Editors with Conflict of Interest??

Well, you've come across me now... ;-)

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More than just you, actually.

Perhaps you would like to volunteer to help?

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Unfortunately I doubt that anyone with such a derisory attitude towards the values and aims of the ODP and its volunteers would be interested in actually helping with the directory. But I'd like to be wrong about that.

i have yet to come across anyone who knows about dmoz and doesnt have an interest in online commerciality.

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Nearly all the people I know, who know about dmoz, have no interest in online marketing. Now what does that say about people in general, or dmoz? Nothing, really. But it DOES speak volumes about the kind of people I want to know, and the kind of places where I go to meet them (including, of course, DMOZ itself.)

lol!

hey you guys are always good for a laugh, i have to thank you for that. Sometimes its hard to know if you have a straight face when you write half the stuff you do.
Oh and now dmoz is not looking for the best sources, just those that meet its guidelines!

dmoz is not looking for the best sources, just those that meet its guidelines!

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Well of course these are one and the same. That's the whole purpose of the criteria for site selection.

nicetoseeyer said:

Oh and now dmoz is not looking for the best sources, just those that meet its guidelines!

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You still don't get it.

What is "best" and who determines "best".
What you might call "best" another person might call "rubish".

If we would only list the "best" (whatever that might be) websites we would never list any website.
Why? We would only be able to determine which sites are the "best" after we reviewed all websites. When we had reviewed them all we had to start over to look at all new websites before we list any because those new websites might be the "best".

We have a solution for that problem.
We don't care what anybody might call "best".
We created a set of guidelines about which websites we wan't to include and which not. All websites that are listable according to our guidelines will be listed (we just don't know when that might happen as there are a lot of them and there are even more websites that we won't list but have to look at anyway).

"Best" is not a concept that has any meaning at all, when you're talking about objects of unlike kinds. Which is "best", a tractor or a trawler? It very much depends on what you're trying to drag. Which is "best", a minnow or an upholstery tack? Again, it depends on what you're trying to nail.

So, two websites from two different businesses cannot be compared. If you want to know all about Ace Hardware, the Acme Tool Company website is totally useless, regardless of its beautiful graphics and logical navigation. For you, the Ace Hardware website is the _only_ website that matters, and the Acme site is irrelevant. So which is best for the purpose? There's only one site that has one purpose, and it's best for its purpose. And there's only one site that has the other purpose, and it's best for ITS purpose. And they both get listed, in any order that happens to be convenient.

Because that's what the ODP lists. Unique content. Websites that don't ever get compared to the competition because there cannot possibly BE any competition for them. (The businesses may compete, but the websites do not and cannot--they serve completely different purposes.)