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thanks
navdeep
Personally I would just hold off and let the specified period of time pass before resubmitting. It can take quite a while to get into the ODP but on the other hand it can happen quite quickly... It's a waiting game.
-George
In the mean time, focus submitting at other directories like Joeant, Skaffe, Gimpsy, etc.
Submitting to the ODP is a two step process, that can involve from days to many months.
Step 1. "Submit It"
Step 2. "Forget It"
Move on to more important things, do not waste time stressing over something you cannot change.
Move on to things you can control, and worry about them, you will be much more sucessful, and a lot less stressed.
Thumpcyc
[edited by: Actisoft at 11:04 am (utc) on April 23, 2004]
Ive tried to become an editor on a number of times (to try and resolve these types of problems), and have now given up! anyway thats another post :)
[edited by: Leosghost at 11:51 am (utc) on April 23, 2004]
One month is not at all a long time to wait for a site to be listed in DMOZ. You can check that your site is in the queue for review by going to the ODP Public Forum (Google for it, we're not allowed to post URLs here) and asking in their Site Submission Status forum. Read the rules posted at the top of that forum first!
I agree with the above re one month not being long at all.
I have submitted several sites to OPD starting about a year ago and NONE of them have been accepted yet. I'm sure it's not a design problem either as I pay attention to the guidelines for both Google and ODP and validate all my pages.
I've also tried requesting updates in their public forum, however, trying to find the original request from several months back so you can find out if the site has moved higher in the que is practically useless as their search program isn't working for me.
So I've taken the advice of someone else on this thread.
forget it.
Lorel
If you bookmarked something more than a few months ago, then note that the format of the forum URLs has changed (due to change to vbulletin forum software last month) and so you'll need to look at the old URL, find the thread number and then insert it into the new URL format.
Alternatively, in your own RZ profile, you can pull up a list of all of your previous posts and find it that way.
There is a small chance that either your username does not exist, or that all of your previous posts are gone. The forum suffered several crashes and lost a small amount of data each time -- that was what prompted the ultimate change to the new forum software.
My advice...forget about it for at least 6 months.
After that, ask about it at their forum.
Other than that...don't hold you breath.
If you bookmarked something more than a few months ago, then note that the format of the forum URLs has changed (due to change to vbulletin forum software last month) and so you'll need to look at the old URL, find the thread number and then insert it into the new URL format.
Sorry I don't have the time nor the patience to scroll through hundreds of pages to find a post I submitted several months ago. Obviously my files were dumped before the new format because as I said, some of my clients have been waiting over a year to be accepted.
I sent in "new" submission status requests the other day--but it was a worthless endeavor--the answer to every one was :
"awaiting review"
I could have figured that out myself.
Lorel
I sent in "new" submission status requests the other day--but it was a worthless endeavor--the answer to every one was :"awaiting review"
I could have figured that out myself.
So why did you waste the valuable time of an editor then?
[quote]
So why did you waste the valuable time of an editor then?[/qoute]
I'm not a mind reader. How was I supposed to know what the response would be till after I got it? They used to tell you how far up the queue the site was positioned. To get an answer like "awaiting review" is totally useless. The other answer lets us know if there has been any progress.
They are supposedly providing a service with their submission status forum but the service no longer tells us anything.
Lorel.
They used to tell you how far up the queue the site was positioned. To get an answer like "awaiting review" is totally useless. The other answer lets us know if there has been any progress.
Since the "queue" isn't really a queue (i.e. it isn't a case of first in, first out), telling you where you are in the list is meaningless and just raises expectations.
That is exactly what I thought it was and I'm sure many others do also. If it isn't a Queue then why do they call it one? It seems to me that older submissions should be considered first.
Good point, motsa. Although I try to do oldest submissions first in my little cat, I often skip ahead to "easy" ones - either obvious spam that can be deleted, obvious category errors to be moved, and sites that will probably be perfectly fine for inclusion.Some borderline sites take a longer time to evaluate, and I may leave those for an edit session when I have more time.
I can see deleting spam and category errors first, and that wouldn't affect "seniority" --only boost valid submissions closer to the top.
However, allowing the editor to pick and choose submissions just because they look easier than others doesn't sound like good business practice to me, and is probably why so many submitters are totally fed up with OPD.
Lorel
The problem usually isn't with cats that HAVE active editors specifically for that cat. It's the categories that have inactive editors (who will eventually get removed) or cats that must be edited by overworked, higher level editors. In some cases, the volume of sites vs. the hours available overwhelms the effort to keep fairly current.
If it isn't a Queue then why do they call it one?
A lot of people tend to call it a pool.
But queueing theory covers a least three types of queue:
>> I could have figured that out myself. <<
There were several other possible outcomes:
- rejected and not likely to be listed.
- moved to a more appropriate category, where it awaits review.
- already published in a different category to where you submitted.
and so on.
Why? Being listed in ODP or even being reviewed for a possible listing is not a "right" that we webmasters have. And the editors are not trying to serve us. They are trying to create a good directory. And they do that by trying to find relevant websites for their individual categories which is not necessarily done among the oldest submissions.
> allowing the editor to pick and choose submissions just because they look easier than others doesn't sound like good business practice to me
The ODP is not a business. And if they start giving orders to editors about which websites they should review they will soon see a lot of editors quitting.
>The ODP is not a business. And if they start giving orders to editors about which websites they should review they will soon see a lot of editors quitting.
Right. And, from the ODP editor perspective if you want to look at it as a business, the "customers" would be users of the users of the ODP, and not website owners who have submitted sites. Note that choosing the easier submissions, if done as picking the most likely worthwhile to list, will have the effect of growing the directory at the fastest pace. Odds are lower with a .gov or .edu URL being a spam submission than other TLDs, on average.
If you were a tree, you'd be thinking of your mission as a consumer of fertilizer stakes. We have an altogether different and more lofty mission. We are engineering branches, growing leaves, spreading roots, and providing homes for all the birds in the world. (And you can help by providing fertilizer stakes.)
So an editor may achieve the exalted and honored status of editall by spending most of the time not looking at submittals at all! Yes, they are clipping URLs out of magazines, copying them off of delivery vans, using Google, sneering at Google and using Northern-Light (or whatever up-and-coming failed-wannabe-competitor to Google they like best), re-reviewing the work of other editors, and withal building the directory.
Most of the other third are published authors submitting their own homepages.
Zero are about Shakespeare.
Now what are our users--our customers--most frequently searching for? 14-year-old Jessie Smith's poems about the prom? Well, no. Zero, actually. Her friends already know her URL, and no one else has heard of her or, frankly, really cares. Shakespeare? Why yes, and the more sites the better, please, my paper on MacBeth is due Tuesday.
So if we sat back and only processed submissions, we'd have a curious directory full of primarily sites that people wanted to PROMOTE, not sites people wanted to SEE. It's a good thing there are proactive editors like me actively *looking* for the best Shakespeare sites, and putting them in. Otherwise the ODP would be a very strange place indeed. (-:
I deal with my submissions on a weekly basis and pretty much strictly in order of submission but then I only get one or two a week for my category.
I have read complaints about DMOZ in several different forums. These are from people who are frustrated by their failed efforts to get into the directory. While there is no doubt that many of these sites are good quality a significantly high proportion of them are absolute ****. It's just that the people submitting them cannot see it. Then they wonder why they can't get in?
As someone who can handle the volume of submissions that I get I have sympathy for both the editors of busy categories and those who have good sites that are having to wait. We are however volunteers so there is not a lot that can be done about. Maybe DMOZ should ask people who are applying to become editors to agree to handle a guranteed number of submissions per week/month?
What you should do is submit your site, after 6 months or more check if it is there. If not you can either ignore it or ask on their forum what the status is.
It can seem unfair that your competitors is in dmoz and your are not but apparently there is nothing to do about this.
Peter
It can seem unfair that your competitors is in dmoz and your are not but apparently there is nothing to do about this.
But there is something you can do:
Apply to be an editor.
It may take you six months or a year to work up to editing categories for which you have some personal commercial interest.
But every day you are an editor, you are reviewing sites so that other editors don't have to. That may free up another editor who may then have time to work on the categories that your have a personal commercial interest in.
Or it may not.
But either way, you are helping make the ODP a more valuable resource, so that when your site does get listed (assuming it is eligible) it'll be a better place to be in.
The choice is simple. Sit back and wait for volunteers to do something you want done. Or volunteer to do things for others.
