What the ODP Is and Isn't

Crowbar, I see you here daily and on the Dmoz forums. You and about 8 others not counting newbies (spider-man, seem to be the only very active editors not arrogant in some way. No offense, especially to you, but that is why I post here instead of DMOZ. Anyways, what can I do to get you or someone that can help to actually look at my site? Although my niche only has 40 something, my regional (down to my city) has only around ten and none of the local businesses are related.

 

The Guidelines are just that, a flexible set of general rules that allow for common sense editor discretion. They are meant for the use of editors, but they are also open to the publics view, so they understand how we edit. It's an openness we're not required to do, but that we do.

If what you're saying is true, how would you explain 6 million websites and 6,000 current editors? Make that 5,999 editors, I have no websites, so how do you explain me? I'm the only honest one?

 

Yes, but most directories will send you something saying why or why not your site was accepted or if your site was accepted or not. ODP does nothing. If it doesn't make the grade then fine, but at least a rejection email would be appreciated. After say, three mouths or more, you start thinking to yourself, did it even make it through? Did they get it? That is the most likely reason people submit over once.

 

Okay, this may explain it:

"Re: I got rejected, why?????????????"

 

True. The details of why rejected can be a pain but that still explains why many will submit more than once. If you are not going to do that then that is fine and understandable but you shouldn't ban a site for re-submitting. Unless submissions are being abused of coarse.

 

Of course it does. Earlier you are comparing applications to become an editor with submissions. When rejecting an editor application there is a choice of radio buttons to click, each giving different reasons in the reject letter.

What are you are proposing? Perhaps we could give the following options of letters for editors to send out to submitters.

• Thank you for submitting you site over 1000 times to 100 different categories. In the past we would have blocked submissions of your site , but now we let you know about it so you can ty again .
  
• Thank you for submitting your site and the 3 mirrors of it. Rather than flag the mirror and list the actual site we thought it would be better to let you know that we detected your deception so you can have another crack at getting them listed. Goog luck!
  
• Thank you for submission of the cloaked site. When we look at the site when we see a site selling pencils, when a user looks at the site they see porn. In the past we would ban your ass but now we ask that you take the time to adjust the site so that you can fool us properly.
  
• Your MFA site is has minimal content and is crap . Add some more content and resubmit it. And if that is rejected add even more content, keep doing this until you get it accepted. This will result in a site with absolutely the minimum content being listed. Do not read the guidelines, and keep throwing mud at the wall until it sticks

Christopher, you have previously explained how to post strategicly in forums to increase the post SEO value, you will sell links on anything for small change, if someone wants to learn a cheap and tacky SEO trick then you are the man, but please do not for one second pretend to know what is best for a project that seeks to create a comprehensive interent resource.

Yes there is a lot the directory can do to work with and not against the webmasters. But one also needs to recognise that the goals of the submittter and the editor are often quite different.

 

I am talking about site submissions and not editor stuff. Why not give a bug-off email? Something generic like rejected because you did not follow the guidelines (and list the guidelines). I am sure you know how to handle the worthless and spam sites. That should be a given. But how much is too much for non crap sites? Once per year, every few months? Only once? Even an email stating if you don't hear back by... please resubmit or the category is not specific enough etc. Nothing at all leaves us to think we should submit again or something is wrong or lost. With 6000 editors and millions of sites human edited, that certainly can happen.

 

Are you mentally ill? Seriously! You need mental assistance. Read what I wrote earlier and stop trolling. It's bad for Digital Point, and as you are an editor, it's bad for DMOZ.

Is that how the ODP treats would be editors that submit their applications 1000's of times? Is that how they treat editors that list three of their own sites? Is that how they treat would be editors that submit non-compliant sites?

Seriosuly, stop trolling.

Thank you for the compliments on saying I know about SEO. Though, you should actually take your own advice and give the most important point on what you are talking about. To promote your sig, you should post as part of the community and put that community above and beyond your own signature.

However, all that is moot isn't it? I mean, I openly admit that I sell links... the ODP hides that fact. Were you trying to show I am more credible then the ODP or was your point in making this personal for some other reason?

I have submitted many sites that are not my own, that means those submissions are as the end user. Many editors are webmasters.

What you are saying does not make much sense. If the end user IS the surfer, then it stands to reason that most submissions would be from the end user... even letting them know why a site is not listable is a good thing, as it will prompt them to start submitting sites that are, or to stop.

Either way, if it can help the web as a whole, and specifically offer additional listable sites for the ODP, then how is it bad, regardless of who the reply is emailed too?

 

This is complete nonsense. The vast majority of submissions are from SEOs and webmasters. And their goal is to get their sites listed. No one is going to agree with you that there is a significant body of surfers out there submitting sites to any directory just for the heck of it. You are constructing some sort of cuckoo-cuckoo land straw man argument just to prove a silly point. Time for a another cup of tea Christopher.

 

So, what you are saying is that the end user is in fact NOT who the ODP keeps claiming them to be? Thank you for proving another point... the ODP IS there for webmasters and NOT the web surfers.

Kind of goes against what Crowbar was saying in that first post doesn't it?

 

I don't follow your logic Christopher, it does not make any sense at all. You have constructed a fallacious argument, presented it as another persons and then exposed flaws in the argument which was ultimately your own.

No one [except you] is saying that submissions come in the main from general surfers, other than webmasters.

 

@Talis

Your point of view is calm and reasonable, but, short of having an automated system to do that, it would be impossible for editors to take on another burden, we're short handed. And an automated system requires resources that the Directory needs to use elsewhere. Right now, it's just not a priority because it has nothing to do with building the Directory, even though it might be a nice feature to have.

 

Thanks Crowbar. Threads like this make it much more interesting than ODP forums. I went there again last night and almost threw up. Names like "Shadow" and pictures of wizards and mystery crap in the profile of some of these clowns really makes a strong statement about arrogance. Even Noble (who seems respectable) is a smart ass half the time in his posts. Really, no straight answers at all. Just "read the guidlines" or "try again" or "too bad". If they only knew the second and I mean the second G stops pulling results from them, they are gone just like that. Puft wizard!

 

How do you get listed in Dmoz quickly?

 

You don't, you submit and wait patiently along with 100,000+ other site owners who also have the very best site on the Internet, .

Site suggestions that you submit are scattered across 600,000 categories and there are roughly 6,000 volunteer editors. How quickly a site gets reviewed is pure luck. It might be a couple of days or a couple of years, and there is no guarantee your site is one that we need, not all sites are accepted, .

There's no way to predict if or when a suggested site will be looked at and possibly added to the Directory because we don't know ourselves. Editors are all volunteers who edit as a hobby in their free time.

 

If the submissions are not coming from the web surfer, then that would lend itself to the end user being the submitter, as they are the ones actually using the directory. If the submitter is mostly webmasters, then the only flaw in log is yours...

If the ODP does not want or need the submissions from webmasters, and if webmasters are in the majority for submitting, then maybe that option should be removed from the ODP all together.

All I am saying is that if the end user (as the web surfer) is not bright enough to submit, then why even allow the option?

I've already stated that I've submitted more sites as a web surfer then a web master... are you saying that I'm a liar? Are you saying that the only reason anyone submits a site to DMOZ is because they own the site or were paid?

In fact, one should assume that the majority of the submissions come from the end user... and if the end user IS the webmaster, then maybe the flaw lies with DMOZ itself in it's notion on just who that end user is.

Go ahead, and disagree with me, but know too, that if you still feel that the majority of those submissions are from webmasters, then the supposed end user is not who the ODP keeps claiming them to be, and that is an important aspect of "What the ODP Is and Isn't"...

 

Shadow is a very good editor, and a meta editor. Nobody means to sound cocky, but after you've answered the same questions over and over again, thousands of times, and the same info is in the forum FAQ, and you've been attacked time after time, your attitude might become a little jaded and impatient without you realizing it. It's snuck in on me too.

jimnoble is also a respected meta who works tirelessly answering questions at RZ, but, unlike some of the motor mouths like me, he can boil an answer down to one or two sentences, whereas I usually write a book.

Often times, the most accurate answer is to point you to the official Guidelines or a FAQ. It's not blowing you off, it's trying to be accurate.

They both have forgotten more than I know.

Usually, when you're trying to answer questions correctly, you're going over all the facts in your mind and trying to relate them to the question you're trying to answer, I think, and not paying too much attention to your delivery style. I have my days too, where I just don't put things the way I intended to.

I like Google, use them in all my searches, and they are our biggest user, I imagine, but, whether they or anyone else uses our data really isn't relevant (in my opinion) to the task of building the Directory.

Look at us as an island, a seperate, unafilliated, individual organization that is freely building a product. We're not influenced by anyone, and we're only concerned with building the product.

That product is then freely offered to anyone who wants to use it.

We invite site suggestions from anyone, but we have no obligation to use them in our building. The product we build tries to cover all legal topics, different views, and information about geographic areas, but we try to whittle it down to the sites that have the most value to a category, rather than being all inclusive. We sort the sites so that the searcher doesn't have to.

Only a human edited Directory could do that because it requires judgement, something a machine doesn't have. Also, a machine is predictable, it operates by certain rules. Once those rules are learned, they can be manipulated by unscrupulous people. A human edited Directory is unpredictable.

We invite individuals who can follow our procedures, and honestly want to join in our efforts, but we won't accept individuals who seem to be less than honest or who seem to have an agenda of their own. It wouldn't be fair to the rest of us, and it wouldn't be in the best interests of the Directory.

The application is a process to weed out those individuals we do and don't want, using the very little information available to us.

 

Good point. There are only so many questions to be asked and the majority are the ones you hear time and time again. Get used to it or don't answer.

Didn't say he wasn't. Sorry for saying that. The short replies do come off as snippy and I took it the wrong way.

I understand that and agree but the point was made and it is true. Take out all the webmasters who submit because of Google pulling results means no more odp. I can't think of a single person besides webmasters that use ODP. Maybe in the academic field or marketing companies that I never heard of. I used to use it before the regular search engines have advanced to where they are now. That was in the late 90's.

You have to admit that the names and profile photos leads one to think that some of these people do think they are high and mighty and have the power. It is not cool and frusterates people even more.

I looked at my catagory again last night. Out of 41, 9 were not working and 5 were the same company with different locations (I guess a franchise). Everyone has some kind of agenda to want to become an editor (most good). A lot, including myself, wants to become a editor because of the results in our catagory like I just mentioned. And yes, have our sites included as well

 

That's a common misunderstanding, . If all site suggestions stopped today, it would have no effect on the Directory. Site submissions are not needed because we find new sites all the time by following links on other sites, finding them in every kind of advertisement imaginable, phone books, using search engines, other directories, ect.

Many editors never look at a submitted site, it's much more enjoyable to find it on your own. As long as a site exists on the Internet, it's fair game for us, we need neither the permission to list it, nor do we have to wait for it to be suggested.

Very good reasons, in my opinion, including getting your sites listed. (as long as you treat them impartially) I like your honesty.

I could go out and find a site right now, and immediately list it, it's a lot of fun, like a scavenger hunt.

 

Crowbar,

Made me spill my coffee!! LOL

Excellent opening post by the way.

BWC