Is there a bias against any type of website?

I'm curious.
It would seem to me that the inclusion in this directory is very important to any website wanting to obtain a position on the internet map so to speak.

Given that and the unimaginable no. of submissions that come in everyday, does a particular bias officially or unofficially exist?

It would seem that submissions are at the whim of the editors. Which considering it is a free human effort not for profit is reasonable and intimidating at the same time.

Curiously Interested and Intimidated,

Peter

The only bias we have is against sites that we deem unlistable, e.g. individual MLM distributors, affiliate sites, etc.

pcross said:

It would seem to me that the inclusion in this directory is very important to any website wanting to obtain a position on the internet map so to speak.

Click to expand...

Any webowner who thinks that a listing in ODP is necessary for his site/company to succeed is doing his business totaly wrong. The succes of your site is totaly up to your site itself.

I wouldn't call it a "bias" per se, but as Motsa mentioned we do have certain types of sites that we do not list - you can see that in our Guidelines - http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#notinclude

More importantly is the types of sites that we do include - http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#include

what about Johnny come lately?

donaldb said:

I wouldn't call it a "bias" per se, but as Motsa mentioned we do have certain types of sites that we do not list - you can see that in our Guidelines - http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#notinclude

More importantly is the types of sites that we do include - http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#include

Click to expand...

So because someone creates and submits the first lemonade stand site on the web and submitted it then they are included and considered unique?

But the next persons site is considered not to add anything of value and as such it isn't included?

The main problem with that model is that it is my understanding that most commercial search engines use your listing as the main source of search data and populate their organic search results with that list. As such it does become the whim of dmoz as to which sites become considered of value to the rest of the world and hence appear in that space.
Was that the intent of dmoz to provide a bias to the "first unique", as it doesn't involve any consideration for the care and standards of the lemonade of the Johnny come lately compared to that of the "I was here first guy".Do the consideration of the individual behind the website or the twist they bring to that service, product etc.

For any site to benefit and grow they need people to know they exist.And they exist if they appear in the organic listing of a search. This can be done via a pay per click approach but if the access to organic relevence is the sole domain of the "first there" than the competition that creates positive change doesn't come into play.

Am I way off the mark? Was the model that was an inspiration in it concept become a bottle neck to benefit the profit of pay per click merchants.

Peter

The point of an index--ANY index--is to provide a coherent perspective on an incoherent mass of data. No index captures all the content of any non-trivial body of information. There are multiple kinds of shortcomings -- in ODP language, you could say:

-- There are kinds of sites that the ODP doesn't list. (That list keeps getting longer and longer, and these decisions are as close to permanent as we can make them.)

-- There are kinds of sites that (so far) the ODP doesn't have a good way of listing -- such sites tend to be neglected, but that's not a permanent ban, simply a coding limitation.

-- There are kinds of sites that surfers aren't interested in, so editors tend not to be interested in, so they tend to get neglected: even though they are theoretically listable. This is a social limitation.

-- There are also design limitations: there are kinds of sites the ODP doesn't list because we can't list them well; even though they might have unique content.

All this should be obvious, and you could find analogous situations for any index you chose. In fact, I'm just a bit puzzled what other answer could have been given (for ANY kind of index over ANY kind of data whatsoever.)

The value of an index lies in the insight IT facilitates, that is not available from other perspectives. So people that are interested in the ODP only for what impact it has on other indexes, simply miss the point altogether: it is as if they notice that cars occasionally run over opossums and squirrels, but sneer at Ford Motor Company because its cars don't effectively eliminate common household pests also.

And people who complain because the ODP doesn't quickly list sites that are in commercial indexes -- again, miss the point altogether. The commercial indexes are there precisely to provide that commercial perspective; they do it very well, and the ODP can safely leave that task to them.

The ODP is of value if (and so far as) it provides good answers to kinds of questions that nobody else can answer well. Q. "Where can I find a zillion doorway pages for VStore or hotelnow.com?" A. "Any search engine will find you more than you will ever need. Don't bother the ODP." Q. "Where can I find the websites of actual klitch-crafters or actual hotels in Las Vegas?" A. "The ODP is really the only place."

And you may notice other places where the ODP de-emphasizes some kinds of sites, simply because there's a better way to find them. This isn't necessarily bias against the type of sites themselves: it is bias in favor of focussing on the unique value that the ODP itself can add to the web.

Point well stated and well taken.

>It would seem to me that the inclusion in this directory is very important to any website wanting to obtain a position on the internet map so to speak.

Some people think that. And it may be true -- suppose it is. Does that matter?

Well, it matters to the webmaster. But -- and this is the critical point -- it may matter not at all to anyone else. Or worse. Say you've generated a new ad banner farm, or blind doorway order taker for a drop-shipper. Everyone else on earth will live their lives just as fully, will meet their needs just as well, without your site. And the ODP will reflect THEIR valuation of importance, not yours.

Or suppose you've created yet another classified ads site for homes for sale. What's the effect on the world economy? Sellers either have to list their house in yet another site (more time, expense, effort wasted to no purpose), or buyers have to look at yet another site to find the right house (more time, expense, effort that WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN WASTED IF THAT WEBSITE HAD BEEN STRANGLED AT BIRTH!

Yes, that's right, some websites are far worse than worthless: drags on the world economy, caltrops on the information superhighway, poison in the pool of knowledge. And, definitely, it is these sites whose webmasters most desperately need the ODP: they have of themselves no value whatsoever to pay for commercial promotion, no information to attract surfers, no visibility to snare advertisers. THEY NEED US!

And ... by all that is good in the world: community effort, shared knowledge, and the spirit of generosity ... we will do our dead level best to be not there for them.

pcross said:

So because someone creates and submits the first lemonade stand site on the web and submitted it then they are included and considered unique?

But the next persons site is considered not to add anything of value and as such it isn't included?

Click to expand...

Not completely correct.
Business that sell the same kind of goods can and will be included.
But if this next person is just selling the first person's lemonade instead of his own he won't be included.

Originally Posted by pcross
So because someone creates and submits the first lemonade stand site on the web and submitted it then they are included and considered unique?

But the next persons site is considered not to add anything of value and as such it isn't included?

Click to expand...

In the Regional branch, where sites are listed based on location, the location is one of the unique things as well.

So 'Jim Bobs Lemonade Stand' in West Podunk is unique compared to 'Smilin' Joes Lemonade Emporium' in Lower Pantsdown. Even though they are both Lemonade stands, they serve different markets, different populations, and have different locations and personnel. Each could be listed in the appropriate location provided the content is on the site, submitting Smilin' Joes with no location details would make it unlistable in Regional.

:tree:

As opposed to Joe's Floral Shops and Mary's Flower Arrangements whcih pretend to have a Regional location, but are just fake storefronts for a massive flower delivery service.

Editors want to list sites. That is what they were born to do. They bend over backwards to list sites, to find one scrap of originality, of uniqueness that gives them the reason to say "yes, another one added". And I am very fortunate that in the areas I started and matured in as an editor there were loads such sites, and still are. But when I venture out, as I do often when working here, I find such a load of garbage and abuse of the system by submitters I really wonder why my colleagues want to wade through such crud. I clear up a mess, a month later the same old crud is back again. I give up and focus on areas the spammers haven't yet reached.

Where does the fault lie? Not in editors who are sick to the teeth of dealing with the 20th submission of a mirror site by the same guy. Not with the editors sick to the teeth of dealing with sharks who will do anything to get a scam past us. Possibly not entirely with the scammers and spammers themselves - they see an opportunity and go for it. A slug will leave slime, its the nature of the beast. No, some responsibility has to be accepted by the wider Internet community and those webmaster forums that encourage and tolerate such schemes. If they preached the same message that we did - get the spam off the Internet, it would be beneficial to everyone, the businesses, the surfers, the editors, the search engines. But no, they encourage their visitors to spam away, submit duplicates to every conceivable category vaguely connected to the subject, see if you can get a mirror listed, test the patience of an editor, see if he/she snaps, then complain bitterly that ODP is non-responsive, rude, impatient, corrupt, defensive, you name it.

So are editors biased against certain types of site? You bet. And they are the same sites that every legitimate webmaster and web surfer is biased against. And if they aren't they should be. If people want a 2-4 week wait for sites to be listed then they can help - spread the message to follow ODP guidelines to the letter.

You know the really sad thing - in order to compete with the spammers and scammers, the legitimate webmasters have to employ the same tricks - mirrors and fraternal mirrors, and doorways, and search engine friendly URLs. And that's fine, that is the nature of the game, and until the search engines finally work out a way of sorting it, go forth and multiply. Beat them at their own game. But don't ever come near ODP with the same tricks. It is the last, the only, bastion where because we are human edited we can and will list one rendition of unique original content once. Hell, I own mirrors, I have to. Do I take them anywhere near the ODP, never in a million years, and I make damned sure no other editor mistakes them for original. One day, hopefully not in my dreams, technology will make search engine optimisation a forgotten art, something for the historians to comment on and no more. In the meantime, whilst the rest of the world catches up, ODP is the only free-to-suggest non-commercial directory of any significance that exists and can, by and large, be trusted. Its strength is in resisting spam and scam and "optimisation". Its weakness is that its strength makes it irresistible to spammers and scammers.

Sorry guys, my recent posts were getting far too short and campaign time isn't far away for 2005.

>So because someone creates and submits the first lemonade stand site on the web and submitted it then they are included and considered unique?

By no means! In category after category, editors have searched out the local lemonade stands on their own initiative. Quite often an editor will find a site that's sui generis, and then go looking for other sites to build a comprehensive directory of sites in that topic (region/industry/religion/artform/whatever). Day in, day out, ODP editors do more of this than content providers for any other site on the web.

There is something that happens every now and then. A new anonymous drop-shipper (or some such) starts a business, and conspires with individuals to create dozens (or thousands) of fraudulent doorway sites, each pretending to be a real business. Obviously, after the first doorway site, none of the others can be unique -- they're just advertisements for the same company, after all -- the whole scam is nothing more than a more deceptive version of affiliate link farms.

When we notice this happening, we'll not only start bouncing the new submittals, but we'll often go hunting and re-reviewing previously listed sites to clean out the garbage.

There are, of course, many people who have grand dreams of "getting their fair share of billions of dollars of e-commerce" "while they sleep." These folk can't and won't EVER generate anything unique -- but of course they all think their own ad-copywritten drivel is "worth listing" because they "wasted a lot of time and strained both brain cells" writing it. Their attitude towards the ODP is ... predictable.

The unfortunate part of that is not that these people's dreams are trampled in the muck, but that legitimate sites in the same business must be reviewed with extreme incredulity. We know this, and we try to do our best to filter out the diamonds from the poisoned glass shards ... but it is hard.