99 of them added, than getting 99 spam sites reviewed twice while saving one good site from unfair rejection.

And even if we had extra editor hours available after reviewing all submitted sites once, there are better ways to use it -- such as doing the doublechecks from a different source of URLs that hasn't already been sucked almost dry by the first round of checks.

Actually I was being completely absolutely honest, no hostility toward the OPD meant at all. On the contrary, statements such as .."hope that I am as successful in creating more unique content in the future" was actually one of respect of the ODP and it's mission. It's no mystery that sites listed are held to a higher standard. Having met that standard, and deemed worthy by one or more of your 'peers', or users, should be a matter of pride for anyone and a goal for one to continue to stive for.

On the other hand, *I know I'll get shot for this but here it goes..* your replies, and those of some of the other editors that post here, convey a deep distrust toward suggestors as a group. No matter how well deserved (and I'm sure it is in many cases) I can't see this as being very condusive for fair treatment across the board. Sure, I'm guessing that I'll hear that there is no need for fairness based on the suggestor-editor relationship not being one of customer-vendor but that in itself nearly undermines the ODP goal as I understand it.

The issue of spam is one that I completely understand. We all feel it's pain. I myself dodged the email barrage for many, many years only to now receive more than 100 per day in my primary inbox for the last year or so. Though dispised and never personally practiced, I have to believe that some of it is not completely malicious in it's origin. Borne of ignorance or perhaps having made a bad choice of a particular marketing firm, still it does not completely jade my opinion of them overall. Most are simply people playing the saturated numbers game to make a buck. One of lifes little annoyances for the rest of us whether it be in an inbox, phone call or mailbox, I simply choose to delete it, ignore it and live by the mantra "If I want it that badly, I'll come to YOU".

Given the above, I still stand on my genuine answers given as well as the three points of stress releif for both parties. And after thinking a bit, perhaps another auto-email should be introduced. One that stated something to the effect of "..this site will not be listed, please do not suggest it again.." along with a copy or pointer to the guidlines. *curious to know what that would do to those spammers moronic enough to be 'ultra persistent"*. Not being in that group, I know I would certainly check myself to determine why I was denied. Constructed carefuly, I can't see how it would give a hardcore spammer any more tools with which to do their dastardly deeds. You know as well as I do, there simply is no help for those types.

Now, the forum you mentioned that illustrates the impatience of folks has indeed been eliminated. I can only theorize that this is sure to generate more duplicate suggestions based on the lack of communication and information given. Even those folks who, by and large failed to follow instructions for proper status checks, would change their response to meet those guidelines once prompted which only strengthens my point. It seems email notification would serve the same purpose for many.

I didn't suggest the email replies as an end-all-be-all solution. I am aware that there are many that will do their nastiness no matter what. Rather, the solution works best to keep the sincere from unwittingly becoming spammers themselves. Information empowers those who choose to absorb it, those that do not do so at their own peril.

I'd better stop now as it seems I have now become 'persistent' on the subject

The issue of spam is one that I completely understand. We all feel it's pain. I myself dodged the email barrage for many, many years only to now receive more than 100 per day in my primary inbox for the last year or so.

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I get many times more email spam than that a day and I tell you what...the spam I see submitted to the ODP makes that look like nothing.

I realize you are being sincere when you suggest some kind of email notification for submissions but this has been suggested so many times (a search of this forum would show you that). You can offer all the arguments you like and it just really isn't going to happen. There's no real point in opening up the discussion again.

I too receive many times that amount on many of my accounts. I merely used the luck, now gone, I'd once had on my primary account as an example of my understanding. No question it must pale in comparison to a world wide, publicly available entity, that wasn't the point.

Neither was the suggestion, or re-hash of an email notification workout. I originally replied to the questions that hutcheson noted would not be answered any differently, to which I dissagreed. The mention of it was just my hip-pocket solution. Yes, perhaps not viable but nonetheless worth mentioning IMHO.

Now that I know that it's been beaten to death elswhere I won't continue that line of discussion. Cheers.

As it isn't my (or any other editors) job to review sites I don't see a problem. Except the problem of you being very rude.
Our "job" (task or whatever you want to call it) is to build the directory. And if we like we can use the pool of suggested sites to do so.

We took your advice and moved on. We no longer give status check. There is nothing else you can do.

>> your replies, and those of some of the other editors that post here, convey a deep distrust toward suggestors as a group. <<

Maybe that has to do with the ten million (maybe 20 million), plus, submissions that have already broken our submission policies, disregarded our guidelines, and wasted editors' time.

>your replies, and those of some of the other editors that post here, convey a deep distrust toward suggestors as a group.

Absolutely. As a group, submitters can't be trusted. Of course, as a group, the same could be said of politicians, Presbyterians, redheads, women, Irishmen, used car salemen, ....

So. In your life, when you deal with information ostensibly from a lefthanded Dutchman, how do you handle it? Do you make a list of all the groups he might belong to, that CAN'T be trusted as a group? Or ... do you take that information and say, "why would he be lying about this? what are the risks of believing this? how can I check this if it's important?"

Is the web any different? You can't deal with suggestions "as a group" either, can you? You have to deal with them one by one. Oh, sure, I can tell you that the AVERAGE submittal is 90% spam. And the AVERAGE submitter is maybe 30% honest. And the AVERAGE online-pharmacy submittal is 99.9% poison, while the AVERAGE online-writing submittal is 10% bilge. And the AVERAGE Google search gives 80% spam, while the AVERAGE MSN search gives 90%, those percentages going up to 99% and 99.9% respectively if travel keywords are involved. And online link lists are 50% dead. And so on.

But -- how does any of that help ME (an editor) dealing with a suggestion from YOU (a suggestor)?

Not much. Not any, in fact. Because our whole business is sifting through the muck looking for the hidden jewels. And I know there's no way of knowing (without looking) which are the jewels.

Oh, sure, I can look at a submittal and see marketroidish language, and if I'm feeling like a little muck shovelling, that language jumps up and down saying, "I'm 99% spam, can me!" And I'll look. But sometimes it turns out to be just a total idiot of an SEO fronting for a perfectly legitimate business site.

Or other times when I'm looking for good sites to list, and the site description seem sober and informative enough -- but the site turns out to be trompe d'oil Laputan essay decorated with AdSense filigree.

Everything has to be checked.

That's reality. As a group, any group you can name (even a group self-selected and peer-reviewed for allegedly ethical purposes) isn't trustworthy. Would YOU, for instance, trust me if I said, "Trust me, I'm an ODP editor?" Right, and there you go "showing distrust of ODP editors as a group" -- just because for you, as for any rational person, membership in the group doesn't automatically inspire trust.

That is true even for groups which you cannot join without SOMEONE SOMEWHERE expressing trust in you: such as Orthodox Presbyterians or ODP editors or IBM employees or Al Qaida cells.) It is even more true for groups that have no such entry requirements. That's reality. Online, offline.

So don't cover yourself in the flag of a group containing some of the most greedy and deceptive people on earth. It won't inspire trust. Get out from under the flag, and let us see you. You, all alone, with your own reputation for all it's worth. And then we'll ... um, we'll pass on to our users the problem of deciding whether they can afford to trust you.