Forum Moderators: open
I delete or transfer about 75% of the applications to my cat beacuse;
#1 People don't understand that internet humor is humor about the internet. So many submissions come in to my section that don't read the topic they are applying for.
#2 One page is not content. I get about 5 submissions a week of someone who has a great site, but submits one page of their site in a topic they don't qualify for hoping to get spill-over traffic.
#3 People that can't understand "Click once to submit" upset me. Every week I get one or two "3-4 identical submission" submissions. Some are "Oh, maybe if I said this" and they send another one. Some are just plain adding the exact same thing over and over. In either case, they upset me greatly.
#4 Sites have been rejected in several other categories are not likely to get listed in mine. If I see a list of rejections or transfer requests of other editors who didn't want to list the site. Most of these sites I find are duplicate listings, and there's very few that are actual "Bounced around for eternity on the first submission"/
#5 I love sites where the people take the time to read the submission guidelines and follow them reasonably well. If the submission is full of "THE GREATEST SITE!!!!!" type errors, I go to their site in a very bad mood.
The thing to remember is that I am no different from any other editor, so I'm sure most other editors feel the same way.
I'd really like to know what ticks off fellow editors as well.
How about we keep the post positive, and instead of griping about things that tick you off, let's list things for users to keep in mind so that their submissions will be positively viewed by editors.
How does one, for example, choose the correct category for a submission, and how many categories may one submit to?
And what constitutes a "unique" page to ODP? Can more than one page of a site be submitted to different categories, and if so, what is the criteria one may use to do that?
We try not to start "gripe sessions" if we can help it around here. Let's make this something others can learn from.
-G
By the way, Cyber, welcome to the forums. It is good to see another ODP editor here. (The other one is Laisha...)
CyberSpaced Welcome to WmW
As an editor myself, I know that discussions such as this take place in the dmoz.org forums.
So if we can take my handy-dandy list and add some positives maybe it will form into a decent tips list....
Or maybe it'll just suck... At least I tried... ;-)
>Actually (the negative tone aside) posting this type of information to this forum should help those trying to get listed in ODP.
As mentioned, this forum tries hard not to veer to the negative side, which has been noted. Not noted here is that even I try to be kind and sweet here. :)
We definitely, however, promote the idea of exchanging knowledge and experience here, whether it is knowledge and experience from ODP editors or non-editing submitters. We have some interesting and informative threads in this forum, among them:
ODP Editing down to nothing [webmasterworld.com] and the second part of that thread
Ok, trying not to sound too dumb... [webmasterworld.com]
How To: ODP Editor Is Competitor [webmasterworld.com]
Responses and timing when applying to be an ODP editor [webmasterworld.com]
These are not all of the informative threads by any means, but certainly give an idea as to the range of topics and questions we have had so far.
Please feel free to leap in any time and answer questions or provide suggestions from an editor's point of view, OR from a submitter's point of view. We all need all the help we can get, which is why we're here in the first place. :)
Edited by: Laisha
You know, when this site appears in a meta editors bookmarks [as it does now] you ARE in trouble.
</>leap
>At least I tried... ;-)
I think it is a good a list for explaining to people why their entries to ODP get rejected, and your contribution is appreciated. We are all in the same boat, and we all have to help out when we can.
-G
Ok, now I am really weirded out. There is something about the above statement that is just......creepy. ;)
Here is something useful I hope:
I had a guy submitting his site and all of its deeplinks to every cat. that it pertained to; I mean, this guy must have submitted every page in his index. His site had been deleted by at least 15 other editors before me, so I decided to finally write him and see what was going on.
He had read the guidelines but interpreted them wrong. He thought he could submit his sites until they were indexed and that it was ok to submit 30 deeplinks to already flooded categories. After a few emails it was all cleared up and I haven't received anything else from him in awhile.
Moral of the story is: Read the submission guidelines, and then read them again. If you have questions contact the editor, be polite, and know that the editor is out to help produce the best directory on the web and has no vendetta against you. Well in theory ;)
CoastalEditor
One thing I've learned from beta testing websites is how easy it is for people to misunderstand what I think are clear directions. After I grok what's going on, I can usually see how the misundertanding can be corrected -- that is, the mistakes make "sense" from a certain point of view.
I have several clients who almost made submissions "on their own" to the ODP. In each case, I'm sure they would have had a very odd spin on the guidelines and given the editors the heebies if I hadn't stepped in.
