Went to update listing today and noticed site has apparently been removed

Well, I have said what I had to say. It is up to the odp and it's editors to find ways to mend their holes and prove their social contract. I tried to have a true discussion but am only answered with dogma. I feel like "webmasters and seo's" are spit out of your mouth in disgust.
I have seen the other threads. No real answers were given then either. I apologize if I offended anyone. Not my intention. Just trying to point out the holes in the dike before the whole land is flooded. C U

It is up to the odp and it's editors to find ways to mend their holes and prove their social contract. I tried to have a true discussion but am only answered with dogma.

Click to expand...

Said like a true politician. I speak the truth, my opponent mouths dogma.

This isn't about dogma, or Jeffersonain pursuits. It is about a free directory that is produced by a cadre of volunteer editors. You want us to change our model to something more in line with your needs. It is like walking up to someone showing a '57 Chevy at a classic car show,and telling them the car is nice, but it should have been painted red and white. They show you the serial number and the original paint codes indicating they ahve match the original factory blue, but you don't want to hear that because in your universe all '57 Chevy's must be red and white.

We are not driven by public opinion. We don't have any real power that we wield. We have simply created a very large list of websites that we give away for free. Somehow in your universe that very act offends. We also let peopel browse through the contents for free. No indication if that offends as well.

Your cry that "Some of us are trying to make a living too," although I'm not sure what that has to do with what we are doing. We dont get paid to do this, we pay to do this in terms of time, effort and for some of our editors where broadband and free dial up are not ubiquitous, the actual cost-per-minute of their connections.

All we are saying this this:

We are building a directory. We give it away for free.
We have defined what sites we will or will not list.
If you have a site that complies with our guidelines, we will entertain listing it.
If you have a site that does not comply with our guidelines, we wish you well, but are not going to change our directory to suit you.

It is as simple as that.

>If it were a complete and perfect directory, I would agree with you.

Ah, not a problem that, in practice, arises. We're not perfect, we're just the best. So far. That's the best any human can claim.

>The problem is you allow it to be wielded like a bat for influence by allowing others to use it to value a website's worth.

Not a problem, that's a feature. We allow people to do anything they want with it. Not something we can help if we wanted to: it's in the license and the social contract.

>Face it. If you are not in the odp, then you must face a very long and expensive climb in the main search engine.

True. But it does not impact ODP activity at all, because of another well-known fact that we know equally well: if a site IS listed in the ODP, it still faces a long and expensive climb in the main search engine.

In other words, the basic fact is not practically speaking contingent on the ODP in any way. It would be just as true if you left the ODP out altogether, just as we leave it out of consideration altogether when working with the ODP.

Okay, keep it alive. I'm not a politician. But just someone waiting patiently in the blind alley that is called the queue to get listed. I am well aware you are volunteers. What I was referring to were the sites that are already in. I am confident that the site i submitted well qualifies. This ain't my first rodeo.
You do have your points but they are also the same points that will make the odp irrelelvant someday. it is kind of a catch 22. I am not asking you to change your model. Never asked that. Sometimes, I wonder if there is one mind among the editors as to what your models are. A site gets listed and then delisted.
Again, you say
"We don't have any real power that we wield". You can't really believe that. The odp is the single most powerful force in the web today by virtue of google using it as a Bible. Page rank is passed on in generous amounts. It can make the difference between first page and way back. And yes, I know there are other ways. Refer back to the rest of this thread for the answers to that. I wouldn't have returned if you hadn't insulted me.

The odp is the single most powerful force in the web today by virtue of google using it as a Bible.

Click to expand...

I don't think that's true. But let's assume for a post that it is.

If so, then Google is missing out on an enormously important resource: the sites that qualify for an ODP listing but, as yet, do not have one.

Supply that resource to Google (and, say, Google alone to give it a USP) and you could almost name your own price.

This idea has been discussed endlessly on various forums, and no one as far as I can see has ever turned it into a business proposition. Strange, as if the original assertion is correct, the first person to do it would be end up hugely rich.

So why has no one done it? I can think of two reasons:
1. the initial assumption is wrong
2. they'd rather bait the volunteers whose editing speed has created the opportunity

The other assumption you're still overlooking is -- there are a zillion other sites with basically the same content as yours (pseudonymous order-taking from anonymous drop-shippers). If we added them all, all the ones that were above you in Google would still be above you afterwards.

>How does anybody know that an editor just didn't like the colors on a site and was having a bad day and just said it wasn't up to par?

In voluntary peer-review organizations, the peer review is the critical mechanism for quality control.

Within the ODP, any editor can review any site at any time (whether or not it is listed or submitted.)

How about non-editors?

If they care enough about the mission of the project to become an editor, then that solves the dilemma.

If they don't, then that solves the dilemma another way.

All the pieces start to come together...

I found

http://www.selfseo.com/story-3296.php today.

And, quoting something they quoted, found

http://www.homedecorexchange.com/Fr...SiteWasRemovedFromTheOpenDirectoryProject.htm


All this is tied somehow to: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum17/2450.htm and the major outbursts in there starting a few weeks ago.

just because I rooted for the ODP Bashers

Click to expand...

NO. You simply broke the forum rules and charter at WMW that YOU agreed to when you joined WMW.

I hope the mods here do not remove your message above here, as it clearly shows what calibre of person you are.

I hope the mods here do not remove your message above here

Click to expand...

I wish we could comply with that hope. The message did indeed say much about its poster. But it is far outside the rules he agreed to when he joined this forum, so sadly it must go. Sorry about that.