Relevant and unique content at DMOZ

Most DMOZ editors here spend the time replying to every user "create a relevant (useful) site with unique content" and you will get listed, eventually.

But that's not true. If you take a category and you do a review by yourself you will notice that listed site do not meet such requirements.

I did it with Open source category for a couple of reasons: In the first place there must be an editor for that category as we are talking about an open directory and internet. In the second place I am aware of the open source world. And finally: I have submitted a site to the category and didn't get listed there.

Thank you for taking the time to review the category.

Over time websites change, what might have been suitable for a place in the directory at one point in time, may not be suitable anymore.

For the most part we rely on our volunteer editors to keep categories in shape, but with well over half a million categories, you can surely appreciate what a large task that is.

This is why we are always looking for new editors who would like to help the directory grow, and help weed out those old links that may no longer be suitable.

If you think there are listings that need a re-review you are welcome to post about them in our Quality Control thread, or you can submit an application and help build the category yourself.

In the first place, a non-open source site is not suitable for "Open source category" today and wasn't suitable in 2001 neither. It's hard to believe that no editor was able to remove the WRONG listing over the last eight years. It's even harder to believe that no user has ever reported such evident ERROR over such long period of time. Don't forget this websites haven't changed in the last eight years.
But an editor adding a "No longer maintained" legend to a site instead of removing it is unacceptable. And is very suspicious.

We are talking about Open source top category here. You can't tell me there is no editor working on that category; as open source is a volunteer driven movement on internet. Moreover, reviewing the links in that category took me less than an hour. And I was able to find eleven entries with problems reading no more than a couple of pages from each site.

As shadow of suspicion raises over DMOZ editors. Categories like this one don't help you guys to earn credibility. We are not talking about outdated information here. Several of the eleven problematic sites should never got listed there.

Even if I take your word on this being an orphan category. I can believe that no user has, over the last eight years, reported one of this pretty obvious errors.

So to summarise, you're saying that you think that more people should volunteer to work in that area. If you don't want to volunteer, why do you find it so hard to believe that nobody else does either ?

To expand upon what photofox said:

Computers/Open_Source is too large for a beginner but I'm sure that one of its smaller categories (<100 listings) would interest somebody as passionate as you.

Failing that, please report the problems in the QC thread here or by using the update listing links on the category pages.

Become part of the solution, not part of the problem .

But an editor adding a "No longer maintained" legend to a site instead of removing it is unacceptable.

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It is very acceptable in DMOZ eyes. It is even very usefull information to put in the description. If the content on the website is still unique and relevant to the category it is still worth a listing even if it is outdated.

a non-open source site is not suitable for "Open source category" today and wasn't suitable in 2001 neither.

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Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But if you are not willing to tell us (in the proper way) which site it is we will not be able to look at it.

I can believe that no user has, over the last eight years, reported one of this pretty obvious errors.

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I guess you meant "I can't believe ..."
It might be of a surprise to you but most people on the world are not interested in the subject of open source at all. Which statement I ofcourse can write for every topic indexed by DMOZ. They are all niches that are only of interest to a (compared to the world population) small group of people. And unless one of the people from such a small group is willing to spend some time on DMOZ chances are great that such a niche will not get much attention.

You can't tell me there is no editor working on that category

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There are no editors listed directly in http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/

There are six editors listed in http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/ (who can therefore edit in any sub-category of the Computers branch), some of whom may be interested in Open Source, and of whom may from time-to-time may edit there.

There are about six other editors who are listed in one or more sub-category of http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/ who can edit within those sub-category.

There are also around 200 editors who have "editall" permissions, and are thus able to edit anywhere in the directory. But it's unlikely many of those who aren't already included in the above will have an interest in Open Source.

So, in conclusion, there are very few editors who (a) have the required permissions, and (b) are likely to have a strong interest in editing in the Open Source categories. It would be great if that number could be increased...

pvgool said:

It is very acceptable in DMOZ eyes. It is even very usefull information to put in the description. If the content on the website is still unique and relevant to the category it is still worth a listing even if it is outdated.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But if you are not willing to tell us (in the proper way) which site it is we will not be able to look at it.

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I did link to the list of wrong links in my first post but somebody removed the link

blog.drk.com.ar/archives/45-DMOZ-Open-source-category-dissection.html

Thanks for the list -- I'll take a look later this evening.

You're slightly mistaken with the "29 listings" though. The whole Open Source Software category -- including all sub-categories -- has over 400 listings. That's relevant because editing permissions automatically cascade down to sub-categories -- so an editor able to edit in http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/Software/ would also have access to all its sub-categories, and would be thinking about all 400+ listings rather than just the 29 in the root category.

chaos127 said:

Thanks for the list -- I'll take a look later this evening.

You're slightly mistaken with the "29 listings" though, the whole Open Source Software category -- including all sub-categories -- has over 400 listings. That's relevant because editing permissions automatically cascade down to sub-categories -- so an editor able to edit in http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/Software/ would also have access to all its sub-categories, and would be thinking about all 400+ listings rather than just the 29 in the root category.

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Of course I was talking about the 29 in the top Open source category. But, if it took me about an hour to check these 29 it would take about 17 hours to check 500 sites. Lets say an editor is able to check one site each day. Eight years would make 2920 links checked.

The point is not the math, of course, but why these sites are still listed in such category. I submitted a site to this category four years ago. And resubmitted it after the crash. My site is not listed and never will be. For two reasons (supposing it meets the guidelines): there is nobody taking care of this category, and there is an editor looking for my last submission to Open source and labelling it as spam.

there is an editor looking for my last submission to Open source and labelling it as spam.

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Very few people are so important, that, with all the constructive ways to work on the directory, an editor will spend time looking for their suggestions (for any reason). Certainly, making a handful of forum posts (which were neither particularly constructive nor particularly malicious) won't get you on that short list.

And there's so much spam suggested, that any editor who wants to look for it can find it wholesale -- there's no need to take it in any particular order.

Ok, I've made a first pass through the list you made. I think only three of your URLs you listed were clearly inappropriate for the category. I've dealt with those. I've also moved another two listings that you didn't mention, but which would be better listed in different categories.

The other sites -- that I've left listed for now -- were almost all in the "abandoned project" category. Under our editing guidelines, these are much more likely to be listable than you're making out.

We're a web directory not a software directory, so listability is determined by overall site content rather than just software functionality. For abandoned projects, the software itself may not be much use directly, nor any community for people wanting somewhere to help out. But being Open Source means others are able to use the source code as a starting point for new projects, or can pick up the project where the original authors left off. In short, even thought he project has been abandoned, the site may still have useful content.

hutcheson said:

Very few people are so important, that, with all the constructive ways to work on the directory, an editor will spend time looking for their suggestions (for any reason). Certainly, making a handful of forum posts (which were neither particularly constructive nor particularly malicious) won't get you on that short list.

And there's so much spam suggested, that any editor who wants to look for it can find it wholesale -- there's no need to take it in any particular order.

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Do you wanna bet?

chaos127 said:

We're a web directory not a software directory, so listability is determined by overall site content rather than just software functionality.

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In that case, projects belonging to sourceforge.net shouldn't be listed here as a separated entry. Specially when they are pointing to a sourceforge subdomain. Is the case of GnuWin32, Jtrix, Kulak, PageBox, and WxChecksums. They are software projects, not websites.

GnuWin32 is listed under three different categories, which I guess violates submitting guidelines. [Computers: Open Source: Software - Computers: Programming: Compilers: Lexer and Parser Generators - Computers: Software: Operating Systems: Unix: Win32]

OpenSourceSchools.org is also listed under three different categories. [http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=OpenSourceSchools.org]

chaos127 said:

For abandoned projects, the software itself may not be much use directly, nor any community for people wanting somewhere to help out. But being Open Source means others are able to use the source code as a starting point for new projects, or can pick up the project where the original authors left off. In short, even thought he project has been abandoned, the site may still have useful content.

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Well, that could be true for just a couple of project. Abandoned software projects are really hard to revive. Libraries in which the project is based evolve into incompatible versions. Hardware and operating systems change fast and in a couple of years you are unable to take up again.

caprichoso said:

which I guess violates submitting guidelines.

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But not against our listing guidelines.

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/ looks very much like a separate website (from http://sourceforge.net/ ) to me. That its domain name happens to be a sub-domain of that used by another website isn't particularly relevant.

As far as the ODP is concerned, domain names are not equivalent to websites. You can have what we would consider to be a single site split over multiple domains, and you can have multiple sites all on the same domain (think geocities.com for example). Furthermore, multiple listings are not forbidden, nor is the listing of more than one page / section from an individual site. What is forbidden is for site owners for suggest their site (and sub-sections of it) more than once.

Most of this is explained in the publicly available Editing Guidelines.

pvgool said:

But not against our listing guidelines.

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That would be a site added without submission. A site listed by the editor himself. Therefore, you can't get your site listed in more than one category unless you are a editor?

No. As an example, if I'm building a category on a disease or health condition, I know to check with several government and private sites which have a huge amount of information on a large number of diseases and conditions.

<Added>If I'm adding a content-rich site and I see sufficient content to be listed elsewhere, I'll send a copy of the URL to that category. If it is a category with which I'm very familiar, I may go ahead a list the site myself. If I'm not very familiar with the category, I'll send a copy for another editor to review when they are adding sites in that category.

chaos127 said:

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/ looks very much like a separate website (from http://sourceforge.net/ ) to me. That its domain name happens to be a sub-domain of that used by another website isn't particularly relevant.

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GnuWin32 is a big and popular project. But it's not the case for the rest. Specially the out-dated ones.

chaos127 said:

As far as the ODP is concerned, domain names are not equivalent to websites. You can have what we would consider to be a single site split over multiple domains, and you can have multiple sites all on the same domain (think geocities.com for example)...

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The BIG difference between geocities and sourceforge is that the first one offers space for websites and the second offers space for Software projects.

Sourceforge let's you upload your own HTML code. Or even point to an external hosting. But you are talking about software projects most of the time. Those websites have just a few pages for explaining the software, downloading it and contacting author. All information you already have for being listed on sourceforge.net

Come on, this Kulak site [http://kulakcommander.sourceforge.net/] has three HTML pages only! Is this what you call a web site? Does this site deserve to be listed? There is a link with a broken image in there. It takes you to this page [http://www.softwareseeker.com/]. Which looks very much like a domain parking site to me.

There is a big difference with http://osswin.sourceforge.net/ which isn't a software project but a open source software list for Windows users. That's a sourceforge project that deserves to be listed here.

caprichoso said:

That would be a site added without submission. A site listed by the editor himself. Therefore, you can't get your site listed in more than one category unless you are a editor?

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It might come as a surprise to you but many listings (some estimations speak of more than 50%) are for sites that were not suggested but were found by an editor using other sources than the pool of suggested sites.
And no. These are certainly not sites owned by editors.

caprichoso said:

GnuWin32 is a big and popular project. But it's not the case for the rest. Specially the out-dated ones.

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We don't care about "popular" only unique content is what we are looking for.
We just published about this on the DMOZ blog http://blog.dmoz.org/2009/07/29/what-is-unique-content/

There is a big difference with http://osswin.sourceforge.net/ which isn't a software project but a open source software list for Windows users. That's a sourceforge project that deserves to be listed here.

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Just the opposite. It is a good example of what we prefer not to list. It has no unique content of it's own. For us it is much better to harvest the usefull links and list those. Why send a visitor to a llist of links when we also can send him to the websites directly.

pvgool said:

It might come as a surprise to you but many listings (some estimations speak of more than 50%) are for sites that were not suggested but were found by an editor using other sources than the pool of suggested sites.
And no. These are certainly not sites owned by editors.

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How can you be so sure? Is there a rule forbidding editors to list their own sites?

pvgool said:

Just the opposite. It is a good example of what we prefer not to list. It has no unique content of it's own. For us it is much better to harvest the usefull links and list those. Why send a visitor to a llist of links when we also can send him to the websites directly.

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chaos127 said:

...We're a web directory not a software directory...

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