Rosalind - 9:14 pm on Aug 12, 2009 (gmt 0)

Do you - or anyone else - have actual stats, such as the total number of submissions vs. rejections vs. email explanation vs. successful resubmissions? That would be illuminating.

I've been doing things this way for a while, but I don't have stats to be representative, particularly because it's an approach I introduced over time, gradually increasing the types of submission that get a specific reason for rejection. Also, my niche and regional directories are relatively small and well filtered. So although I've certainly had positive responses, I can't give any percentages.

Part of the problem is this approach isn't part of any of the scripts I'm aware of. There simply aren't enough directory owners who have tried this approach.

Do you think courtesy, communication, attempts to educate needs to vary based upon the evidence of good faith of the submitter?

Not always. Even if you're 99% sure the recipient will ignore the email, if it takes one click to send it, or to send out a batch of them, then what do you lose? It's more a matter of what can be gained in terms of the individual directory's reputation.