DMOZ is a pain

Nice going chaps,
you've disabled the site submission checks. So I guess now if I want to know about my ranking I can consult a ouija board.

I've found your site listing to be mostly bureacratic and soul destroying, and your editors are almost entirely incompetent, rude and arrogant. Those editors that do a good job are dragged down to the same level as the rest of the powerhungry nincompoops that do such a poor job.

I live in a suburb in Australia, but was rejected six months or so ago when I applied to administer the businesses in my suburb. Your apparently power-mad structure of course made it so that the people who were administering my State or perhaps country couldn't bear the thought of relinquishing any of their inefectual bureaucratic control.

So instead of now having all the business in the area including mine being listed, we now instead the same number that we had a two years ago - and some of them are now invalid. That number is a measly six. I was told that rather impersonally that there was a conflict of interest in me being a business in the location I wanted to adminster. By that line of thinking, I guess I should have instead been an Marxist Esperanto-speaking Latvian interested in surrealist origami who just happened to want to administer an obsure Australian suburb's business listing.

Oh, and althought it's been well over two years since my first submission, and I submitted correctly according to the rare few helpful editors that assisted me, my site magickcat.com.au still hasn't been listed.

Let me make a prediction - this project will be well and truly dead in five years. Good riddance to DMOZ when it happens.

Thanks for your feedback.

There are many other online communities; I hope that you will be able to find one more compatible with your manners and goals.

In the meantime, if you feel that other sites have neglected your geographic community, that leaves you an opportunity: at least your own links page could be THE comprehensive online list of local businesses.

if I want to know about my ranking I can consult a ouija board

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That's a great fundraising idea -- ODP ouija boards ! Gotta get right on it. I wonder if cafepress would do such a thing.

Wow.. some times I wonder about the people that we have to put up with.

I've found your site listing to be mostly bureacratic and soul destroying, and your editors are almost entirely incompetent, rude and arrogant. Those editors that do a good job are dragged down to the same level as the rest of the powerhungry nincompoops that do such a poor job.

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Nice to know this. I was affraid that all this time I was a simple volunteer editor who spent my own free time helping to edit in areas interesting to me. Nice to know that I am actually just incompetent because I was worried for a minute

Nice going chaps, you've disabled the site submission checks. So I guess now if I want to know about my ranking I can consult a ouija board.

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Really, it's unfortunate that people feel this way. When we were doing status checks people would complain that were were spending time doing the status checks instead of editing. If we gave them an answer they didn't like, often people would complain or be rude because the answer wasn't the exact one they wanted. I used to answer people's emails to me, but someone threatened to sue me because I wouldn't list his affiliate site that was clearly unlistable. That was the last time I answered anyone's questions via email, unfortunate because people like the one who started this thread or blasted me in my email are a minority. How people behave, unfortunately, does have a ripple effect on everyone. Every wonder why editors don't usually answer their email, this is it. It honestly isn't in the best interest of the editor, and that's unfortunate, because most of the people really are decent, kind people who are respectful and honestly just want to know about a site they submitted.

What's the bottom line? You can't please everyone. No matter how much of my personal time I dedicate--free of charge--to this project something is going to complain about what I (and others) do because I didn't personally serve that person's interest in listing their specific site or something along those lines. I'm not complaining in return, just stating a fact. All we can do is continue to edit in areas we enjoy, and know that we've added quality sites that have been viewed individually so that others have quality sites to view. That is what the ODP is about, a free open source for those who view the data to find quality sites. It's not, nor has it ever been, a listing service for webmasters. :star2:

I can understand the frustration of the person who started this thread as his frustrations are clearly being felt by a large number of business owners/webmasters, although I cant imagine such a post is ever going to help him get his site listed

I do feel however that the initial responses to his post were not appropriate and didn't do anything to promote the professionalism that I expect DMOS wishes to see from it's editors, even if they are volunteers.

This is obviously excluding the reply by kokopeli which was much more informative than the initial barrage of defensive and sarcastic posts.

I understand that editors get loads of stick for not giving webmasters the answers they want to hear, but I would have expected editor resonses to posts like this to be a little more professional, after all you are representing DMOZ.

Surely a reply like kokopeli's would be more suitable, or simply a single response stating "we are not hear to be spoken to in this way, thus this post will not be answered, please try again with a more suitable thread" then lock the thread.

As for mayap's response, "Wow.. some times I wonder about the people that we have to put up with.". Remember that even webmasters (including me) use the internet for reasons other than business, thus they are also seeking quality content and shouldnt be excluded from being able to use the open directory in the same way as non-webmasters.

be a little more professional, after all you are representing DMOZ

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Where'd you hear that dmoz editors are supposed to be bunch of professionals?

BPC, I wish I could figure out a way of telling you that criticizing other people's manners in their own homes is unacceptably impolite. I, um, can't. All I can do is say goodbye.