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I run a pretty established site. Google PR of 7, 200K+ pages server each month and regarded by many as one of the most useful online resources in its sector.
However, the submission editor at DMOZ appears to have some hidden agenda, and has failed to list the site, even though it satisfies *all* of the criteria and is a heck of a lot more functional and useful than other sites which have been listed.
Any ideas how to proceed? I fear that the editor has some axe to grind but I can't think what. I feel that not being listed in DMOZ hurts my site's visibility in the world stage (even though for its generic SE phrase it ranks at #1 on Google).
John
appears to have some hidden agenda
Is that all you can think of as a reason to not see your site in bright lights?
There are certain "rules" you need to be aware of, for example do not keep submitting to the category. The process I use is this:
Submit
Wait 2 weeks
Check the status in the zone - they will tell you if they have the submission.
If they have it, all you can do is wait.
You can check resource zone every 6 months to see how it is doing. If it has been rejected, they will usually explain why.
Wait 2 weeks
i asked status of my listing about 6 months back and they asked me to come in this feb 28 to ask back status
two days before i went to there forum and they said nothing but to come after more six months....they dont give any reason but seems some editors are not doing there job finely
does any one know to whom to contact any head of these editors
I see no change in status in your suggestion.which implies that it's still awaiting review.
The news could have been much worse.
I know very little about DMOZ, but I do know that each single category may be edited by many different editors. If one editor "fails" to list a site it is still possible for one of the many others to list it.
... each single category may be edited by many different editors. If one editor "fails" to list a site it is still possible for one of the many others to list it.
Only if you make multiple submissions to multiple categories, which is very, very strongly discouraged.
I think you misunderstood. No one in this thread suggested multiple submissions was a good idea.
What was suggested is that any category you can think of has more than just 1 editor, and that includes the categories that do not have any editor listed at all. Many editors have editing rights in multiple categories even though they are not listed in every category.
The point being made is that it's not really possible for 1 editor to have a successful hidden agenda to keep a site from being listed because he or she is never the only editor with access.
As an old saw goes ...
when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
The point being made is that it's not really possible for 1 editor to have a successful hidden agenda to keep a site from being listed because he or she is never the only editor with access.
Do you have any idea on the amount of work which editing a few categories means? I recently took over a category with about a dozen sub- and sub-sub-categories which had ~350 sites listed and ~650 sites in the backlog. Another category I took over a week ago had 45 sites listed and slightly less than 100 in the backlog. I had to create 5 subcategories to sort them appropriately. NOBODY else is looking into these categories!
As soon as you have proven with a few minor categories that you can edit and seem to be honest, you are left alone! There is a tremendous lack of editors, and once you have proven that you can do it, you get more responsibility and more work as you may probably wish for!
If somebody HAS a hidden agenda, he/she can go undetected for a very long time, if he/she is not too dumb. Fortunately enough, those with sabotaging schemes in mind seem either to be dumb or too shortlived. However with the track record I have gathered so far, I would be able to start some serious trouble which would go unnoticed for quite a long time. But the amount of time and effort I have invested so far to get this track record would (hopefully) make no sense for anyone with only mischief in mind.
I'm not naive though. I know very well that there IS abuse. But I think it is the exception, not the rule.
If an editor reviews a site, and decides that it shouldn't be listed, then they will delete it from the unreviewed queue. That's why I thought that in order to have a chance of another editor coming along and listing it, you would have to have submitted it to another unreviewed queue somewhere else.
It seems that this isn't what you referred to as failing to list a site; you meant simply not reviewing it at all, leaving it in the queue. You're right that that would leave the possibility of another editor coming along and listing the site.
Of course, an editor with an agenda could, in theory, review a competitor's site each time it was submitted, deleting in from the unreviewed queue; it is possible for a single editor to reduce the chance of a particular site being listed, even if other editors have access to their category.
As soon as you have proven with a few minor categories that you can edit and seem to be honest, you are left alone! There is a tremendous lack of editors, and once you have proven that you can do it, you get more responsibility and more work as you may probably wish for!If somebody HAS a hidden agenda, he/she can go undetected for a very long time, if he/she is not too dumb. Fortunately enough, those with sabotaging schemes in mind seem either to be dumb or too shortlived. However with the track record I have gathered so far, I would be able to start some serious trouble which would go unnoticed for quite a long time. But the amount of time and effort I have invested so far to get this track record would (hopefully) make no sense for anyone with only mischief in mind.
Basically all true, but the "work" is self-imposed, not forced. You can ignore all the submissions if you choose, or you can obsess and try to handle all of them all the time.
As for you being "able to start some serious trouble" -- can't we all? You've proven yourself trustworthy, apparently, and the assumption is that you'll continue to be. If it's found otherwise, then you'll be an ex-editor in fairly short order.
Ultracomplex, sneaky schemes are possible, yes, but to _start_ by thinking that something like that is the reason for not getting a listing is silly. It should be the last thing on a list of possibilities, not the first.
Since every editing action is logged, and the log can be seen by every editor, then such an action will appear both against that category and against that editor. It will not stay hidden for long. Each delete has to have a reason typed in too. People do randomly check up on those.
Seriously? I am an ODP editor. I confess to ignoring numerous submissions without bias or prejudice. I just don't have the time.
Indeed. Any ODP editor can check my edit logs for any reason. Or, no reason at all. I've actually checked other ODP editors edits for "no reason at all." I have yet to find anything in the guidelines that says I can't look at the edit logs at random if it floats my boat. I can even easily check the edit logs of metas. In theory, and practice, I can look at what what any editor does. Secrecy is non-existant at the ODP.
Secrecy is non-existant at the ODP.
Hey, like that one, quote of the day.... no make it quote of the month ;)
Meanwhile even though I've done tens of thousands of edits, I know someone is always looking over my shoulder, in case I turn bad. Every so often I get a review I've done "corrected".
You woould have to work very hard to not get caught. That means you have to to do a lot of good edits, and somehow sneak in a few bad edits. There is no way that anyone is going to do a lot of servious damage without getting caught.
Even if (hypothetically speaking) there are some perfectly good sites that have been rejected by dodgy editors, it must be a miniscule number compared to those that aren't listed because they're still waiting to be reviewed.
The latter is the real problem, particularly as (as we've heard) dodgy editors are likely to get caught before they can do any serious damage, and so is almost always the most plausible explanation of why a submitted site hasn't yet been listed.
I was just reviewing some sites in a sub-category of mine, and fixing up sloppy mistakes by another editor, that editor has been here for a year and half and done less then 50 edits - over half the edits had to be corrected by me or someone else for obviously bad grammer, just plain sloppy. I noticed that the editor had been recently been removed - probably for failure to improve the editing quality. When one editor has to keep fixing mistakes and check every edit amde by another, it's better not to have the editor there.
The embarassing thing was that the senior editor that doing quality control on that editor found a few of my edits that were also unacceptable. Got to keep on your toes at all time.
Category "Computers/Internet/*"
Sites listed: 43904
Backlog: 52816
Errors: 579
Change requests: 307
Category "Regional/North_America/Canada/*"
Sites listed: 78523
Backlog: 6061
Errors: 44
I've also, by the way, had the experience of leaving a site in unreviewed with the intent of reviewing it that night, only to find that when I returned, somebody else had beaten me to it. It would really be impossible for one editor to sabotage your submission by simply ignoring it, from everything I've seen. Another editor would come across it in pretty much the same timeframe that they would have if the other editor didn't exist.
Just to put more weight on my statement that the ODP is in urgent need of editors:
And just for the record, we've joined over 150 new editors since the beginning of March. I think we're doing pretty good with the amount of editors that we have. If we have too many the whole structure would become unmanageable.
True. The only real backlog is worthwhile sites that have been CREATED. That's all that matters. The trick is, as always, finding and recognizing them.
