Site-reference.com blasts DMOZ.

>> The Google directory is mirrored more or less from DMOZ + or - 3 months. <<

So, it is possible that Google has ODP's 2007-February content on it already?

That would be real neat. Could save us some editing time, just copy it all over to our server.

Hello crowbar,

no point in my wasting my time telling you.

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Don't quite understand what you mean by this comment. Are you saying that:

1. The rest of the world would not have the intelligence to understand an explanation?
2. The rest of the world has no right to know anything about what ODP editors do?
3. You don't care what the rest of the world thinks about the ODP?

As just a simple, ordinary web surfer, I can assure you that I have been an ODP fan for many years and have always been grateful for the help the ODP listing gave - and still gives - to my site.
But being an ODP fan leaves me as a minority of one in most forums. So when a post appears like the one I mentioned, I will try to reply to it to the best of my ability with the information available to me.
If I am as clueless, as you say, please enlighten me, oh informed one.

Best regards,
John

Dear John

But being an ODP fan leaves me as a minority of one in most forums. So when a post appears like the one I mentioned, I will try to reply to it to the best of my ability with the information available to me.

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I was rather offended by the postings on that forum, containing as they did a lot of gratuitous and unnecessary insults. I was upset to find those sort of postings in a forum that was recommended (my fault for being optimistic I suppose).

I did have a look at your postings and at the past selection of articles. I think that most of the people you are defending the ODP to, don’t actually have much interest in anything other than gratifying their own desires.

SEO’s seem to believe that their tricks are subtle and not discernable by ordinary mortals. There are hundreds of SEO forums who all try the ‘lets bash X today’ in order to get X or a representative of X to appear to defend themselves. It’s all about driving traffic to the site.

Personally I find there are a lot of people in SEO whose knowledge of the internet in general is inverse proportion to their ‘shouting’ ability. Any attempt at reasoned discussion requires a strict moderator to keep a high signal/noise ratio and this means ‘squashing’ the ‘shouters who often do most of the posting. Since no moderator is going to alienate the important minority on the board, mob rule often prevails. In the case of that forum, at least one moderator is part of the mob.

I am sorry if you were offended by one editor’s gut reaction to the above combination.

I feel engaging in dialogue on SEO forums about DMOZ would be an experience akin to this but far less pleasant.

regards

Dear Eric,

Thank you for your reply, I do appreciate it.

I was rather offended by the postings on that forum, containing as they did a lot of gratuitous and unnecessary insults.

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I was shocked when I saw the replies I got to my comments and fully understand your reactions - agree with them too.
I'm not replying to your SEO in general comments - the people concerned can look after themselves.

I am sorry if you were offended by one editor’s gut reaction to the above combination.

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Not a problem, I wasn't offended, merely puzzled (see the smilie I used).

I didn't know anything about resource-zone.com till this week, but will become a regular visitor now that I've found it.

I'm a bit of an idealist so I will continue to advocate the ODP.
After all, humans do it better, right?

Best regards,
John

If I am as clueless, as you say, please enlighten me, oh informed one.

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OK, and I'm responding to some of the things said on that site. We as editors do not serve webmasters or SEO's, we have nothing to do with your page ranking in a search engine (nor do we care), we are not a listing service and no site has a right to be listed or a guarantee to be listed, we are selective and not all inclusive.

We do not care how you think the ODP should be run, it's run the way we think will be most suitable for the editors who do the work.

The editors are volunteers working for free, with no other agenda than following the Guidelines in our editing duties, and accountable to no one except our senior editors and ourselves.

As we are not paid, how much or how little we edit is totally each editors own personal business, and no one elses.

The editing community is a close knit, worldwide family of volunteers with the intention of building the best and largest FREE Directory in the world for the sole benefit of web surfers.

As we are the builders, the content of that Directory and how it is organized is determined by the concensus of the editing community and no one else.

The result of our work is offered freely, to anyone who wants to use it, whether it's a search engine or a web surfer, but, neither has a right to tell us how to do it, we are totally independent, and doing the job as we see fit to do it.

Do we feel all powerful?

If you mean that we won't be intimidated or badgered by outside influences for their own personal gain, absolutely, we are all powerful.

If you mean that we won't listen to the legitimate concerns of others and respond, then you'd be wrong, we're here to be in contact with the public, but NOT to be accountable to webmasters and SEO's.

I didn't know anything about resource-zone.com till this week, but will become a regular visitor now that I've found it.

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I apologize, sometimes it's hard to tell a good guy from a bad one, I was reacting to the site itself, and some of the posts.

I'm fairly new in RZ myself, John, and I've complained about less than friendly responses, and now I find myself doing the very thing I complained about.

Nic-SR said:

And as previously mentioned, if you or anyone from DMOZ wishes to submit an article outlining the developments, news, future direction, etc of DMOZ that could be very beneficial for us all. I think part of the problem stemming from negative views is due to a lack of clear understanding.

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How about:
About the ODP
Editorial Guidelines
I think you may be correct, a small part of the problem is a lack of clear understanding. Not from a lack of editors trying to provide factual information and personal experiences though. When one asks a question that they 1) are already sure they know the answer too and 2) don't want to accept the facts/truth about the question, then there becomes a stalemate in the transmission of information. My definition of a 'quality article' would be one based on personal opinions and factual information, not personal opinions and personal bias. There are plenty of editors who operate websites about their editing, most of those offer good factual information and real life experiences about the directory. Those have been largely dismissed or ignored by the SEO community, so writing a point-counter point article to rebut something that has already been published and glorified could be rather pointless IMO.

I didn't know anything about resource-zone.com till this week, but will become a regular visitor now that I've found it.

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There is a lot of information buried in the old threads so digging into them can be worth while – we do get a bit tired of answering the same questions again and again so 'live' answers are sometimes brief.

I'm a bit of an idealist so I will continue to advocate the ODP.

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masochist! ...um have you ever considered applying to be an editor? There are quite a few localities in Noord-Brabant that could do with help in either English or Dutch.

After all, humans do it better, right?

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... and our mistakes are much more interesting.

regards

Hello Crowbar,

I apologize

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As I said to Eric, none required - though I was a tad sarcastic in my reply, for which I apologize.

Yes, it is indeed your directory and that means you get the say-so in how it's run and what's included.

I think many of the problems are caused by a combination of the noise factor replacing reasoned debate as Eric said earlier, and a failure by many of my fellow webmasters not just to read, but to actually comprehend the ODP guidelines.

All I know is that when I started building a site late in '99, my first objective was inclusion in the ODP. Hell, I spent weeks studying everything on the site to make sure my site was included.

It took me years before I dared submit it in November 2003 and I've never forgotten the "rush" it gave me when I received the acceptance e-mail - yeah mon!

It makes me blush if I look at the site today and compare it to the site the ODP accepted - boy, did I still have so much to learn.

It took a courageous - and human - editor to look through my totally "willing amateur" presentation and see what was there.

That's why I believe in the ODP.

Cheers,
John

when I received the acceptance e-mail

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Those are as rare as hen's teeth. Our system doesn't send them but I guess some editor might have done.

It took a courageous - and human - editor to look through my totally "willing amateur" presentation and see what was there.

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Well, that's what we all do. Note that we're looking for information content and don't particularly care how 'professional' or 'stylish' the presentation is - unless it obscures the content of course .

<post deleted> Jim types faster

Hello Eric,

masochist!

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Yes well, maybe, my late old man taught me it was standing up for what you believe in. Somehow I prefer his version.

um have you ever considered applying to be an editor?

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Offered to help the editor who included my site in December 2003 (make a dead links list for site removal).
Applied on his advice to be an editor and was turned down within a week.
Guess my internet know-how wasn't quite "state of the art" back then - don't know if is today, though it doesn't bother me much.

Then went to Zeal, passed the entry exam - without cheating! - and it closed down.
Used the knowledge to create proper titles, descriptions etc. on my site though and right smartly.
Works well so I've been able to use the same thinking on the new site I'm building at the moment.

I'd gladly try to be an editor but haven't done anything about it since then.
Maybe time to re-apply. :icon_idea

Cheers,
John

john_a said:

Applied on his advice to be an editor and was turned down within a week.
Guess my internet know-how wasn't quite "state of the art" back then - don't know if is today, though it doesn't bother me much.

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Presumably then you read the rejection letter you received and attempted to correct the problems with the initial application? Most of us were rejected multiple times before finally getting an application good enough for someone to take a chance on. Personally (IIRC) I tried three times before getting it right.

john_a said:

Then went to Zeal, passed the entry exam - without cheating! - and it closed down.

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Well we wouldn't hold breaking Zeal against you if you apply again.

Maybe time to re-apply.

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You might want to study all this good advice first .

Hello Jim,

rare as hen's teeth

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The category got a new editor while I was waiting so I e-mailed him asking whether I had to re-submit my site.

He replied that re-submission wasn't neccessary, that my site had been included in the ODP and that it would start appearing in the results within a couple of weeks, which it did.

Cheers,
John

Just to give you a personal perspective from my view.

I've seen a lot of sites, John, from the very simple to the very complicated, and built a couple of my own, (so, I know how much work it can get into), but, the ones I find the most impressive and refreshing are the simple ones, made by amateurs using color and artistic design to get specific information across to the reader, and out in plain sight.

I never judge a site suggestion by the expertise of the site builder, or it's design, only by the usefulness and appropriatness of its content in that category.

And, I don't know or care if the submitter is a pro website builder, an SEO, or a novice when I look at a site. I write a proper title and description for it, according to what we need to have in listing it (following our Guidelines), I check the content, as a Regional editor, I make sure it's in the correct locality category, make sure it isn't a mirror, and I list it.

It's a very impersonal and impartial process, I don't take date of submission into account, as it has nothing to do with the Directory goals, and I could care less about what others perceive as fairness.

The site suggestions are presented as a list, and unless something catches my eye (like a proper title/description), I work my way down the list.

Other editors may work differently, but, that's how I work.

So, there is no grand conspiracy on my or other editors part to keep someone out of the Directory, unless you're deliberately spamming the Directory with duplicate sites or some other trickery. Then, we'll notice who you are.

shadow575 said:

How about:
About the ODP
Editorial Guidelines
I think you may be correct, a small part of the problem is a lack of clear understanding. Not from a lack of editors trying to provide factual information and personal experiences though. When one asks a question that they 1) are already sure they know the answer too and 2) don't want to accept the facts/truth about the question, then there becomes a stalemate in the transmission of information. My definition of a 'quality article' would be one based on personal opinions and factual information, not personal opinions and personal bias. There are plenty of editors who operate websites about their editing, most of those offer good factual information and real life experiences about the directory. Those have been largely dismissed or ignored by the SEO community, so writing a point-counter point article to rebut something that has already been published and glorified could be rather pointless IMO.

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Hey Shadow,

One of the OPD editors posted very similar comments in our Forum recently and I have addressed those points there.

Here's what i had to say...

Hey Blue,

Welcome aboard and thanks for your contributions!

Hope you'll never feel like a "duck in a shooting gallery" here and we can all talk about our different opinions in a meaningful and positive manner.

"Not sure what posting an article would do?"- This was mearly an invitation to give our audiance a different point of view. As you say- many questions are answered in the RZ- problem is the RZ is 1 forum (and newsletter). Not everyone that has questions about the ODP visits the RZ. (I know some editors go out of their way to discuss issues on their own sites and I think that's great). An article would give the ODP greater exposure. Our articles are often picked up by 100's (if not 1000's) of sources (including very popular places such as Digg and Slashdot for example). This would allow the OPD to reach many who may not otherwise be exposed to editor comments expressed in the RZ. As you say people shouldn’t “let the RZ be your only source when forming your opinions”.

“Not all of us bite!” (in reference to editors) hehe…well said! Without starting a lengthy debate here, IMO 1 problem DMOZ faces is it has TOO MANY editors in a system that cannot monitor their performances efficiently enough. Whenever you get 75,000+ people in a group you’re bound to:

a) get some bad apples- corrupt, dishonest, etc
b) people who do their “responsibilities” on their own terms (not under OPD guidelines)
c) people who move on and forget their responsibilities
d) people who are simply lazy
e) the list can go on but I hope you get the point…

What this means is out of 75,000+ people there will be enough “unfit editors” that problems will arise which may give the whole group a “bad name”. This is a very unfortunate outcome but apparently a real one. The worse part of it is that the good editors (which IMO may be 99% of them) are left to defend the acts of the others. To me it’s no surprise that the good ones get tired of defending the same attacks over and over and may “bite” sometimes. That’s human nature.

To editors such as yourself, DJ, and others that have been very helpful, I thank you.

Nic

Nic - the 75,000+ number that you see on the front page of the directory is the total number of contributing editors for the life of the product. There are currently approximately 7,000 contributing editors.

Great minds think alike I guess
(for your information-I think very highly of 'blue's' character and editing knowledge/abilities. Having 'blue's' input on any forum relating to the ODP is going to be a positive step IMO)

My point was that when publishing an article that is obviously inflammatory (even an outsider with no knowledge of what the ODP does or its mission can see that from the article) it would be good to prominently add links to some fact based resources that might help potential readers gauge and form their own opinions in a more informed manner. It could have been done quite simply with an 'editors note: Dmoz policies and opinions can be found at.....' at the end and it would IMO better serve readers than having an editor try and rebut point for point any contradictions in the article. No matter how we would word it, an after the fact article would only appear as a defensive rebuttal and it would not serve any practical purpose. An editors note on the other hand that pointed to dmoz information from the source (not arguing for or against the article/writer) would be a more appropriate way of doing that. That may not be a possibility given your own policies and procedures, but that was the point of my comment.

a) get some bad apples- corrupt, dishonest, etc
b) people who do their “responsibilities” on their own terms (not under OPD guidelines)
c) people who move on and forget their responsibilities
d) people who are simply lazy
e) the list can go on but I hope you get the point…

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Apart from (a) and possibly (b) * the others aren't really as problem for us. Unlike other systems you could think of, having extra people who do "something but not much" doesn't really "take up space" or "get in the way" of other people doing things around them. There's nothing to stop more than one editor editing in any given category, and it doesn't reduce efficiency very much if this is the case. In other words, even if an editor does the bare minimum to prevent automatic time out (one edit in every four months) then we're grateful for their contribution. Obvoiusly we'd prefer it if they did more, but all the editors are volunteers and it's their free time to spend however they like.

* It depends on exactly what you mean. If you mean editors failing to follow the guidelines resulting in poor edits, then yes this is a problem. However, just as we watch out for abuse (and take appropriate action when its found) we also watch out for editors who could do with help and support to better understand and apply the guidelines.

The worse part of it is that the good editors (which IMO may be 99% of them) are left to defend the acts of the others.

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Most of the moans and complaints we see here are not the result of abuse, or even poor editing. It simply that people don't understand that we're not a listing service, and so have unreasonable expectations for how quickly their sites will be reviewed. That's not to say we don't have the odd abusive editor though...

Site reviews would of course happen faster if we had more good editors with time on their hands. So if you know of a magical supply we haven't noticed, do let us know!

Nic,

Since we're bringing the conversation over here, , I'll let you know that my response would have been similar (eerily, almost identical) to lmocr, shadow, and chaos127's.

One item I will note, though- I'm not here for the fame and glory of a digg or slashdot syndicated article. I believe there is adequate information (if one decides to do a bit of research before forming an opinion) that covers our purpose and goals. I'm not here to publicize my actions as an editor. I do what I do because I find it enjoyable and because I think we're more categorically on-topic than many (any?) search engine results I've found (in fact, that's exactly why I applied).

I appreciate that your membership is open to rational discussion, and will do my best to help dispel myths and rumors. A gentle reminder; this has often turned out badly for other editors attempting to extend an olive branch, hence my reference about the "duck in a carnival shooting gallery". I'm volunteering to help, not to absorb abuse.