Service Unavailable?

I have been trying to submit to Dmoz for over 6 weeks. I try every 2 days. Each time I find my category, click suggest URL, and it immediatly goes to a page that says "this service is temporarily unavailable, please check back in a couple of days." From looking over this forum, I have not seen anyone else having this problem. Is it me or my computer or is it dmoz? HELP

There's an announcement at the top of every forum here explaining the technical problems. There are also numerous threads that other people have started asking about the problem, which has been ongoing since Oct. 20.

You must not have been looking good at this forum as you have missed the announcement at the top of each section called dmoz.org technical problems

Must be a superduper problem to not have it figured out by now. eom

No progress? No sense of responbility either.

No progress? No sense of responbility either.

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What does the one have to do with the other? We can't report any progress updates if we have no progress updates.

By the way, using "eom" (end of message) in a subject line means there's nothing else after it (hence the reason you would say "end of message"). You don't put "eom" there and then write more in the body of the post or e-mail.

In all of the posts I have read,everyone is complaining that their submission has not gone through, and that they are not listed in the directory.

I thought the post at the top was addressing that issue. I didn't understand how they got a submission through in the first place, since I have not even been able to get that far.

Very sorry to have upset all of you, This forum seems very hostile. I think i will just keep trying from a distance. Good luck to all of you.

Laylampf said:

Very sorry to have upset all of you, This forum seems very hostile. I think i will just keep trying from a distance. Good luck to all of you.

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You haven't upset anyone.
And "seems" is not the same as "is".
People coming here with genuine questions and who took the time to do some investigantion of their own trying to find the answer (like reading the FAQ, guidleines and announcements) are treathed much differently than people who come here and ask questions that have been asked many times before (and for which the answer is simply to be found) or who come here just to vent their opinion about how DMOZ is not doing what they think it should be doing.

This forum seems very hostile.

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I'm sorry you mistook mild irritation for hostility, but it is often hard to interpret mood from the printed word.
Unfortunately your initial post indicated that you had not read the prominent Announcement about the technical problems, and that you had not noticed the multitude of threads asking the same question as yours. However, I understand that your question was important to you, and that you feel hurt by the abrupt response.
That is an unfortunate introduction to this forum, but perhaps you can understand that when we have to make the exact same response many times a day to people who do not read the Announcement or notice all the other threads, it is very difficult not to let impatience show a little.

I agree with what makrhod said, Laylampf, and welcome to the forum, .

If it's any consulation, all of the ODP editors have also been patiently waiting for the technical issues to be resolved, so we can get back to editing.

We understand and sympathize with you because we're going through the very same thing, and have no idea when that will be. Looks like we're all in the same boat, .

So that means, none of the editors have contact to the technical staff that runs the dmoz servers. So no status update for a month!

Any IT company with such a response time would have gone bankrupt.

I know that this is a free service, but even a free project should have a backup plan. It is easy to say: "If you don't like it, go somewhere else" or "check back in one or two or three weeks". That's ridiculing the users. Having not even the slightest time estimation and getting no feedback for over a month is just unbelievable.

Who is your web host, who is programming your servers? Even if he does it in his spare time from 2 am to 6 am he could give you an update like "OK, folks, we had a hardware problem, that is fixed, we have restored the backup, that's fine, now I am working on the scripts to get fixed. If all goes ok, I will have that until end of November".

The questions would stop, people would at least know when to come back. Even a free service can be service minded.

Wikipedia is free as well, but I never had to wait a month to create an article. (and then another 6 months until it's included)

Regards, Pascal

You're right, freakinvibe, just forget about the ODP, and carry on with your life as if it doesn't exist, . Wikipedia is a good choice.

The users do have a service provided - there is a static directory available and has been since shortly after the outage with the editor servers began. So there isn't much of an issue there - other than the fact that new listings haven't been added.

Updates have been provided to those who work on the directory - so that has been happening as well.

We will let web site owners know when the suggest a site URL is working again and we will let potential volunteers know when they can submit applications. Other than that, what else is it that you would like to know?

freakinvibe, ODP is owned by Netscape who are in turn owned by AOL. AOL technicians run our servers and are the only people with the access rights to tackle the problem.

You seem to be annoyed with ODP and its editors. We aren't responsible for the problem and we can't rectify it ourselves. We have to wait patiently whilst the AOL techs get on and do the job.

That's ridiculing the users.

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Our users are surfers and downstream data consumers, all of whom are being served by a slightly out of date copy of the directory. Most won't notice the difference.

If you're frustrated because you can't suggest your website, just think how the volunteer editors who do the work as a hobby might feel.

<too slow ... again>

Better answer than mine, Jim, .

You're right, freakinvibe, just forget about the ODP, and carry on with your life as if it doesn't exist

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That is a good attitude, crowbar. Nothing to add, speaks for itself.

ODP is owned by Netscape who are in turn owned by AOL. AOL technicians run our servers

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That says a lot... You are right jimnoble, I should have imformed myself about the ownership of dmoz, which I did now. Not a good reference for AOL, but I guess, ODP is not their top priority anyway...

I know that this is not the editors fault, but where else should I complain, or is there an AOL dmoz server operator forum?

In another topic of your forums I read about chainki, which is really a good approach, I will try their services until dmoz is up again.

That is a good attitude, crowbar. Nothing to add, speaks for itself.

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I'm sorry, freakinvibe, but, it's what the whole editing community is also doing. I think our stress level might be a little higher than yours, .

No, there's no dmoz server operator forum. The only way to communicate with ODP staff is by using the mailbox staff (at) dmoz.org. Thanks for your offer, but I think the operators know about the outage already.