Are Affiliates allowed to be editors on Dmoz

Hello All,

I would like to get your valued opinion on whether or not you find it ethical/legal for large affiliates to be editors on Dmoz.

I understand editors have a lot of influence over various websites and we have found a particular affiliate who has "way to many number one listings on Google to be considered normal."

The particular affiliate/editor has reputed earnings of up to $100K per month as a result.

Please excuse my ignorance here, but as an editor, does this give you the ability to manipulate your own listings on Google should you host multiple websites.

Also, when a complaint is filed to Google Spam, is it managed by google itself of given to editors of dmoz - very unclear here and any insight would be appreciated?

For the record - I believe this to be a very isolated case and am NOT casting aspersions on most Dmoz editors ok.

Your feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

UK Affiliate

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "affiliate" -- yes, editors can be affiliated with sites but are of course forbidden to treat their affiliations different from any other sites.

We can't manipulate listings in Google. I don't think I can put it plainer than that Google and dmoz.org are two different entities, and we don't share each other's secrets.

Also, when a complaint is filed to Google Spam, is it managed by google itself of given to editors of dmoz - very unclear here and any insight would be appreciated?

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If you write to Google, you reach Google and not DMOZ. What exactly do you mean by Google Spam?

I would like to get your valued opinion on whether or not you find it ethical/legal for large affiliates to be editors on Dmoz.

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I suggest you read our Conflicts of Interest section, which pretty much sums it up: Everyone is welcome to apply to join the ODP as long as he/she does not act contrary to the goals of the ODP. We don't care what someone could do, we care what someone really does.

If you have proof of an editor abusing the ODP for his own sake, feel free to file an abuse report.

Hi All,

Sorry for not getting back sooner. I have been away on business.

Nea, an affiliate is someone who links to someone selling a product and gets paid a commission if a sale takes place. This can be easily tracked across the internet.

Feel free to look here if you require more information. <URL removed>

I do realise Dmoz and Google are 2 seprate companies, however, Google gets it's directory from Dmoz. Please refer here. <URL removed>

I have read the conflicts section - reported this and Dmoz are quite happy to this arrangement to continue obviously as I have not heard back from them - thought they would like to know about this one actually - but no.

This therefore leads me to beleive that all I have to do is become an editor also and I will be able to do the same as this offending affiliate/dmoz editor has done.

I also would like to earn $100K per month from this loophole.

Feedback is welcomed here.

UK Affiliate

I just noticed it removed my URL's

Nea - please use this <URL removed>

The second URL was this <URL removed>

Please place www. infront of these obvuiously but I guess I dont need to tell you guys that

This would have to be the greatest find this century - thanks Dmoz - if one editor is allowed to do this - so should we all.

UK Affiliates

It's not clear from what you say that (1) you actually saw any problem in the DIRECTORY, or if you did, that you reported it to the ODP rather than Google. (Google doesn't pass on that kind of information to us.)

If you did see a problem in the open DIRECTORY (either here or at directory.google.com), please report it (if you haven't already) using the "report abuse/spam" link at DMOZ.ORG.

If it's an obvious thing involving specific directory listings, and you don't mind everyone on the web seeing your comment, and you WOULD like to see a response -- you can also use the "quality feedback" forum thread in these forums.

Either way, we love to hear about actual problems with the directory. But people who make too much money, or do too well in Google search results, are out of our control. Please report them to the Inland Revenue or Google respectively.

-------- added

We moderators routinely snip URLs from posts if they don't seem germane. In this case, editors are aware from personal experience of both Google's use of the ODP, and the definition of affiliate SITES. (The former is good, and the latter are, um, non-listable.)

However, we don't usually talk about "people" having "links". People have WEBSITES (that is, they are affiliated with them), and the WEBSITES have (affiliate) links. In our activity here, that tends to be an important categorical distinction, hence the confusion caused by your carelessly ambiguous phrasing. We deal with people-website affiliations on, say, editor applications, and with website-website affiliations when editing ODP categories.

I have read the conflicts section - reported this and Dmoz are quite happy to this arrangement to continue obviously as I have not heard back from them - thought they would like to know about this one actually - but no.

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All abuse reports are thoroughly investigated but keep in mind that what you suspect is abuse isn't necessarily abuse. If the report has been closed and nothing that you think should have been done was done, then you can take it that no abuse was found during the investigation.

Thanks for the feedback hutch.

Unfortunately I am not in a position to list the exact situation here - I am hopeful you understand.

We believe abuse has happened and has been very subtle to say the least. This is why they have never been questioned/banned to date. They operate under several differing companies/websites.

I am not suprised at the repsonse even after we repeatidly reported this incident to dmoz. It is hard to actually proove this.

Could some please let me know the URL where I can check the progress of our last report (via the lengthy number they issued me), I seem to have misplaced that URL.

I will report back to you all what they have to say this time.

UK Affiliates

Thanks Mosta - I checked a while back and its the same response.

"Its current status is resolved - This report has been resolved. We do not disclose the details of our findings, but if abusive editing was found it will be rectified. Thank you for your report. "

This person still is an editor - I just checked.

I have placed a lot of effort into this investigation and supplied Dmoz with findings.

As the saying goes, "if you can't beat them, join them" - my family could also use an extra $100K per month from manipulating the system.

Let me have a chat to a friend who is an editor - I am sure he would like to go halves to proove my point.

Thanks for your time all

UK AFFILIATES

"Its current status is resolved - This report has been resolved. We do not disclose the details of our findings, but if abusive editing was found it will be rectified. Thank you for your report. "

This person still is an editor - I just checked.

I have placed a lot of effort into this investigation and supplied Dmoz with findings.

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And we appreciate your effort. But there has been no ODP-related abuse involving that editor or the sites you are concerned about. Whether or not there's been any wrongdoing from a Google point of view, I couldn't tell you as that is not the ODP's concern. All that matters is that there has been absolutely no ODP-related abuse (not just no provable abuse but no abuse at all).

This person still is an editor - I just checked.

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As a point of interest, how did you check?

motsa said:

All abuse reports are thoroughly investigated but keep in mind that what you suspect is abuse isn't necessarily abuse. If the report has been closed and nothing that you think should have been done was done, then you can take it that no abuse was found during the investigation.

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Further editors might not know enough about the issue(s) to be able to identify the abuse.

What issues?

The key questions are: Is the editor failing to comply with the editing guidelines? Is the editor favouring certain sites? Is the editor connected with those sites?

Suffice to say there are plenty of meta editors who are experts in determining the answers to all three of those questions.

chaos127 said:

What issues?

The key questions are: Is the editor failing to comply with the editing guidelines? Is the editor favouring certain sites? Is the editor connected with those sites?

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Obvious to me that is not the case at all. Seen in several categories 75% or more of the sites, for example, are ALL directly connected and in each case the editor DOES have a direct AND/OR indirect connection as well.

critic009,

If you suspect an editor is abusing their position, then please report it using the public abuse report system: http://report-abuse.dmoz.org/

Thank you.

critic009 said:

Obvious to me that is not the case at all. Seen in several categories 75% or more of the sites, for example, are ALL directly connected and in each case the editor DOES have a direct AND/OR indirect connection as well.

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File an abuse report with your evidence that the editor is connected or PM me the information and evidence and I will do it for you. I grow tired of this baseless allegation of mass corruption (gw) and an unwillingness to provide one sliver of evidence to back it up.

shadow575 said:

File an abuse report with your evidence that the editor is connected or PM me the information and evidence and I will do it for you. I grow tired of this baseless allegation of mass corruption (gw) and an unwillingness to provide one sliver of evidence to back it up.

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Message sent.

"earnings of up to $100K per month as a result" - it sounds really good...

"Please excuse my ignorance here, but as an editor, does this give you the ability to manipulate your own listings on Google should you host multiple websites" - Well, it is not so easy to do that; does this means, that we can manipulate Google ?

critic009, do you really believe that whoever can manipulate Google ? Do you really think that Google will risk his whole business by using data from DMOZ - a human edited category, in case that this data is SO easy to be manipulated and in case that if you have multiple listings is SO easy to start gaining too much ?
Google is Google because of giving real results. I suppose that about 80% from users are finding what they need in the first 10 results. So ? I also suppose that those persons if invest $100k instead in ODP editors, but in their business or in hiring qualified personel will have more profits.

I am new editor in DMOZ, and i can assure you that senior editors are spending too much time in teaching us, and in answering here - which by my humble opinion is loosing time.

See this - it is marked like IMPORTANT : How To Report Suspected Abuse By An Editor

Please excuse me if i havent clarified what i would like to express exactly - my english is not good enough.

Do we need 17 posts here to tell someone "How To Report Suspected Abuse By An Editor"

Regards

Everytime anyone, anywhere, claims to know about abuse by an editor, we need enough posts to tell everyone who heard the allegations, how genuine abuse can be reported.

That way, everyone, everywhere, KNOWS how genuine abuse can be stopped.

That is the best -- the only -- defense against false charges of abuse. (And there are a lot of false charges: although most of them seem to be by affiliate spammers who COULDN'T find an editor to abuse on THEIR behalf.)