Really? Ishfish poured fire and brimstone on an Admin just a few weeks ago. He, Siddy and Brizzie seemed at times to be in competition for who could be rudest to the management. The theory that Admins dispose of those who challenge them falls down when you look at the people still editing.
I don't agree with Isfish about a lot of things but I think he is honest about his opinions. I don't remember what discussion you are referring too but was that discussion in any way a treat to "senior" editors financial interests? I don't understand what your point about Sid? He can try to act independent at times but he is always ready to serve in the end of the day. I think brizzie's problem with management is just friendly fight between friends about who has the biggest D**K and I am just waiting for them to kiss and make up. There is a big difference to argue or use harsh words and trying to change the power structure and treating the financial interests.
Well now GWorld. Let's start with your underlying assumption that senior editors have financial interests in the ODP. To anyone who views the world as revolving around money, with no other motivation counting for anything, that will be a natural assumption. But is it true? Minstrel can no doubt tell us that human nature is a complex thing. People can have a whole slew of motivations, some of which may not make sense even to their nearest and dearest. How often do we see an editor reveal that their spouse/partner thinks they are potty to spend so much time editing. Why? If we were all doing it for financial reasons, that would be easy to explain to our complaining kin. We are not. It's like someone trying to explain why they spend hours doing Sudoku or dressing up and running around with weaponry in Civil War reenactment groups. Why do we do the things we do? Some senior editors don't even have a website. Some have a blog or personal site which they haven't bothered to list. I did a burst of cleaning up in a Personal Homepages category once and came across about three sites of editors all waiting in unreviewed. All of these editors had risen to editall and could have listed their own site. They didn't. Commercial site ownership seems much more common among ordinary editors than the higher level ones. As far as I know it is non-existent among Admins. In fact I believe that Admins were selected partly because of their complete lack of conflicts of interest.
One editor lists own sites against the guideline and Meta is the supplier to those sites (no DMOZ secret, just simple search in Google) and you are talking about if senior editors have financial interest, are you really this naive or just pretending?
There is no fight, the answer to the first part is very obvious, though I haven't submitted the evidence to 20 assorted Adult galleries as yet as I'm trying to sort out the affiliate links. Once I've done that can I borrow one of your accounts to do the listings? As to kissing and making up I very much doubt that will happen, there is no love lost on either side. We could arrange a meeting and submit the photos to an S&M category though.
Feel free to scour the Web for commercial websites owned by me GWorld. What a hoot! I was a sad disappointment to my family because I had no interest in commerce. I would be totally useless at making money online.
My concern was about this category: Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project And in particular the Research Papers subcategory.
If in the first part, you are referring to yourself, that can be disputed. After all you are out and they are in. What are you trying to sort out? to figure out the abusive listings in DMOZ is so simple, that isn't even funny. Simple Google search reveal who's who. Sorry, but I don't participate in S&M. My taste is simple in sex but I recommend that you contact the Meta, you have the email. What is this got to do with anything?
Thanks sid, Annie, and brizzie. I enjoyed editing with you all. I miss you guys. Why would opposing Rubylane deeplinking even be a cause of Metas looking up my edit logs, unless they themselves were corrupt and had some vested interest in Rubylane? Only if they were smoking crack in a hot tub of LSD, would they have found anything even remotely fishy in my logs. They had to WANT to find something, they had to be very motivated, because I know in my heart that there was nothing for them to find. It's truly a shame what they've done, and how they've done it.
Helleborine - we have had one or two editors who delisted the sites of competitors. Some of our critics imagine that we are all doing it! That is rubbish. Nevertheless if only a few do it, that is a bad thing that metas want to stamp out. They come down very hard if they get a whiff of it. So when someone argues in a vehement way for the removal of a slew of sites, that could ring alarm bells. So some meta could do a routine check-up of your editing logs. That might have come up with something that looked off-key. It might have nothing to do with Rubylane. Now if your conscience is clear, then they were in error. That would be a great shame. I agree. I sometimes feel that all metas should be forced to take six months off abuse work in every two years. Doing it constantly could turn anybody into a cynic, who imagines the worst in all cases.
Dear Miss Meta, Six months for abuse ? While other hardworking and honest editors were removed from DMOZ for the so called term ABUSE, would it be fair to partially imply a six months time off for Metas ? Fair ? I think the evaluation for editors with the same would be appropriate. Best Regards.
Genie isn't a meta though she would be a fantastic one and DMOZ has missed a trick by not promoting her. Genie was referring to the stresses and strains of metas investigating and dealing with abuse. Even when you get involved in the periphery of such cases it can get nasty. As to removed editors - some have been very hardworking, adding inappropriate sites, removing competitors, etc. that is true, but in all but a single case, that of helleborine, the cause of the removal was always clear to me from an examination of the individual's editing logs. Your removal was after my retirement so I don't know if you would have been number 2. But your actions since, in rejoining under different account(s) don't suggest a particularly honorable approach to having been removed. When you do that you instantly lose any moral highground you might have had. You accuse others of abuse then break the rules yourself - since when did two wrongs make a right? Since you did that then it sounds to me like the original removal, whether it was justified or not, was the right thing in the end.
Cynic would be understatement, I'm cynic but at lest I got sense of humor (a la Black Adder). It took very quickly after one of my humorous post at WMW while I was still "defending" DMOZ for certain senior editor to move to unreviewed only deeplink to my website which I have personally added to DMOZ until then since allegedly description was hype - I wonder how did such error pass meta who approved my second application for that category (first one was rejected because I used word HUGE in description of "competitors" websites and even that was understatement ) and one of three URL's I used in my application was my deeplink with that description and clearly stated that it was my websites. I'm guessing there is way to much paranoia going on in completely wrong direction - if somebody wanted and looked hard enough through edit logs he could probably "find" enough "proofs" to accuse anyone (even brizzie, annie etc.) of anything - and meta secrecy isn't helping anyone.
Absolutely. I once went to review a category and found a listing with an appalling keyword stuffed description and spammy title. I opened the report abuse form in another window before taking a look to see who listed the site. It was me, I had listed the site, I must have clicked to list it instead of cancelling the edit window and not noticed. I have to admit I didn't report myself, I corrected the listing instead. When you are doing a thousand or more edits a month you will make mistakes. What if a meta in a nasty mood had come across it first. And looked deeper. Could he/she have found 100 or more mistakes amongst my 23,000 logged edits? Probably. 23,000 is modest for many senior editors, some have over 100,000. So if you looked hard enough could you find hundreds of mistakes in every senior editor's logs, too right you could. Mistakes don't equal abuse though but they can be seen that way by outsiders and also by jaded and paranoid metas.
DMOZ rule of thumb: Mistakes in inconvenient editors log equals abuse, all abuse by Metas and Admins equals to exception. If you are a danger to the power structure, economical interest and dare to speak, you can be assured that "abuse" WILL BE FOUND.
Sweet of you Brizzie, but I'm not a manager. What abuse? I don't know of any abuse by Admins. And frankly it's well-nigh impossible to believe that it could occur with the current crop of Admins. We have had the occasional removal of a Meta. Which is proof enough that some have failed to meet the high standards required. And they have been thrown out. No excuses accepted. I know that you have a bee in your bonnet about one current meta. That has coloured your view of the entire body of metas. That may be understandable, but it is not logical.
(sigh) Minstrel if you have any evidence of nefarious deeds by the ODP management, as in actual, hard, solid evidence of corruption, or abuse of the directory, then let's have it. Innuendo isn't good enough.
Since you and other DMOZ editors seem to adhere to an unusually idiosyncratic definition of "abuse", and since reading the numerous threads at DP and other forums have not penetrated to date, I doubt that there is a lever long enough or a crane strong enough to unwedge you from that sand now. As long as you're happy...