Important DMOZ suggestion

I think DMOZ should do the following:

Regularly check for big websites and website that got really big and busy
and see whether those are already listed.

I think busy and popular website should be added automatically without having to suggest their URLs.

It would be a censorship not to add busy and popular websites as people should be able to find those websites easier - there are many that get visitors just by word-of-mouth....but they have never been categorized.

DMOZ should set its own guidelines/timelines for adding "forgotten" but popular/busy website. This could be automated by some software. No editor should have the right to refuse a popular and busy website - imagine one single person decides not to list a website for personal or whatever reasons, but 1,000,000 people love this website and visit it regularly....just imagine that!

>> I think busy and popular website should be added automatically without having to suggest their URLs. <<

I think you'll find that already happened for a very large number of sites. Probably at least 25% of the ODP was constructed this way...


>> imagine one single person decides not to list a website for personal or whatever reasons... <<

...then there are 8 000 other editors that can add it, at any time, if any of them wanted to do so. One person cannot "block" anything.

let's see

dermotz said:

Regularly check for big websites and website that got really big and busy and see whether those are already listed.

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This is already happening. And not only for big and busy websites but for all.

dermotz said:

I think busy and popular website should be added automatically without having to suggest their URLs.

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Not site will be added automaticaly. All site must be reviewed by a human editor. All sites can be listed without being suggested, and a lot of sites are added without ever being suggested.

dermotz said:

It would be a censorship not to add busy and popular websites as people should be able to find those websites easier - there are many that get visitors just by word-of-mouth....but they have never been categorized.

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Busy and popular sites are handled in exact the same way as small sites. Are they listable? If yes, we list them.

dermotz said:

DMOZ should set its own guidelines/timelines for adding "forgotten" but popular/busy website. This could be automated by some software. No editor should have the right to refuse a popular and busy website - imagine one single person decides not to list a website for personal or whatever reasons, but 1,000,000 people love this website and visit it regularly....just imagine that!

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No editor is allowed to reject any site, small or big, for personal reasons. We have clear guidelines which sites are listable and which are not. Popularity of a webiste is not one of the criteria we use to determine if a site is listable. If a site is realy popular it has a much bigger chance of being noticed by an editor and as such a much bigger chance of being looked at by these editors.

in theory....not in practise...only in some categories with editors who take their job seriously.

for instance I think there are more then 14 dating website for the USA - and the directory has stayed more or less the same for the the last 7 years.

The problem might be that this is a category that receives a lot of spam. Notice that we only want to list sites that have unique 9that is their own) content. Categories that receive a lot of spam are not liked by many editors and we might prefer to "work" in categories we like.

pvgool said:

The problem might be that this is a category that receives a lot of spam. Notice that we only want to list sites that have unique 9that is their own) content. Categories that receive a lot of spam are not liked by many editors and we might prefer to "work" in categories we like.

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They receive lots of spam because they are popular.

Those categories that receive most spam are those that should be the focus....work is not always doing what you like....but what you "have to do"...even if it is on a voluntary basis. I would do it if I was an editor, but I applied 7 years ago and 3 years ago ho and now I wont apply anymore.....

What you "have to do" is help improve the directory.

There is no overlord taskmaster directing categories to be edited, sites to be added, or what any particular editor does.

And, processing spam is NOT the focus.

dermotz said:

They receive lots of spam because they are popular.

Those categories that receive most spam are those that should be the focus....

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Strange definition of "popular" you have. Popular for DMOZ does not mean "many people think they can make a quick buck by creating an affiliated site without any content of it own"

For categories that receive a lot of spam we have much better ways to find good sites than the pool of suggested sites. Why would I look at 100 suggestions if I know on forhand that 99 of them won't be listable.

pvgool said:

Strange definition of "popular" you have. Popular for DMOZ does not mean "many people think they can make a quick buck by creating an affiliated site without any content of it own"

For categories that receive a lot of spam we have much better ways to find good sites than the pool of suggested sites. Why would I look at 100 suggestions if I know on forhand that 99 of them won't be listable.

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I also dont mean to say you should add affiliate website without any content of its own...websites should always have a unique content but maybe sometimes editors confuse affiiliate websites with related websites.

I have the feeling there are several hundred unreviewed websites with at least 50 that are worth being listed but nobody bothers to look at them.

The only way sites are going to be added is by an editor reviewing them. If they're not suggested by the public an editor would need to find them themselves.

Editors are volunteers, and we can't force them to work in any particular categories, or to any particular timescale. If you want to do something about it, then apply to become an editor yourself. Then you can help list some of those sites.

dermotz said:

I have the feeling there are several hundred unreviewed websites with at least 50 that are worth being listed but nobody bothers to look at them.

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Maybe. But do all of these websites belong in that category.
From what you have written I think you are speaking about http://dmoz.org/Society/Relationships/Dating/Personals/Regional/North_America/United_States/
Sites that also offer personals outside of the USA don't belong in this category but in http://dmoz.org/Society/Relationships/Dating/Personals/International/ which already has 155 listings.
Sites that are only active within one of the states don't belong here but in one of the subcategories like http://dmoz.org/Society/Relationshi...ional/North_America/United_States/California/

for instance I think there are more then 14 dating website for the USA - and the directory has stayed more or less the same for the the last 7 years.

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I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, given your obsession with the subject, you probably have a "popular" dating site that you think should be added but hasn't been. That really makes you somewhat less than completely objective about both the subject and about your site, understandably. What you (or anyone else, for that matter) would consider to be an important subject isn't necessarily what editors would consider important enough to edit, especially a category like that that is extremely and heavily spammed -- it's not a fun category to edit.

dermotz, if you were an ODP editor, you would choose for yourself what your priorities were; you would choose for yourself where you would work, and how you could work most effectively there.

So long as you were doing good work, nobody, NOBODY, not another volunteer editor, not paid staff, and CERTAINLY nobody outside, would have the right to tell you what to do or when.

That freedom is what built the ODP to what it is; and nobody has shown that something better can be built any other way. In fact, except for Yahoo, nobody has TRIED to build something similar for several years -- and it's simply because the CURRENT way is the most effective and most efficient way yet devised.

If that means spammers have to wait a long time for their site to be rejected ... that's OK.