Often months after someone submits a website to my directory, I get an email asking for the listing to be changed somewhat. What's your policy for doing this? I'm usually happy to accommodate a reasonable request, but I also know that dmoz and Yahoo! likely would not do so, so I'm not sure I'm on the right track. Also, what sort of proof would you require for the change to be done? Months later people don't normally have their paypal receipt. Email addresses can easily be spoofed (or the email may not even come from the domain that's in the directory). I'm concerned about competitors making malicious requests for listing changes.
It's really up to you in how you deal with this. If you decide to change listings for a user, I certainly would want some sort of proof from the user. Paypal receipt would be best, but I could also be happy if he could supply me with the email address he used to submit (PHPLD saves this information for you).
if its the exact same site with new domain or the same domain with same site and want the description changed i would do it for them if it really needs it. Most active dmoz editors will take suggestions for changes in titles/descriptions and even urls i would change them just to keep listings up to date.
As onlinedude said, email addresses can easily be spoofed, so it may lead to cause a problem. I think PayPal receipt is the best proof you can consider...
I too agree with both the comments of onlinedude & coolweb and concur a PayPal receipt is pretty solid confirmation info
I understand that emails can be spoofed to appear to come from one domain but actually come from another. But simply asking someone for the email address they used to submit to you seems like a pretty safe method (barring a very luck guess), not as good as a paypal receipt obviously.
Why kind of changes are they asking for? Title? Description? URL? If it's for the title or description, we'll try to accomodate reasonable requests. If they're asking me to substitute another URL and the original url is still live, I'd have to have a really good reason why and be able to verify they were the owner.
My directory allows changing of listing info if the user has the appropriate password they added their listing with. I can then approve or disapprove the change they have made myself. Surprisingly, I get quite a few requests to make changes. If the change is reasonable, I allow it.
Thanks so much for all of your thoughts. Usually someone just wants to change the title or description a bit, although I've had requests to change the url when the site has been 301'd to another site. Or I see many people changing their urls from site.co.uk to site.com. I figure most of the time people are being honest - I just want to prevent any abuses.
I have had issues with regards to decision making with what I am doing with my dierctory, and which accessible features will be available to the end user. This is definately one of the things that has plagued my mind oh so many times over. Will they abuse it? Will they abuse it? Will they abuse it? I've a system(not thoroughly implemented yet) to allow such a task but with one stipulation; one change per year. I originally thought 3, but then it might get abused. The thing is, I would love for people who invest in my directory to be able to adjust themselves properly. I realize the internet changes, and I want to be able to allow them to change with it. However, the abusiveness is neverending and something that will be extremely hard to spot once the directory is saturated. I say give them a review and make changes accordingly. R