The part you're missing is that a great deal of that same "misinfromation" comes from DMOZ editors posting in these forums, including in this very thread. If even DMOZ editors are confused, isn't it about time DMOZ took some responsibility for that instead of blaming "disgruntled webmasters" and "spamming webmasters"?
Personally, no I don't. Submissions are unsolicited and speculative sales pitches for the submitters material to be included. Not unlike the invitation to take out accident insurance that comes through the mail. There is no duty to buy, nor none to respond. What I would like to see is all that made very clear to the submitter when they make their suggestion. It would save misunderstandings. I was reviewing a category and it arrived at the same time by pure chance. Submitter was very lucky I guess. I wouldn't submit a site of my own or a friend's, I would just list it if it was suitable. I did that 8-10 times of the many thousands of sites I listed. To catalog unique websites by topic. It finds sites via search engines, adverts, link pages on other sites, anywhere else you might find an URL ... and sites suggested by their owners. An editor picks a subject for some reason they are interested in. Might be a hobby, business area, study interest, or a hundred other reasons. They see what is listed, search for other sites, add any they find, clean out submissions, move on to another subject. Answer to the first part is you don't. You can ask an editor and there is no bar on them telling you if they want to. If it is accepted then it is listed. If it is not listed it is either waiting for review or rejected. There is only any point in resubmitting under the circumstances I mentioned previously. It isn't that editors don't like sites to be resubmitted, it is that there is no point unless it is for one of those reasons. As orlady points out, if the site is resubmitted to the same category then all that happens is that it overwrites the previous submission and if the editor sorts in date submitted order then it will go to the bottom of the list - the only interests that can be in any way harmed are the submitter's. The guidelines are inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. You cannot on the one hand tell people to religiously stick to guidelines then make reference to common sense as a reason they should ignore them 6 months later. At one time the submission guidelines did say people could resubmit a month later if they didn't see their site listed in that time. Intended in case a submission got lost in the process (server glitch etc). That is no longer there. Submission guidelines actually say "Please only submit a URL to the Open Directory once. Again, multiple submissions of the same or related sites may result in the exclusion and/or deletion of those and all affiliated sites.". It actually says if you resubmit more than once you could get the site and all other sites from the same source banned. Yet this is misinformation. You only have to go to the relevant guidelines at http://dmoz.org/guidelines/editall/#urlnotes and http://dmoz.org/guidelines/meta/features.html#blocking to see that this could not happen. It is hardly surprising if contradictory advice is given at times. And it is not this forum's fault, nor, frankly, the fault of the editors who post here. The guidelines need a proper review and update to eliminate these inconsistencies and plenty of others. I know it isn't easy, I know it is time-consuming, but it should be a priority. I would be happy to work on that myself because it is something I think is important. But I would want to know I wasn't wasting my time. After you submit you get a confirmation screen. You do get a confirmation. It could say please print this off as no email will be sent. That is a technical enhancement that might be possible if the resources were available. You are an editor, you can suggest it in the appropriate forum. But sites can be submitted several times to different categories. Another inconsistency in the guidelines that say submit only once. For example to the main directory and to the Kids and Teens directory if it fits somewhere in both. In each World language category applicable if the site is multi-lingual. In Regional and in a Topical branch in many cases. If you have a solution to enhance it then make your suggestions in the appropriate internal forums. Some things like guideline inconsistencies could be fixed by revising the wording. Not as simple as it sounds because a form of words would be required that everyone, including those who do not have English as a first language, readily understand. But it can be done. Others might require techical input and that would depend on other work going on. I would like to see a self-assessment form to replace the note that says read these instructions first - people clearly don't read them. But I am guessing there is quite a bit of programming that would be required for that. So you need some form of internal consensus for such changes to be given the development time.
brizzie, your answers are nicely written. But, it is not helping. Telling the current DMOZ procedure will not help. Everyone here knows those rules. Everyone is calling for a change
It has been suggested many times but psycho group including an Admin have too much fun being rude and insulting people to let any change that improves this situation happen. Just couple of days ago, the latest excuse from hutch was that is not possible to do a search in a relational database. What a moron.
If you are going to throw out gratuitous insults then it is not surprising if you don't get much of a hearing. There is a difference between being critical and being outright insulting. Of course Admins want to improve things all round. But resources are finite and things are never as simple as you would like them to be. Personally I think they have got some of their priorities wrong, wrong enough to retire, but I do appreciate they are doing what they think is best in the order they think is best, and since they carry the can if it goes arse up then they must make the final decisions on that themselves. I am a professional project manager myself. I will listen and take advice but at the end of the day with a project I am managing failure is my responsibility, so I will take the final decisions. I wouldn't do the Admin job if they paid me. And they don't pay them. Make your suggestions, *listen* to the counter-arguments with an open mind, adapt and revise, suggest again. People are not idiots or morons because they are not 100% in favour of everything you say and want. But you are if you cannot listen and compromise where appropriate.
First, you know very well that language used here is not the same as internal forum. Second, calling this group, psycho is not an insult, it is a correct and truthful description. What do you call a group that will jump up and down with joy and happiness every time they get a chance to insult people and pad each other on the back and compete who is the rudest among them? How can argue with someone who suggest it is more load on the server and resources to do a simple search on a URL and inform them that is listed than let them fill a form, submit, do a search and if it is previously submitted, replace it and otherwise add it? Or to suggest that is not possible to do a search in a database because database is big? I totally agree with you that people are not idiots or morons because they are not 100% in favor of everything you say and want but you must agree that some people are just idiot and morons and the psycho group definitely qualifies for this.
You tell me gworld, how many suggestions are there waiting for review at the moment? A million? Two? I am not going to pretend to know what the server load would be if people were searching on that database. But also... For years it would have been fantastic for editors to know where a site has been submitted. But that function is not available either. If it was easy it would be a fantastic tool to get rid of multiple submissions waiting. Don't know if your rights allow you to look at unreviewed submissions over more than a single category. Editalls and above can check submissions below the category they are in. Depending on the speed of your link there is a limit to how many you can load up in one go. I think I managed about 1000 once. You can't directly search listed sites either. Listed sites are uploaded into a separate search database every couple of weeks or so. All that suggests to me that the database tables are not set up in a way that would make search easy. 700,000 categories each with a table - you could not easily connect a search function to all 700,000 tables. The only way I can think of is to download all unreviewed URLs into another database into a single table. Pure guess but I imagine that is how the search function works on the live listings. So now you have more problems: a) how often do you create a search database for unreviewed sites b) it is going to be out of date immediately c) if it is out of date immediately then you could not connect it to the submission form e.g. to prevent a multiple submission d) there are spam sites that DMOZ does not want submitters to know the status of because it encourages them to submit more. e) a clever spammer could potentially work out the spam filter algorythms. Bet you could. f) what functional enhancements and tools would not get the resources because someone is diverted to creating and maintaining an Unreviewed search database? DMOZ relies on AOL charity for technical resources and servers - it isn't unlimited. g) editors could do with this information and editor tools come first h) I'm sure others with more knowledge than mine could add more. In other words what seems like a simple and uncontroversial suggestion is full of real issues. It is so easy to make the initial suggestion then walk away complaining when it isn't immediately jumped upon and taken up. But ask what the constraints are and come up with the answers.
It is a simple suggestion and there is no real issue to implement it. If staff in DMOZ and AOL are so incompetent that can not fix this, I am sure many of the editors and even people in this forum have more than enough knowledge to fix the practical problems. How come the people who have so much problem to implement any positive change and are so worried about editors time, server resources have no problem to waste so much energy in registering the URL and IP of real and imaginary enemies. The truth is that the problem is not about lack of resource or technical difficulties, the real constraint is incompetence of people in charge and lack of will to do anything positive.