Too Slow

I keep reading marketing spin about DMOZ helping businesses "realize optimal value from their knowledge assets", which in plain English means there is money being made directly out of the Open Directory.

Click to expand...

What marketing spin? Where did you read this? The Open Directory makes no money. How can it? It's data is free and it has no ads.

If it fails to act, there's really no reason for Omnicorp not to continue treating them with what looks suspiciously like contempt.

Click to expand...

I think somewhere in this conversation you've really lost me. Who is Omnicorp? What do they have to do with dmoz.org?

It has been said already that servers are being upgraded and new servers added. This is not so simple a matter as everyone seems to believe. The Open Directory was not designed to use more than one server.

It was designed, many years ago, to run with the minimum of investment, equipment and staff. But the founders did not expect the growth we had. They designed for an eventual 1000 editors and 1 million sites. 50,000 editors and 4 million sites later, one person must redesign the site to work on many servers.

It won't be done a couple of days. The RDF server, which is one half of the important part of the structure, has been upgraded, and the RDF has been produced regularly for quite some time now. The editor portion, which is the second half of the important part, will be next.

The public side is the least important part. The Open Directory could easily get by without public submission and public visitors. In fact, the main reason for poor performance on the public side is because current resources have been channeled to editor only sections.

There's never been any doubt that the ODP would have to fight longer and harder for any technical and monetary assistance. It takes time, but it is happening. People without patience don't last long as editors.

1 - Omnicorp is a handy euphemism for CNN/AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, who are slowly buying and, it would appear, wrecking everything in sight, through underfunding in this instance. They own DMOZ.

2 - I never said, nor implied, that DMOZ itself was making money. Others are though, through the excellent data it provides, when available.

You maintain that -

"There's never been any doubt that the ODP would have to fight longer and harder for any technical and monetary assistance".

Yet I see no sign that such a fight is taking place at all. Nothing on any of the newswires and nothing on this forum.

As a frustrated user I simply reiterated earlier suggestions, namely that DMOZ editors, users and supporters should be actively lobbying those who hold the purse strings. A rousing chorus of "thank you's" for more funding by "Omnicorp" from the 50,000 editors would be a PR coup for them. In contrast, that many emails from concerned users demanding to know why adequate funding is not forthcoming might serve as a wake-up call.

I would have thought it was clear that an upgrade of the whole system was in progress. It has already begun, and it will take some time to complete. As told in this thread by theseeker, such an upgrade is not trivial, it's not only a matter of changing the machines.

As an editor, it seems reasonable to see the outcome of the current process before yelling for more resources <img src="/images/icons/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Someone was responding to a terribly old post it looks like <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> Things in May are certainly different than in March <img src="/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

&gt;Yet I see no sign that such a fight is taking place at all. Nothing on any of the newswires and nothing on this forum.

In the presence of any kind of effective lobbying, that is precisely the sign you should expect not to see, and where you should expect not to see it.

This forum is for the public to communicate with ODP editors: staff seldom, if ever, reads it. If editors have something to say to staff, we use the internal forum. And if people started publishing stuff from the internal forum here, they would be hanged by their entrails from the ODP confidentiality guidelines.
The newswires? Get real. Bombastic boy bands, deposed dictators and dimwitted demagogues, war famine disease and death, bread and circuses, billion-dollar businesses, grand conspiracy theories? The ODP doesn't spring to most people's mind, nor yet engage their curiosity, when they want to read about any of these.

Er, Stealth Lobbying?

The sort no-one can see?

Trouble is Time Warner can't see it either, which suits them fine, and it obviously isn't effective otherwise this whole debate wouldn't still be grinding along.

I'm surprised by your derision of the newswires, since most people find the best place to read or publish what's happening on the internet is ..... on the internet.

Granted 99% comprises bombastic boy bands et al, but interesting that you included billion-dollar businesses, since that is precisely what we are talking about.

Why can't 50,000 editors experiencing the same problem create a visible debate about the particular billion-dollar business at the root of it? Or engage a wider public in the actual and potential virtues of the Open Directory? <img src="/images/icons/confused.gif" alt="" />

Please read what we have been saying, the servers are right at this moment being upgraded. Already two new servers have been added for a couple internal features, and at the moment we are waiting for the delivery of several more new servers. Once they have arrived, been installed, and tested, all of the current problems with speed, access, and 500 errors should be resolved.

&gt;&gt; Er, Stealth Lobbying? The sort no-one can see? &lt;&lt;

In a word, yes. You see ODP has internal forums, we have been complaining there for ages. Now Netscape is doing what they need to do to fix the problem, they even hired another engineer (who is currently being trained). There is nothing to complain about at the moment, we just have to be patient and let them do their job installing the new hardware.

&gt;&gt; Why can't 50,000 editors &lt;&lt;

We don't actually have 50,000 editors. That number is the total editors ever. The amount of editors who have a current login and at least one category is closer to 7,000. The number who edit actively and participate in the community is probably closer to 500 (which may explain why it takes so long to get sites listed sometimes...)