new dmoz announcement (no longer accepting status checks)

gworld & will

I don’t think these two guys deserve such a vicious attack. There are plenty of DMOZ editors who do, but these two have been very courteous in their remarks, regardless of whether one chooses to accept their arguments.

I’m certainly no DMOZ apologist. I just don’t think these two deserve it.

 

longcall911:

I do not recall personally attacking either of these DMOZ editors.

 

Will,

I'll give you that. Post 118 was getting close, but you did tone it down. Sorry to lump all posts in one cat.

 

Vicious attacks? what vicious attacks? I posted a straight and short summary of their postings. I don't know these guys, so why should I attack them personally? As far as their posting is concerned, it doesn't matter how courteous or nice their postings are, it is just the official DMOZ BS in a different package.

Read all their posting and compare it to my summary in post #111 and try to show me if they have said anything which is outside of my description of their logic.

It doesn't matter how nicely you package a BS, it is still a BS.

 

Calling all DMOZ editors who think DMOZ is still relevant and useful

The following is a small DMOZ Directory entries sample.

They are listings in the Directory for one sub-category – Discount Brokers aka “Brokerages: Discount Service”.

The category provides listings that are few enough to be manageable for the purpose of illustration in a Forum post, but is not overly obscure, relating to a service which is widely used by millions of people daily.

The term, “discount broker” was searched 5100 times in April per Overture, and thus many multiples of 5000 times overall on all SEs and perhaps even in DMOZ several times.

I have not submitted a site for this category. I shall not be submitting a site to this category (certainly not after this post!). I am not connected to any of the firms in the Directory; nor to any of the firms that I list as obvious omissions from this category in Directory.

The Directory presentation is current as I post this.


A. DMOZ entries:
Top: Business: Investing: Brokerages: Discount Service (13)

________________________________________
Accutrade - Discount broker, online trading of stocks, options, mutual funds and bonds.
Canopus Investments Limited - Discount online share trading, New Zealand company formations and trade marks. Top managed funds, high yield debentures, share charting software and computers.
Central Discount Stock Brokers, Inc. - Discount brokerage firm offering a wide range of service.
Christopher Lane - Garden State Securities, Inc. - Discount brokerage in stocks, options and bonds with personal service.
Directrade Online Brokerage - Offers offshore investing with a direct trade discount broker specializing in internet investing.
First Financial Equity Corporation - Discount brokerage offering flat fee trades and full range of investment products.
Quick and Reilly - Discount broker; site has online trading features and information on services
Regal Discount Securities - Brokerage services including online investing, full service bond desk, IRAs, and mutual funds.
Scottrade - Discount stock brokerage.
Sherry Bruce's State Discount Brokers - Woman owned privately held discount stockbroker offering traditional and online services. Offices in Cleveland, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Boca Raton.
TD Waterhouse - Discount broker, online trading of stocks, mutual funds, options and bonds.
Unitas Investments Ltd - Specialising in discounted ISAs, Unit Trusts, OEICs, PEPs and Bonds. United Kingdom.
U.S. Discount Brokerage, Inc. - Provides institutional, retail and direct access trading. Electronic access to all makets.
Last update: 23:51 PT, Thursday, November 25, 2004 - edit


Note:
1. Most overseas brokerages (3 of the 13 entries) cannot / will not open accounts for US private investors.

Of the 10 domestic firms,
• The Accutrade link is broken
• Canopus serves four states only
• Christoper Lane may be a first-rate firm, but appears to be a sole-proprietorship
• Quick and Reilly was acquired by Fleet in 1998, and Fleet by Banc America in 2004. The URL properly redirects to Banc of America.


B Obvious Omissions

Smart Money 2004 Survey “Premium Discount Brokers”

Fidelity - Not in DMOZ this category
E*Trade - Not in DMOZ this category
Charles Schwab - Not in DMOZ this category
USAA - Not in DMOZ this category
T. Rowe Price - Not in DMOZ this category
Vanguard - Not in DMOZ this category

Many of the above firms have no Google tool bar PR available for their home pages, yet collectively serve tens of millions of clients per day. None of the obvious ommissions appears in the top ten results for a Google search for discount brokers. Sherry Bruce's State Discount Brokers appears at SERP 5, which I suspect she must find really quite spiffy.

Of course, many of the firms suggested here as obvious omissions are to be found in other DMOZ categories particularly “On-line brokers”, which is not quite synonymous but close. However, that wasn’t what was specified, and there is no “See also, ..” for this category.

The category was last up-dated 6 months ago. There is no named Editor for the category. There is no named Editor for the next category up (Brokerages) – though there was an update to that category last week.

DMOZ Editors managed to find scarce editing time to include 5 Polish (but no other foreign) discount brokers in a separate sub-category.

 

Yep. Definitely exemplifies the problem...

 

I guess what bothered me was that you reference DMOZ editors in *this thread*, then go on to accuse DMOZ editors of being incompetent and corrupt. I agree that in general, incompetence and corruption is widespread. I just don’t know that these guys are guilty of either.

It bothers me when hutchenson jumps in with his unprovoked wrath, and I think this just hit the same nerve so to speak.

Anyway, know that I don’t disagree with the premise.

 

I had a similar reaction, longcall -- I certainly do understand (and mostly agree with) your frustration, gworld, but I'd say that Alucard's posts here in particular have been a significant cut above most of what I've seen DMOZ folks posting.

 

I think my posting was in general about DMOZ and the dominant culture there which is corruption and incompetence and not against these guys but since you brought it up, the question will be:

Why some one who is intelligent and honest, would want to be a member of organization that is corrupt and incompetent and even take the trouble to defend it publicly?

 

I have to agree with this one.

 

"Why some one who is intelligent and honest, would want to be a member of organization that is corrupt and incompetent and even take the trouble to defend it publicly?"

Why not write to Jimmy Carter and ask him? (Or your choice of any other honest politician you can find...perhaps digging up Dwight D. Eisenhower?)

The good, honest ones are what make DMOZ worthwhile. The obnoxious, power-mad or greedy or egomaniacal ones are what make it flawed.

I will remind readers that before imposing its absurd $300 per year requirement, Yahoo had exactly the same problems as DMOZ - and its staff were all paid. I can remember when Yahoo was "real" in their attempt to build a good web directory, just as I can remember the idealistic days of dmoz.

 

If everyone who is intelligent and honest leaves an organization, that will only leave the corrupt and incompetent ones there. Better to improve the organization by getting rid of the ones who are corrupt and incompetent.

 

It's a contradiction in terms isn't it. One can deduce that part of your statement must be incorrect .

In mathematics, there's a class of proof called gegenbeispiel which goes something like this

• Assume that something is false.
• From that assumption, logically prove that it's true.
• Therefore it's can't be false.
• So it must be true.

Spooky huh? Google it if you want to know more .

 

A better explanation. Also, you can be dedicated to the ideals even if you regret the current state of the organization. It's harder to improve dmoz from the outside than the inside. When I was an editor, I could reinstate wrongly dismissed sites, delete spam, and leave a good documentation thread in the comments. I could also try to fix hierarchy problems though that's probably one of the things that got me kicked out (not that I'll ever know.)

 

The problem is that they are not only members but they defend the organization too, their posting is just a nicer version of official DMOZ BS.

 

What scares me about that is that at the resource zone, thats how I felt - I was a spammer / scammer until I proved myself not to be.

Hmmm.. Ok, how about this. All ODP editors are corrupt until they prove their not.

So Jim - prove your not a corrupt editor.


You cant disprove a negative.

 

Well, nicer is an improvement over downright rude and intolerant, which has been many peoples experience of DMOZ editors

 

What I find most disturbing is the fact that DMOZ has a large number of broken links. Surely it can't be that difficult to set up a system to deal with it? There doesn't even appear to be a "report bad link" link.

I'm not a programmer, but I'm sure such a process could be mostly automated. Say, someone reports a bad link, a link checker checks it, puts it in a queue to be automatically rechecked weekly for a month, and, only then, are the editors notified.

Alternatively, just link check the entire directory regularly (although that may cause too heavy a server load). Any link that fails several times in a row is sent to an editor to check.

I think one of these should be possible, and would improve the quality of DMOZ.

 

There's a forum dedicated to reporting at RZ.

http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5453&page=1&pp=15 (88 pages of posts starting July 2003)

Some forum members are kind enough to run their own link checkers and report dozens (if not hundreds) in a single post.

With all of these resources, one would think that cats would be cleaner. I assume that every deletion must be made manually, and so someone has to physically eyeball it. That takes editors, and there appears to be shortage. At the same time, few new editors are accepted. So goes the cycle, and status quo.

Maybe having a class of new editors that is restricted to a specific task would have some success. That is, people who are permitted to yank broken links only and another group of newbies dedicated to spam identification.

With no promise made to these new folks that they will *ever* be permitted to add sites, you might just get a fair number of people who are dedicated to the public service.

 

do you know if the reported dead links are removed?