DMOZ followup - SIX MONTHS!!

[quenting]

Okay, but I remember a while ago I applied to become an editor. Nothing happened, so I guess they are doing fine with the amount of editors then??

no, because having good editors is seen as more important than having many editors, as i mentionned in my first post in this thread. If your application was rejected, there is 99% chances that something was wrong with it.
Only very experienced editors review applications and if you do something wrong in it you will get rejected.

[Backlinker1]

several points.

Hajduk... I obviously dont know about your particular application but i do know that dmoz lost loads of them during a period of several months a year or so ago when their servers were being updated.

Jake cop
re mistakes... I was just talking in general, a mistake from one persons perspective can be 'doing my job properly' from anothers perspective. I have deliberately not looked at your site as I would have no influence or control in your individual case and would not want to make personal comments here.

As for listing my own site... yes I did, and I AM allowed to. When I applied for editorship ( successful on 2nd try ) I told them I had a site waiting in that category to be listed, and that I already had another site listed in the next category up. That is never a problem, dmoz are sensible enough to know that editors will have their own sites, in fact they sort of encourage it, as someone with a site in their category will obviously have some knowledge on the subject. They do expect you to list all your sites and alliances in your profile though, which seems fair enough.

As for removing other sites and putting in your own.... I dont know, I guess some might be tempted to do that, but it seems a nonsence to me. I dont regard the other sites in my category as 'competition' I cannot imagine anything worse than being the only site on the internet about my chosen subject. I guess this might depend on the subject, their are not that many sites in my category anyway,but the existance of other sites just gives me something to be different to and better than. How can anyone know I have the best site on the web if they dont have anything else to compare it with ( OK that was tounge in cheek )

Graham

[petertdavis]

I have seen (I believe) the single greatest and most obvious abuse of power that is possible within the DMOZ system, which is someone removing my site and adding their site with the exact same subject manner right in its place, but no one really cares. If anyone important at DMOZ reads this thread and truly does, I'd be glad to share it privately.

I'd like to see some of you DMOZ people address this. I've seen stuff likethis too. Face the real problems and stop saying that everyone who complains is just a spammer.

[quenting]

Face the real problems and stop saying that everyone who complains is just a spammer.

Lol, this is an unexpected comment from a sitepoint mentor. Did you just read what we wrote ? is there anywhere where we say all people complaining are spammers ? There's a difference between submitting a site to a wrong category and spamming. Plus if you read the threads from the editors who posted here i think it is obvious we recognized there were problems with the system as it is currently.
Thing is, we (we are not "dmoz people", just editors) are not the people that can solve those problems, and there will always be problems, problems similar to the ones google has when spam sites reach the top of the serps, and the ones wikipedia has when a nobody just spams his url in an article.
It is really too bad that a wrong behaviour from very few editors has such implications on the image of the ODP as a whole, while most editors do their job well, and it's really too much of a shortcut to blame a system for a few people's bad actions.

[iFroggy]

Backlinker1,

I don't believe that you can do anything, but do not call it nonsense. It is not nonsense. I saw it with my own eyes. I know what happened and why it happened. I know who did it and why they did it. It is the most purest example of DMOZ editor abuse that can exist and it is 100% indefensible. I would be glad to privately lay the entire case out to anyone who had the power to do anything about it, as eliminating folks like this is good for DMOZ. Any half way reasonable person would clearly see, once they had all of the information in front of them. As I said, in your position, there is nothing you can do and there is nothing that I expect you to do. But, please do not tell me it is nonsense.

Thank you.

[Backlinker1]

Oops.
Sorry Ifroggi, I wasn't saying what you said was nonsence. I meant that the idea of romoving other sites to benefit your own was a nonsensical thing to do. the only reason I can see for doing it would be to drop an opposing sites PR and PR just aint that important

graham

[iFroggy]

I see. Ok, then.

Thanks.

[HomeOfficeVoice]

Leaving aside all personal experiences/problems with DMOZ previously posted doesn't it seem that there's a real conflict of interest here:

editors of dmoz categories having their own sites listed and having the power over other sites (competitiors). Yes, I know that this is because they have knowledge of their subject but it's still a conflict - even if its only a perception.

I'm sure that most editors do the right thing but what's stopping an editor from 'dragging out' listing sites? Are there any safeguards against this?

I dont regard the other sites in my category as 'competition' I cannot imagine anything worse than being the only site on the internet about my chosen subject

In business, that's exactly what you want.


.

[JakeCop]

Jake cop
re mistakes... I was just talking in general, a mistake from one persons perspective can be 'doing my job properly' from anothers perspective. I have deliberately not looked at your site as I would have no influence or control in your individual case and would not want to make personal comments here.

That's part of the problem at Dmoz, none of the editors will comment, or even look at the omnipotent decisions made by other editors. Someone has clearly made an error, buried their head in the sand and everyone else has said 'nowt to do with me mate'.

[quenting]

That's part of the problem at Dmoz, none of the editors will comment, or even look at the omnipotent decisions made by other editors.

You talk about what you do not know. They will not comment publicly, because one editor is not supposed to talk for dmoz as a whole but there is a very active private discussion forum for dmoz editors with more than a million posts where editors can discuss (and they do) this type of issues with the others.
The fact that you do not see what's happenning does not mean nothing happens, even though there is obviously also a problem with public communications in the ODP as it is now.

[JakeCop]

You talk about what you do not know. They will not comment publicly, because one editor is not supposed to talk for dmoz as a whole but there is a very active private discussion forum for dmoz editors with more than a million posts where editors can discuss (and they do) this type of issues with the others.
The fact that you do not see what's happenning does not mean nothing happens, even though there is obviously also a problem with public communications in the ODP as it is now.

You've not disagreed with what I said though. The editors will not comment, or look at other decisions. That's true, they won't comment - and always give the answer that they will not look at a specific case. That's what they say, their official line.

You're dead right about the problem with public communication. The system sets itself up to have this cloak and dagger mistique, by saying nothing about appeals and giving out no information, they've got to expect people will mistrust them.

[petertdavis]

Lol, this is an unexpected comment from a sitepoint mentor. Did you just read what we wrote ? is there anywhere where we say all people complaining are spammers ? There's a difference between submitting a site to a wrong category and spamming. Plus if you read the threads from the editors who posted here i think it is obvious we recognized there were problems with the system as it is currently.
Thing is, we (we are not "dmoz people", just editors) are not the people that can solve those problems, and there will always be problems, problems similar to the ones google has when spam sites reach the top of the serps, and the ones wikipedia has when a nobody just spams his url in an article.
It is really too bad that a wrong behaviour from very few editors has such implications on the image of the ODP as a whole, while most editors do their job well, and it's really too much of a shortcut to blame a system for a few people's bad actions.

Surprised that some people understand how terrible the leadership at DMOZ is, and aren't just saying it because they couldn't get their affiliate site listed? Yes, I suppose you are not used to getting critisizm from people who aren't submitting affiliate sites, yes. I don't believe for a minute that it's just a "very few editors". The entire structure of DMOZ is corrupt by nature. How could it not be? It's inane to believe that a majority of DMOZ editors are there volunteering their time out of their generousity for humanity. People apply for mercenary means, and the application process itself guarantees that only the least-honest people there are successful.

[Backlinker1]

<quote>
and the application process itself guarantees that only the least-honest people there are successful.
</quote>

So that is why so many people get turned down ? Wow, I didn't realize that. I always thought that having to submit three sites with decent publishable descriptions was aimed at finding those who could write legible English. If this application process manages to find corrupt individuals I can think of several law enforcement agencies that would love to know about it.

I cannot remember the last time I read such utter garbage.

Graham

[petertdavis]

Deny it all you want. I still haven't seen any of you comment on the abuse Patrick mentioned.

[asp-hosting.ca]

DMOZ is not the "one-and-only" directory out there. Concentrate your efforts on getting quality links and you'll be rewarded .

[subnet_rx]

I'd love to see how many clicks a site gets out of DMOZ anyway. If two pages of comments are over a backlink, someone has too much time on their hands.

[petertdavis]

I'd love to see how many clicks a site gets out of DMOZ anyway. If two pages of comments are over a backlink, someone has too much time on their hands.

Getting listed is primarily for the backlinks, you generally wouldn't get many clicks from the directory itself.

[quenting]

The entire structure of DMOZ is corrupt by nature. How could it not be? It's inane to believe that a majority of DMOZ editors are there volunteering their time out of their generousity for humanity.

sorry, but your position is just very sad. There's no reason what you're saying would only be applicable to dmoz, if it was true it would be for any project with people dedicating their time without being paid, so bye bye open source, bye bye wikipedia, bye bye half of the internet.

Deny it all you want. I still haven't seen any of you comment on the abuse Patrick mentioned.

proved wrong on an assessment, then turning to something else...
We won't comment on this just because we don't have the necessary background to do so (you don't either, still you argue). We do not have the tools to investigate much either, so there's no real point to mentionning this over and over again. There are abuses, yes, there are problems yes, many of them, still these problems are not only DMOZ's, they're the same any site with a large contributors base is facing. As long as you can get benefits from the system, there will always be people only there to abuse it, it does not mean it is the case for everyone, it does not mean the service is worthless.

You've not disagreed with what I said though. The editors will not comment, or look at other decisions. That's true, they won't comment - and always give the answer that they will not look at a specific case. That's what they say, their official line.

You're dead right about the problem with public communication. The system sets itself up to have this cloak and dagger mistique, by saying nothing about appeals and giving out no information, they've got to expect people will mistrust them.

I definitely agree on this, dmoz would need a communication tool, as well as man other improvements mentionned above. The leadership team seems to not be willing to spend as much time on these as one could hope, but there are many things to be improved and i can assure these guys have stuff to keep them busy. Sadly they often seem to be more keen on spending time reorganising parts of the hierarchy than on key issues. I could be wrong though, i've only been editing for 6 months and miss visibility on this as much as a non editor.

[Christoph]

Why not start charging $1.00 per listing. That should bring in about $0.60 per listing x several million domains ..... you can implement tools and even pay editors bonuses if their queue is empty or very small. Even hire a auditor to check the work of the editors.

Christoph

[SeoGuy]

DMoz is a joke, i submitted sites last year, checked with the staff that i submitted corectly, funnily enough, they arent listed.

SIGH..

[asp-hosting.ca]

I'd love to see how many clicks a site gets out of DMOZ anyway. If two pages of comments are over a backlink, someone has too much time on their hands.

I get very few clicks from DMOZ. The thing is that the DMOZ listing automatically means, GOOGLE directory listing and possibly more back links from those annoying DMOZ clones sites.

[subnet_rx]

then why don't we start a webmaster petition for a change in DMOZ

[GrumpyDaSmurf]

I asked several times to be an editor and I never get a response.

I can help cut down on that lead time. I've applied to be an editor for businesses in my area

[MaxS]

I'm not suprised. I sent an application in around 5 months ago and I haven't recieved a response.

[mixDev]

Why can't dmoz have a set policy in place that all editors adhere to. And that everyone knows about. What's wrong with first-come, first-serve etc.,

Who said it is not there. DMOZ is having very high number of guidelines and policies. A new editor(such as me) have to spend more time on documentation than see the actual link requests. But, thats for good as far as quality is concerned. Also some of the categories will have private guidelines that apply to them.

Nothing more because most of them have been discussed already.

-Arun