Yes I remember reading that thread a while back, the kiddy porn site getting listed is completely disgusting.
Well, a listing in dmoz helps ranking on SERPS for some small range of key phrases and keywords. I noticed that once i listed a site there well it ranks better on google SERPS. And thats the sad point of DMOZ. From a user point of view, dmoz list some sites that nobody wants to hear about. From a seo point of view, some people depends of SEO for their business online, DMOZ can be a good help for some of them, and DMOZ doesnt help those people. DMOZ is just corrupted as hell and i will never trully understand why google put too much into it.
I think you put too much emphasis on the ODP as a SEO tool. Yeah it might help, but there are lots and lots of other websites that are equally (or more)effective. That’s the problem with forums like this; they are full of site owners with their knickers in a knot over the perceived necessity of a ODP listing. Look it’s just another link. Get over it.
DMOZ has no aims or objectives intended to help webmasters in any way, shape or form. Google understands what DMOZ actually is - intended to eliminate SEO techniques as a factor in results for the Internet surfer. That method, manual review, carries with it a few risks including the fact that resource limitations mean only 1% of websites are listed and only 5-10% of websites have been reviewed. Corruption is also a risk, and despite what gworld says, the number of sites affected is probably less than 1% of the total sites listed. This is because the vast bulk of sites listed are done by a smallish group whose editing records have been analysed a thousand times or more. Google search is a way webmasters can manipulate the relevance of results to the surfing public through investment of time and money into SEO and not necessarily into quality site content. DMOZ takes the exact opposite approach and there is room for both approaches and let the surfers take their pick. As an editor I listed over 8,000 new websites. And that is quite modest really compared to others. Compostannie who posts here is on nearly 40,000. Most of the others in the core group of editors range between 10,000 and over 100,000. Are you seriously asking people to believe that several million sites have been listed by a few hundred people as part of some marketing scam and no hard evidence has ever emerged of this? No serving or former editall, meta, or admin has ever blown the whistle on a conspiracy that they must have been involved in according to your theories, even those removed and unhappy about it or resigned? Let's face it, if you are right and this is a gravy train for metas then a removed meta would have every reason in the world to expose it wouldn't they. And none ever have. Because there is no conspiracy to expose. What you are talking about in terms of corrupt editors are isolated people working alone and if they truly are corrupt then one day they will trip themselves up and get caught even the most clever of them.