ODP dragging Down Standards

Hello

Im just interested on the ODP standpoint on improving web page/site standards.
I couldnt find anying on this so im posting a possibly provocative question.

I'm no smart arse, and certainly intend no offence to those at the ODP who devote their time/efforts.

As somone who is familiar with the current standards of the W3C and make sure my sites are fully complient, whilst still accesssable to older browsers, I cant understand why sites that are so badly written, and particulary the multitute that use frames, seem to dominate the ODP.

It just seems a missed oppertuninty, that an influential organisation like the ODP takes little interest in driving standards up.

Its somthing i feel strongly about, particulary as im always sorting out sites for people that have paid a fortune to HTML cowboys.

You'll find that editors are increasingly aware of certain "design" factors and try, in their subtle ways, to promote good design and "friendly" implementations. But as the guidelines say, editors cannot use design alone as consideration. If it displays then that's enough for your average Joe. Design choices that might be blasphemy to those in the know are not noticed by the great unwashed...

I think you'll find it's the webmasters who aren't keeping up to date and we are emphatically not the netcops. So long as a website provides useful and unique content, isn't illegal and is usable by the vast majority, we'll list it.

On a personal note though

• I think net standards are important and I adhere to them on my websites as far as possible. Not for any aesthetic reason but because that has the triple bonus of being easier to maintain, working in most conventional browsers and screen readers, and putting a lighter load on the server.
• I edit using Firefox and the huge majority of websites work fine in that. For those that don't, most do in IE. My conclusion is that people are getting 'better' at web design, even if their sites fail validation.
• I'd say that only around 50% of websites claiming to validate actually do anyway.

So, I understand and applaud your concerns, but ODP's mission is not to clean up the web but to build a directory of useful contant.

I personally agree with you about net standards and violations thereof, especially including the idiots who have FontPlague and aren't afraid to use it.

I reserve the right to not review any site that won't work with standard-conformant browsers. I also have spoken in favor of ghettoization of such sites by pejorative descriptions [may not work on standard browsers] or [works only with IE 3.1 releases .004 through .026 inclusive]. That much, at least, is in respect of what I do myself and what information I think is compatible with the ODP goals.

But ... step back from that issue a moment and look at the broader ethical principle. You are welcome to start or join organizations to promote portable webpages. But ... the ODP has a different mission, around which it has built an editing community -- SOME OF WHOM MAY NOT AGREE WITH YOUR PRINCIPLES OR YOUR GOALS. It is schismatic, abusive, unethical, socially unacceptable to try to distort THAT organization into YOUR goal (and even if your goal happens to be OK with me, it is my duty to protest your abuse of the ODP!)

So, go ahead, form your own organization, commit your own acts of resistance against the Seven-Headed Beast of Redmond (late of the abyss, and about to return thence....) If I think your organizational goals are worthwhile, and your actions effective, I might even participate. But the ODP is not the place for that.

Sites that don't work in standard browsers are a big headache for many editors. I don't know the exact figures, but I know from colloquial evidence that the proportion of non-IE users in the editor population is very high. Quite apart from the obvious relationship between DMOZ/ODP and Mozilla , there are also a large number of Mac and Linux enguin: users.. however, the real driver is security. It's really just not safe to review a large number of sites using a browser as fundamentally insecure as IE.

However, 90%+ of the general population still use IE running on Windows, so from the point of view of our user population it doesn't make a huge difference.

Although I will say this.. the way Firefox is taking off, it could well be commercial pressures that force web site owners to make their sites more accessible, rather than an attempt to enforce standards from a third party such as the ODP.

An interesting thought, but I can quite see why the editors say it is not the job of the ODP.

But I have seen comments on the directory about browser compatiblity of the type Hutcheson mentions eg [best viewed in browser xx] - that seems to protect the integrity of the ODP.

It is probably also reasonable to assume that with limited time to review sites, editors are unlikely to spend much time reviewing a site that won't display properly in their chosen browser - unless what they can see suggests the site has outstanding qualities that make it worth extra effort.

But writing compliant code and using CSS for layout has many other benefits:

The site can be updated in minutes, both the complete theme and individual pages, with minimal testing time required.
The page load times are quick, the bandwidth on the server small.
Search engines seem to favour CSS sites, probably because they can index the content easier.
Even without any special thought the site is probably reasonably accessible (for instance to those using voice browsers)

But perhaps the most important person to please is the visitor.
He/she very rarely worries about what is underneath, but probably won't hang around too long if the pages take too long to load or a table/frames based layout breaks in their browser or screen resolution.
Who knows, the next potential customer may also be committed to web standards and choose to do business with my site because they spot the small note about CSS on one of my pages.

There has been a sharp explosion of Firefox visitors on my stats this month which caused me to download it to check my site (might well make it my default browser, love the tabbed browsing!) But I still worry about the 5 or so visitors that still use Netscape 4, I really must check what they are seeing.

Very few sites have so much traffic that they can afford to exclude or make life difficult for even a small percentage of visitors, this should be incentive enough for web developers to pay attention to standards, especially those whose sites break in Firefox.

Im just interested on the ODP standpoint on improving web page/site standards.

Click to expand...

The vast majority of DMOZ.org pages have HTML that validates. I think that answers the question.

Far from dragging down standards, the OPD is setting an example.