Hi Christopher,
Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. The redesign project has been in the works since 2014, and it's much more than a visual overhaul. A lot of the functionality was redesigned, some of it from the ground up. We added a bunch of features, but in other ways we are trying to simplify and streamline.
With the directory, we realized we just had too many categories and too many things to keep track of, and too much of it was becoming obsolete through user neglect. So we cut it down to just the main three categories for now: Teachers, studios, and websites.
We've never actually had events in our directory -- For that, we have categories in Dancetalk. This is also what we're going to do for the time being with some of the smaller business categories such as vendors, although we're holding on to the data and may bring them back to the directory later on. Websites are still in the directory, and they haven't changed... They are strictly managed by us, not by the user.
The only thing missing that's meant to be there right now is the ability to submit a studio listing. In the past, studio submissions were sent to us in a form-to-email format, and we simply added them to the database ourselves. But we're now in the process of changing that to an automatic user-managed system like partner and teacher ads. This is not a quick feature to add, though, because we have thousands of studios in our database that need to be retroactively connected to user accounts, and it's quite s process (I did it with the teacher ads a few years ago, and it was a heap of work). So it's not going to be immediate, but it's on the short list and you should see it before too long.
So, to answer your question on a per-item basis:
For partners, costumes & teacher ads: You can add them yourself using the My Ads tab.
For studios: Right now no changes can be made, but soon it will be the same as above.
For websites: We manage those. To submit a website, please contact us.
For all other ads: You can post a message here on Dancetalk (please select the appropriate forum)
Please also note that you must have the correct type of user account in order to place directory ads. Dance teacher ads require a professional account, and studio ads require a business account. If you registered as an amateur, for example, you won't have the option to post a teacher ad.
Thanks again for your feedback!
Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
Ballroomdancers.com
