status for http://www.thegta.com

Hello,

Could someone provide the status for http://www.thegta.com
this site has been submitted to http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/Canada/Ontario/Localities/T/Toronto/Guides_and_Directories/ twice over the past couple of months.

thanks

Er, no, it won't be listed because it is just a rehash of the ODP directory itself. Your attribution table, by the way, isn't correct (two of the links need to be pointing to the actual dmoz.org category -- right now, the add a site and join links point to your category names, not ours).

Hi motsa,

Thank you for taking a look at thegta.com and providing your feedback.

I can't seem to find any information at dmoz that states sites using odp data are disqualified from entry into the directory. Could you possibly point me in the right direction?

Also, thegta.com at it's start was the same but is not any longer.... here a couple of reasons:

• odp data was used as a starting point only - aprox. two years ago. Our data is not live odp data. theGTA.com excepts hundreds of new sites per year and I think this makes it unique and different from the odp.
• sites are approved or rejected within 1 to 5 days
• all of the listings are currently in review and outdated and/or redirected sites are being removed... currently one third complete. There are many links in the odp that are outdated or redirected to some other site. We are working to make sure all links are clean.
• we check to make sure that businesses are actually located in the Greater Toronto Area
• the site is focused on the Greater Toronto Area and not the world
• theGTA.com, in the next week, will include forums, classifieds, galleries and various other features - you can take a look here: theGTA.com Portal [/list:u]
  
  With all that being said does this not make theGTA.com unique from the odp and should it not be included in the odp directory?
  
  Thanks for your time.
  
  p.s. attributions at the bottom of the pages will be corrected today.

>>sites using odp data are disqualified from entry into the directory<<

They aren't, but usually go to http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project/Sites_Using_ODP_Data/ , provided attributions are OK.

It's still possible that a site may be listed elsewhere, but that depends on the additional unique and useful content. The problem when reviewing your site is to figure out
1. that something has been modified (you should make this very clear, otherwise editors will think it's just a copy of the ODP categories)
2. what has been modified where, and to what extend. The reviewing editor may do a random check of some categories, and if they are not substantially different from the ODP ones he/she may decline a listing outside of the category I mentioned above.

The safest way for you would most probably be to wait until you have substantial unique content on your new portal.

Hi Senox,

Thanks for the articulate feedback.

1) I just checked the dmoz directory and realize that theGTA.com directory, at its root, is different from dmoz... so it is not possible to make the attribution code, at the bottom of every page, link back to the appropriate category at dmoz. Over 500 pages would have to be manually updated. Is it exceptable to just point dmoz.org in the attributon code?

2) Althought most of the directory structure, after the root, is nearly identical to odp, the content(links and descriptions), are not all the same and think I can prove that point. As mentioned earlier many links from odp have been removed and many added that odp does not contain. If I were to post 5 comparison pages from theGTA.com to backup my point would this help?

thanks again for the swift reponses. The feedback is bringing some teaching across that certainly will help when/if I ever get to be an editor with dmoz.

>Is it exceptable to just point dmoz.org in the attributon code?

It is highly exceptable. It is not at all acceptable. The "suggest a URL for this category" "edit this category" is a very important part of the license requirements -- it is what allows the project to harness visitors to licensees to help build the directory for all licensees.

An editor may think "two-year-old ODP data with a thousand or two added sites" is of significantly less value than "two-year-old ODP data with a couple million added sites, and tens of thousands of dead sites removed". But, of course, that last bit just describes the current ODP!

However, while you are here, I have a site that gets a lot of hits from your site, [from an old ODP entry in it ] - so although I can't comment on it's ok-ness for ODP - the site been helpfull for me.

Hello hutcheson,

Thanks for the feedback. Please excuse my spelling error on my earlier post (exceptable --> acceptable).

1) I may be wrong here but there seems to be a discrepency with the OPD lincense. The license states that any modified ODP data being displayed must accompany statement as such. Well, what if some categories have been deleted and some added? how does one handle the attributions at the bottom of pages? And what if the most or all of the directory structures has been changed, mixed etc. how should that be handled? I certainly want to make sure compliance with the ODP license but not sure how to handle the changes made to make them compatible with the license.

2) This paragraph is not clear to me. Can you clarify?

An editor may think "two-year-old ODP data with a thousand or two added sites" is of significantly less value than "two-year-old ODP data with a couple million added sites, and tens of thousands of dead sites removed". But, of course, that last bit just describes the current ODP!

Click to expand...

what editor are you referring to? and what is the point here?

3) I don't see any requirement for

"edit this category"

Click to expand...

in the license?

thanks

Hello bobrat,

Thanks for the comment.

>Well, what if some categories have been deleted and some added?

I'm not sure what you mean. If the ODP adds categories, you're under no obligation to link to them if you don't draw from them; if you add categories, a reference to the (ODP) parent category would be just fine (if you drew data from it). If you add a new category with no ODP content, there wouldn't be any requirement to link back. If you rename an ODP category, no problem, just point back to the pre-renamed-ODP-name.

If you delete categories, no problem -- you did, in fact, delete all except your local categories (and most other licensees pick and choose also.)

If the ODP deletes (more often: moves) a category, your link will be broken. The ideal would be to point to the new category -- that's the kind of service WE try to provide with OUR links. But I don't think the copyright police are going to cross the border over a broken link (or a link removed because it was broken.) We aren't the RIAA.

All of this seems obvious to me, so...I'm guessing you're talking about some other scenario. Could you give an example?

I agreee with your post and understand. What I'm trying to avoid is manually editing over 500 pages to properly comply with the ODP license. Since the root structure of theGTA.com is slightly different all the pages would have to be manually updated to compensate and probally take weeks to update. At the moment the attributions are dynamically generated based on my unique directory structure. However, I don't see any easy way of doing this dynamically so looks like manually it is.

thanks for your time

I don't know how your site is set up, but I suppose you use a database. There should definately be more efficient ways than manually updating every page.

Just a suggestion, I don't know if it's feasible:
It should be possible to add a table to your database with the string equivalents of your localities and the ODP ones. I.e. all 'York_Region' strings in any of the ODP attributions could simply be replaced by 'Regional/North_America/Canada/Ontario/Localities/Y/York,_Regional_Municipality_of' and so on.
This should only require some scripting and a new table with about 50 rows, one for each of your localities. With a little bit of luck that should cover the large majority of your categories (although 100% would be preferable).

thanks.

I just posted a personal reply to another editor explaining I had the idea of pattern matching. Your idea is similar to mine so will take that into consideration. I'm assuming you are suggestion using MySQL for table and rows and PHP for execution? or Perl with dbi

Just have to figure the best way to make this work.

thanks everyone for the feedback. Will work on this and let you know how it turns out.

If I get this code working I would like to make it available to others in the same situation. Best place to post it?