Is the DMOZ going down?

I've tried to get 30 or so sites listed all in similar categories in the family of online games and have never had a response or acceptance in over 9 months.

Is the dmoz dying? Or am I just in that elite group of poorly moderated categories? I've also been checking in for a long time and none of my categories are ever open to new editors.

Can anyone share some insight to my disappointment with the dmoz?

Sites from the same source (yourself) and on the same general subject (online games) would be "related sites."

With that in mind, check out the submittal policies to see what you shouldn't have done with those 30 sites, and where you shouldn't have done it.

It's always possible the sites have been all removed from consideration just because of that -- as the policies say may happen. Or it may be that the categories are neglected. Or it may be that there is significant work done in those categories, but it all gets wasted cleaning up spam and other violations of the submittal policy--so the surfers don't benefit. Or perhaps the categories are neglected precisely because work done there WOULD BE mostly wasted digging through redundant suggestions or sites with negligable unique content.

You can probably figure out which is the case, by doing some related Google searches. The same people who work so hard to spam the top of searches with affiliate/doorway pages, also work to spam the ODP site suggestion process.

So if you can easily find many sites with significant information in Google that aren't in the ODP, then it's likely neglect.

But if Google is filled with recycled content draped over advertising banners, it's likely spam in the ODP queues also.

I appreciate your reply. I have been through the guidelines thourougly and I am sure I that I'm following them. When I said similair above, I just really meant the same genre of entertainment sites. Most of them would have fallen into different categories based on their specific niche topics or community group. Also, most of my submissions were spread out over time, I never bulk submitted anything.

It seems to me like the dmoz is just more of a coin toss than anything. Maybe you are "lucky" that day and there's not a ton of spam to merk up your submission. Or maybe you just need to know an editor to get in, maybe both?

Most of the sites I have submitted have been for clients, but it's just demoralizing when I can't get my own sites into the appropriate category, knowing all the work I have put in to try and make it a unique, quality site.

What do I know about most of the games categories:
- 99.99% of the suggested sites are spam and totaly unlistable
- these sites try everything to hide they are unlistable spam

You wrote "knowing all the work I have put in to try and make it a unique, quality site". I don't know which sites are yours but from experience this statement normaly means for games sites "knowing all the work I have put in to try to make it look as if it is a unique, quality site."


As a result almost no editor is willing to look at these suggested sites. Why spend your free time looking at junk when you also can spend your time in much more pleasent categories looking at sites that contribute real content to the directory.

Prediction: time between suggestion and review in these categories will probably be several years.

I just really meant the same genre of entertainment sites.

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What a coincidence. I just really meant the same genre of entertainment sites also.

Apparently we're both talking about "related sites."

It seems to me like the dmoz is just more of a coin toss than anything.

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Exactly. You are in the position of relying on somebody suddenly deciding to take an interest in a category and doing enough work on it to process your suggestion. This is even less predictable than tossing a coin.

However there is also the chance that an editor may come across your site in the course of doing other things and being taken by it enough to locate the correct category and list it. This is equally unpredictable.

regards

If those categories are as bad as they sound, then why should they even exist?

@pvgool - Why spend your "free time" as an editor going through them? Are you serious? That sounds like something my 4 year old son would say. Why take a bath you're going to just get dirty again anyways?

If it's such a trying task to be an editor, I would say kindly check yourself out and let someone a little more enthusiatic take your place. Maybe as a result the DMOZ would have better websites than the 1992 era crap that fills my categories of interest.

I get it... finally. I had a little misconseption of how exactly an editors role worked, just wanted to apologize if I seemed rude in any way.

I didn't realize most editors had a choice of categories, thus explaining why spammy ones would get ignored.

P.S. - I guess I have a comment still waiting approval. It probably had smart allelic innuendo in it so feel free to delete that.... lol.

If it's such a trying task to be an editor, I would say kindly check yourself out

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What pvgool is saying is that if a category attracts your attention and you look at at, you can end up losing interest rapidly. Happens to me a lot - I find a site for a village, list it, see that it is eligible for a listing in a topical category, go and list it there, have a look to see what's waiting there, and decide to go back to the village category.

Personally there are areas that I will never muster up enough interest to even go and look - I avoid Shopping, computers and internet, games amongst others. Of course there are other editors that have a totally different view to me, so over the whole directory it all sort of evens out eventually, but in a totally unpredictable way.

I didn't realize most editors had a choice of categories

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Only about 200 can edit anywhere though many can edit in large sections (e.g. all of the USA, UK etc). All editors start out with the category they applied for and then, if they are interested, they can apply for further categories. They can also be given categories if they are enthusiast enough. So most editors would have to be interested enough to apply internally to edit another category.

Of course I now realise I left out another option, which is waiting until someone applies to become an editor for the category.

regards

I would say kindly check yourself out and let someone a little more enthusiatic take your place

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Editors don't occupy a 'place', preventing other people from doing work there. Lots of categories have more than one editor and, as Eric-the-Bun said, over 200 editors can edit any category from above. A low work-rate editor thus doesn't do any harm (and probably makes fewer mistakes than me ).

n2flash said:

If those categories are as bad as they sound, then why should they even exist?

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The categories aren't bad. It is just that most websites that are being suggested to them are not listable according to DMOZ guidelines. Unluckely for us and for those with listable websites the people owning these unlistable websites do not care about the guidelines and still suggest their websites. Editors can only see if a site is listable or not after they have reviewed it.

@pvgool - Why spend your "free time" as an editor going through them? Are you serious? That sounds like something my 4 year old son would say. Why take a bath you're going to just get dirty again anyways?

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That is not waht I said. If I have a choice of how to spend my time I prefer working in categories that are much more worth my attention.

If you want to know if your websites are listable just look at them yourself.
Is the content unique or did some other person/website provide them to you and is the only thing you did build some html around the games. If the later is true chances of being listed are almost null.