FitnessClassic.com has been removed. Why?

My web site, FitnessClassic.com, was placed in http://dmoz.org/Health/Fitness/Personal_Pages in July, 2002. It was removed some time ago, although I don’t know exactly when. During the last year I have developed this site into a content rich source of information about fitness, exercise and weight loss. Positive feedback and growing traffic from search engines indicate that I have made considerable improvements. May be an editor in charge found Fitness Classic too general in nature to be included in Personal Pages, although my individual approach is clearly visible in almost all articles. Anyway, an improving and growingly popular web site should not be dumped overnight, without any further notice. If your editor found it unsuitable for certain category, she or he could simply move it to another category. Please show me my options, if I have any.

Wes Kaczmarek

A senior editor reported the site's primary purpose appears to be to drive traffic to affiliates.

Dear Mr. Rubin:

I am a journalist with over 30 years of professional experience. I started my career in a communist country. I was expelled from the Soviet Empire for fighting the very editorial abuses your organization is practicing now. Here are some traits of their (your) system: the “senior editor” is always right; you cannot know his motives and criteria or even himself; if he says you are wrong, you are wrong; if he says you are out, you are out. The real name of this system is, of course, censorship.

Your “senior editor” reported that “my site’s primary purpose appears to be to drive traffic to affiliates”. Unfortunately, I have no affiliates to drive my traffic to. Instead, I am an affiliate of several decent companies. On nine content packed pages of my web site there are eight commercial links to valuable exercise or weight loss programs. Should this be the problem? If so, why dozens and dozens of your listings openly peddle all kind of goods to their visitors, including those elite “health: fitness: personal pages” sites, from which Fitness Classic has been removed?

I have spent several hours to become better acquainted with your Directory and I have come across countless web sites that should be qualified as typical link farms. They are there, they will stay there, and at the same time your “senior editors” will dump good sites.

I am not surprised, because this is how any dictatorial system works. And this is precisely, why any dictatorial system fails sooner or later. Recall my comments in – let’s say – three years, Mr. Rubin. You will know then what I meant.
Obviously, I am not interested to be a part of so called Open Directory Project any more, although I reserve my democratic right to spread my opinions.

Wes Kaczmarek, Ph.D.

I don't see any questions there, so I won't try to answer any. But I do see some misunderstandings that might bear clearing up.

The links to affiliate programs are indeed the reason we have decided not to list your site. The general guideline we follow is that if the site appears to us to have driving traffic to those as its primary purpose, we elect not to list it. I fully agree on this point with the editor who decided not to list this site. Please see http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#affiliate for more details.

Another misconception seems apparent in your use of the word "censorship". If we prevented you from putting your site on the web, that would indeed be censorship. But we have simply elected not to link to your site. We are well within our rights to make that decision.

There also seems to be some confusion about the meaning of the word "eight". For our purposes, it is a number slightly larger than seven and considerably smaller than the number of affiliate links I saw on your site.

Check out our editors' guidelines and submittal policies -- that's the criteria. Check out our abuse reporting system -- secret informers can use "Update URL" and/or the abuse reporting system; if you want a public review, post in our Abuse forum here (and see how quick and eponymous a response you get).

You learn something every day here. I knew the Soviet Union didn't like people smuggling Bibles or blue jeans in, but I never heard of anyone smuggling dieting books before.

Dear Dr Kaczmarek,

I will presume to interpret Arthur Rubin's phrase "senior editor". I believe that his intention was to communicate 1) that the editor in question was, in Arthur's opinion, more experienced than himself, and 2) that it wasn't a whim of a new-fledged editor but the decision of someone with several thousand edits under his/her belt.

I read a lot of questions and comments in this forum, and I also do a lot of editing and participate in the editorial discussions, and though I wouldn't say that the ODP is ideal and problem-free (it is, after all, evolving all the time) there is one misconception that many disgruntled webmasters appear to live under and which simply isn't true: that the ODP is hopelessly corrupt, whether by power or something else. To quote yourself:

the “senior editor” is always right; you cannot know his motives and criteria or even himself; if he says you are wrong, you are wrong; if he says you are out, you are out. The real name of this system is, of course, censorship.

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Not many of those points are correct, as a matter of fact. If they were, it would be abuse of power. However, senior editors (among whom I think I can count myself these days, even though I'm junior to a great many editors) are patently not always right. All edits are logged, and senior editors are as answerable as their more junior colleagues for abusive editing. And senior editors do make mistakes, and are called on them. The nice thing is that mistakes in editing are not irrevocable. Anybody who has the editing rights in a particular part of the directory can add a site that was mistakenly deleted, or delete one that was mistakenly added. And the editing criteria are official.

Furthermore - and this is important - anybody can become a senior editor, provided they show enough competence. If you make 500 brilliant edits a week and keep your categories in meticulous order, it doesn't matter if your motive in becoming an editor was to promote your own site - that's not part of the equation. Only your work as an editor is. And finally, it takes more than just a whim of a "senior editor" to remove another editor. The community of editors who have the power to decide that - the Meta editors - are as diverse a group of people as anyone could wish.

The ODP is not a powerful force, nor does it influence peoples' lives in any important way, save possibly for the way it makes people give up large chunks of their lives to editing, but people do that for their hobbies. With your background, you should know that "censorship" is too serious a term to be used in this context, even if it were applicable.

Yours sincerely,

I will presume to interpret Arthur Rubin's phrase "senior editor". I believe that his intention was to communicate 1) that the editor in question was, in Arthur's opinion, more experienced than himself, and 2) that it wasn't a whim of a new-fledged editor but the decision of someone with several thousand edits under his/her belt.

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Confirmed. In fact, I didn't look at the site, itself, but only at the notes any editor can see. I wasn't intending to comment in either direction as to whether the "senior editor" in question was justified -- although I now believe he/she was justified.

Dear DMOZ Editors:

Thank you for your self-righteous chatter. Could you please – instead of patronizing me – send me to some of your own on-line publications, so that I see how a noble web site should look like?

One of you is a real wit, when she (he) states:

“You learn something every day here. I knew the Soviet Union didn't like people smuggling Bibles or blue jeans in, but I never heard of anyone smuggling dieting books before.”

Dear Mighty Wag:

When I mentioned that I used to live in the Soviet Empire, it didn’t necessarily mean that I lived in the Soviet Union. If you don’t get the difference, please take some history lessons. Frankly, I have never heard that there were some Bible or blue jeans smugglings into the Soviet Union. Are you about to provide me with a story about Russian white bears next, jester?

One thing is certain, dear DMOZ editors: While my web site, e-mail address and even my physical address are known to you, you are perfectly hidden behind the wall of your authority. To stay within the Soviet Union comparisons: even their Politburo was not as anonymous as you are.

That’s it guys. I have work to do, so I say: good bye.

Wes

Dear Wes,

You can read the ODP editorial guidelines here: Open Directory Project Editorial Guidelines

That is the document on which the editorial decision in question was based.

Of course, it is impossible to assume that the editors were simply reflecting your aggressive, accusatory posting style, and that as volunteers we tire of the name calling that occurs when we don't tell someone what they want to hear.

>Frankly, I have never heard that there were some Bible or blue jeans smugglings into the Soviet Union.

Well, that's not the kind of information this forum is designed to exchange, but whatever.

Frankly, I'm puzzled how anyone who calls himself a journalist anywhere in the Soviet Empire could have missed anything that widely known.

One of you is a real wit

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Only one?

FYI, I'm the person who plowed through that category and removed your - and many other - sites at the time. Do you think more should be removed? Send me a list and I'll review the whole lot.

I like to stay as anonymous as I can on the internet but you can contact me at my profile page. You really can't be totally anonymous on the net - I mean you can but it is a lot of work. Just because I don't make my physical contact address freely available does not liken me to the Politburo. It is just a good common sense measure to not flaunt your personal information on the net. Frankly, my or any other editor's personal details are none of your business, imho.