It is better to check a website before approving it immediately. In your case, there may be some sites may have offendable content, but still present in your site. Better to check it before acceptance.
Maybe this is where you are going wrong? Keep getting bad links and your site is doomed. Thanks Brian
Sorry for the late reply, I had meant to comment when you first started this thread. Gotta say, I thought the forum idea was kinda interesting. In fact, I submitted a few of my sites around when you announced your site in the Solicitations area. I liked the free form aspect of being able to write more of a review and make the links contextual. In some ways each thread could be used similar to a blog where site updates and changes could be announced. There have been a few others who tried making a directory out of a forum and they did not take the time that you did to create a good category structure. When I submitted, I wondered how you planned to maintain quality control and am surprised that you haven't mentioned being buried by spammers. As a rule, I never bother with the directories which require registration but I thought you had something interesting going. I hope you don't scrub it entirely as I think you have an interesting idea building. You might want to consider adding some more forum-like aspects and try building a community. I had looked around to see if I could strike up a conversation with anyone about their sites but there were not posts in topics that I had any interest in.
people submit their sites, instant approval or not. I guess you don't have too much exposure, if you're complaining about the lack of submission. When i was started past week my fist directory, i was asking the same question, and another stupid question "i have 0 sites in my database, why should a webmaster submit his site to my empty brand new directory?" A week later.. about 1400 active links, and I guess i have received about 3.000 links submitted, but mostly were pills/viagra , mfa sites, deep links, foreign languages sites submited under general, and mostly.. sites submited under unrelevant or wrong category, so i had to remove them. After a week, I am much more carefully to what kind of sites I accept. Don't hesitate to ban unwanted domain that are submitted to you. I banned about 50 sites with viagra and shit, re-submitted over and over again to me, sometimes in the same day.
Going wrong? Nothing has ever happened to me, because of thousands of these instant directories, I managed to get my site a PageRank of 3.