302-redirect, PURL, http://purl.net/charta/faq

I have sent multiple modification requests since

2003-03-12

regarding

http://dmoz.org/World/Deutsch/Computer/Usenet/FAQs,_Hilfen_und_Einf%fchrungen/Einzelne_Newsgroups/

via the web form

http://dmoz.org/cgi-bin/update.cgi?where=World/Deutsch/Computer/Usenet/FAQs,_Hilfen_und_Einf%fchrungen/Einzelne_Newsgroups

When a category says "become editor of this category", does
this mean that the category currently is not being maintained?

The entry once was accepted and listed with its canonical URI

http://purl.net/charta/faq

which is a 302 redirect. DMOZ policies possibly do not allow
to accept redirects, because they might be used to hide
multiple submissions of the same resource, but this /is/ the
single canonical URI of the resource. It is also the URI as
shown by Google for this resource (search "FAQs für de.all"),
as shown by Yahoo, and as shown on the page itself.
(Nowadays, people who really want to submit multiple copies
of a resource can easily set up dozens of different domains
as mirros without the need for such redirects.)

Later the site's URI in the catalogue was modified by someone from

http://purl.net/charta/faq

to the following short term temporary URI

http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~ram/pub/charta/faq

This URI delivers a 404 status for many months now, and I have
asked DMOZ to replace it by the canonical URI again via the
abovementioned web form, but nothing happens. In the meantime,
the 404 URI is spreading to more and more DMOZ mirrors/clones.
The original canonical URI still is valid but was removed from
DMOZ.

It would be helpful if DMOZ could decide to accept such PURLs
and keep a flag in the record of the URI that it should not
be replaced by a temporary URI it is being redirected to.
This also complies with the meaning of the HTTP 302
status code, which clearly indicates that the URI it is
redirected to is only temporary.

"The requested resource resides temporarily under a different
URI. Since the redirection might be altered on occasion, the
client SHOULD continue to use the Request-URI for future requests."
(HTTP 1.1, Request for Comments: 2616)

Thank you!

Unfortunately (for you) the decision was taken a long time ago that the ODP will list the URL of where the site contents actually resides, and will not list any doorways, mirrors, redirects, vanity domains, and other such stuff. You are correct that this decision was taken so that the same resource would not be multiple listed in the directory but under different URLs. What you do with your hosting, and whether you keep moving your site around for whatever reasons, has nothing to do with us. The idea of URLs is that they can be mapped to any IP address, so if you change your host you can get your old domain name remapped to the new IP address. Doorways and vanity domains aren't a necessity, are often used for nefarious purposes, and will not be listed. Please submit the final, content-holding, domain as an update request in the appropriate category.

We don't list redirects. I've corrected the URL for the site in question to http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~ram/pub/charta_404/faq . Thanks for letting us know.

Thank you for your answer and your effort to modify the
entry!

>We don't list redirects. I've corrected the URL for the
>site in question to
>http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~ram/pub/charta_404/faq

As I wrote in my modification request via the
web-Form, if the PURL (redirect) can not be listed,
it might be better not to list the resource at all,
because the URI including "userpage" will soon
become invalid, as the part "charta_404" suggest.

So, sadly, I suggest to remove the whole entry
from the catalogue and I notice that, unfortunatly,
all my other works can not appear in DMOZ for the
same reason.

I am sorry for creating fruitless effort for you and
would like to thank you again for your answer and also
want to thank giz for his (or her) explanation.

As has already been announced and as indicated by the URI itself the URI http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~ram/pub/charta_404/faq now returns a 404 status code.

Therefore, it seems reasonable to remove it from your catalogue, as already has been suggested before in this thread.

Sorry for causing efforts and thank you for your good work.