I feel bad reviewing
 

I have been submitting for the last year and so I know how it feels to get a rejection, so now that Im accepting submissions Im on the other side to some extent and Im the one that has to pass out the rejections.

So I wonder with building a linklist, should I be hardcore on the rules right from the get go.

probably 70% of the submissions I have recieved break one rule or another. Sometimes I let it pass sometimes I dont.

Which is annoying me because I like consistency.

So I ask you all when you first started your first ll were you letting submitters slide on the rules a little to keep getting submissions or where you full on about the rules from day one and if they cant read the rules its their own fault.

Im learning towards the if they cant be bothered to read my simple and standard rules its their own fault, but figured I should see what more experienced people have too say.

Thanks and Cheers

If you want to be picky do it from the start.

I don't allow most things that break rules but the borderline things depend on my mood.

If you owned a brick and mortar business and a delivery of broken items came in, would you feel bad sending them back?

My opinion changes on this damned near daily, but today my feeling is this - if you want a quality list that will make your surfers want to come back, demand quality. I personally think that it's we smaller/newer link list owners that are training free site submitters to build lower quality and rule-breaking sites. We need to have higher expectations. I know, it hurts to reject a bunch of submissions each day when you are only getting a few a day, but a good list takes time. I've never owned one, but that's what I'm told.

BTW, I've stood next to MML while he reviews. He doesn't look sad when he hits decline. :D

Yup Im trying to go for quality rather than quantity.

If I had a brick and mortar biz I wouldnt feel bad at all so you make a really good point.

I think I just need to work on thickening my reviewer skin.

Thanks for the insight you guys.

When reviewing it is tough declining sites/submitters yes.

I feel bad. But if my rule says 3 links per page and you put 8 text links to paysites on the bottom of the main page then I have to. This is just an example but MANY guys sumbit the same template with the same rule breaking site daily until sometimes you have to ban them.

Sad but true.

I've been lucky so far...accepting about 70% of submissions. Looks like most of my submitters are from this board though...that helps a bunch...thanks GG&J |thumb

However, there are still those that submit the same kinds of sites...breaking the same rules...every damn day. I don't feel as bad about declining as I do about blacklisting. But, after 5 or 6 declines for the exact same reasons...I do bl em :(

Excellent analogy on the brick and mortar store UW...perfect example.

If you want your LL to grow at a decent rate, you cant be to picky, but not to easy either, after a few months you'll settle into your own, but whats nice its your site....

I tend to go easy on violations that don't affect the surfer negatively. If there's something I'm not happy with I also send a message to the submitter. Guess what, 9 out of 10 times there's no response and the violations continue over and over. After a while hitting "decline" or "blacklist" becomes easy.

I just started submitting and my personal thoughts on this is simple. There are rules, I should read them. I am asking you for something and you are willing to provide it to me if I follow the rules. Now I am far from a big submitter, Im not submitting to 20 or 40 LL a day but even if I was I would still look to follow the rules. When looking around for sites to submit to I read everything, even if it takes me 1 hour. My reasons for that are simple. I don't know who the hell owns what site and how many sites they own. I don't want to risk being blacklisted only to find out Joe Blow owns 10 sites I submitted to all working off the same list.
If you do not reject people for not following your rules, you are doing yourself an injustice and also helping to let submitters think you dont care. Thus the traffic will be shit that you send. I'm not going to waste my time trying to build a nice site to submit to someone IMO who could careless about their submit rules enough, to enforce them and I'm sure as not going to submit anything that would bring me in more money. I think I would submit crap, in crap I mean something with a timed redirect that would list one of my paysites higher on a topsite or something. I mean if you don't care then why should I?
Maybe I have not been doing this long enough to really know. But heck rules are there for 1 reason. Quality traffic. I have gone to sites that in the past gave great free stuff, then I guess they just stopped enforcing their rules. Now when you go to the site, if you go to the anal cat, most of the sites comming up have no anal content at all. Or they are pop up hell. I would not go back to a site like that. I feel they let me down, being good at first and then taking the easy road and letting crap get posted.

Hey Juggernaut thats a pretty inspiring post. Its really just those submissions that seem like they have read the rules for the most part and maybe have just one little thing wrong with them. It shows they put out the effort but just didnt get it quiet right. Of course when I decline I send them a reason and explination.

Its those borderline sites that have maybe just a small problem that make me sad to press decline.

But oh well rules is rules and the more I press decline the less I feel it lol

Thanks

Well if it's just the small thing, and it seems the person is not blantly disregarding your rules or trying to cheat the surfer then going a little easy is understandable. From what I have read most of the rules are pretty much the same everyplace, or just common sense. So building should be some what the same all around no matter who they are submitting to. If you have 1 major rule thats a little off base then everyone else then its not to hard to change a page to to fit your rules. I mean how many pages for one submit, 4 in a free site, right? I have changed 1 free site just for a submit to a good LL. I dont know how many subs you are getting a day. If you had time I would keep a list of those borderline sites and maybe at the end of the day let them know they were accepted but should not submit again until that small issue is fixed being polite of course. But thats only if you have time. Or allow a small % IE today I will take 20% of the borderline sites and the rest get the axe.
The more you press decline lol the less you feel it, you will end up like those guys companies hire just to fire people. lol.

I agree, rules are there for a reason and if they're not enforced they become worthless after a while.

But being a rule nazi for the sake of being a rule nazi is hardly productive IMO either. If a site is otherwise good, but has a minor violation that doesn't affect the surfer negatively and I feel the webmaster is making an honest effort, I'll list it. If it bugs me enough I'll make a note on the acceptance e-mail and let him/her know. If the violations persist I'll reject, but I don't automatically hit decline for every little slip, I look for reasons to accept rather than reject.

Even though I own a LL I still make 99% of my income from submitting freesites. I've been rejected for having a partial a tag left in the code of my page from moving a banner in design view that wasn't visible nor clickable on the page. Common sense still goes a long way.

That is how I operate.

As other say.. if site looks pretty decent but got small rule violation that wouldnt trick or/and discourage surfers - let it go. But I would suggest to check whois info of domains you review.. I didn't do that till start and when I started I realized half of all accepted sites are from (hard to say as I come from this area: mostly polish, russian and other post soviet) multisubmitters!