DMOZ project is dead

Resegulator said:

The lawyer I talk about is also a published author who read through the policies to make sure they were being interpreted correctly as well as the application was in her opinion done correctly (she's my mother in law).

PM me and I'll gladly send you a name, list of books with links to them for sale on Amazon.com and her email and phone number if that's required. Sorry to act in such a way but from the other response it appears some may feel as though I'm full of it.

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That information would be irrelevant -- being a lawyer or a published author has nothing at all to do with being able to tell if someone has written an acceptable application, which was my point. The only person who would really be able to make that kind of judgement call on the application would be an ODP meta editor.

While I don't know the mods that are helping these guys, I know off the top of my head the sites and owners that clearly have a hookup and laugh about it.

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If you are aware of abuse, then you should report it via our public abuse reporting system. We take abuse very seriously.

However, after 4+ years of waiting in que with a site that nobody has ever given a reason it should not be added...

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I gave you the most likely reason in my earlier post (as did donaldb) -- that no one who has chosen to edit in that category has managed to review it yet.

Actually, most of them came back as a generic response of not approved for one of the following reasons: and then gave a big list that basically covered a lot of ground leaving us with nothing. You can look them up from 2005 and 2006, but I'm guessing you guys are too busy as you are to review my site.

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If the reviewing meta editor used the default email, then it means that at least one of those items applied to the application.

Maybe the mods are not a high % that are screwing you, maybe they are, I don't know, but they exist and nobody is going to deny that. Proving it isn't so easy. Your checks and balances barely exist, if I report I think the category my site should be in is run by biased mods who don't want it there for their own personal reasons, I'll just get exactly what I've been getting in this whole thread:

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Nobody denies that some abuse exists in the ODP, least of all editors, but we take abuse allegations very seriously. In my experience, though, most reports by people who are concerned that their sites aren't listed yet are not about abuse but about neglect and neglect isn't abuse.

The only stupid thing I've done here that I can see is thinking there might be someone that actually wanted to take this info in and start picking up those falling through the cracks rather than reply with "the system is what it is, it's our project and we like it".

God forbid someone help me out here, I mean it's only been more than 4 years, if you tried to figure out what happened, more may come asking for help and we wouldn't want that, just read our policies again please.

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We don't review sites or categories on demand and the whole issue of performing status checks failed as an experiment here. And there's a limit to what any individual editor can do in terms of ensuring full category coverage since editors are not assigned categories but rather choose where they want to edit based on their interests.

You say you're human edited, but all I see are robotic cut and paste type responses here in the form of "working as intended".

The only promise I see here comes in the form of chaos127 who I hope when asking if I have suggestions rather than just complaints it's being said for what it is and not trying to call me out as having no suggestions. I promise you, I have plenty of suggestions of how to bring editors on and keep them doing what they need to. No, I have no point in posting it here to get the run around replies from the robotic humans telling me I don't understand, or blanket excuses as to why they can't do it that way. BTW Chaoz127, you're an editor of the section I've been sitting in que for 4+ years.

If you or anyone really cares, feel free to contact me to discuss ways I see you can improve. I know you won't though because most of you so far appear to have more pride in what you do than drive to truly improve. The kind of people that won't admit to needed change and that there are more problems that aren't just "quirks" until it's completely dead and you're left with nothing.

You say helping people with a section dedicated to status updates and approval status has proven to not work, so your choice was to just STOP trying to help and instead only refer people to the policies. Am I the only one here that sees this decision as counter-productive and a step back?

motsa, the information is NOT irrelevant at all being a lawyer and published author reading through the app and policies. Have you read your own policies with an open mind? You will find there's room for interpretation. That's one thing lawyers do, they interpret policies and she has a ton of experience doing it. Being a published author with multiple novels under her belt I would even recommend her being a proof reader for english professors after seeing her work. This isn't a case of my dad can beat your dad up, it was only mentioned to lay out my case of exploring every angle and making sure we did everything right by your standards.

And the people saying a site needs original content, niche appeal, and provide something for the community to have a place here in the DMOZ directory have obviously not read any of our site with over 100,000 members. Most of our threads have more content and helpful info than this whole forum ironically called a "resource-zone". You should call it "where complaints are re-introduced to policies with no exceptions".

One last thing, enough of this crap that "editors just aren't interested in your category". That just makes your "project" look like a complete failure when a site sits for over 4 years in que in the laptop category and that's your excuse.

You can take my information and dig into it, contact me and others outside of your bubble as focus discussion groups or you can continue to pretend your project has nothing more than little quirks and is working as intended. I already know your choice, and unfortunately it will very likely lead to your project dying off.

Resegulator said:

I would love to hear of one example, just one, of a happy person who as you said was listed within a couple weeks in the category we submitted for years ago. If there are any, you name the price you want to bet that they have a hookup by either paying someone or knowing someone who got them in.

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Things did slow down, I remember I managed to get 9 deep links listed to my little 2000 pages multilanguage website (TM) by 2004 before I've even become editor, haven't counted how many weeks it took to get listed but even my descriptions mostly remind intact (its good to have boring website ). But in the past two years no luck of getting either my or my buddies or even websites I don't even own just like to get listed.

Only exception are few obscure categories which I use to maintain from 2004 to 2006 to which I've added something like 500 other people websites and got rewarded by removal so now even these categories will fall in disrepair since nobody cares about them.

You say helping people with a section dedicated to status updates and approval status has proven to not work, so your choice was to just STOP trying to help and instead only refer people to the policies. Am I the only one here that sees this decision as counter-productive and a step back?

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Our choice was to stop providing site suggestion status checks, period. That's not the same thing as stopping trying to help. We provide what help we can that doesn't involve site specifics.

And the people saying a site needs original content, niche appeal, and provide something for the community to have a place here in the DMOZ directory have obviously not read any of our site with over 100,000 members.

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The people saying that haven't looked at your site specifically. They were offering general information about what might make a site listable.

One last thing, enough of this crap that "editors just aren't interested in your category". That just makes your "project" look like a complete failure when a site sits for over 4 years in que in the laptop category and that's your excuse.

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No offense intended but, really, the fact that you are interested in the topic of your site does not mean that any editors are. The number of editors chomping at the bit to edit a laptop category is quite small so a longer delay there wouldn't be surprising. The fact that that category may not be as actively edited as others does not make the entire directory a failure.

motsa, the information is NOT irrelevant at all being a lawyer and published author reading through the app and policies. Have you read your own policies with an open mind? You will find there's room for interpretation. That's one thing lawyers do, they interpret policies and she has a ton of experience doing it. Being a published author with multiple novels under her belt I would even recommend her being a proof reader for english professors after seeing her work. This isn't a case of my dad can beat your dad up, it was only mentioned to lay out my case of exploring every angle and making sure we did everything right by your standards.

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My point was that there is a limit to what someone who isn't a meta editor can do to review the suitability an application, regardless of whether that someone is a lawyer, an author, or anything else. It's the lack of actual internal ODP experience and experience reviewing applications that makes it difficult, not a lack of real world skills.

I'm a volunteer editor with wide editing privileges, Resegulator. I stay completely away from certain categories, like computers, software, hardware, travel agents, and others because I have no interest in them at all, they're spam magnets, and loaded with garbage.

As it's my free time we're talking about, no one is going to tell me where to spend it, and I feel no obligation to edit in areas where I don't want to edit.

By the way, I'm not an author or a lawyer, I've got one year of high school, so high educational credentials is not a prerequisite of becoming an editor, or getting higher/wider editing privileges. Honesty, trustworthiness, and proven ability get you those. They're not just given, they're earned.

I may edit 4 or 5 hours a day, or I may take a couple of months off and not edit at all. I owe you or any other site suggester absolutely nothing, and if I were offered payment by the ODP itself, I would immediately resign, and if I were ever offered a bribe, I would see to it that the briber and all of his sites were banned from the Directory for life.

Resegulator said:

If you or anyone really cares, feel free to contact me to discuss ways I see you can improve.

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We won´t discuss improvements privately with you or any other individual.

One last thing, enough of this crap that "editors just aren't interested in your category". That just makes your "project" look like a complete failure when a site sits for over 4 years in que in the laptop category and that's your excuse.

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There are no queues (just pools of suggestions), and the projects success isn´t measured by what you think is important.

You can take my information and dig into it, contact me and others outside of your bubble as focus discussion groups or you can continue to pretend your project has nothing more than little quirks and is working as intended. I already know your choice, and unfortunately it will very likely lead to your project dying off.

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You´re right, we won´t be calling you when we discuss how to move forward. We take note of your prediction regarding our future, but again that is not very relevant to us in our "bubble".

Also, for what it's worth, I'm a small business owner and I have no websites at all, anymore, so my editing is completely unbiased and provable.

>You say helping people with a section dedicated to status updates and approval status has proven to not work, so your choice was to just STOP trying to help and instead only refer people to the policies. Am I the only one here that sees this decision as counter-productive and a step back?

When a rational organization achieves consensus that something doesn't work, it STOPS DOING IT.

That's progress in ANYBODY'S book.

You know what guys, I had you all totally pinned wrong here. This whole time I thought if I posted I would be jumped on by a bunch of mods, editors, and admin and that didn't happen at all now did it? At least I'll give you credit for not trying to appear to be regular members defending DMOZ because nobody would buy that.

You guys have opened my eyes. Creating the largest human edited directory that places like Google and other major sites use makes it perfectly acceptable to have good websites waiting over 4 years to be listed. If they really want in and are worth adding, they can wait. You don't owe these sites ANYTHING nor do you the people using your search anything because you'll get to it when you have time. I think it's totally fair as Crowbar said that the volunteers get to take months off at a time, they deserve it for being so dedicated to the cause of this project.

I also understand now that it would be foolish to take anyone's advice on how to improve because there's no way they would have any good input or could know better than the people at DMOZ already. I mean you guys got it this far without their advice, no point in listening to the armchair quarterbacks out there.

If people need something and we try to provide it to them and it's just not working, rather than rework it, it's much better to just stop providing it, especially when your time is as valuable as a DMOZ editor's is.

And whatever you do, be sure and stick to your guns, NEVER admit there's a chance of a flaw in any part of the system that could use some work. If we ever show an ounce of doubt that things aren't working as intended we will look weak.

I know now my site doesn't deserve to be listed in such a great directory for one of the following reasons:

-The website name is spelled correctly
-The website is on the internet
-The website has activity and visitors
-The website offers over 2 million posts of free information
-The website has been waiting over 4 years to be reviewed and therefor becomes disqualified for life

With that said, I hope to bring this thread to closure. Guys, you've read a lot in this thread and truly involved yourselves. I know Crowbar will agree and hopefully the rest of you in that we should all take a few months off for the hard work of setting me straight in this thread. ALWAYS REMEMBER, if anyone comes to you who has been waiting to get listed for over 4 years and simply wants to question the situation, DO NOT SHOW WEAKNESS, point them to the policies and let them know someone will get to their category one of these days.

If only every business, organization, and project group followed the above guidelines, the level of success would be unimaginable.

-The website name is spelled correctly
-The website is on the Internet
-The website has activity and visitors
-The website offers over 2 million posts of free information
-The website has been waiting over 4 years to be reviewed and therefor becomes disqualified for life

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I think you still don't quite get it, Resegulator. A site suggestion doesn't get judged by the amount of activity on it, how many visitors it has, how big it is, how well designed it is, how long it's been waiting, how much the website owner desires it to be listed, how deserving the site is to get listed, how much work the website owner has done on it, where it ranks in search engines, how long it's been in existence, or how much the current users of the site appreciate it.

It gets listed by a volunteer editor being interested enough to go work in that particular category, taking a look at the site suggestions there, visiting the site, writing an ODP compliant title and description, checking to see that it's not a mirror or some other type of site that we won't list, checking to see that it has unique content that a web surfer might find useful, and then, either adding it to the Directory or deleting it.

It's as simple a process as that.

No site is guaranteed a listing, no site has a right to be listed, and we are not all inclusive. None of those things you listed is even a consideration. We're not a listing service, we're building a Directory for web surfers, not for web masters.

Your site suggestion could very well be one that's highly desirable for us to list, but, you'll have to wait until an editor reviews it and either adds it or deletes it.

Every site suggestion is very important, to the owner of that particular site, but, when an editor has 10,000 - 20,000 site suggestions to choose from, the odds of him getting to one particular site is very hit and miss.

The ODP is not a business, it's a charitable community project run by volunteers using their free time for the benefit of others (something similar to what you seem to be doing with your site).

You know what guys, I had you all totally pinned wrong here. This whole time I thought if I posted I would be jumped on by a bunch of mods, editors, and admin and that didn't happen at all now did it?

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Nobody jumped on you. We've been trying to explain things to you from our points of view. It's not surprising that your POV and ours doesn't quite mesh.

You guys have opened my eyes. Creating the largest human edited directory that places like Google and other major sites use makes it perfectly acceptable to have good websites waiting over 4 years to be listed. If they really want in and are worth adding, they can wait. You don't owe these sites ANYTHING nor do you the people using your search anything because you'll get to it when you have time.

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No one ever said it was a wonderful thing that good, listable web sites aren't listed ASAP. But you're correct that we don't owe web site owners a listing since we aren't a listing service.

I think it's totally fair as Crowbar said that the volunteers get to take months off at a time, they deserve it for being so dedicated to the cause of this project.

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You think it would be more fair that volunteers be forced to edit more often than they want or in areas that they have no interest? Sites would be waiting a lot longer than 4 years if that were the case because fewer people would choose to be editors for any length of time. I know I wouldn't -- I've been an editor for almost 7 years and have made tens of thousands of edits that wouldn't have been made if, say, I'd been forced to edit gambling categories when I didn't want to.

I also understand now that it would be foolish to take anyone's advice on how to improve because there's no way they would have any good input or could know better than the people at DMOZ already. I mean you guys got it this far without their advice, no point in listening to the armchair quarterbacks out there.

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You haven't actually made a suggestion for improvement beyond essentially telling us that someone needs to review your site ASAP because you've been waiting too long.

If people need something and we try to provide it to them and it's just not working, rather than rework it, it's much better to just stop providing it, especially when your time is as valuable as a DMOZ editor's is.

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This forum, like everything else ODP-related that we choose to do, is something we do as volunteers. We discussed reworking it but there really was no good way to do that.

And whatever you do, be sure and stick to your guns, NEVER admit there's a chance of a flaw in any part of the system that could use some work. If we ever show an ounce of doubt that things aren't working as intended we will look weak.

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No one has ever said there weren't flaws. But, judging by your posts, we're not likely to agree on what exactly the flaws are.

I know now my site doesn't deserve to be listed in such a great directory for one of the following reasons:

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No one ever made any kind of a judgement call about your site.

Editors have been trying to give you some background information here. I understand that you don't like the answers you've gotten. Making a smart-assed post like the one you just made isn't likely to make things better, though, is it.

Resegulator, the editors are always redefining the way they do things, based on actual experience of actually doing those things. Anyone who's demonstrated competance at understanding and operating the processes is welcome to make suggestions. The place to make them is in the internal editors' forums, where peers can review the suggestors' work and see for themselves exactly how it has already worked in reality. Experiment and experience is the window to reality; but speculation as to how something might work, is of absolutely no value.

I'm sorry if you feel that people have been ganging up on you. And I'm sorry if you feel that we're just giving you canned responses. I swear that we're not. We're just trying to help you to see things from our point of view so that you can understand where we're coming from on this.

I still get the impression that you basically think of the ODP as a listing service, and that we're not giving you the service that you are looking for. I don't know how to convince you that we really don't see the ODP as a listing service.

Some of us have had this argument/discussion many times over the years, and I find that when it starts getting to this point, it's usually time to take a break. Everyone gets angry, tensions run high, and people start jabbing at each other with nothing productive coming out of it. It might be time to just say that we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

These kind of level headed guys are a pleasure to talk to, and I respect the self control he has exibited, because I think we all understand where he's coming from and aren't unsympathetic to the frustration he's feeling.

The problem with most posters who come here is that they come here with the wrong assumptions about what the ODP does and why.

I think most of them see it as an important marketing tool in order to get seen on the Internet, and that they are invisible without it, and that's because the search engines downstream value it.

I see the ODP as more like a collection of valuable resources, that has had all the junk mail weeded out of it, sorted, and organized for the use of the readers.

With two totally different perspectives of what we do and why, it's no wonder that a lot of these posters come to different conclusions than we do.

listing service vs project...

I guess that is what it comes down to, would that be correct? Different points of view on what the ODP is?

Well, the thing is I can see the different viewpoints, and how this frustration and dialogue could continue indefinitely.

Here's the problem, and potentially a fix...

The issue I see it, is that no matter how the editors and mods from ODP view this as a project, the reality is that it is a de facto listing service.

It is ostensibly a list of websites, however arrived at. And, it is used by most major search engines, therefore it is providing an output, a service, which has commercial implications for many people.

So, as mods and editors, you have commercial power that (if donaldb's posts are to be accepted at face value) you do not seek or want. In your own terms, you are just interested in the subjects you edit, and you want to make a contribution.

So... a suggestion. Cut the link with the search engines. Refuse to allow your directory to populate others. Make the ODP a stand alone site with no links, a truly independent, unbiased, human-edited directory on the web.

Not something you're likely to do, is it?

I frankly don't know how this site can continue as is, playing a pivotal role in populating other engines while creaking under the weight of it's own processes.

Something tells me that the mods and editors would not want to cut the links with other search engines...but I could be surprised - what do you guys think?

the reality is that it is a de facto listing service.

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If you choose to think of it like that, you're only giving yourself false expectations. Yes we list websites, but we do so as part of our efforts to build a useful directory, not as a service in itself. We accept suggestions from the public to use as one possible source of sites to consider. We aim to look at all the site suggestions in time, but do not claim to provide any sort of service or guaranteed time-frame to those suggesting them.

Cut the link with the search engines. Refuse to allow your directory to populate others. Make the ODP a stand alone site with no links, a truly independent, unbiased, human-edited directory on the web.

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This would require effort on our part, and I'm afraid I don't really see how it would further our general aim of helping surfers find sites they're interested in...

I frankly don't know how this site can continue as is

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As long as AOL continues to provide hosting, and there's a buch of editors who find editing an enjoyable pass-time, I think it will continue just fine thanks.

playing a pivotal role in populating other engines while creaking under the weight of it's own processes.

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If what you say is true, then market forces will lead the search engines to stop 'relying' on the ODP in whatever way you think they currently are. But while the average site that's listed in the ODP is 'better' that than average site that isn't, seach engines can gain an advantage by making use of our data to some extent in their algorithms.

The issue I see it, is that no matter how the editors and mods from ODP view this as a project, the reality is that it is a de facto listing service.

It is ostensibly a list of websites, however arrived at. And, it is used by most major search engines, therefore it is providing an output, a service, which has commercial implications for many people.

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Besides agreeing with chaos127, I would add that a listing service would normally charge a fee for listing sites, and that all sites who could pay would be accepted, no matter how junky they were.

That's not the case with the ODP, our focus is really on what most benefits the web surfer looking for information. That purpose is just the opposite of a webmasters desire to get all sites listed, and listed quickly, . We don't want every book that was ever published, we just want the ones that will make the library a quality resource.

We have no say in whether a search engine chooses to use our data, or how they use it, we just offer it freely to everyone.

Added - Most of the heat we take is because the Google Directory is a mirror of the ODP Directory, and to show up in the Google Directory, I guess you'd have to go through us. That's sweet for Google, but not so sweet for us, as we have different goals than a search engine does.

The problem is getting people to understand that.

I have been looking at how SEO and W3C standards (surprisingly, yes) are overrated, and deciding to search through the RZ forums I couldn't help but notice this thread, although more to the following line:

crowbar said:

We don't want every book that was ever published, we just want the ones that will make the library a quality resource.

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Excellent quote, crowbar. An example of this is how DMOZ compares to search engines. Try the following:

a) Do a search using any search engine,
b) Do the exact same search in DMOZ.
c) Take note of which one gives the more relevant results, not more results.

DMOZ may give less results, but they will have far more chance of being relevant to what's being searched. I say less since, for example, there wouldn't be a sudden flood of sites that covered, say, a toilet paper roll collection ("Wow! Look at all those exotic rolls!"), which is where search engines would come in. DMOZ on the other hand, is full of useful links. We aren't here to cover every page on the internet, only the more relevant ones.

Strangely enough, neither DMOZ or Google come up with a decent match for 'toilet paper roll collection' maybe it's not a popular area of collecting (although I did find the Museum - http://nobodys-perfect.com/vtpm/pages/exhibithall.html )

You've got it right, allensaa, and what I really hate is seeing the same site listed in the first 5 slots on the first page of a search, how does that help me?
It just aggravates me, that those who have the bucks or know how to work the system, force themselves on me when there might be better sites that are much more relevant.

Why should I have to look through a hundred pages of search results to find the gems I'm looking for, .