Forum Moderators: open
I mean you have to email, and maybe put the site in, This could take awhile I guess with the server problems over there.
But like if you had 100 sites in your box, how long would it take you to review them?
Thanks!
[edited by: deanril at 3:54 am (utc) on May 7, 2003]
But like do you guys check for hidden text and bad cheats like that, which I hope you do. Also once a site is listed to you come back to it after a time period, make sure its the same quality ect.
Also Hutchenson said, its doesnt matter if you resubmit, he picks them out.
So how would I may mine look different from the rest to get picked out, out of order from the stack of review needed sites?
The problem with submissions taking so long to review is that there are too many submissions, and too few editors
If there are too few editors why don`t you simply accept new editors into the project? Don`t you get enough "applications"? I personally know candidates who never even got a reply from DMOZ when applying to become editors...
I personally know candidates who never even got a reply from DMOZ when applying to become editors
This should not happen.
At the very least they should recieve an automated email response to which they must reply. That reply puts the application into the pool for meta editors to check. It also auto generates another email to let you know that the application is now waiting for review.
When an application is checked by a meta editor they have the ability to send an acceptance or rejection email. Rejection emails contain a generic set of usual reasons for rejections and there is an option to add application specific details/suggestions.
Due to the large number of applications it is not practical to provide detailed rejection letters for each applicant.
Normal acceptance/rejection time is from hours up to a month, but may be longer if there is a reorganisation in progress in the category requuested, or if the application is for a particularly esoteric subject or language category where there may only be a single meta editor with the specialised knowledge to process those applications.
One thing that I have noticed in forum postings is that several people have stated they did not recieve the auto generated emails - this may be because of spam filter settings on the recieving account, or even ISP spam filtering.
If you wish to know if an application is waiting or not, there is a part of the Resource Zone forum for asking editor application status.
Surprisingly I quite often run across editors who were accepted, but have never logged in (in which case they time out in 1 month - and their name never appears on the category they were accepted for).
Thats my understanding of things as they presently operate. If there are communication problems within the current system hopefully they can be identified and rectified once the new hardware is all installed and software migrated over.
:)
I explained I would be better suited to another category other then my website's and filled the long thing out.
I was REJECTED! lol
As rfgdxm1 said, make sure the title and the description are correct and compliant to the ODP guidelines, this should speed up the review time.
I tend to go through the sites every two or three weeks to check for deadlinks, re-directs or anything else abit spammy, thats me in my category, it might be different depending on the cat size, the time that the editor has and the backlog of sites in the area.
Craig
Craig
The reason may be stupid. For example, the applicant had a similiar IP to an ex-editor, etc. And another reason why the lack-of-editors excuse isn't any good: A lot of meta editors aren't actively editing. In my book, if you are sitting in the driver's seat, then drive.
mosley700, what a good point. How apt a motto for those who would prefer to lament a failed (or delayed) DMOZ listing rather than get on with developing and promoting their site.
DMOZ guidelines are published, plenty of advice for getting listed is available in the site search here (with some very interesting answers by senior editors over the last few months) - we're not talking brain surgery, after all.
As for editor rejections, let's try this logic on your post:
The old excuse about road safety is not working for me. Too many people I know have taken their driving test and been rejected.
The current situation, where editor abuse is a rarity and many systems are in place to prevent it becoming a major problem, is certainly preferable. The editor who complains about not getting accepted to list their own site would probably also complain about their competitor being accepted as an editor in that category.
Of the people who apply with altruistic intent, to contribute to several categories or a wider area of the directory and to edit in categories where they don't have a commercial interest, I would think that there is a relatively low reject rate. Most rejects would probably be for technical reasons - inability to follow the guidelines, write grammatically correct, hype-free descriptions without repeating words etc.
Absolutely correct. In my minor category I reject probably 8 out of 10. It's frankly ridiculous - but not of my making. I get duplicates galore, doorways, sites with nothing worthwhile at all, sites that have nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of the category, etc...
What makes it worthwhile is the occasion good site, with useful and interesting content. These are the people who suffer delay BECAUSE OF those who submit the trash above.
I also don't know why they bother - I suppose they get past some editors, but most are probably like me - you can tell a 'try on' a mile off.
Regarding applying to be an editor, no, it isn't a synch, and nor should it be. I got rejected first time... and it was for a cat I had an financial interest in. Fair cop. I got accepted in a cat I have no financial interest in at all. To me that says the system works.
What do I get out of it then? A sense of well being, a lot of knowledge (yes, I learn on site techniques from some of the rejections), a better understanding of how the web works, and the authority to contribute to a worthwhile topic.
The system sometime makes life difficult and has imperfections, but broadly, it definitely works.
I really wish we could not hear THAT excuse again.
Not once on any message board have I seen a person rejected who stated their category and made a quality case for why they should be editors. (The exception being ex-editors dismissed for abuse who claimed no abuse. Ignoring the abuse issue, clearly many of these would qualify as editors.)
People simply *give up* after being rejected once, for a category they were "drawing dead" to get because it was too big -- even after getting feedback suggesting to go for a small category. With dedication like that they likely would have been lame editors anyway.
deanril, to answer your earlier question and get back on topic...
Here's a very personal view on editing an area with unreviewed:
1. Weed out obvious deletions (mainly duplicates)
2. List obvious good sites (sites that meet guidelines and have relatively good title and description)
3. Move unsuitable sites to suitable categories (language/region/etc)
4. List good sites with descriptions/titles which do need to be changed
5. Look at any sites that have been waiting for a seriously long time
6. Look at some potentially good sites more deeply - what is the right URL, for example?
7. Look at suspect affiliate sites/deeplinks - delete or list as appropriate.
8. Mull over sites which are unclear in my mind, maybe leave for a while or ask for advice. Eventually delete or list as appropriate.
7. and 8. can also be delayed by any research or listings that I am doing off my own bat. For example, any sites that I have come across during general surfing which I have bookmarked for addition when I get time.
So, to be clear, a "clean" site with a shortish non-keyword-laden title and description - the first sentence describing the enterprise and the second the site - will have by far the best chances with me. In fact, anything like that will stand a good chance of getting listed in 24 hours, as happened last week.
Why? Because they are so rare, so professional and so quick to deal with that I like to encourage any submissions like that.
Because of the nature of this board I suspect many of the submissions complained about fall into my category 8. ("just how much unique content do I need to add to outweigh my affiliate links?") which would be the last to be dealt with by me. So, purely in terms of review time (not eventual success or failure) sites close to the borderline would have the longest wait.
Now for the disclaimer. That's just my view and every editor will edit in their own way.
I would resubmit, but Im not sure if my editor is even alive and breathing, I emailed him once, no reply...
I like to think hes alive, I hope hes alive, my site is clean and plenty of info. Top notch, but thats my oppinion.
Remember:
Most of the editors who edit daily oversee a reasonably large cat space. They may have between 30,000 and 3 million listed sites to keep an eye on, plus 5,000 to 500,000 sites in 10 to 10,000 *different* unreviewed queues.
To say "my unreviewed queue hasn't been cleared in the last x weeks, what's going on? The ODP must be corrupt, my editor is dead or there's editor abuse afoot..." shows that you don't understand the system very well.
For example, I edit a cat space of about 75,000 sites. I can currently see a bit over 20,000 sites in the unreviewed queues. There are about ten named editors who can see this cat space, many of whom have to oversee the entire directory as editalls/metas, not just this area. There are also many editors who can see small parts of this cat space, probably about ten of whom make a noticeable contribution on the scale of the overall cat space. It would take me personally several months just to read through all the categories I can potentially edit in, let alone their unreviewed queues.
If those ten editors overseeing that cat space each looked at ten listed sites a day then it would take two years to check that the listed sites still had titles and descriptions that accurately reflected the website content. Since that's the bit of the directory that actually gets used, it's important that the *listed* sites are listed correctly.
Say we'd done all that and then continued to work on the unreviewed queues, working at five sites a day (it takes longer to review a new site than to check a listed one), then it would take a year and a quarter to review the current unreviewed queue.
How long do you think an editor needs to spend at your site to review it properly? Ten minutes? Well then that five sites a day becomes almost an hour of voluntary editing every day. How many of you non-editors spend an hour a day doing something voluntary that doesn't benefit you or your family?
How many sites get submitted to the cat space I can see in the time we spend clearing that unreviewed queue? Well, let's assume for the sake of argument that no editing has been done in the last month, whilst slow server problems have halted our work. In that time, I've watched the unreviewed queue lengthen by about 1,500 sites, so that's about 18,000 sites a year. And I'm not editing in Business or Shopping, where they probably have much greater submission rates including large numbers of affiliates and spam.
So in that year and a bit whilst 20,000 sites were reviewed, another 22,500 would be submitted. Hm, see the problem here? Add in time reorganising categories, mentoring junior editors, reviewing editor applications etc. and you can see why review times are inevitably long.
In summary - a large number of ODP editors are doing a great job for little benefit other than personal pride. With a directory of this size, importance and popularity, it's inevitable that it may take some time for the active editors to work through the unreviewed queues to get to your particular site. Please don't complain!
More time consuming than that is checking for affiliate links, for other identical sites and for "unique content", particularly in online shopping sites. These submissions tend to have long(er) delays in reviewing and more spam submissions.
To check a site like yours takes a long time, at a guess 30 minutes, if it ends up being accepted.
For fairly obvious reasons it is an area of DMOZ that does not have a stampede of "regular" editors wanting to spend long hours editing, and because of the nature of the sites tends to attract more applications from "dubious" editors.
You are (probably) more likely to get accepted to edit your locality to start with. Apply for that, if you get it, then put in some quality editing. Then try for the shopping categories once you have established your credentials
Some people's email programs _are_ filtering it out or their ISP is. That does not mean they didn't get a response. I am almost to the point of declaring this an "ODP Urban Myth" since so many people say they know someone like that but they don't ever say who it was...
I was joking above, i was not serious when I said
Can you talk yo my editor and Ill re-submit!
I would resubmit, but Im not sure if my editor is even alive and breathing, I emailed him once, no reply...I like to think hes alive, I hope hes alive, my site is clean and plenty of info. Top notch, but thats my oppinion
Humor, I fully understand your entire situation over there. You guys do a great job!
A never ending job, with lots of people complaining all the time. 2 thumbs up to the editors at DMOZ, for doing it for free, and doing it correctly!
Well, just to set your mind at rest it happened to me! (And I only realised I was an editor because of two very nice senior editors who dealt with the problem.)
This really proves that KC is right :) Everybody who is accepted as an editor does get at least one e-mail (the automatic e-mail which is sent by the system, with pointers to the Guidelines and other stuff, and in most cases a complimentary e-mail from the Meta who accepted him/her -- I know I do send those for all editors I accept).
If you didn't receive anything, this means that either your email program or your ISP did filter @dmoz.org (dirt.netscape.com) emails.
There is a very small number of cases when the acceptance system borks and an editor application is stuck, but we can see it and deal with it either directly or through our Staff programmer.
About time Telecom Italia took over Telekom Austria then - filtering netscape.com for 7 million inhabitants, how dare they... ;)
About time Telecom Italia took over Telekom Austria
... good God man no, you don't know what you're saying - quick - take it back before anyone notices. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Oh, don't get me started on TI.
How's that satellite going Ettore?
Racing down the superhighway at lighting speed :)
Only smal prob is that being TiscaliSat services provided by SatLynx, I connect via satlynx.net , thus getting German language splash pages on sites forcing a default language version through IP detection.
The old excuse about road safety is not working for me. Too many people I know have taken their driving test and been rejected.
What the huh? What old excuse about road safety? Do we need to take a break from the pipe?
;)
Simple fact is, there is no excuse for calling yourself a user-contributed web directory, when you are not. Sites are sitting in there and have not been reviewed for over a year. If I called myself a baseball player, then I should play baseball. If I called myself a writer, then I should write. The ODP is the non-directory. And, by the way, what's with the server being so slow/ or down all the time? Should we start a collection for the ODP? If AOL/ Netscape doesn't take it seriously, that tells me something about the future of it.
