Always a possibility, I don't think that is the case but wouldn't be so arrogant as to assume I knew for sure. If it is the case, I am seeing no indication of it but then as I said only AOL can say what their plans are for it.
And what makes you think it's a server problem? It doesn't take over two months to get servers back up. Two of my friends had a server crash simultaneously with their backup server after a bad weather incident. They had to use forensic extraction techniques to recover the data from the drives and even at that they had everything (or all the main stuff) back online in a week. This is more likely to be a database-related problem. But even that shouldn't take over two months if anyone who actually cares and knows what they're doing is really working on the problem. And by the way, I'm if course not suggesting that editors are working on it. I'm suggesting that if anyone at all is really working on it, either they don't know what they're doing or they have assigned the task a very low priority.
The only information that has been given indicates server issues. And I have no doubt it has been assigned a low priority. Given the fact that AOL continues to announce call center closings and layoffs. I wouldn't be surprised to find out the techs have more important things to do related to moving and restructuring the call centers and networks at AOL, than worrying about any repairs or other technical problems with regards to dmoz. Again, I don't know. Just speculating but seems plausible.
You won't want to know I am sure, but this one source of information: We are currently experiencing technical problems with our servers. Currently the public pages are static pages that have been generated from a backup. It is based on the information being made available to the editors and is still the indication that I get from internal discussions. Until AOL says otherwise, that is all there is available to go on.
It has been a porn directory for a long time but some of the editors were claiming that they were not involved in the adult side because it was a separate section. Now that porn has moved to the main section, we can safely say that ALL the DMOZ editors are involved in porn web sites.
That's from the Resourceless Zone. They do not even speak for DMOZ, let alone for AOL. Those do not sound like server problems to me. They sound like motsa doesn't know what the hell s/he's talking about.
Oh C'mon... stop picking on DMOZ... I'm sure they are all quality sites... My family friendly site (Keepsakes for Keeps) on the other hand, is trash
Nothing has changed, gworld, but of course you already knew that. Porn is not part of the main directory, it is seperated as it always has been in Adult. The search feature of DMOZ (AFAIK) however can be used to search for Adult topics and will return Adult Categories if the correct search terms are included. This is nothing new, alking about it like its something new is misleading. Porn has not moved to the main directory, it is still in Adult/. One searching for Adult Topics will return Adult categories, if you start looking for 'metal detectors' you are not going to get Adult links in the results.
What do you base your opinion on? No RZ doesn't speak for AOL but it does pass along any information intended for public consumption. I have NO reason to believe that statement is untrue, nor have I seen anything concrete internally indicating anything other than server issues. Until then all I can do is speculate, at least I will admit that I can't know for sure.
See my comment about motsa's pronouncement above. Note also the date of the quoted post: October 25, 2006, 05:31 AM "Server problems" in this case means "I have no idea why it's not working"...
I base my opinion on information and logic. I have informations that the excuses are nothing but BS but even if I didn't have the information, a logical analyze of the situation would prove that the excuses are just that and nothing else. What does server problem mean? Is it hardware or software? If it is hardware, is it reasonable that a company like AOL runs DMOZ only on one computer and can not replace a hardware such as computer, router,... for 2 months? If it is a software crash, is it reasonable to assume that AOL has no backup that it can restore from? Is it reasonable that restore from a back up can take 2 months? If they have no back up for data, they obviously still have the RDF dump, is it reasonable to assume that they can not import the information from RDF to the original system in 2 months? The answer to these questions is NO and that is the reason that Motsa and RZ are as usual just full of it and don't know what they are talking about.
Ahh, so you have 'informations' that of course you cannot point to or say who provided it that leads you to that conclusion. That sounds familiar, pretty much what you are accusing dmoz of isn't it? It won't do any good for me to continue to try and speculate as 1)it would just be that, speculation, and 2)it wouldn't mean anything if it couldn't be pointed directly to an official announcement from AOL. I can easily foresee things that could occur to a low priority project, that compounded with other things could result in an extended down time but trying to explain them would be a waste of time since there will always be 'counter points' that can be given. I will leave the speculation to you (based on your secret information of course ) and wait patiently until AOL makes a closing announcement or as I suspect the directory returns.
Just discuss what I posted about what does server problem mean. You obviously don't know very much about internal working of DMOZ since your previous post about who works on software and staff and editors role was wrong to, but by all means listen to Motsa and RZ and continue on making ASSumptions.
I never claimed to know much about your image of the 'inner workings' of dmoz but how do you suppose I was wrong in regards to who worked on the "Servers"? I said nothing about software (if I did it was a mistake). Editors (including the technical editors who do work on software and tools) are not AOL Tech Staff so having access to the servers in the compacity of fixing any hardware problems is not something editors can do.