Things not to say in public (to an ODP editor)

1) My site is making so much money that it has to be listed.
2) My site has to be listed because it's not making enough money, and a listing would solve all my problems.
3) I spent so much time on my site design that you owe me a listing.
4) My site design is so much better than other sites', that you can't not list it.
5) If you added my site, you wouldn't be the only editor who's made abusive edits or stupid mistakes.
6) I'll give you [money/promotional links/hot sex] if you'll list my site.
7) I'll sue if you don't add my site. My lawyer will be in contact with you, your family, the ODP, AOL, Time/Warner, and the United Nations.

All of these are ways of saying, more or less subtlely, "You're corrupt. You don't care about the web users or the goals of the ODP on their behalf, but here's some consideration, totally irrelevant consideration that may sway you -- and therefore I'm hoping to hear you say, 'though I fear not God, neither regard man, yet will I avenge this supplicant, lest she weary me by her incessant importunity.'"

Well, most of us don't appreciate being called corrupt, no matter how subtlely. And we have multiple ways of handling incessant importunity. Like Google, ODP has a lifetime ban, and even one use of the most blatant of the above lines can cause staff to invoke it.

A word to the wise: most editors don't want to be unjust judges. And the ones that do, aren't going to want to reveal it in a public forum.

So stick to the facts: tell us what manner of content surfers would be looking for, and can get at your website and no other. Help us find the ONE category that best fits that content. (You may also try to convince us that there are other unrelated categories that would not be complete or comprehensive without that content.) Your site may still not get a listing, but it certainly won't lose a listing which it otherwise might have gotten.

[Edited in order to add a linebreak /images/icons/smile.gif ]

Don't forget
<ul>[*]I'm already listed in Yahoo and Looksmart so getting into ODP really shouldn't be such a problem[/LIST]

/images/icons/wink.gif

In that context, it should probably be noted that legal threats get passed through staff to AOL's legal office, for which this type of complaint appears to be a very low priority. So legal threats can cause extraordinary, perhaps indefinite, delay in getting even a good site listed, as we wait for one of AOL's lawyers to find the time to review the complaint.

The ODP has a "zero tolerance" policy on bribery and attempted bribery. Don't even *think* about going there.

I am not sure why it is that people accepted Yahoo's editorial standards (back when it had high standards), and accept that they should presently pay Yahoo! hundreds of dollars a year for a listing, but seem to think that the ODP has no right to impose any degree of quality control.

hutcheson,

Well said /images/icons/smile.gif

Dave

&gt;&gt;I am not sure why it is that people accepted Yahoo's editorial standards (back when it had high standards), and accept that they should presently pay Yahoo! hundreds of dollars a year for a listing, but seem to think that the ODP has no right to impose any degree of quality control. &lt;&lt;

I was just thinking about that. It implies we (should) have pretty low standards.

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr><p>I am not sure why it is that people accepted Yahoo's editorial standards (back when it had high standards), and accept that they should presently pay Yahoo! hundreds of dollars a year for a listing, but seem to think that the ODP has no right to impose any degree of quality control.<p><hr></blockquote>Some possible reasons:

• Since we claim to be "open", we should be democratic in including sites, and the submitters are merely casting their votes on what they think the submission guidelines should be. When we don't let the submitters determine editorial policy (like a good democracy would), we're a bunch of fascist thugs.
• Many other directories have ways of influencing the review and publication process (i.e., money). The submitters are following that pattern, and trying to figure out how to influnce the ODP.
• They got their site listed easily at Yahoo!, since they paid their money, yet can't get into DMOZ, and it gets them frustrated and pissed off.
• Since we editors are only volunteer, we'll easily be fooled by illogical arguments, or easily be intimidated. On the other hand, places like Yahoo! are edited by paid professionals who won't fall for stuff like that, so there's no point of trying out similar tactics on them.[/list:u]

I'll disagree with most of that.

1. That's not what we mean by "open". See, e.g., http://dmoz.org/socialcontract.html . Nor are the interests of submitters our priority - "We will be guided by the needs of our data users and the ODP editorial community. We will place their interests first in our priorities."

2. Easy answer: "We extend an open invitation to the general public to join to the ODP."

3. More volunteers = faster review time. The equation is that simple.

4. I agree with you that some submitters seem to think we'll be gullible or eaisly intimidated. (However, if you look at even some of the historic mistakes of Yahoo! editors, you will see that payment to editors isn't a guarantee of quality. And if you look at the present taxonomy of Yahoo!, I think you'll see that redefining categories to suit advertisers (a/k/a submitters) significantly diminishes quality.)

I know my site is good because it is listed in Yahoo.

My site is the best - just look at my Under Construction picture.

I spent hours on that picture!

Sorry to barge in on your "patting each other on the back" session, but here are a couple things you might notice before you go on thinking that the ODP is somehow better than Yahoo!:
Yahoo! has "accountability"
ac·count·abil·i·ty
Pronunciation: &amp;-"kaun-t&amp;-'bi-l&amp;-tE
Function: noun
Date: 1794
: the quality or state of being accountable; especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions &lt;public officials lacking accountability&gt;
This means that when a submission is made, it will be reviewed in less than four years.
This means that when a worthless site submits over 100 deeplinks to useless pages, it doesn't get listed.
You want to see sites with 100 deeplinks, if you can't figure it out, I'll do it for you. Just say the word.
This means that simple words like "listings" aren't misspelled as liistings". Pull that kinda b.s. at Yahoo! and you'd be canned.
Accountability means that, unlike the ODP, Yahoo! does not have thousands, and I do mean thousands, of old listings that presently re-direct to totally irrelevant sites.
Please don't forget that the ODP is used by our the great and wonderful folks at Google, and your misspellings and your laziness tends to reflect badly on them.
Going by the ODP's own guidelines, the ODP doesn't qualify to be listed in the ODP. <img src="/images/icons/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Well, now, nothing's perfect. I doubt there are many at the ODP who think the directory is perfect, considering we spend so much time talking about how to improve it. I do like constructive criticism, though I usually ignore or remove posts that are as insulting as these are. This time, though, I think I'll ignore the insults and address some of the claims...

Yahoo! has "accountability"
[snip] This means that when a submission is made, it will be reviewed in less than four years.

Click to expand...

How does accountability relate to submission processing time? You are assuming that editors have some obligation to the submitters. I personally think the ODP would be better off without submissions, populating the categories by searching for sites in the spiders like Google, Alta Vista, etc. This would not be contrary to our stated mission. I don't think that will happen though.

This means that when a worthless site submits over 100 deeplinks to useless pages, it doesn't get listed.

Click to expand...

Worthless in whose opinion? The policy at ODP is that deeplinking is the exception, not the rule. I'm sure there are a few sites that have been deeplinked when they shouldn't be, which have not been found yet and removed, but that's not the norm.

This means that simple words like "listings" aren't misspelled as liistings". Pull that kinda b.s. at Yahoo! and you'd be canned.

Click to expand...

Are you saying there are no spelling errors in Yahoo? If you're thinking that's a loaded question, it took me less than 30 seconds to load a second window, go to Yahoo, and find a spelling error.

"How does accountability relate to submission processing time? You are assuming that editors have some obligation to the submitters"
NO. Not to submitters, to the users of the ODP.
Or did you forget about them. If it is not for the users, exactly who are you giving up your life for? ( Life consists of time, so you are sacrificing your life when you waste your time at the ODP. )

"Worthless in whose opinion?"
Objectively worthless. As in, if 1,000 Internet users were to visit the site, 9,999 they would feel that it did not deserve a listing in the ODP. It is called wasting a web-surfers time. For example, the four sites I mentioned above. The ODP is an active nuisance when it purports to be a directory and directs a person to a site which is not anything close to the description which enticed the person to click on the link and go to the site. When my web hosting service goes down once a week, it ceases to exist as a hosting service. When the ODP ceases to provide a useful and accurate directory, it is no longer a viable directory. I would think that if your editors were paid, and categories assigned (as they are now ), any editor who let his/her category go to rot would be fired. That is what I mean about accountability.
You say that deeplinking is not the norm. It is the norm. Why? For two reasons: Your editors are in the SEO business. When someone who just wants to make a better directory comes along and starts to delete deeplinks, and add the competitors sites, whoa! All hell breaks loose. And your login is deactivated. This is precisely why the ODP is dying. It is a club, a clique, which isn't even used by its members. It could have been so much more. Think of all the time thousands of volunteers have wasted, editing for the ODP.

I would think that if your editors were paid, and categories assigned (as they are now ), any editor who let his/her category go to rot would be fired. That is what I mean about accountability.

Click to expand...

I think you're assuming that every category has an editor. Taking your example, you have to drill all the way down to http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/ before you find an editor. The fact is that you have chosen a quiet category, where, until today, there had been no activity since April. Had you chosen another category elsewhere in the tree, where there is one or more active editors, your findings may have been very different.

We hire volunteers - we can't force people to edit categories they do not want to edit. If we did that, then I have no doubt that we'd have even fewer editors than we do now.

Oh yeah, you may find http://www.xoron.com/ interesting. It's a directory made by ex-ODP editors based on our data, where the editors.. sorry, 'category owners' are accountable for what they do. Never heard of it? Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me.

The fact is, the ODP is popular, and as yet there are no other open directories that come close, unless you count Zeal. If you don't like what we do, become an editor and help us do something about it.

Take for example: americanbuilders.com
This site has 108 listings in the ODP. One hundred and eight.
They are listed in:
Regional: North America: United States: Nevada: Localities: L: Las Vegas: Business and Economy: Industries: Construction and Maintenance: Builders

Even though they have only 4 builders listed.

They are listed in regional as "Missouri Builders Network" with ONLY ONE LISTING.
That one builder listed is Montgomery, and that page is also listed. (http://americanbuilders.com/Montgomery/)
In essense, you have listed every page of the worthless site.
They have a listing in the ODP as "Hawaii Builders NetWork" in Regional: North America: United States: Hawaii: Hawaii Island: Localities: Hilo: Business and Economy: Real Estate
But they have only one builder listed for the entire state.
They are listed as Alabama Builders Network with three builders, and you've probably listed the pages that those builders' profiles are on.
Here's the thing, 108 listings??? So, if I went and submitted every contractor profile on Just-Contractors.com to its appropriate regional cat would it be listed? It shouldn't. Think about it. Content. Are you going to list each separate page that appears on E Bay?
So, I'd love for you folks to try and answer this one:
My bf submitted two deeplinks to the ODP, for regional in Washington, and Nevada. The listed page for Washington shows over 100 contractors. But it was deleted and http://americanbuilders.com/WA/ stays, with only six listings.
Just-Contractors.com only submitted two pages because it would be spam to submit every single page of our site. Or should we submit every single contractor profile? ( Unlike americanbuilders, we actually have over 2,000 listings) Yes or no?
Akiko
PS, ODP editors never answer directly, so why don't you do what I expect you'll do and paste a link to "ODP Guidelines" instead of giving a direct answer? <img src="/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />
( A "yes" or a "no" is evidence of integrity, and the ODP is know to be run by wishy-washies. )
It's a dare. Answer the question. Prove you've got cojones.

And, do you think that Yahoo! would give americanbuilders.com 108 listings? The correct answer is "no". Yahoo! would give them ONE.

Um, actually most of those listings are for individual building firms which use AmericanBuilders.com as hosts, which we do allow (otherwise we'd have to block all Geocities submissions for the same reason).

I sense either a cranky ex-editor or a cranky multiply-rejected submitter.

I was specifically referring to you, kc, when I said editors can't give straight answers. Be a man. Answer the questions. Would americanbuilders.com get listed in Yahoo! as "Hwaii Builders Network" with just one builder listed? Or as "Washington Builders Network" with just 6? Or as "Arizona Builders Network" with just two listings? Or as "Indiana Builders Network" with just 4 listed builders? Or as "Kentucky Builders Network" with just two builders? Or as "Louisiana Builders Network" with just one builder? kctipton, you are the typical ODP editor. Try taking responsibility for your position. You were granted a duty you applied for. Now perform your duties. The ODP is full of deadlinks and deeplinks and errors because you do not are incompetent. If you were an employee, you'd get fired. <img src="/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

Um, actually most of those listings are for individual building firms which use AmericanBuilders.com as hosts, which we do allow (otherwise we'd have to block all Geocities submissions for the same reason).

Click to expand...

This really is the answer to your question, and it was posted before I said a thing. We aren't going to block geocities.com and we aren't going to block or reduce the listings from americanbuilders.com based on the quantity of those listings.

I am flattered to be singled out of the crowd. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[added a bit later]: I've gone through all 108 listings, and there are fewer than that now. Some redirected to a more general page, and (yes you were right) most all of the so-called "statewide" directory pages were pretty thin and got removed. The deeplinking we'd prefer to see is listings of individual company sites, not all of the subdirectories between the main URL and the final company listings.