Is DMOZ just a Bunch of Corrupt Editors?

What a surprise, totally missed the point of my post and chose to focus on certain technical inaccuracies (as you see them) instead. Typical.

My point remains pvgoo. Whether DMOZ’s original intended purpose was to be a key determinant of natural rankings is irrelevant. It is and the fact remains that you clearly have corrupt editors protecting their space on DMOZ.

No-one’s bleating about having any divine right to listed on DMOZ. As you quite rightly point out, I will have to make a success of my site without a listing.

Telling me plenty of sites are successful without a DMOZ listing and plenty are unsuccessful with one is totally fatuous. Whether a listed site makes the most of the advantage they’ve been given is irrelevant, my point is that it isn’t a level playing field.

Let’s stick to the topic in hand and the point of the thread.

It is and the fact remains that you clearly have corrupt editors protecting their space on DMOZ.

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No editor has ever said that we did not have editors that abused their privileges. We have had them in the past, we will have them in the future and maybe one of them is doing their abuse at this moment. But compared to the total number of editors the amount af abusers is low and they have always been spotted very soon, we have our own ways to find them and we get help from the public when they spot something out of order.
It is also true that most abuse reports are not about abuse but about complaints for not listing a website in a timely fashion. Well, that is not abuse.

my point is that it isn’t a level playing field.

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Just the oposite is true. Every website that meets out guidelines will on someday be listed. We are even making the playing field so level that we do not care if a website is suggested or not. They all have the same chance of being reviewed next. Some people seem to think that we only review suggested websites. That is not true. Some editors even only list websites they have found themself on the internet. Other editors only look at the pool of suggested websites. We all have our own ways of building the directoy. And that is how we want DMOZ to operate.

Most people who suggest their site to the directory think someone is deliberately keeping them out if their site isn't listed in xx amount of time. Some of those people decide to use the abuse reporting tool to tell us why they think this. In almost 100 percent of the cases we've seen both in those reports and back when we used to give site suggestion status checks here, the issue is simply that no one has been actively editing the category for some time. Not corruption, not abuse, just the fact that no editor has decided that they want to spend their editing time reviewing suggested sites in that category. Given that editors are allowed to edit where they want (within their privileges), how they want (there are other things they can do to improve a category besides reviewing suggested sites), and when they want (there's no minimum activity level required), it's not surprising that many categories don't get edited very often. You might not like it, but it's the way the ODP works.

Whether DMOZ’s original intended purpose was to be a key determinant of natural rankings is irrelevant.

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No, it's not irrelevant at all.

If some third party has made use of DMOZ listings/data for any sort of SEO, SERP, etc., that is that party's doing, not DMOZ's. Your problem in that regard then, would be with THAT party and not DMOZ.

How is DMOZ responsible for the actions of people and organizations completely outside of DMOZ control or responsibility?

it isn’t a level playing field.

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You're right. IT ISN'T A PLAYING FIELD (FOR SEO'S) AT ALL.

It's a garden. Everyone caught playing games in it gets escorted to the gate: and their football, frisbee, whatever is confiscated.

And it isn't level at all. Think of it as a rock garden, if you like. It's not level, and it's not SUPPOSED to be level. It's supposed to be scenic for the visitors.

By definition, a webmaster can only ever have evidence regarding their own situation.

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A webmaster who knows no more than that, isn't a webmaster worth talking to.

Coincidentally, there was a recent article on a major (real-life) fraud involving charitable donations in Toronto.

The story was broken by one person, who KNEW the active charities in the region, because he'd been heavily involved in charitable work himself. He knew what was going on so well, that when a "major" charity appeared on the public records that he didn't know about, ... he knew it had to be fraud.

That's what the ODP abuse reporting system is for: people who DO know more than their own website, and therefore can possibly have some useful information, information worth looking at immediately.