ronniethedodger said
This thread has focused on commercial sites. And I have been posting in a continuous stream so things might appear out of context. Sorry. If there is any bias it is that the non-commercial listings side of DMOZ has never been mentioned, and that is as important.

There were two points - firstly you have to question, logically, whether adding more sites to the 25,000 already in the web designer category yields a greater benefit to the directory than adding other sorts of sites so far underrepresented, whether that be community sites or niche industries difficult to find via other sources. With 25,000 already, could you use a directory to nail down what you are looking for? Or would a search engine be better at narrowing down the choices? The second is that there is not an institutional bias against commercial sites, just not a bias towards them either. Posters here, I gather, would love it if we gave priority to commercial sites (of theirs) because they think somehow they are losing money because of delays. But we have other priorities besides commercial sites, and in honesty they can be far more rewarding to list. Not least because no-one is going to come out with abuse and allegations. My rough guess is that I spend personally maybe 60% of my time on small-town commercial sites, 40% on non-commercial across the board but it seems to me that a much greater percentage of the non-commercial get listed because there are nowhere near the number of problems.

Every editor is free to pursue their own priorities when it comes to where in the Directory they edit. There are many editors who spend their entire time in commercial categories, many who wouldn't go near them. Some, like me, cover both but still have their preferences for what they would like to bring to the project.

daemon61 - no need to go to the forum. It seems you have been given far more specific feedback than most and the answer is to consider that very carefully before re-applying. Affiliations means all URLs you are associated with, and if you've only mentioned yacht-base then you haven't been complete (from this thread alone). If self-promotion is a concern, prove this wrong by applying for a different category where you can have no possible self-promoting interests. Etc, etc. Read category charters to make sure sample sites fit like a glove. Study site titles and descriptions to learn what is the right way (you will sometimes see the wrong way listed too - people make mistakes) so check several categories to get a feel for it. If you really are keen to be an editor, put your business hat on one side (you are only an employee after all) and pick something totally unrelated.

BTW http://dmoz.org/help/cats.html may help with the other question.