Advice on Titles

[raatgeo]

I applied recently to become an editor but my application was denied among other things, which I understand and agree with, was something that didn't make much sense to me. I was told that the titles I selected were wrong. According to the guidelines one option for the title is the official name of the business or company.

I Quote

"Do give the official name of the business or entity as the title".

end of quote.

from the following url http://www. geoscanners.com I suggested the title to be Geoscanners AB which is the company/business official name. the same for http://www. radarteam.se, title Radarteam Sweden AB and finally http://www. lanviser.com with Landviser LLC as the title.

I don't see a contradiction with the guidelines but perhaps is because there are some other subtle details one must take into consideration.

Can you help me understand better what exactly was my fault.

thanks

[kazhar]

There's a default message in the rejection one. And after that, the meta editor can add comments.

Are you sure the advices on the titles aren't from this default message ?

[raatgeo]

Thanks for your prompt reply.

The comments are under the "Reviewer Comments", together with some other advices that in my opinion are fair. But, it clearly says that "... the titles and descriptions on your application do not meet the guidelines editors are expected to follow." .

About the descriptions, I think I got it, one is not supposed to use words like "leader", "leading" in the descriptions. I used the combination "world leader" in describing one of the sites. That might have sounded like advertising and that's wrong according to the guidelines. I guess the other descriptions are not wrong, just that specific one.

The other descriptions merely describe what these companies do within the category I chose and one cannot be more precise than eleven words per description. Specially if they describe exactly what kind of geophysical instruments these companies manufacture.

What I really don't understand is my fault regarding the titles. I'd like to understand that particular issue so I don't make the same mistake twice. It is very difficult to do something better if one doesn't know what was wrong in the first place.

Thanks

[jimnoble]

If the titles are the company names and nothing more, that's fine.

Descriptions should also tell the surfers what they'll find on the website.

[raatgeo]

Yes, those are the company names, nothing else. Just like in the second recommended site the company name is Radarteam Sweden AB but the url is simply radarteam.se. Could that be the problem? Perhaps the reviewer reacted on the "AB" stuff, but that's like "Inc." in Sweden. I still cannot make any sense of why the titles were wrong.

Regarding the descriptions, I tried to make them so concise and exact as possible. Does the description has to include the category name? for instance, in the category: <Science/Earth_Sciences/Geophysics/Products_and_Services/Instruments> I used as a description for one of the links: "Developer of software and hardware solutions for geophysical surveys and deep soil exploration."

Would it have been better to use:

"Developer of instruments for geophysical surveys and deep soil exploration"?

I'm trying to learn how to do it right, but subtle differences might be hard to catch without the proper understanding.

Thanks for your assistance

[jimnoble]

So long as they aren't hyped or keyword stuffed, we aren't too worried about perfect descriptions in applications. We can teach people how to write those. We're much more interested in integrity, communications skills and attention to detail .

[raatgeo]

Well, it seems to be that I just wasn't paying attention to the details. I'll try again and see if I can get it right this time. I'll try avoiding acronyms like "AB" and I'll try to put the category name in the description of the site.

It is interesting to observe that while the guidelines are very precise, they are easily interpreted in quite different ways.

I got the impression from your answers here that my titles were correct, probably they came out wrong because I contributed to one of the sites I mentioned. Maybe that was reason enough for the reviewer to get in a more exigent mode, perhaps too demanding.

I thank you all for your kind answers.

[jimnoble]

I'll try to put the category name in the description of the site

The guidelines suggest that you avoid doing that - it's redundant .

[chaos127]

Of course it may be that the reviewer meant to write "... the titles and/or descriptions on your application ..."

[raatgeo]

Yes jimnoble, that's also true, but then again the guidelines do say the company name should be fine for the title but apparently they are not.

chaos127, I'm afraid the reviewer missed the "/or" if that's what she or he meant. In such situations and with so strict rules one should be careful with the "meaning" and the "typing". It is very easy to mislead and create unintended and highly unnecessary confusion.

I have sent a new request and this time I tried to avoid all the "gotchas" that I found in the guidelines. But none the less I decided to use the name of the companies as the title, this according to the suggestion of the guidelines. We will see if this time they are also wrong. Little by little and with a great deal of patience one might be in the position to understand the intricacies of DMOZ submission. After all, at my age one doesn't hurry much anyway.

thanks you all for your replies, they are part of the experience.