One should entertain the possibility that AOL bought DMOZ in order to keep it out of its competitor's hands. AOL doesn't show signs of wanting to do anything with the ODP. But as long as the ODP belongs to them, it doesn't belong to Google, and it doesn't belong to MSN. AOL has no plan for the ODP, unless "laissez-faire" is a plan. In stark contrast, Google does want to make something out of its Co-Op.
You shouldn't mention AOL this much, somebody from AOL might find this and realize that AOL could save few cents by closing DMOZ like LookSmart did with Zeal.
gworld, it's my pleasure to answer jjwill, troll or not. I couldn't deeplink Rubylane fast enough. A reason had to be found. It was a shame that all my queues were cleared everyday. Worse still, I was actually building categories!!! This had to be stopped. This kind of behavior could not be suffered. I was forcefully ejected from the insane asylum. Not from charges of corruption; but for a single listing error. That's right. One listing error. It was my site, yes; I had dutifully disclosed it, I had nothing to hide. To put things in prespective, at the time, I owned a grand total of 4 domains, 3 listings. Alas, one was not listable for the particular category I listed it in, a category which had slightly different rules, and in which I had temporary permission because I was helping out clearing immense queues. So I didn't even know it didn't fit the inclusion criteria. If I knew, I wouldn't have listed it, because I was as honest and fair as they got. Having a pending (and ignored) mediation request against the head witch-hunter and social misfit kctipton (long time EX-teacher and stay a home fellow - read between the lines) didn't help. Though kctipton meant to skewer me, he did me a favor. Instead of mindlessly visiting websites, writing boring but fair descriptions, scouring the directory for the most appropriate categories to forward wrong submissions, adding every new site I heard about that fit in my categories, I have gone on a website creating rampage. Naturally, this has affected my revenue positively. Volunteering has a price. In hindsight, it was not worth it for me to pay this price because the work, it turns out, has not purpose or use, beyond an academic exercize. The few editors that remain are motivated by a lingering misperception that what they are doing has any use at all. And webmasters continue submitting their sites based on the same misperception. I have not submitted my latest website. Two more are in the pipeline; I won't bother submitting these, either. That's how worthless I consider a DMOZ link to be. The Google Co-Op is far more useful. I like how people can choose to use the information or not, by subscription. I like how the annotations mesh with the SERPs. And annotating sites is very, very efficient. You can accomplish far more, in less time. People don't look for websites. They look for pages. And Google Co-Op allows you to do just that, annotate pages, groups of pages within a site, or the whole site, if it makes sense to do so. And if there are nuts at Google Co-Op, you don't have to deal with them, and they won't bother you. You're on your own. And if you do good, it is noticed.
It was not AOL that bought ODP, it was Netscape. Netscape was taken over by AOL and DMOZ just followed as a part of a package. This whole deal was done in Dot com era when everyone went crazy and companies had so much money that general wisdom was lets buy anything related to Internet and we will decide what to do with the shit later. DMOZ is not the only organization in AOL structure that has no business value but either is kept because nobody can bother to think about what to do with it and just simply killing it, it means taking out the "book" value as a loss. Most likely the geniuses in Netscape that decided to buy the ODP are not even with AOL anymore. You assume that public companies are this big and effective money making machines but in the mean time, many of these companies are only making money for their executives and people who work with financial side of the stock issuance and sales. I think quite contrary to your theory, the mismanagement, abuse and corruption are the result of ODP being a forgotten entity in AOL structure and not a result of corporate policy. Social responsibility while does not have a monetary value by itself, has a monetary value in the form of the good will that it generates and there are many management books about this subject. What do you think will be more beneficial for AOL as a corporation, not making any money from DMOZ, permitting corruption so some "senior" editors can have a financial gain and generate negative publicity and ill will toward AOL or cleaning up the corruption, portray itself as corporation with social responsibility and gaining positive good will?
Yes, you are right on the history lesson, Netscape then AOL. However, the point still remains that a large corporation can't have maverick divisions without direct control, particularly if they are off the mainstream radar. I don't think DMOZ is entirely forgotten though, there is enough evidence to show they know it is there. But clearly are not sure what to do about it. Again you are going on and on about rampant corruption. Again I will repeat that it is not rampant and certainly not a pressing problem. But whatever the scale it is irrelevant to whatever shape DMOZ takes in the future, AOL is not going to relinquish control to a democratic community.
Let's not blame AOL. The doors are pretty much closed to new editors. The rejection process is designed to be humiliating for the applicant. Potential new blood comes from the contaminated pool of mangy webmasters, which must be kept at a safe distance. New applicants are disgusting and their effect on the reviewer is emetic. When the ODP has editors that are willing to help, they are either whipped into shape, or kicked out for any old reason. The ODP is not a democratic community, nor one that embraces "due process." It's a shrinking community of people that will drift away and find better things to do with their time once it dawns on them, one by one, that what they are doing is completely useless, largely unseen, and without influence. In what matters, the editors are in control. What matters is to list sites (though to be fair, it hardly matters at all) and cultivate living, vibrant categories (that no one will see or use). However, they have chosen to behave in a manner contrary to what their goals should be. Not AOL's fault.
NOW that is fuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnny. either you are trying to be a comedian or you don't know very much about big corporations. The whole AOL defense against different civil and criminal charges by SEC and prosecutors was that they didn't know anything and different divisions and people were acting out of control. Look at the Enron and Worldcom trials, it seems CEOs and management are the last people who know what is happening in their company and they have no other interest except the size of their pay check. You are still claiming that corruption is irrelevant while as I have posted before this is the cause that produces the symptoms such as lack of resource that you see as the problem. You are making a mistake that symptoms are the cause of the problems. Your other assumption that you provide no reason or logic for, is that AOL has nothing to gain by installing a democratic organization and fixing the problems. Contrary to your assumption, I argue that AOL as a corporation has nothing to gain by continuation of abuse and corruption and everything to gain by fixing it and generating the good will, developing DMOZ and increasing the book value of this asset. The only difference in our position is that my assumption is based on logic and common sense while yours, is only your assumption and lacks any foundation.
Even the mighty AOL doesn't find that DMOZ is worth saving from itself. They'd rather let it rot, and it's rotting splendidly. The combined inertia, illogic and reactionary culture at DMOZ cannot be conquered. Let's remember that these are the very people that man Resource-Zone. Can you imagine trying to do anything constructive or progressive with the Resource-Zone crew? Those that can, seek to bottle and market concentrated condescension.
Not at all, I am trying to look beyond symptoms. You're the one trying to treat symptoms. Your treatment would kill the patient stone dead though. Since they have not installed a democratic organisation and fixed the problems, nor have shown any signs of wanting to do so, I would say the circumstantial evidence is currently on my side. However, since I am not an AOL insider nor an Admin, I readily accept that this is just one possible theory amongst several. Glad you admitted at long last that it is an assumption, and therefore, by definition, lacking tangible evidence. Unfortunately your logic is flawed and your assumption therefore founded on thin air. Just one possible theory amongst several but unfortunately the fact that not one senior editor has ever in the history of DMOZ come forward to confirm your claims of rampant corruption does tend to show it lacking in credibility. All those thousands of editalls and metas over the years and not one has broken rank, even those removed with zero to lose. One Admin resigned on principle over Topix listings - that makes no sense at all if he had been presiding over mass systematic corruption per your claims. How do you explain the complete absence of corroboration by anyone in a position to know for certain, not just a theorist, and the resignation of an Admin over Topix when according to you far worse things are going on. Your entire house of cards is based on primarily the Adult branch and some pretty dodgy looking practices. Apart from the allegations about 50-ish rubylane listings what other indicators of possible corruption in Shopping branch can you point to? To be honest I had never heard of rubylane before it was mentioned here, but when I did look at the (working) sites listed I did not see anything wrong with them and would probably have listed one or more had I come across them. And I would expect other editors to have come to the same conclusion. In other words I don't see signs of corruption by virtue of rubylane sites being listed.
My assumption was about AOL has everything to gain from fixing the problem and nothing to gain with continuation of present system but you are twisting my words to make it sound like I am making assumption about corruption in DMOZ which is not true. The systematic abuse and corruption are facts as shown by the evidence and not assumption.
I'm sorry, I forgot that twisting words to make others sound like they are saying something they are not is your exclusive calling card. Beg pardon for borrowing your trademark No, you've shown evidence that appears to show corruption in Adult, some of it proven by the removal of editors responsible. Other evidence not proven because it has been investigated many times, including by AOL management, and deemed not to be corrupt. No matter how it might look to the layman. They are, after all, legally entitled to do what they like with their own property, which includes giving dispensation for things that look mighty suspicious. Even so you have shown no evidence that it is widespread or systematic outside Adult and since Adult is less than 0.5% of the directory, what of the other 99.5%? Where is this evidence? Other than in isolated pockets. How many of the millions of listings are, according to you, fraudelently placed?
That is OK, as constant apologist for something that is quite obvious to anyone else, I would expect that you need to twist the other people words.
Not saying the Shopping editors are responsible for the rubylane deeplinks. The will to keep the deeplinks came from ABOVE the Shopping editors, even above a very senior Shopping editor. The editors that dropped by to throw their weight around seemed to come out of nowhere, many I'd never heard of before. Brizzie, you would NOT have deeplinked Rubylane. All stores are easily accessible from the Rubylane mainpage. And since they all sell similar flea-market junk and trinkets, the "stores" are virtually indistinguisable. No one would actually want a "store" but rather, they'd want to purchase an item. The SEARCH function on the Rubylane front page makes it easy to bypass the "store" division, and look at individual items directly. Plus, you can search and re-order the merchandise listings from all the stores COMBINED in a dozen ways. The Rubylane visitor does NOT want to deal with stores individually. He wants to pool all their merchandise together, and search. The main Rubylane front page lets him do that easily. This in contrast with ebay stores, which are unlistable. It's a lot harder finding ebay stores from the ebay mainpage, than from the Rubylane mainpage. Also, ebay stores are often very distinctive, each one with a specialty. Ebay stores are MORE LISTABLE than Rubylane stores, but they have been deemed unlistable by the Powers That Be. Again - I am advocating not listing either Rubylane or ebay stores. But the seniors have decided that Rubylane was to be deeplinked - although these sort of "stores," examplified by the ebay stores, are in fact unlistable. And when an editor starts asking questions about this practice, and sincerely wonders why ebay stores can't be listed, but trinket jewelry Rubylane "stores" HAVE TO BE, any reason to boot that overly inquisitive editor out, no matter how lame, is good enough. Forgive me for thinking this is evidence of some kind of influence peddling, or some payola in the upper ranks.
And once again, therein lies the problem. There is no consistency in DMOZ guidelines and their application across different categories. Most DMOZ editors and admins apparently see no problem in this - and those who do see a problem are vigorouslt slapped down - and most DMOZ editors and admins apparently see no problem in that either. In the real world, DMOZ would have imploded years ago.
Statistics show that the implosion has begun in earnest. The directory is moving backwards (it is led, after all, by the rear-guarde) in terms of listings and editor actions. The disproportion between the size of the directory and the size of the web is ever increasing. It's a losing battle. It's an implosion. Kablooie!
It's probable indeed; nothing is impossible unless AOL implements a comprehensive reorganization and not just have blind eye and a deaf ear on what is supposed to be done. Hope is for hopeless which is DMOZ.
It may look fishy, it may smell fishy, it may have seagulls congregating overhead but that doesn't mean it is a fisherman's wharf just after the haddock trawler has docked. If editors in Adult branch had tacit agreement from the site owners to list sites in the way they did then it is not technically corruption, is it. Amongst the many issues DMOZ has, widespread systematic corruption is not rampant, nor is dealing with what corruption does exist a top priority as Google is solving the problem for DMOZ. You are taking some bad things about DMOZ, such as the secrecy and paranoid fear of promoting editors, and drawing conclusions from that. You avoided answering this one gworld, how does your theory answer it: All those thousands of editalls and metas over the years and not one has broken rank, even those removed with zero to lose. One Admin resigned on principle over Topix listings - that makes no sense at all if he had been presiding over mass systematic corruption per your claims. How do you explain the complete absence of corroboration by anyone in a position to know for certain, not just a theorist, and the resignation of an Admin over Topix when according to you far worse things are going on. Your entire house of cards is based on primarily the Adult branch and some pretty dodgy looking practices.