Site Approval Discrimination

[buzzman]

I have been trying to get my sites listed on dmoz for over 1 year but it seems useless despite the fact that my sites have totally over 150,000 UIP per day (one has more than 100,000 UIPs and another one has over 50,000 UIP again) and they are regarded as best of their class in my country!

 

Now I discovered that the editor on the category I want my sites listed is my competitor and he only added his sites and his friends' sites onto DMOZ.

 

How can I address this? My sites are of far higher quality than his but always rejected by him. Sadly.

 

It's all about quality control of DMOZ.org. Thanks in advance.

[windharp]

If you have proof of what you are saying, feel free to hand in an abuse report via our Public Abuse Report System. We are taking editor abuse seriously, and will take apropriate actions if our investigations shows a case of abuse. Please read what Frequently Asked Questions About the DMOZ Abuse Report System says first, though.

[pvgool]

I see a lot of misunderstanding about how DMOZ works in your post

 

I have been trying to get my sites listed on dmoz for over 1 year

To me this sounds like you have suggested the site more than once.

Not only is this against our guidelines it can also be the reason why you sites haven't been reviewed yet.

 

but it seems useless despite the fact that my sites have totally over 150,000 UIP per day (one has more than 100,000 UIPs and another one has over 50,000 UIP again) and they are regarded as best of their class in my country!

Again I see something that is against our guidelines. You are not allowed more than one site if the sites are related to eah other. Having the same owner sounds very much like "related to each other"

And number of visitors is of totaly no relevance for DMOZ. We only care about unique content.

 

Now I discovered that the editor on the category I want my sites listed is my competitor and he only added his sites and his friends' sites onto DMOZ.

That would be against our guidlines. If you have prove of such abuse please file an abuse report. But remember the fact that a site is not reviewed yet) on itself is no abuse.

And no category is owned or handled by one editor alone. There are always many editors that can review sites in a category.

 

How can I address this? My sites are of far higher quality than his but always rejected by him. Sadly.

Why do you think they are rejected. They will only be rejected if they don't meet our guidelines. And you can read them yourself.

 

Waiting one year for review is not exceptional, certainly not if the site has been suggested more than once. Just be patient and don't worry.

[buzzman]

I see a lot of misunderstanding about how DMOZ works in your post

 

 

To me this sounds like you have suggested the site more than once.

Not only is this against our guidelines it can also be the reason why you sites haven't been reviewed yet.

 

 

Again I see something that is against our guidelines. You are not allowed more than one site if the sites are related to eah other. Having the same owner sounds very much like "related to each other"

And number of visitors is of totaly no relevance for DMOZ. We only care about unique content.

 

 

That would be against our guidlines. If you have prove of such abuse please file an abuse report. But remember the fact that a site is not reviewed yet) on itself is no abuse.

And no category is owned or handled by one editor alone. There are always many editors that can review sites in a category.

 

 

Why do you think they are rejected. They will only be rejected if they don't meet our guidelines. And you can read them yourself.

 

Waiting one year for review is not exceptional, certainly not if the site has been suggested more than once. Just be patient and don't worry.

 

Thanks for the advice. i submitted the site only once as i realize it would be against the guideline if submitting more than 1 time.

 

Another site was my company's site that was submitted by a different user. Thank all of you.

[hutcheson]

I'm continually amazed by what people think might possibly matter to a directory site review.

 

Ignoring the question of what a UIP is, and whether it's a good thing or an incarnation of pure evil--

 

What possible difference could it have made to an ODP editor? Do you think we have some kind of magically-generated list of "all the world's 100 billion websites, sorted by increasing/decreasing daily UIP breeding rate", and we just start at one end and work our way through?

 

Because without that list, and without that process, you could be capturing a billion UIPs a second, or you could be lucky to see one of them a millenium. In either case it wouldn't affect the editor's ability to find the site, or his motivation to list it.

 

And, finally, even after the editor found the site, despite not knowing about it's UIP harvest, how would he KNOW what the UIP rate was? and why should he care anyway? As long as he's already looking at a site, he might as well make a decision whether to list it or not, based on the usual ODP criterion (which is "Unique Information Possessed").

 

Now, there may be a problem somewhere: there probably is. You may have even seen one. But any real problem can be fully discussed without any mention of UIPs (whatever they are).

[buzzman]

I summitted the proof to you 2 weeks ago but no progress's made(hopefully it's not reviewed by that category's editor ( BTW the site owners listed on that page(pr5) know one another) HENCE sadly many of the sites listed are not of good quality(just Made-for-adsense ones).

 

I think you'd better review all the sites listed in such category again (if possible). I don't expect you to list my site but ones should be treated fairly and equally.(sorry for speaking straightforward)

 

Adsensers rule!

[makrhod]

I summitted the proof to you 2 weeks ago but no progress's made(hopefully it's not reviewed by that category's editor

If you submitted a report using the link you were given by windharp, then it can be read only by ODP Admins, meta-editors and catmods.

 

Provided you gave as much factual information as you could, with real evidence to support your assertions, then the matter will certainly be investigated thoroughly by one or more of those volunteers, in their own time. You can check the progress of your report using the reference number you were given after submitting it, but you will only be told whether or not the matter has been resolved, not the details or results of the investigation.

[buzzman]

Can I submit additional information to show that he is self-serving and is my direct competitor?(actually I submitted the evidences showing he is self-serving-he did a lot of spamming using this site name and editor name) what I will submit is the proof that he is my competitor as our sites are listed on the same chart of website ranking. Mine is No.1 and his is No.2. If it's like this my site will never be listed though it's better than his in everyway(almost exactly the same content and he copied my site look and feel and content even using my server resource!).

 

Seems difficult to get this resolved though. It has been almost 3 weeks by now but this matter has not been investigated yet.

 

Thank you

[pvgool]

Seems difficult to get this resolved though. It has been almost 3 weeks by now but this matter has not been investigated yet.

Like anything else in DMOZ these reports are handled by volunteers.

It will be investigated. But it is impossible to predict when the investigation will be completed.

 

what I will submit is the proof that he is my competitor

Which is totaly of no relevance. Nothing prevents editors from having sites. Nothing prevents editors from listing their own site. The only thing asked is that they handle their own site the same as they would do any other site. If a site is listable it can be listed even if it is your own site, if it is not listable you should not list it even if it is your own site.

[hutcheson]

>If it's like this my site will never be listed though it's better than his in everyway(almost exactly the same content and he copied my site look and feel and content even using my server resource!).

 

Um, "Copied Look and feel"--um, this wouldn't ever be relevant, even if we could figure out who'd actually been copying. (All we can see is the similarity: for all we know, it's because you both hired the same Elbonian webdesigner.) And "look and feel" doesn't get a site listed or keep it from being listed anyway.

 

Um, "almost exactly the same content".... then you'll have an EXTREMELY hard time showing significant unique content on your site. But there's only one reason a website CAN be listed. "significant unique content." Any site that doesn't have that is unlistable. So that's the end of THAT part of the issue.

 

Now, you may know other sites that have "almost exactly the same content" as yours, and so yours keeps them from being listable, just as they keep yours from being listable. It would be very helpful for you to report any of those that are listed.

 

But listings of unlistable sites are not necessarily "editor abuse" -- they might also be by accident, or oversight, or malicious webmaster activity. (The last, of course, is by far the most common.) You can show "good faith" by not assuming the worst about other people (an attitude that will often be reciprocated), and using the "quality feedback" mechanism instead.

[spectregunner]

It has been almost 3 weeks by now but this matter has not been investigated yet.

 

So? Did someone commit to a faster response. Quit whining.

[buzzman]

Thanks for the advice but it seems to me some editors are self-serving. i just hit the nail on some people's head but I am sure there are still lots of high quality editors here.

 

i leave it to you guys.

[nea]

Thanks for the advice but it seems to me some editors are self-serving.

Yes, there is no point in pretending that no editor has ever abused the directory for their own purposes. Some do, or try to, and that's why we have the abuse reporting system. If your report is still marked as "new" it doesn't actually have to mean that nobody has looked at it; it is possible for meta editors to look at an abuse report and attach notes to it without changing its status. I sometimes do that if I have a comment to make on a report but don't feel competent to resolve it, or don't have time to investigate it fully. A report that is still marked "new" after a few weeks will almost certainly have comments attached to it, unless it is in a language that very few of us can understand. And sometimes it just takes some time to investigate a report - we do this in our spare time, you know.

 

Another thing to remember is that we investigate abuse against the directory, not against site owners or against sites that are listed in the directory. This means that sometimes things that site owners think are abusive aren't, from the directory point of view.

[buzzman]

Hi All(Again),

 

Is it an abuse if the editor I talked about just deleted a very good site out of dmoz? I found that site already disappeared from the directory and it's the editor's competitor. His site is ranked no.5 in the SERP using a popular keyword while the deleted site is ranked no.2 and interestingly it's the only one site listed on DMOZ(and ranked on the first result page) and except the editor site) and the category is looked after by this editor.

 

I submitted proofs and the editor's name to one of you guys hoping the report will be investigated very soon.

 

Thank you very much.

[motsa]

What do you mean you "submitted proofs and the editor's name to one of you guys hoping the report will be investigated very soon"? If you e-mailed it or PMed it to someone, I would suggest instead submitting an additional abuse report with the additional information in it. If you submitted an additional abuse report, then please be patient. Abuse investigations take time.

[chaos127]

FYI: The way to submit a formal abuse report is via http://report-abuse.dmoz.org/

 

(It's already been mentioned above, but maybe you didn't spot the link)

[buzzman]

Thank you for all the advice.

[Callimachus]

Is it an abuse if the editor I talked about just deleted a very good site out of dmoz?

 

It is only abuse if they deliberately violated the ODP guidelines in doing so. Sites get deleted all the time for a myriad of reasons. SERP's and other such ranking systems are totally irrelevant as far as ODP is concerned.

[spectregunner]

Is it an abuse if the editor I talked about just deleted a very good site out of dmoz?

 

It is abuse if you have access to editing logs, or if someone is sharing editing logs with you, other wise how would you possibly know what action was taken by a specific editor?

[buzzman]

It is abuse if you have access to editing logs, or if someone is sharing editing logs with you, other wise how would you possibly know what action was taken by a specific editor?

 

I know that because I know some owners of the sites listed in that category that the editor's tried to delete some competitor sites and got his and his friends' sites already ranked there.

 

It's kind of family's business(pals business)

 

I gave up reporting this matter and following up since it's difficult to provide very concrete proof.

[chaos127]

Unless the owners of those sites have access to the editing logs, then they can't know for sure which editor removed their sites. Just because an editor is listed on a category page, it doesn't mean that they are the only person who can edit there. Anyone listed in a higher category can edit there too, along with 200ish editall+ editors.

 

If you've submitted an abuse report with a clear list of removed sites, and a clear list of sites you think the editor may have added for themselves and their friends, then the matter will be / have been investigated. If you can provide evidence linking the editor to the sites added, then this will make things easier for the investigator.

 

Remember though that it's an editors job to add new sites, and remove inappropriate sites -- so just seeing some added and some removed isn't necessarily a sign of abuse. It could well be that the sites that were removed were removed for legitimate reasons, and the sites you saw added were just the result of the editor going though the pool of suggested sites.

[hutcheson]

Unless the owners of those sites have access to the editing logs, then they can't know for sure which editor removed their sites.

 

That's important enough to be emphasized. And it's almost true. "Can't know for sure" really isn't the right phrase. Something like "don't have a clue" or "can't possibly hazard even a useful guess" would be more accurate. "are exhibiting evidence of paranoid monomania if they think they can guess" isn't always fair either: it might be projected malice or some other delusion.

 

It's always amazing to see what some people call "evidence". One alligator considered that an ODP editall had spent six years centered on one particular language in order to suddenly start deleting competitors of a sibling's retail shop. No matter that the sibling was a native of a country at the other end of the continent where a completely different branch language family dominated: All that mattered was the first letter of the family name, and one of the most common Christian (i.e. Greek-etymology) names on the continent.

 

Another alligator cited Google search results on generic terms, of all things, as if they were any indication of competition! -- as if Wikipedia were in competition with allposters.com because they both showed up in a search for "art"!

 

Those examples are from the extremely absurd end of the spectrum, but you'd be amazed how often someone says, "on some random but truly irrelevant statistic my site ranks higher than that site -- so how could that site have been listed first?

 

It's not always the same statistic: sometimes it's number of pages, sometimes it's domain name registration date, sometimes it's the date the site was first suggested, sometimes it's the color scheme of the site's Dreamweaver template, sometimes it's the number of site visitors, sometimes it's the Google rank on some arbitrary but uselessly generic search.

 

And there are what, five billion or so sites on the net? And if some editor CARED about that statistic, which nobody in his right mind would, how could he possibly get a list of all the world's websites and evaluate that statistic on each one? And if he couldn't care, and couldn't get the prioritized list if he did care, how on earth could he make sure the oldest-registered-domain, or the most attractive pastel background, or whatever, gets reviewed first?

 

OK, all of that is the kind of technical detail that makes some people's eyes glaze over. If you were summarizing for management, how would you do it?

 

With very few exceptions ("cooling"), If it's abuse for one editor to do something, it's abuse for any other editor to do it.

 

In other words, If it's really abuse, it doesn't matter who did it.

 

So skip the irrelevant details, like uninformed guesses about who the murderer is, and just show the police where you found the body.

[buzzman]

Hi Folks,

 

I am back again. I found that the abusive editor named his site link using a keyword that I heard it's strickly prohibited by DMOZ. The keyword is the second most popular in my country. I think it's clearly a good proof.

 

It's the only one site on that category using keyword instead of site/blog's name.

[photofox]

If you believe that an editor is abusing the directory, please use the proper channels to report it. As already noted please visit http://report-abuse.dmoz.org/ and submit a report with as much information as you can.

 

Please do not start any other threads on this forum about this topic.