Remove my site from dmoz.org listings

I wish to have links to my websites removed from all dmoz.org directories. I cannot find information anywhere which describes how I can arrange for this to be done.

In particular, I would like links to my page jagular com/beowulf/ removed from the page at https://dmoztools.net/Arts/Literature/World_Literature/British/Medieval/Beowulf/

I requested this in January, 2002 by writing to an editor named Thomas Noronha, and he very politely complied, but someone put it back. There no longer seems to be an editor for that directory, and there is no indication at dmoz.org of who I should contact when there is no editor. I have searched through all of the help pages and there is no appropriate "Contact Us" link for this request, so I am submitting my request here.

A couple of years ago I volunteered to be the editor of the Beowulf directory at dmoz.org. After I got it all set up, and added dozens of links, one of the editors above me in the Open Directory hierarchy (Edit: No Editor Names Please) decided to change it all around without consulting me. When I objected, he ignored me for a while, then basically told me to [censored] off. I objected to even higher authorities at dmoz.org, but everyone ignored me. As a result, I do not want my Beowulf site -- one of the most popular Beowulf websites on the Internet -- or any of my other pages at jagular com or SydAllan net listed anywhere at dmoz.org. The value of a search engine increases as good pages are listed, and I do not want my own pages to increase the value of the Beowulf category at dmoz.org.

Basically, I am a disgruntled former category editor who wants nothing to do with the Open Directory project.

I hope that someone will explain how I can arrange for this to happen, or perhaps make the change themselves and let me know it's done. Also, someone might want to add something to the FAQ pages at dmoz.org to explain how to remove your site from the listings there.

Syd Allan.

Syd, I am sorry you feel that way - sounds like there was some serious miscommunication going on there. It's very sad when something like that happens. I'm not familiar with the circumstances, so that is the only comment I will make on the situation.

However, as to the listings, my understanding of the ODP is that it is solely an editor's decision as to whether a site is listed or not. In the same way that a site owner can't insist that a site be listed, they can't insist that it NOT be listed either.

The only times I have seen that sites have been delisted by request was due to one of the legality of sites, and that was performed in conjuction with the lawyers of AOL Time Warner (the company that owns the ODP).

It is for this reason that there is nothing in the documentation about how to get a site removed.

You're right: there was some serious miscommunication. But miscommunication is cause by lack of diligence, and lack of diligence has consequences. The consequences of the miscommunication in this case is that I no longer want to add any value to anything done by the Open Directory Project.

Since it is editors who remove sites, then perhaps someone can tell me who is the default or back-up editor of a category when no editor is listed. I will contact them and ask them to re-remove my site.

Syd, what I was trying to say was, unless I am very much mistaken, "At request of site owner" is not a legitimate reason for an editor to delist a URL.

If "at request of site owner" is not a legitimate reason for an editor to remove a site from dmoz.org listings, then I will change my web server software to check the HTTP_REFERRER of all incoming requests, and if the HTTP_REFERRER points to dmoz.org then I will redirect the request to point to a page in which I explain that I do not support the Open Directory project, I do not like M***0, and that AOL Time Warner and the Open Directory editors refused my polite request to remove my site from their listings.

I believe this has been discussed before with other site owners wishing to have theirs sites removed, and my impression is that other than legel reasons e.g. copyright infrigments, we do not consider these requests.

For general information on this topic [not specific to ODP] see https://dmoztools.net/Society/Law/L...uter_and_Technology_Law/Internet/Linking_Law/

The above represents the person opinions of an editor.

You can always take down a website, or add visitor registration. But (and this is an important point that we need to repeat on every occasion, because so many webmasters Simply-Do-Not-Understand, we list and remove sites at editor discretion only -- and a webmaster has no privileged standing at all.

Between the alleged interests of a webmaster and our perceived interests of the surfer, it is our invariable policy to always decide in favor of the surfer. So, to repeat, our policy is never to do what you are asking us to do, and there is no conceivable polite way of telling us to change our entire policy to support your huff.

Syd, if changing your server software to do this will achieve the result you desire, then please feel free.

I don't wish to appear rude or uncooperative in explaining my understanding of the position of the ODP in this matter. It is merely how the directory is run.

In the terms of an entry in the directory (which you agree to when making a submission), it states that you agree:

* To waive any claim related to the inclusion, placement, exclusion, or removal of this or any other site in the ODP Directory or to the title or description of any site appearing in the ODP Directory; and
* To grant Netscape Communications Corporation a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, publish, copy, edit, modify, or create derivative works from my submission

Re: HTTP_REFERRER - an interesting idea, but that assumes that editors who review sites come to the sites through an ODP page, and that's not always true.

Re: (Edit: Removed editor name) - since he wasn't the last person to edit your site description, you no longer need to have any issues with him.

I do not have issues with M***0 because he edited my site description. I have issues with him because he mistreated me when he rearranged my work on the Beowulf category, and then he mocked me when I asked him to reconsider.

About three years ago I volunteered to be the editor of the Beowulf category at ODP. I added many links, and organized them to be something like my current page at http://www.jagular.com/beowulf/links.shtml. I used carefully named link descriptions so that like-items were grouped together. M***0 didn't like this, and despite knowing that I had spent many hours arranging everything, he simply changed it, and blocked me from changing it back.

I realize that editors of something like ODP have long debates about how to categorize and organize information. Is a comic book about Beowulf a comic book, or is it a book about Beowulf? Is information about how to pronounce the Old English words in the original Beowulf manuscript -- the most important Old English manuscript in existence -- something about Old English, or is it something about the Beowulf manuscript? The answers to these questions are difficult to obtain, as everyone at ODP knows.

It was apparently the policy of the ODP at that time to break up lists into sub-categories so that no list was longer than about 20 items. I had violated that principal when I organized my list. But I justified this by using descriptions which naturally grouped similar items together. I did not think that for this particular category it would be better to break it into several sub-categories, or to move, for instance, the references to Beowulf comic books to the comic book section of ODP.

But it was not the decision to reorganize my work that offended me the most. Reasonable people may disagree on how to organize these things. I objected to M***0's dismissive attitude, and his undoing of many hours of work without contacting me to discuss the matter.

Although I am not deeply familiar with all ODP issues, I am aware that there have been problems with tyrannical editors imposing their will and scaring away other editors. This situation, while it may or may not exist, had long-term consequences of making many people reject ODP. The current managers of this project will have to live with these consequences.

I did not agree to any terms when I submitted my entry. I did not submit my entry at all. In fact, I arranged to remove my entry 2 years ago. But someone has put it back. So now I will arrange to block anyone from linking directly to my site from a dmoz.org page.

Syd, do what you want. You just cannot make us do what you want. Sorry but that is just the way it is. You do real realize that if somehow you do get your site removed from dmoz.org you will also be removing it from the directory behind google.com? Do you have a problem with Google as well? Do you have a problem with all the other sites that use the dmoz.org directory data? Sounds to me like you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. Oh well...

When Google crawls my site its crawler does not list a dmoz.org address in its value of HTTP_REFERRER. So using Apache techniques to block links from dmoz.org to my site will not stop the Google crawler.

I see no legitimate reason why you refuse to honor requests to remove someone's site from your list. Simply saying that you don't do it, and then pointing me to a few thousand pages of information about linking legalities does not explain your motivation.

Not talking about the Google crawler. I am talking about your listing in the Google directory. Trust me Syd, if I could, I would delete your listing in a second. We just are not allowed to do it. What if someone who was mad at you came along and found this forum and posed as you and asked us to remove your site?

It's in ODP, because some editor found there was a enough value in the web site for the surfer to have it listed. If it's of no value to the surfer it won't be listed.

You could of course move the contents to another URL, and close down the existing one without leaving a redirect. Then ODP will remove it. But eventually an editor will find your new URL, and if the contents are still of value, will list it again.

It's like building a house on a street, and asking the post office not to list it - but to pretend it's not there. The house is visible, so it's in the public domain.

It's not like having an unlisted phone number.

So now I will arrange to block anyone from linking directly to my site from a dmoz.org page.

Click to expand...

I don't understand how this benefits you. You have a very nice and informative site. Presumably you would like people to find it and use it. Why would you then penalize a user looking for your site, simply because they happened to find it from dmoz.org ? Blocking referrers from dmoz.org won't make us delete the site - we can check that it exists without coming from dmoz.org.

The only benefit we gain from listing your site is to further our goal of providing useful resources to users. This is presumably also your goal, since you have created a useful resource. Make sure you're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, just because you are unhappy with your editing experience.

But should you decide to block anyone following a link based on the listing in dmoz, be sure not to forget all the downstream data users listed in this category. https://dmoztools.net/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/DMOZ/Sites_Using_DMOZ_Data/ Also, don't forget to disallowed the search engine robots, including googlebot, many of whom spider the ODP looking for links.

Well now. The site is throwing off errors even as I type. That said, it wouldn't be impossible to arrange for all editors looking at your site to open a new page and check it that way.

The reason the site is throwing off errors is that I am playing around with my .htaccess file to get the right settings for RewriteCond and RewriteRule. Once I get it set right, then only users coming from dmoz.org will notice anything.

My plan is to redirect people coming from dmoz.org pages to a special page in which I will rant against the ODP, and then let them continue on to my site. There is no reason for me to block the other sites you have listed because my only goal is to reduce the value of the Beowulf category in ODP by not allowing a direct path from links in that category to pages on my site.

You people seem to think that I am some sort of idiot or something. Do you seriously think I plan to block thousands of people from dozens of search engines from seeing my pages? I simply want to point out to users of the Beowulf category at dmoz.org that I object to the way the listings at dmoz.org are managed.

I see no legitimate reason why you refuse to honor requests to remove someone's site from your list.

Click to expand...

I think hutcheson's post provided a good explanation of our reasons, but I'll elaborate.

Our motivation is to provide quality information for our users -- the people who surf the web. In order to help web surfers, we list sites that have unique content -- to us it is completely irrelevant whether the webmaster/owner/SEO asked us to include the site, is completely unaware of the ODP (such as when an editor finds a site on their own), or even if a webmaster/owner/SEO asks for the site to be removed. It would be a disservice to our users to remove a site just because an owner may have a problem with a specific editor, or even with the ODP as a whole. In the same way, it would be a disservice to refuse to list a site if an editor had a problem with a specific site or site owner. Personalities, grudges, and biases just don't enter into the equation -- quality, unique content is all that matters to us.

Whatever you may think of the ODP, it is important to understand that it is not a service for site owners; it's a service for web surfers. We will not shortchange our users by removing quality sites.