Some important things to discuss

Dear DMOZ Administrators and Editors,

I have a website which I suggested to dmoz directory at http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/Asia/Singapore/Travel_and_Tourism/Lodging/

Website Name : <URL removed>
Date Submitted : 29 March 2006

I knew there is no status check for any suggestion but after reading much on forums here and elsewhere, we knew it is important for a commercial website to be listed in DMOZ.org. Of course what we are suggesting to you is neither a spam nor a virus infected website. We know you don do critiques on websites here but I cannot see a reason why it must take so long for a website to be listed in this very famous and most popular directory in the World.

I knew it's hard for us to be editors to help our site get listed which I know is not a guideline to be one of course. But however we do really appreciate if you guys can help out with us as soon as possible but I really would love to help you guys in editing a specific category on Travel related to ensure quality and fair inclusion are at place.

You never know a person's true colours or intentions even after the editor application has been accepted/rejected. We are all human beings but I am very sure there are mean webmasters out there who are dictating the directory for their own interest. I hope ODP will give the rest of the World a chance to include their humble yet content rich website fast and efficiently. Thanks.

Posting here will not expedite the processing of a listing suggestion.

I am very sure there are mean webmasters out there who are dictating the directory for their own interest.

Click to expand...

I imagine that most of us who toil away here will find that to be offensive. It's certainly unlikely to persuade anyone to operate to your priorities instead of their own.

Dear Mr JimNoble,

First of all I am sorry if my first message forum hurt you or any other members here emotionally. I am not here to condemn or to disregard the entire community here but I am just trying to share my own opinion on "some" webmasters which I am not sure of but just afraid of if there are the mean ones..This is after all an Open Directory and need some police patrol over any foul play.

I knew you guys really take the time to monitor everything and what an excellent time response for a message. I really appreciate that jim.. Expediting the website I suggested is of course entirely out of the question. I just knew that I have suggested it (which happens to be my own website design) to the appropriate category above and just have to wait as usual. Hopefully some kind editors will come and review it. Patience counts.

Travel-related categories are probably #2 on the list of incessant spamming targets. And as far as sheer deception goes, travel-related websites rank #1. Maybe one of a HUNDRED THOUSAND commercial sites are from actual businesses: the others are all plagiarized affiliate/promotional doorway pages. And there is no business, no business at all, where the webmasters are such liars. It's all "we do this" and "we are dedicated to that" and "our articles" -- and it turns out the articles are stolen from the CIA factbook, the "services" consist of shipping orders to hotelnow.com, and "we" live halfway around the world and wouldn't recognize a tourist if he tripped over us wearing a guidebook.

There's no way we'd throw a new editor into such an area -- it's just flat too dangerous. It can be pretty frustrating and extremely unproductive, also, TRYING to find good sites.

But this is one area where the ODP can make a difference. We may not find all the good sites, but the ODP listings represent several orders of magnitude lower spam content than any other major content provider. And at our best, we can find sites that would otherwise be buried by the nine billion domain names of hotelnow.spam.spam.spam.

If you'd like to help (and I think it's an admirable goal), I'd recommending starting out with your own locality: that is something that you know well, it is something on which you may well be a unique authority within the ODP community. You know the local businesses that really exist -- that aren't just a website hosted on another content and a post office box shared with fifty-seven other affiliate spammers. You know the local sights that are worth seeing. You even know where in the neighborhood they trap the tourists, and what bait they lay out. You know what addresses represent real people in buildings, and what addresses represent fraudulent contact information (and yes, this practice is commonplace in the travel industry!) In other words, you have ways that neither the ODP nor Google nor submitting spammers have, of finding those websites that have really unique, relevant, informational content. (I'd almost even recommend finding all the sites you can find before you even LOOK at the site submittals. That will get your priorities attuned to the ODP approach, THAT will make sure you're really fair to real businesses and genuine authoritative sources of information and surfers, and not just "fair to SERP perps," that'll make sure that you use suggestions as they were intended, as supplemental results rather than a controlling prioritization.)

It'll give you a whole new view of yourself, and your community, and the internet, and the world.

Try it. Try finding a dozen good websites of businesses, organizations, or unique authorities on your locality, that aren't listed in the ODP. If you really enjoyed that -- then you're a good candidate.