Politically biased / inappropriate links in category.

Hello,

First of all, I would like to thank everyone at dmoz for their time that they invest into this service.

I represent the 4th largest political party in the United Kingdom.

The British National Party - www.bnp.org.uk

We are officially recognised by the electoral commission as Britain's 4th largest political party.

Sadly, there are many political opponents of ours, that play games, subvert and do their best to cause us all manner of logistical problems, including misrepresenting what we actually stand for and our what our policies actually are.

Issues that we wish to raise

1) There are over 30 political parties listed on the main UK political parties page :

http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Society_and_Culture/Politics/Parties/

You will notice, that a section has been created called "far right". 2 parties, mine included have been listed in that section, rather than in the main section with the rest of the parties.

We do not consider ourselves far-right and besides, because we are Britain's 4th poltical party, with a large number of official pages, we really should have our own section so that we can list all of our sites.

While other political parties and ideologies enjoy resource sections filled with websites that agree with them, the category that we are in, put's us in with another party which would actually discriminate against people based on their race AND a whole bunch of anti-racist / opposing resources.

We are AGAINST the forced repatriation of non-white people from our country and we are AGAINST people having different rights depending on the colour of their skin. Therefore the section that we are in, would give people the wrong impression of what our political party is actually about.


2) The entry for our website is wrong.

"Information on the party's current campaigns, elections and policies, including FAQs and details of the party's stances regarding "white rights" and against immigration and the EU. Articles, press releases and links to nationalist parties worldwide. Descended from the British Union of Fascists."

We are not descended from the British Union of Fascists and we have no interest in "white rights".

3) It's important that the description for our website, reflects the description that we are selling to the electorate. If you google us at the moment, we have a description which is incorrect and obviously written by a political opponent. Many people will believe that the description is written by us, therefore as soon as they see "White Rights" - they might just think "Yeah racist, just as my leftie mate at uni told me"

Some people may think we're lying, but hey, that's politics. If my political opponents can't write my party's website entry, can we in turn write theirs?


The remedy we would like.

We would like our own sub-section just like the other major parties, so that just like for example, The Liberal Democrats, we can list all of our resources and keep an accurate description of what we really stand for.

Many thanks,

Chris Barnett
British National Party Webmaster

We amend category structures only after internal discussion. I'm happy to initiate such a discussion and will do so immediately after I've finished this post (now done). Such discussions take weeks (at a minimum) so don't expect instant results.

If you are unhappy with our description of your website, please visit the category where it's listed and raise an update request. Some volunteer will attend to it in due course but we can't predict who or when that might be. If your proposed new description is factual, neutral and conforms with our Guidelines, it should be accepted. If not, not.

If you are unhappy that some search engines prefer our description of your website over your metatags, you can amend their behaviour by using the NOODP metatag. Several of them honour it.

Finally, you claim that the BNP is the 4th largest UK political party. It would be helpful if you could tell us how many MEPs, MPs and County Councillors it has.

jimnoble said:

We amend category structures only after internal discussion. I'm happy to initiate such a discussion and will do so immediately after I've finished this post (now done). Such discussions take weeks (at a minimum) so don't expect instant results.

If you are unhappy with our description of your website, please visit the category where it's listed and raise an update request. Some volunteer will attend to it in due course but we can't predict who or when that might be. If your proposed new description is factual, neutral and conforms with our Guidelines, it should be accepted. If not, not.

If you are unhappy that some search engines prefer our description of your website over your metatags, you can amend their behaviour by using the NOODP metatag. Several of them honour it.

Finally, you claim that the BNP is the 4th largest UK political party. It would be helpful if you could tell us how many MEPs, MPs and County Councillors it has.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your tip re NOODP setting in my meta's - I'll get that changed, your help is much appreciated.

The electoral commission claims we are the UK's 4th largest political party.

We have 2 MEPs and 1 county councillor.

We don't have any MPs in the house of commons, but then, neither does UKIP, who do seem to enjoy space as a "major party" on that page.

Cheers,

Chris.

Also, for the record....

Personally, I believe if any political party wants to make the effort, they should be allowed their own sub-section, where they can list all of their resources.

The internet is very important for free speech and I think it would be good for democracy if all parties were allowed to list of their resources so the public can find it all with ease.

Remember, if criteria is set for whether a political party qualifies for their own section, then a political party could always fall short of that criteria once they had qualified for it.

Take for example The Greens and UKIP. If you have set criteria and one of those party's falls through the floor of it, would you then have the heart to deny them their own section? I think not.

Also, sorry to sound like I'm nagging or to repeat myself, but the fairest thing to do, would be to have sections for any party that wants it rather than lump people together on perceived ideologies...at the end of the day, who's perception is that a party is socialist, national socialist, nationalist, conservative, liberal or whatever? The editors?

I bet you, if you look at the socialist section, there's going to be socialist parties in there horrified at some of the listings chucked in there, just as we would be horrified to be lumped with other parties that describe themselves as "far right" or "nationalist".

Nope, I would rather each political party, if they want, had their own sub-section, in which further sub-sections for candidates, official pages, un-offical pages could be listed.

Thanks!

We do not create categories because an organisation / company / person wants it to be created.
Categories are only created if we have enough websites to be listed in that category.
As jimnoble wrote an internal discussion if we need and want to create a category has been started. This discussion can take several weeks. If the outcome is positive for you the category will be created, if not the category will not be created.

pvgool said:

We do not create categories because an organisation / company / person wants it to be created.
Categories are only created if we have enough websites to be listed in that category.
As jimnoble wrote an internal discussion if we need and want to create a category has been started. This discussion can take several weeks. If the outcome is positive for you the category will be created, if not the category will not be created.

Click to expand...

It seems I need to be in the "we" that decides whether there is enough websites to go in that category then.

I would be quite surprised if the people that are maintaining the list of UKIP websites and resources are hardened socialists / communists but are doing it out of the "common good" of all political parties in the UK!

;-)

We pride ourselves on being neutral and not expressing an opinion about websites. That's why we're taking your initial post very seriously.

Editors work in areas that interest them because that's the nature of volunteerism. Other than needing several websites to justify the creation of a category, we have no concept of enoughness.

Prospective editors need to convince us of their integrity and neutrality as part of the application process. Those that aren't able to do so are declined and those that fool us don't last long.

chrisdbarnett said:

It seems I need to be in the "we" that decides whether there is enough websites to go in that category then.

Click to expand...

It is much easier.
Just suggest all sites about the subject and that meet the DMOZ guidelines.
An editor will notice all those suggested websites and when looking at them might decide that a seperate category is a good thing.

Internal consensus achieved

Two new categories created. BNP and NF. The Far Right category will be removed later today when our servers permit it (now done).