Why Most Submissions Are Rejected By DMOZ

Nope, just be honest about any affiliations that you have on the application form.

Many of us would leave.

 

Absolutely not, provided you are honest in your application and impartial in your editing.
To quote from the public guidelines:

 

I don't own any website myself other than all of the sites I am taking care of which belongs to my "employer". Should I make a list of all of them ?

 

mine was also rejectedn

 

The reviewer needs to be sure that you are not deliberately hiding things, because editors are expected to be honest. In general, it is better to be over-inclusive when mentioning affiliations, but there is plenty of space on the application form for you to explain your relationship with the sites, if you wish.

All unsuccessful editor applicants receive an email explaining the reason(s) why, so unless you were asked not to re-apply, you are very welcome to submit another application, taking care to attend to the matters raised in the feedback, of course.

 

Off to make an application now and just crossing my fingers. I'll just have to get to know the secret handshake.

 

With tens of thousands of people having been accepted as editors over the years, including many who frequent this forum, it can't be that secret.

Seriously though, the way to becoming an editor is very simple: a careful and completely honest application. Good Luck!

 

I've provided accurate information as to the best of my knowledge. My "employer" even gave me some tips what criteria I should be looking for sites should I be accepted. He is a good person sometimes stubborn though, but he does really help a lot of families and friends back in our home country. He even said that being an editor at Dmoz is a neat hobby to spend time with.

 

I wish I'd read this forum before resubmitting our site to DMOZ the other night!!! I followed the title and desicription guidelines but was so keen to make our site conform to the category (Website Design: Basic - from memory) that I didn't add that we can help clients with website wording. Would this have made our website design site to have - a little bit - of slightly unique content????? Is there any way of changing my submission?

 

It is the content (not the design) of the actual site that an editor considers when deciding whether the site is listable or not.
The suggested title and descriptions almost always need changing (out of nearly 100,000 edits I have found fewer than 10 suggestions which did not need rewriting to meet the ODP guidelines ), but that's OK because that's what editors do. However, it certainly helps editors when site suggestions have accurate titles and description, because if the volunteer chooses to look through the collection of suggestions, their eye will no doubt be caught by the odd one that makes sense.

So if you think you could make your suggested title/description closer to the editing guidelines, by all means rewrite it and suggest your site again.
It will overwrite your previous suggestion, and one extra attempt won't be seen as spamming (unlike those who ignore the instructions and suggest many times over).

 

Many thanks - I hadn't realised that a fresh submission would just overwrite the old one - there is no obvious form of tracking submissions or editing past ones.

 

There is no form or way for tracking submissions or editing past ones.
Submit and forget one day one of our volunteer editors will review your site and perhaps list it. The only way you can track or speed up that progress is to become an editor.

I think we should keep that sort of sentence in cut and paste seeing as no one will give us a stickie for it

 

Indeed, it's astonishing how many times the same comments are made and the same questions get asked. And then they yell at us for giving the same answers each time.

 

dmoz is trash, always was, always will be!!!! It wont get any traffic to your site, and its too much of a hassle for a simple backlink. ANNDDD their submission process is garbage, wont take you anywhere.

 

It's a shame that you feel like that. The volunteers are trying very hard to build a great directory. Thats the difference. Your aim is to get "a simple backlink". Our aim is to build a directory of sites useful for surfers.

Cheers.

 

yes except you should change:
one of our volunteer editors will review your site
to
one of our volunteer editors may review your site

then put it in a stickie!

 

Or they could change the button to say "Suggest a site" rather than "submit". [Oh wait, they did.]

I'll vouch for the fact that the eds were clamoring for changes on that page when I left (and had been for some time). Staff really does need to get some of those little things taken care of... it aint brain surgery.

LOL, cmon stewie, no need to sugar coat everything you say, whaddaya REALLY think?
Waiting for him to throw in a comment that includes "Vile woman!" I love that show.

 

Oh why won't people believe you, that way we would not have to debate if we can turn off the submissions, there wouldn't be any. We would not be called corrupt for not listing sites from the submissions. We would not have to worry about so many in the Q. We would not have to not answer any questions about why my submission has not been listed.

We could just get on and make the largest human edited directory better by finding our own links, that way we would not be bogged down tramping through spam, deeplinks and not unique content mixed in with some worthwhile and good sites. Bliss.

 

Whats the difference you are operating it like that now, you aren't answering questions about why sites werent approved, you aren't worried about the Q size, and you aren't using the Q, only thing different is you are being called on it.

 

Sorry, but webmasters have been complaining for years about DMOZ not being the listing service they would like it to be. Nothing new here.