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Submitting your site to 9rules
Written by Tyme White on March 8, 2007
Time to answer some questions:
When is Round 6?
How do I submit my site to 9rules?
Tyme I sent you an email, I haven’t heard from you!
Let’s talk. =)
Round 5 we had 1100+ submissions…and all hell broke loose. Major hosting companies had serious issues resulting in many losing their entire site. Poof! There was downtime, change of URLs…you name it, we experienced it last round. We ended up going through the sites during the holiday, under the pressure of “we haven’t heard from youâ€, “you rejected my site, why?â€, “when will you be done?â€. The massive problems made what we normally enjoy doing a chore never to be repeated again.
So what next? Well, I’m thinking on that but until the time you read that amazing announcement (*rolls eyes) if you want to submit your site to 9rules, follow these instructions.
If you emailed me since Ali’s launched, I’ve got it. Since Ali, I’ve been busy fixing member issues or administrative stuff so honestly I haven’t looked at any of the site submissions. That means you couldn’t have been rejected if I haven’t looked at it. I will begin going through the submissions the week of the 19th.
Round 5 people – email me again. I was looking at the sites today and too many URLs changed, feed changed or other issues to be efficient to go through those lists again.
Ok, that about does it. Questions? Let me know. If you’re going to SXSW, have a great time…and take pictures of Mike please. He always avoids the camera. Thanks. Appreciate it.
March 8th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Let me get this straight just so there’s no confusion on my end
:
This is NOT an announcement of a new round… you are just going over some of the sites from the last round that were having technical issues when you and the team were reviewing sites, correct?
If we haven’t received correspondence that we were rejected, we should email you and give you the go ahead to re-review the website?
Could you answer those questions for me please?
March 8th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Yup, if there were technical difficulties from Round 5 and you haven’t heard from me, use the contact form.
If you submitted your site after Round 5 via the contact form (which you are free to do) and haven’t heard from me, I got it - just have to go through it (meaning don’t assume you were rejected).
If you want to submit your site, use the contact form.
How’s that?
March 8th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
“I will begin going through the submissions the week of the 19th.”
So those are the submissions for Round 6? Or are there no rounds any more? Sorry, I’m a bit confused as well :p
March 8th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Right, so those who submitted, who haven’t heard anything and that didn’t join the hordes emailing you - should now, well, join the hordes emailing you?
No offence, but if nothing has changed at the submitters end, why do we need to submit, again? I mean, I want to jump on board - but the hoops are getting a bit crazy.
March 9th, 2007 at 12:29 am
If your site didn’t suffer any technical issues, but you weren’t given an invitation to join 9Rules, I’m sure that at some point you were supposed to be notified that you didn’t make it in the current round.
You have to remember though that over 1100 website owners submitted their site during Round 5. There are bound to be more than a few sites that were supposed to be rejected, but didn’t receive notification because THERE WERE SO MANY SITES SUBMISSIONS.
I don’t think that Tyme would be opposed to you re-submitting your site. Her reviewing it again might spark her memory that it was one that was supposed to get notification that it wasn’t accepted.
Thanks for the clarification Tyme. I appreciate it….
March 9th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Brendan - I’m not going back looking through that information because it is outdated. Of course the choice is yours if you want submit. This entry is to keep those that were interested informed.
Frank - you’re welcome and thank you.
March 9th, 2007 at 7:29 am
hthth - I’m going through the site submissions I received. We aren’t doing rounds anymore - we’d receive too many submissions to efficiently go through in the time people would expect us to. And keep up with feature enhancements and bug fixing. Contrary to popular belief as much as we love 9rules, we don’t want to work all day long.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Email resent Tyme.
Thanks for the update ..
March 9th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Right, ok — that clears it up on my behalf, thanks for clarifying
March 9th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Excellent, thanks for the update. Mines in too
March 9th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Well, What if we have emailed you and we haven’t even got a response…
understandable, you probably get tons of emails, but then why do you suggest to email you.
March 9th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
[...] A recent post on the 9rules blog talks about 9rules and all it has to offer, and than points to a new page that has been created called membership. The membership page says that if you want to join, you should e-mail Tyme, one of the leaders of the 9rules Network, with some details about yourself. Scrivs, Tyme and Mike pick the sites that are admitted into 9rules. Picky people Scrivs, Tyme and Mike are, looking for interesting content, updated regularly. They look for writers that not only care about their sites but their readers, are committed to their writing and passionate about what they write about. [...]
March 9th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I thought you were the camera-shy one, Tyme.
Does this make round fivers extra special because we were the last to submit in the traditional way, or is there an even scarier way of submitting lurking around the corner!?
March 10th, 2007 at 1:36 am
Tyme,
Done.
I tend to dislike filling in forms or emailing people when I know full well they’re about to be swamped as a result.
It’s a bad habit - certainly didn’t intend to annoy.
March 10th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
[...] So what happened. Well, according to this article via the 9rulers, the round submissions were just getting too much to handle. Round 5 saw 1,100+ submissions and if you thought searching for needles in haystacks was bad, I’m sure that sifting through a monstrosity of websites wasn’t so…how would I say this this… [...]
March 11th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Haha, camera-shy is one way to put it but I’m shy. Mike on the other hand…ha! Not shy!
Thank you Brendan.
March 14th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Oh boy!
I’m guessing you’ll recieve a million site submition after this post
(submition number 975, 509 is mine)
March 16th, 2007 at 8:46 am
I submitted my site, but haven’t heard anything. Will we get an update?
March 18th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Oh, good to know! Thanx for the info, Tyme. I’ll be resubmitting, as I experienced technical difficulties.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:22 am
Yes! This is so great because I moved my blog before Round 5 was completed.
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:12 pm
[...] 9rules round 5.5 - okay, you are probably looking at me like I’m weird(er) thinking (or saying) “Kyle, there is no such thing as a half-round in 9rules” And normally, I’d agree with you. But Tyme announced that she is going to re-review the submissions from round 5 based on several very important factors - one of which being hosting problems. Considering that I moved my blog after round 5 started, there was a problem. And that’s why I was rejected for round 5. [...]
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:15 am
I just realized a potential flaw with having no rounds, or at least an aspect to this approach that I don’t understand.
I’m currently in the process of updating my site layout/theme, which at the moment is somewhat of a mess. Assuming that my application would be rejected before I update the layout — on the grounds that the design is below the quality threshold of 9Rules (just assume). I would be tempted to re-apply immediately after I update the design.
This makes me think that rejected applicants could improve upon whatever caused their rejection and then immediately re-apply. So instead of a flood of emails during rounds, you could potentially wind up getting a flood of “Are we there yet?”-like emails from rejected applicants every day of the week.
Will this be an issue, and are there any guidelines the 9Rule Rulers have for us applicants regarding this?
Don’t mean to rain on the parade, just wondering.
-hthth
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:25 pm
That’s strange — I thought I’d already posted a comment here earlier. Here’s a rewrite:
I think I’ve potentially discovered a flaw with the new round-less way of membership applications. Or at least there’s an aspect to it that I don’t quite comprehend how you’ll avoid.
I’m currently developing a new theme for my blog (complete overhaul), as the old one is somewhat of a mess. Now assume that my blog is reviewed before I manage to put up the newer (and more professional) look, and is consequently rejected because the design is of lesser quality than expected of 9Rule applicants (this is just an example). I would be inclined to re-apply immediately after I put up the new design.
This makes me think that an always-open-application time may cause rejected applicants to improve their blog according to the reasons for rejection — and then instantly re-apply, causing a chain reaction of “What about now?” posts flooding 9Rules reviewers.
Round-less applications might be spreading the number of applications over a longer period of time, but it might also simultaneously be causing a flood of “Are we there yet?” posts from applicants that were rejected and have made some adjustments since.
Will this not be an issue? And are there any guidelines the 9Rules Rulers have for us that are applying (aside from common sense)?
Thanks,
-Hthth
March 24th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Hthth - that happened with the rounds too. The difference in the roundless ones is you’ll hear from me and you’ll be able to tell me you redesigned the site. This initial hump of submissions is a bit slow going through (might be two-three weeks) because this was like a mini-round but after the initial wave it’s a much more manageable flow of submissions. With the rounds it’s just too many people to correspond to at once.
Does that make sense?
March 24th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Hi Tyme,
That happened with the rounds too? Ech. Ok. In case you want, I’d kind of figured out how you could avoid this flood. By having a form-page for submissions and having an automated response if a site is resubmitted within a certain timeline. E.g. if I would be rejected for a bad quality theme and then immediately re-apply I would get an email stating that I have to wait 2 months before resubmitting.
Thanks for answering — I was interested in knowing how you manage such large sites, and simultaneously trying to help.
best regards.
March 30th, 2007 at 12:21 am
I don’t envy Tyme’s position - must be a great deal of email to go through. Still.
April 16th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Hey Tyme. It’s been a month in the other post, and a month over in this post. What’s it gonna take for a reply?
April 16th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Another month, obviously.
I realise people get busy - but this is getting rather silly and not the least bit unprofessional.
Either 9rules wants to put effort in to adding new members, or it doesn’t. With the lack of posts of late, I can’t shake the feeling that 9rules isn’t actually the blogging network it once was.
Convince me otherwise.
April 17th, 2007 at 12:53 am
[...] Over a month ago, it was suggested we email one of the 9rulers - which hasn’t, honestly, worked. At all. There have since been no new additions, no new voices. Nothing. [...]