Guest festprint Posted March 14, 2003 Posted March 14, 2003 I submitted the URL The Wi-Fi Technology Forum about 3 times since December, however no sign of its inclusion in the Cat below (which it said is needing a Volunteer). This non-profit and volunteers run site is so valuable to the wireless community and would beg you on a positive feedback. http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Data_Communications/Wireless/ The Category is so small, and I can't see a big queue, hence that make me think there is an objection for including it. Is it because I use IE instead of Netscape and my IP is not recognized when submitting? or is it because we use Dynamic URLs. We managed to change most URLs and shorten them using SSI, hoping that would help. Awaiting your kind and merciful response!
Meta windharp Posted March 14, 2003 Meta Posted March 14, 2003 The category _has_ a huge backlog. Number of submissions does not necessarily scale with category size... Apart from that - as you have noticed - your submission was put into a temporary storage area because your IP could not be determined. Where it still is, waiting for a precheck. Curlie Meta/kMeta Editor windharp
Guest festprint Posted March 14, 2003 Posted March 14, 2003 I don't quite understand the meaning of "IP could not be determined", I had this every time I submitted. Could someone throw some light as to what are the possible reasons for it. My IP address shows up in stats logs and can be traced to my ISP, possible also to the host etc...so why is it so? Thanks for your reply.
Meta hutcheson Posted March 14, 2003 Meta Posted March 14, 2003 In such cases, it usually means that your ISP is using proxies to support more users than it has unique IP addresses for. Thatis, every time your machine sends a request to your ISP, your ISP server plugs in some free IP address from its pool of public IP addresses (meanwhile secretly memorizing your private IP address). When it gets the answer, it remembers your private IP address, and frees up the public IP address for someone else. Next time you send a request, it might go out to the world via some other of your ISP's public addresses. And so the ODP server gets a request for the "add URL" from one IP address, and the filled in form from another IP address (both of them from your ISP's pool.) It never sees the IP address of your machine on your ISP's network (and it couldn't use that one anyway, since there's a machine in Kamchatka or Lagos or Boston already using it on the WWW.) Not your fault, and -- as has been said -- not a big problem. Some sites get delayed by the extra queue, some sites get more quickly nudged into the right category. (Very) occasionally a site will even catch my eye and get listed right away.
Guest festprint Posted March 16, 2003 Posted March 16, 2003 Thanks for explaining, however, after submitting one's URL and info, a better way of handling the situation to prevent spam should be found. I heard (read) a lot of people going back and trying again and again thinking it is an error and ending up spamming the Dir when faced with the Ad-Hoc situation.
giz Posted March 17, 2003 Posted March 17, 2003 Spamming is where someone submits the same site over and over to multiple categories, or submits multiple mirror sites to the same or related categories, or submits vast amounts of deeplinks to the directory. You have done none of these (as far as I know). For submissions with the IP failure, they go into a temporary holding area specifically for this purpose, and it is plainly obvious that if you have submitted multiple times, that you were having trouble - that's why the submissions are in the holding area. You are unlikely to be considered to be spamming in that particular case. Don't worry about that. The ODP has a range of facilities to counter automated spam submissions, and other junk. In having these a few legitimate sites fall through the cracks into holding areas such as these. It shouldn't cause you any problems.
Guest festprint Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 they go into a temporary holding area specifically for this purpose And remain there foreever?..That is the fate of the URL I submitted I fear! I say this from experience, years ago (when DMOZ was a new thing) I submitted a site every month, the site was in line with the dir's guidelines, and never was listed. after 2 years I gave up! I don't know what it is, but I do think probably UK based URLs residing at UK based hosts may be the reason, they have difficulty getting listed (I could be wrong there though)!
dfy Posted March 18, 2003 Posted March 18, 2003 >> years ago ... I submitted a site every month, the site was in line with the dir's guidelines, and never was listed. after 2 years I gave up << I'm not about years ago, but if you were doing that today, there's a very good reason why you might not get listed. Each new submission overwrites any old one found in the queue. If an editor were to sort the unreviewed queue by date (which is the default setting), you would have been bumping your site to the bottom of the queue with each submission. >> I do think probably UK based URLs residing at UK based hosts may be the reason, they have difficulty getting listed << This is not true. UK URLs are treated the same as any other country's URLs. UK hosting would be transparent to the vast majority of editors.
Meta hutcheson Posted March 18, 2003 Meta Posted March 18, 2003 >And remain there foreever? In most cases, no. Sometimes they move directly to the Misplaced Submissions queue to fossilize.
Meta hutcheson Posted March 18, 2003 Meta Posted March 18, 2003 >a better way of handling the situation to prevent spam should be found. I may strongly agree with you, but I will fight to the death to deny your right to say it. Unless you understand the problems and the technology well enough to know that there _is_ a better way, it's a very inane thing to say. But there have been concrete proposals (or at least very viscous proposals) made by a number of people, and I think we are in the way of finding a better way.
giz Posted March 19, 2003 Posted March 19, 2003 >> And remain there foreever?..That is the fate of the URL I submitted I fear! << I understand that many of these "misplaced" submissions are rerouted back to the correct unreviewed queue (which may or may not be the same as the one originally submitted to) within a few days, if the site looks like it is worth listing (ie, obvious spam, mirrors, and junk all gets deleted). A very few good sites are actually published directly to the directory from the holding area.
Guest festprint Posted March 22, 2003 Posted March 22, 2003 It seems to me that we are at a disadvantage here, and there is nothing one can do about it. However thanks for the insight as to why a previous site was not listed after two years of trying. As I said, I waited a month everytime I made a new sybmission, now it looks like every one replaces the older one and litterally back to square-1 when it comes to the date of submission.
giz Posted March 22, 2003 Posted March 22, 2003 Re: status on http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ You can sort unreviewed sites by date of last submission, either oldest or newest first, in alphabetical order A to Z, or Z to A, and so on. Additionally editors work in many different ways. Some will start by deleting obvious spam, or duplicates, others will start oldest first, others will look for easy stuff to list first, while others will look for sites that belong in other categories and move them to the unreviewed queue there. Someone will eventually get to it.
Guest festprint Posted March 30, 2003 Posted March 30, 2003 Re: status on http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ If the ODP was as organized as Looksmart's Zeal Directory, we would not read so much criticism all over the net as to the confusion and the uncertainty that it had always caused. Saying that, I am also saying that many of the editors are to be respected AND PRAISED for their efforts. However, I wish the level of uncertainty and confusion will gain more of the senior editor's and staff's attention. I am sure the majority of submitters, will welcome the idea of knowing in a set time whether or not they were successful at least!
motsa Posted March 30, 2003 Posted March 30, 2003 Re: status on http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ However, I wish the level of uncertainty and confusion will gain more of the senior editor's and staff's attention. I am sure the majority of submitters, will welcome the idea of knowing in a set time whether or not they were successful at least!Staff and senior editors know that it is impossible for editors to give submitters specific timeframes for listing...and you'll notice than most of the editors telling you that here are "senior editors". Any push to get specific timeframes would likely result in something more like "We guarantee we'll review your site within the next 3 years." than "We guarantee we'll review your site within the next month.".
Meta kokopeli Posted March 30, 2003 Meta Posted March 30, 2003 Re: status on http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ We are volunteer editors, and do our best to get to submissions in a timely fashion. We do also all have jobs, families, and other interests. I imagine if I had to pay to have my site listed in Looksmart then a concrete turnaround is fair. If I want a free listing in DMOZ which then gets me in other search engines, that is something different. I can understand your frustration that new submissions are overriding old but the reason for that is simple. Some pleople continually resubmit sites--which then increases the time others wait to have their site submitted because someone would have to take the time to go through and manually sort out all of those duplicate submissions leaving only one in unreviewed. That then takes up editor time instead of being able to evaluate and list sites. By overriding duplicate submissions it decreases the amount of needless time spent deleting all those duplicate submissions.
Guest festprint Posted April 12, 2003 Posted April 12, 2003 Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ Thanks for the response, can someone please have a look and see if the URL http://www.wi-fitechnology.com is definitely in the queue. You see that's the trouble, one can not know for sure if it is in the queue or deleted. I am willing to wait an other month (been I think almost two months now), and then what should I do, if I resubmit I'll cause the delay again, if I don't, well...
dfy Posted April 13, 2003 Posted April 13, 2003 Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ Yes, I can see it in the queue, waiting to be sent off to the correct category for review.
Guest festprint Posted May 6, 2003 Posted May 6, 2003 Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ Thanks, You are an Angel!
Guest festprint Posted May 14, 2003 Posted May 14, 2003 Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ Would the submission appear in google and others only after they update their directory, i.e.. months later?
lachenm Posted May 14, 2003 Posted May 14, 2003 Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ We have no control over when any downstream users (including Google) update their databases. It's best to ask them if you have questions about their service. But, yes, I can safely say that a newly listed site appears in a downstream user's listing only after they update their database from the ODP... <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> You didn't ask for a status update, but since it has been a month, I checked for you anyhow: your site is still waiting to be sent to the correct category. Once there, it will eventually be reviewed. The reviewer will decide whether to list it. If it is listed, it will take additional time for the downstream users (varies from user to user) to update their databases.
Guest festprint Posted May 15, 2003 Posted May 15, 2003 Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ Can't someone just send it to the correct category please!
Alucard Posted May 15, 2003 Posted May 15, 2003 Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ Someone will, have no fear. It's just that there are tens of thousands of others sitting there for similar processing - we get a *lot* of spam submissions. Sorting through them is almost a full-time job for several editors.
Guest festprint Posted May 18, 2003 Posted May 18, 2003 Re: status http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ Thanks, I'll give it an other month or so and come back to check. I am an editor in another similar directory, so I know where you are coming from. In fact I applied months ago to become one at ODP, I was refused for some strange reason.
Guest festprint Posted June 23, 2003 Posted June 23, 2003 Re: http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/ Well it has been yet an other month, any chance of Christmas coming early, or will it have to wait until December if one is lucky! The site is looking better, congrats!
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