An evil DMOZ editor?

Done Test-ok! Thanks for finding the proper destination.

 

compostannie
from one evil to another...I thank you.
Rob:
That's what we signed up for...well most of us. To make the internet a better place.

 

Great thread - productive.

I think there should be a form letter for all (yes, all ) refusals with a few check boxes. Such as - wrong category - please submit to correct category
- pure spam - go away gworld (lol)
- duplicate content
- already in directory, etc....

with no return address. That way the spammer can't just spam back, but the legit can do some more work to get it right.

 

It wouldn't be that much extra work for the editor neither - they would just choose the appropriate category, and click send and off the email would go - I have something similar on one of my sites, done in PHP, and it really does quicken up the moderating/reviewing process, and gives the submitter better customer interaction. IMO.

Great Thread - it's good to see editors been proactive.

Darren

 

check my message above, we should never have to do that - submitters can make things more efficient by getting as close to the correct category as possible, but editors are always supposed to move to a better category if they find it in the wrong place.

What would be nice is to have an automatic form letter if we delete a site because it is down or not responding. My personal method is to try a couple of times over a week, if it's still down, and it was a new submission I delete it. If it was previously listed, then I move to a holding area and check again a month or two later.

About once in a thousand submissions I will send a personal email if a site is almost listable but needs some tweaking and tell them to fix it and resubmit. 90% of those emails are ignored and they don't fix the site - even though I probalby only want something like a city/state added to the site to clarify it's location, or perhaps a 301 redirect if they want the URL changed [another good candidate for an automatic email]

All emails are sent from anonymous noreply addresses. I prefer not to get death threats.

 

I do this too but most submitters ignore it; it surprises me when I get a reply.

 

I did not see the description of the category, and that "free" is a requirement. Nearly all of the existing sites in that category sell the information, just like I do (many of us provide a certain amount of "free searches" as teasers, I do here), so the bulk of them are in the wrong category. The way I found the category to begin with was by searching for known competitors.

Zipwise does also sell products substantially different from the other vendors, like this great software, and neat free web tools like the Hosted Dealer Locator. Which makes me wonder if I should be submitting it in EVERY possible category?

If someone could point me to the correct category - I couldn't really find one by searching around some more just now - I'd appreciate it very much. Or if an editor would be so kind as to move it for me, that might be even more expedient. Most of the cadidate categories I find are in printing, but I don't sell any print directories - electrons only (they're cheap and I can always get more of them).

 

Brian - your suggestion has been moved - see post #21

 

most of the times they use fake e-mails probably or e-mails filled with spam so it will just get lost... Also i've noticed many people dont understand and submit sites Under Construction or with no content! (example a forum with one post...) Come one doesn't take much to figure out that a site should have some content before submitting it to DMOZ!

 

Well that's just silly, how are we supposed to contact them? And why do they complain that we don't? Sure lots of editors don't contact submitters but a lot of us do try. It's not a rule, but a personal choice.

While we're at it, lets wander a little more off topic. (Sorry about the hijack Brian )

I bet it would surprise most people here to know how often we get suggestions with a bad URL ...no, I don't mean leading to a dead site, I literally mean a bad URL, like http://domain-name um...shouldn't there be a .something? LOL Sometimes we can figure it out by the email address, sometimes we can guess but sometimes there's just no hope so we have to delete.

 

If it's spam or not the right category, why the hell aren't they rejected and removed from the list, or moved to list in the correct category if there is one?

 

They are, once someone goes to look at that category. Most of the time you can't just look at the title and description and say - oh that belongs there.

For example - A site is submitted to Sports/Equestrian/Breeds. The title says J&J's Horses. The description says we sell horses. Based on that information it could go in hundreds of different categories in Sports/Equestrian/Breeds or it could go in Business/Agriculture_and_Forestry/Livestock/Horses_and_Ponies.

The site would have to be opened and looked through to determine if they're breeding and selling or buying and selling. And then what breed. And then moved to the appropriate category. It all takes time.

 

Annie is psychic - I just now received an update request - here's the new URL: http;//www.xxxxxxxx.co.uk (sanitized to protect the guilty ). It wasn't too hard to figure out what was wrong, but even that URL won't be listed - instead the one it redirects to will be.