Back in the year 2000 or so I applied to noncommercial categories that had no editors. For an example Sylvan Lake which is a small town 10 minutes from where I live. Some others were authors. It did not matter what profile or email address I used and made up I could never get approved.
I agree it is nearly impossible to get a websites listed there. What pisses me off is how much weight google still gives the backlinks.