Quality...is it really what it's all about?

Why does a group that professes to be focused on maintaining a quality directory with relavant links consistently fail to maintain the directory properly? Throughout these threads there is a common theme:

*Sites take forever to be added, if they are added at all
*Relevant sites that have been listed for quite some time, just disappear

Yet when anyone brings up these issues, many times moderators and editors talk down to those individuals, as if they are somehow better than them. I find the arrogance of many editors to be quite humerous, especially since many of the catagories within the directory feature dead links to sites that no longer exist, links to spam advertising, and links to sites that have nothing to do with the catagory in which they are listed.

So why is it editors continually pull sites or put off listing sites that are relevant, (and yes I have a site that was listed and then disappeared for no reason) yet they don't have a problem maintaining a directory that is peppered with garbage?

OK, I bit my tongue and I'll just respond to one of your points. The others seem to be based upon a misconception of what the ODP is and how it works. These are all adequately covered in our FAQ and ad nauseam in the forum.

I have a site that was listed and then disappeared for no reason

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Listings aren't removed for no reason. There are many possibilities including:-

The site isn't the sort of site that we list and we corrected a mistake.
The site has been moved towards a more appropriate category.
The site became unavailable for a time and is awaiting re-evaluation.

tiredofit said:

many of the catagories within the directory feature dead links to sites that no longer exist, links to spam advertising, and links to sites that have nothing to do with the catagory in which they are listed.

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And, did you even bother to give some help yourself to keep the quality you are looking for. You don't need to be an editor to do so. You can send an update request for any site on DMOZ or you could post in the Quality Control Feedback part of Resource Zone. Complaining is easy but not very helpfull. Being part of the solution is.

I will admit to never being really good at biting my tongue-jim

tiredofit said:

Why does a group that professes to be focused on maintaining a quality directory with relevant links consistently fail to maintain the directory properly?

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Fail to maintain the directory properly by whose opinion? The opinion of the editors who work hard every day to build categories, remove link rot, create new categories, and add useful sites or the opinions of the disgruntled spammers, and affiliate spider-food site owners who haven't been able to sneak their sites past the editors and into the directory?

The directory as a whole is maintained everday, some categories will go for lengthy periods without active maintenance simply because none of the volunteers have taken an interest there. Eventually the dead links will get removed either manually or through the auto-link checker and possibly there will be an editor who takes an interest in building the category so new sites can be added to replace the dead ones.

tiredofit said:

Sites take forever to be added, if they are added at all

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It is no secret that 1) No sites are guaranteed inclusion, 2) the ODP has never (and could never) guarantee a time period for reviews, 3) Site suggestions are just one source for editors to use to add sites. Many, many sites are added without ever having been submitted and in a lot of cases their site owners have no idea the ODP exists. You are not going to hear many complaints from site owners because they went to suggest their sites only to find it had been listed already for months.

tiredofit said:

Relevant sites that have been listed for quite some time, just disappear

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**See jim's post above.

<edited because pvgool types faster>

I think the most simple explanation is that "quality" means different things to different people. Quality has to do with what you are trying to accomplish, and how you measure it.

Since we aren't providing any kind of service to webmasters at all, then our "quality" has nothing to do with any conceivable measure of how webmasters may (or may not) be affected.

Granted, the ODP may well be useless to you, just as your site may well be useless to me. And you may not want to link to the ODP, just as it may not want to link to you. That's OK, there's room for all kinds of purposes, and all kinds of sites, on the web.

But it's an act of pretty high-handed arrogance to assume you know all the reasons that exist -- therefore if you don't know a reason, there can't possibly BE one. I don't think I've ever seen an editor respond to ANY submitter with anything remotely approaching THAT attitude of omniscience.

Tiredofit,

When I was but a wee lad, my grandfather told me something I have never forgotten.

"Always strive for perfection. But realize that you will never achieve it."