is there someone paid by AOL

If DMOZ is run by AOL, is there someone paid by AOL who has the hat on and has some kind of general responsibility?

I want to make a complaint outside of the DMOZ complaint system and move the complain one level higher then DMOZ itself.

Who is responsible at AOL for DMOZ and had the power to make general "political" changes?

I so wish I knew .

Dome DMOZ editors should be paid by AOL...the top of the "pyramid" needs to be professionals in my opinion that control the whole machinery.
I have the feeling it has been "left alone" on some servers an AOL forgot about DMOZ......

You couldn't be more wrong.

You've made quite a few posts today, mostly telling us how you think our directory should be run. Sadly, very few of them are based on facts and you don't seem to understand that we are just a bunch of hobbyists having fun and satisfaction building a directory. We don't attempt to list all websites and we aren't the slightest interested in SEO or other means of website promotion.

Before posting again, please take the trouble to read this forum's FAQ and the publicly available ODP help info. That way, you won't be speaking from ignorance.

Thanks! You are absolutely right. I am not speaking about SEO by the way.

In my opinion many people "browse" website directories when looking for websites. Especially now with website such as Alexa people always want to see "what is the biggest XYZ website in country XYZ"....

For example if you want to sell your car or buy a house, it is worth to use the top 3 websites in the relevant category, so that you see most ads.

If the category itself is incomplete, you are missing out on them.

I also understand DMOZ is a hobby by editors. If I collect stamps or cards my ambition is to have a "complete collection".

If my hobby is a list of the best golfing websites, my ambition is to have a complete list. Hobby is also about ambition. If there is no ambition, it is not a good hobby.

Of course some people are interested in SEO and pay thousands of dollars for a DMOZ entry or to get competitors websites removed. I have seen websites of companies who offer this as a service. One company offered the removal of a competitive website from a DMOZ category for 25,000 USD and the entry of an URL in certain categories for 10,000 USD.

In that case, DMOZ editors are certainly not doing this for a hobby.

alexa1970 said:

If DMOZ is run by AOL

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DMOZ is run by volunteer editors. AOL owns and sponsors DMOZ, it provides the servers, technical management and programming staff.

is there someone paid by AOL who has the hat on and has some kind of general responsibility?

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Depends on what you mean by "general responsibility". If you mean is there someone overall responsible for activities editors perform or do not perform, than the answer is No.

Who is responsible at AOL for DMOZ and had the power to make general "political" changes?

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There is nothing "political" in DMOZ. Something that is not available can not be changed. If you mean can someone change the guidelines so that editors must review suggested websites: no, there is not such a person. And if it ever would happen most editors, and probably all senior editors, would leave DMOZ. No editors = no websites being reviewed.

alexa1970 said:

Dome DMOZ editors should be paid by AOL...the top of the "pyramid" needs to be professionals in my opinion that control the whole machinery.

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Luckely there is not such a paid top. All editors are volunteers.

I have the feeling it has been "left alone" on some servers an AOL forgot about DMOZ......

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This I can tell you is certainly not the case. A number of AOL staff is actively involved with DMOZ. Seeing that DMOZ only costs money for AOL the number of staff involved is relatively high.

Like Jim I get the impression from your posting that you want DMOZ to be something different than it currently is. But DMOZ is, never has been and never will be a tool for webmasters to get their websites listed and promoted.

alexa1970 said:

Of course some people are interested in SEO and pay thousands of dollars for a DMOZ entry or to get competitors websites removed. I have seen websites of companies who offer this as a service.

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Every person that understand ODP and agree with its philosophy should fill an abuse report pointing out those companies.

If the content of the report will be reliable and confutable that person can be sure that some appropriate action will follow soon.

In my opinion many people "browse" website directories when looking for websites. Especially now with website such as Alexa people always want to see "what is the biggest XYZ website in country XYZ"....For example if you want to sell your car or buy a house, it is worth to use the top 3 websites in the relevant category, so that you see most ads.

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Wait a moment. Alexa doesn't show you the sites with the most ads -- it has no way of knowing that. It shows an estimate of website traffic, which is rather easily manipulable in small SEO-targeted niches.

Those of us who have spent very much time reviewing classified ads sites, know that the vast majority of them are "free classified ads sites" chock full of unmoderated off-topic posts by bottom-layer pond-scum affiliate marketroids. And some of the rest are simply filled with listings scraped and plagiarized from other sites. So the unfortunate truth is, number of ads is no measure at all of site usefulness (even if Alexa did know it, which it doesn't).

So, from the editor's point of view, reviewing classified-ads sites is un-fun and un-productive.

From the consumer's point of view, it's probably more important to deal only with sites supported by entities that have a real-world reputation. There are a very few exceptions -- but even exceptions like craigslist and eBay in the U.S. have built their own real-world reputations based not on any arbitrary metric from the website (size or traffic or page count or whatever) but on the real people behind the website, who offer real services adding value to the information on the site itself.