Polish DMOZ (might be) going in wrong direction?

Hi!

This e-mail is briefly about a concern, that Polish DMOZ might be suppressing evolvement of sites with a future:

Some time ago (February 2005) the guidelines for submitting pages for Polish ODP have been changed by Polish editors.

The new Polish guidelines state: "We also judge the general usefullness of the site and its main goal. Is the content dominated by commercial content or promotion of other sites?". (quote:Czy jego oryginalna i niepowtarzalna treść nie jest zdominowana przez treści reklamowe i promujące inne serwisy?).

What does it mean to me: there are many pages that require webmasters and people to insert, find or create unique content. These people need to be payed. There are many websites that make their money on ads, banners, pop-ups etc. So many, that I could say that this method is a dominant reason why Internet is evolving faster and faster nowadays. Can one say that all of these sites are dominated by commercial content? Not all of course. It is the quantity of ads that counts. But where is the line here? When those commercials start to dominate the site?
Without clear distinction - what word 'dominated' means - Polish editors, can now actually deny approximately 70% of Internet - leaving only pages that were created by volunteers.

Of course my site has been affected by this rule, and I spoke with mr Wladek before those rules were published. On my company's webpage one could't find any banners, pop-ups and anything like this. All the promotion was done with chosing the title, colours, and graphical elements corresponding with the brand (Polish beer, Redd's).

Thanks to the money we got from the brand owner, we could develop a very nice tourism website, with lots of photos and unique travel content. I think that's how things work in real world. Most of the time viewers, in exchange for watching what they need, need to see some ads, banners, pop-ups etc. I didn't know DMOZ refuses that. The way my website earned its living was non-disturbing. No pop-ups, no flashy banners, just colours and the name.
The thing is, that in my opinion it is a good direction for Internet development, a way much better then sites with all those kinds of ads.

I think DMOZ - a directory that promotes Internet development - in Poland might need to reconsider the rules that have been set, as that might be a step in a wrong direction.

The site in question was www.reddsgo.pl
the brand name is Redd's - one of beer brands from Poland.

I did a search in english DMOZ, there are some pages corresponding with the topic of Redd's: travel and beer.

I found this:
http://www.classiccitybrew.com/beer_destinations.html (beer and travel)
http://realbeer.com/ (with northern brewer banner on top)

best regards
Michael Smyk

I don't speak Polish, but in discussions on the internal boards, the Polish-language editors (when speaking English) seem to have the same concept for the directory as the English-language editors.

On the other hand, a site dominated by advertising shouldn't be listed in DMOZ, unless a site for the advertising agency.

If you let us know the exact link where the message appears, the corresponding English-language link, and your translation of the English language text into Polish, it would be appreciated.

In English, we're turning down well over 70% of the internet; in the travel area, we are turning down well over 99% of the sites! And none of them will ever be missed.

The ODP has never objected to advertising -- from the beginning, for instance, we listed thousands of "free" Geocities sites with the Geocities banner.

But we also ask: what is the PRIMARY purpose of a site? Is it to inform, or to push commercial traffic? And that does NOT depend on the quantity of ads: it is based on the QUANTITY of INFORMATION!

And ... we have a different attitude. We don't care "how fast the internet is evolving" or "why it's evolving that fast". And so we don't "promote" internet development. We only care about unique knowledge. The REST of the internet can evolve into predatory e-life and conquer the solar system, or it can die a lingering death; it can develop, or freeze solid -- WE JUST DON'T CARE.

You say surfers "Need" to see ads. It just ain't so. As for pop-ups, you must know that all new browsers allow surfers to block them -- and so webmasters WILL get along WITHOUT them, because they have no choice. And in order to be of interest to the ODP, webmasters "need" to provide unique knowledge. Without that, we don't care even if there are NO ads on the site.

Your concern is obviously with the advertising. That is your primary interest; you count number of ads and measure kind of ads and compute effectiveness of ads. It is your own site, and you may advertise all you want, however you like. But the ODP concern is with information, and with the part of the internet that contributes to it.

It is true that the amount of pure spam on the internet is growing -- just like the amount of e-mail spam is growing. I suspect it is also true that the PERCENT of the internet devoted to commercial doorway spam is growing.

Does that make the ODP less important? Or does that make the ODP's careful filtering of sites MORE important?

Take a different example:

As computer viruses increase, do anti-virus programs become more important, or less important?

Do anti-virus writers say, "oh, well: users NEED to get used to viruses." Or they focus on more and better tools to allow users to run what they want to run on their own computers?

What you can easily overlook, in the malicious spamming of search engines, in the trash submitted to directories, is that the size of the FREE internet is still growing. The commercial news organizations are scared to death of the new "amateur" bloggers that often do their job better than they do, and expose their most mistakes. The classics of art, philosophy, and science are far better represented now than they were when I started. Far more civic and religious organizations, and even real businesses have their own websites. The founders of the ODP thought it would peak at about one million listings: we are at over four and a half million now. And there are plenty more sites to review. Websites are just too easy to make, and too cheap to publish, to worry about monetization. For less than the cost of cable TV, I can contribute to the sum total of the culture of humanity.

Sorry, I gotta go. It's time for "Wheel of Fortune". NOT!

The Resource Zone forum with discussions in Polish is http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showforum=43 , fwtw.

You care about knowledge - I know that.
You could also care about many other things - ODP is not mine, it's Yours, and whatever You put into guidelines for submission - I accept it. I have no problem with that. But it seems to me the common sense is: if a site contains fair amount of unique information and some ads - You let it into the ODP.

Polish editors admitted that site of mine contains unique content. There are and will be no ads of usual kind on Reddsgo (not all pop-ups are blockable, by the way ). Polish editors just didn't like the colours and the name. Now, the question is, do you approve that as the 'official' way od ODP ?

Best regards

Michal

Polish editors just didn't like the colours and the name.

Click to expand...

I doubt that is the reason it was not accepted.

The actual brewing company is already listed in that category ( http://www.kp.pl/ ) and the specific beer is listed within their site http://www.kp.pl/piwo_redds_redds.html

Why would we list another site about a particular beer in a Business category? It's not the site of the business (if it is, it's a fraternal mirror, and we don't list those either).

If it's an enthusiasts site about the beer, then it belongs in a Recreation category ( I speak and read no Polish whatsoever, so cant guess at what it will be within the World/Polska tree, the English category is http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Food/Drink/Beer/ )

:tree:

I doubt that is the reason it was not accepted.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, that's almost exactly what I've been told. "The colours correspond too much with the colours one can find on the beer bottle, the name Redd's is too big, they didn't like the beer cork image, name REdd's is visible 7 times on the main page."

The site is about travel and the whole content is visible through linkmaps at:
http://www.reddsgo.pl/wyprawyall.xml (links to all described locations)
http://www.reddsgo.pl/proall.xml (links to all described pictures)

there's two more linkmaps, but it's no use listing them to non-Polish speakes

You can call it - a site about travel made by group of people who are beer enthusiasts and liked the colours.

The way the site combines content together with some non-disturbing brand promoting is, IMHO, a bit better than sites combining content with pop-ups and banners.

If DMOZ approves only sites with banners (although with less respect than sites with no banners at all, of course), and disapproves sites with graphics and names that have commercial associations (even though they've got unique content) - I'd love to hear that and stop bugging You about this policy I noticed among Polish editors.

Best regards
Michal

Unfortunately, that's almost exactly what I've been told. "The colours correspond too much with the colours one can find on the beer bottle, the name Redd's is too big, they didn't like the beer cork image, name REdd's is visible 7 times on the main page."

Click to expand...

Who provided that feedback, and what was the context. [If it was an ODP editor, do not post the name in the forum, juststate that it was an ODP editor]

Just for the future, if anyone wants to talk to the Polish-language editors rather than about them, there is a Polish-language forum, http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showforum=43

You already mentioned that earlier in the thread.

This feedback has been provided by one of Polish ODP editors during telephone conversation we had in the begnning of April (or end of February).

First he questionned the content-side of the site, but after showing him the linkmaps and claryfying that we have a known Polish traveller Bartek Pogoda "out there" writing and sending photos to us (that's where the money goes ), the editor admitted, that content-side looks acceptable and concentrated on design-side of the site.

He judged that with this kind of colours/ name/graphics the site's primary purpose is to advertise, not to 'enlight'. I humbly disagree. Saying that primary purpose of a website hides in colours and titles or even graphic top - bars, is like judging a painting by it's frames.

I didn't quit on this because I think that with sites like mine everyone can benefit: me as the webmaster, users, because they get the information without having to see flashy "Eat at Joe's" banners/pop-ups/ whatever - and I get thousands of visits from google now, asking about geographical locations - so people already consume this knowledge; and, finally, the ODP benefits as well, because ODP is about knowledge.

Best regards
Michal

Are you positive that this person is an editor? Please forward the editorname of this person to me via private message because if he is not listing sites because of the design then the editor needs to go back and read the guidelines.