Still no listing since Fall of 2004...

I’m sure most of the editors review sites in a timely manner and treat applicants as they would want to be treated. It’s unfortunate that the DMOZ has a handful of lazy or biased editors that tarnish the image of the entire project. What other possible explanation can they have for not reviewing site for 2 years?

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Here's an example. I've been with the ODP for over six years. In that time, I've reviewed tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of sites. In that time, I've also ignored millions more and I'll go on ignoring most of those for the remainder of the time that I'm an editor because, as an editor, I'm allowed to choose what topics are of interest to me. If the ODP were relying on me, instead of Eric-the-bun, to review folk dancing sites, they'd be waiting a very long time because the topic just doesn't interest me. That usually ends up being the reason why an otherwise listable site doesn't get reviewed for years -- that no one has chosen to spend their allotted ODP time and energy on that particular category. It's not a matter of laziness or bias.

And what is the point of moderators replying with useless information?

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In the same way that you are entitled to post what and where you want (within the rules of the venue), so editors are entitled to post what and where they want. If what they post is useless to you, that's fine. You don't have to read what you don't find interesting. That's the beauty of the Internet.

Is DMOZ really a directory of Important and Interesting Sites?

I have no internet site to list with DMOZ, I'm just a student doing a research project about this directory.

After reading the posts here, it seems to me that DMOZ maybe a directory that has lost its usefulness, at least as far as providing the internet community with a directory of important and interesting sites.

If it takes an editor (whether a volunteer or not) 3 months to over 2 years to review and decide whether to list a site, the directory is useless. Even Yahoo does a much better job at listing a site. If you don't have the time to review sites in a timely manner, DON'T BE AN EDITOR. It's a disservice to the internet community as a whole. It reminds me of a bad teacher who has tenure.

Editors in this thread have said" The Open Directory is a directory of sites that are useful and have content."
I haven't really looked around DMOZ that much (but as part of my project I will), and I'm sure there are MANY sites listed that the internet community as a whole would find less than USEFUL. This is just an easy excuse not to list a site.

I wonder, in this day of litigation, if the refusal to list a site (bad faith, bias, not reviewing a site in a timely manner, etc.) could pose personal legal liability to an editor?

I haven't really looked around DMOZ that much

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We're happy to hear your opinions anyway .

I'm sure there are MANY sites listed that the internet community as a whole would find less than USEFUL.

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I would hope so too. We aren't trying to list websites that everybody thinks are useful, we're trying to categorise websites about hundreds of thousand of little corners of knowledge. Some people will find each such category very useful indeed.

If it takes an editor (whether a volunteer or not) 3 months to over 2 years to review and decide whether to list a site, the directory is useless.

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Unforturnately, you're coming at this from the wrong direction and your premise is incorrect. You're looking at ODP as a listing service which takes "3 months to over 2 years" to list a site. But we aren't a listing service and have never claimed to be.

We're building a directory. While we accept suggestions, we have never claimed to list every site suggested.

From the suggestion page, which everyone who submits a site agrees to have read

Please note: We are not a search engine and pride ourselves on being highly selective. We don't
accept all sites, so please don't take it personally should your site not be accepted.

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and

# To be bound by the ODP's Terms of Use.
# 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;

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You might want to read the Terms of Use, the About ODP page, and the Editing Guidelines.

If you don't have the time to review sites in a timely manner, DON'T BE AN EDITOR. It's a disservice to the internet community as a whole. It reminds me of a bad teacher who has tenure.

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It's not really like a teacher with tenure at all. A teacher with tenure is taking up one of a limited number of teaching positions. There is no limited on the number of editors at the ODP--that's something that many non-editors seem to have trouble understanding--so an editor who is only doing a handful of edits a month is not taking up a space that someone else could fill. And those handfuls of edits are still doing more than we'd have if that editor were removed for not being active enough.

mannymo, you have a unique concept of "research." I don't know what they teach in schools now. My own academic training included a concept called "carefully studying the primary sources" -- which in this context would be the ODP itself. You could, for instance, download the RDF for this week, and successive RDFs for several weeks, to study not only the ODP itself but the changes over time.

Another academic approach is called "immersion experience". In this context, that might entail actually applying to edit a category that is of interest to you, actually experiencing the editors' efforts to find good information, their frustration at doorway spammers and SEO trash, their elation at finding truly authoritative content unpromoted by SEO and undiscovered by Google, the cameraderie of the community discussions, the passion that editors bring to their own interests and priorities and viewpoints -- as well as to the search for consensus, the sheer breadth and depth of firsthand knowledge that is a matter of course in the factfinding stage of discussions.

Forums are more difficult to analyze, but it's surprising how much you can learn about a regular poster (or even an individual poster, if you know their home page). I'd suggest that our archived "Submittal Status" forum would be a fascinating subject for analysis. There are thousands of discussions with webmasters, and for every one of them you can go look at the website. So you can see how the ODP responds to doorway spammers, affiliate farmers, genuine businesses guilty of ODP submittal spamming, and honest requests for information. You might even be able to get a good feel for what kind of sites tend to receive priority reviews. You could then, perhaps, build a stochastic image of the model surfer for which the ODP is built.

At that point, you would be in a position to begin to collect the information to make an INFORMED judgment as to how well that kind of surfer is served. (It would still be a lot of work to get the actual information: you'd have to make a random collection of sites that DID serve that kind of surfer, and then you could see how well the ODP (and other web sources) rated them.

And, of course, you could compare the ODP with other directories and search engines, to see how well we all filter out affiliate doorway spammers like tombobb. Or you could even get firsthand testimony from many of them -- just check out any standard SEO or webmasters' forum.

There's a lot of material for academic study. It could be fascinating.

>I wonder, in this day of litigation, if the refusal to list a site (bad faith, bias, not reviewing a site in a timely manner, etc.) could pose personal legal liability to an editor?

No, that's not a problem. Anyone may have their sites handled by AOL legal staff, by simply initiating or threatening legal action. Volunteer editors aren't allowed to deal with the site after that. It's between the lawyers, and the site will be handled by AOL employees as AOL's lawyers advise. This is all the protection needed from all but the most stupidly vicious of webmasters -- and the fact is, that class basically never has listable sites anyway.

Lawyers are cautious folk, and since "no site is guaranteed a listing" (as it says in the submittal policy which you must accept before making a site suggestion), their reaction will not be quick (they respond once every two years or so) and is not likely to be favorable.

<added> The same approach works for other ways in which malicious webmasters might seek to coerce or influence editors. Threats -- we call the police, then blacklist the site forever. Bribe offers -- don't need to call the police, just blacklist the site. Even aggressive spamming of communication channels (anything from e-mail or phone or forums or personal contact with editors to the site suggestion form) can result in editors absolutely declining to deal with the site.

The ODP is intended to be "NOT a webmaster service," and the community will keep it that way. From the beginning, these kinds of malicious webmaster pressure, and the obvious defenses, have been well understood.

Same here January 2005 and still no listing

I have 3 directories made with .asp tech they cost thousands look clean and have a manual database more advanced that what ODP Editors use (I know as i was a MusicMoz Editor for 18 months).
I get around 12K uniques daily from Google and also Yahoo and Msn send a lot of traffic.
The sites have NEVER been listed on on Dmoz, i dont offer content, but i offer what the ODP offers, but to specific areas of the web (Free Stuff for example).
At MusicMoz i opened up the database 3 to 4 times a week and spent at least 20 minutes a time adding websites.
Take a look at Dmoz 80% of the under categories need an editor, some major categories have not been edited for months in some cases over a year!!
I realy think that Netscape should restructure the whole Administrator, and Editor situation that is going down the wrong street and this has been going on for months.

i dont offer content

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Which may or may not be why they are not listed.

We certainly don't list sites based on how much they cost, or which Micro$oft technology they use.

We are also not swayed, in the least, by how many hits or visitors they get.

We do thank you for the contribuions you made as a Music Moz editor.

It would be muchly appreciated if, next time someone complains about the power the ODP had over them, you remember to repeat this testimonial to your firsthand experience.

#1 If you do not like the power dmoz holds in other SE's I suggest you write said SE's and point them to threads like this, that show that DMOZ although it was a great project in the day is now severely under staffed, and not up to date.

#2 If you do not like the current power structure go above dmoz to the powers that be and tell them your concerns. It is true most sub cats are without editors, listings go unchecked for years, and editors are corrupt (not all).

The bottom line is the web is growing faster than ever especially with all the UNIQUE content in the blog explosion and DMOZ is not. DMOZ is not recruiting new editors at a pace that would allow them to keep up with the net. Heck I applied for my hometown that has no editor and I was turned away.

What power?

I can assure you that anyone who uses our data does so of their own free will. We don't force them to, and we don't pay them to. We provide data for free use, requiring only proper attribution. If someone finds it useful, we're happy. If someone doesn't find it useful, we hope they find what they need elsewhere.

It is true most sub cats are without editors.

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Showing that you have no idea how DMOZ works. What you might mean is that most subcats are without a NAMED editor, and that means absolutely nothing. Most of the edits I do are in sub-categories that "have no editor", I can edit them because I'm the named editor at some higher level. I'm named as an editor on around 22 categories. I actually edit hundreds and hundreds of categories.

Read the forum FAQ.

I do have an understanding of how it works. I also see mods say things like I ended up with a whole country (main cat) and that is is overwhelming. I am guessing there are mods that never make it to certain sub cats as a result. Millions of listings and only 7k editors.

Also if you want to chip at my comments try and address all of my points not just the ones that you think have holes in them.

bobrat said:

Showing that you have no idea how DMOZ works. What you might mean is that most subcats are without a NAMED editor, and that means absolutely nothing. Most of the edits I do are in sub-categories that "have no editor", I can edit them because I'm the named editor at some higher level. I'm named as an editor on around 22 categories. I actually edit hundreds and hundreds of categories.

Read the forum FAQ.

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I concur with Bobrat because even though I am the named editor of Arts: Animation: Anime: Fandom - I edit in all of the sub-categories.

I also see mods say things like I ended up with a whole country (main cat) and that is is overwhelming. You make it to your subcats, but there are many that do not, and even admit to it on these forums.

Millions of listings and only 7k editors.

Chaz7979 - just because one can edit somewhere doesn't mean they have to. I have cats in Shopping, Business, Regional, Kids & Teens, and Sports (I think that's all ). I edit based on where I want to edit at that particular time (I think most editors work that way) - and that would typically mean that I won't list sites in every subcategory, ever.

Sometimes I will visit a category that I wouldn't ordinarily because something beckons me - like a new editor having some difficulties.

Sometimes I do QC work which will hit every category, but I'm not actively working in those categories - I just happened to be there.

Being able to work in many categories is better for the directory than being confined to a small area - I'd get bored pretty easily if I "had" to look at the same type of sites all the time. Being able to decide what I want to do today (and having a large area over which to make that decision) makes me a more productive editor.

We don't think of it as "overwhelming". It is merely "a target-rich environment."

That means we get to choose the most significant targets, or the easiest targets, or whatever works best.

The problem is with targets that are sort-of significant but extremely hard because of spammers: such as websites of hotels and other genuine travel-related businesses, significantly-credentialed authoritative health content, genuine mail-order businesses. But ... how is that different from the problems facing any other surfer? Doorway spam, dysinfomercials, etc., are a drain on the sum of human knowledge: we'd like to be exempt, but it isn't going to happen.

You can think of it as whatever you want, but I am merely expressing what some editors have said. They have wound up with too much to handle and have tons of listings pending.


Millions of listings and growing
7k editors and shrinking

I wonder if that statement, when taken out of context, has a different meaning than originally stated. Was it explaining to an applicant why it is not a good idea to be accepted into a category which is too large? Can you point to where you read this?