Why is my site removed?

Ok, fair enough. Given our history, I'm a bit sensitive to your posts.

Brizzie has his opinions like the rest of us, and I'm sure he'll do the right thing. We all spend our entire lives learning only to die when we finally start to accumulate a decent amount of knowledge, it's sad. Brizzie is a good man and an honest editor. I hope you can give him the benefit of the doubt before you dismiss him as an idiot.

Thanks for clarifying.

 

From the sleazy adult webmaster troll I'll take it as a compliment.

The site has the MARA registration details on it. It is the first thing I looked at. Not Google, nothing else. I also checked exactly what MARA was and how it was composed. I repeat, the existence of a registration at a statutory self-regulatory body does not make a business legitimate when there is evidence clear and visible of a false address, a building site. That does not make me or anyone else looking at that picture a bigger expert than a statutory self-regulatory body but it does indicate, in the absence of reasonable explanation, that maybe the statutory self-regulatory body has been duped and should be informed. And no, I would not list a site with a building site as its supposed professional office no matter even if Her Majesty the Queen said it was OK. You, on the other hand, would take the registration at face value assuming a statutory self-regulatory body could never be wrong, ignore the building site, and give the guy a listing. Who's the idiot? Or more's the point, who's the crook who would take some cash for overlooking the little matter of the building site - you perhaps?

I have been involved in investigating more than one editor removal in this business sector including in Australia so I do know what I am looking for. And before you say it, no I have no connection with immigration consultants, no connection with Australia; I work for a government agency connected to law enforcement.

 

Well this proves what idiot you are and what a inflated sense of self importance you have just because some one told you that you are DMOZ editor.

Since you are in a "law enforcement" and have a such high sense of right and wrong, let's see what you are gong to do about another corporation which is involved in illegal activities namely AOL:

Paul J. McNulty, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, announced today an indictment in the continuing investigation of America On Line’s strategic relationship with PurchasePro.com.

The indictment charges Kent Wakeford, 36, of New York, New York, a former executive director in the Business Affairs unit at AOL, with conspiracy, two counts of securities fraud, two counts of making false statements to PurchasePro’s auditors, and 17 counts of wire fraud.

John Tuli, 37, of Weston, Massachusetts, a former vice-president in the NetBusiness unit of AOL, is charged with conspiracy, two counts of securities fraud, two counts of making false statements to PurchasePro’s auditors, and five counts of wire fraud.

..............................

According to the indictment, the conspirators destroyed documents, attempted to delete emails, created false documents and provided false statements to the SEC and the FBI during the course of their investigations.

........................

The defendants face a maximum prison term of 20 years and a fine of up to $250,000 for the conspiracy count. The securities fraud charges have a maximum prison term of ten years and a fine up to $1,000,000 for each count. Each wire fraud count and each false statement count have a maximum term of imprisonment of five years and a fine up to $250,000. The obstruction of justice count has a maximum prison term of 20 years and a fine up to $250,000.


U.S. Department of Justice

Another case:

Time Warner, SEC Settle AOL Fraud Charges

Another:

Time Warner agrees to $510 million penalty in AOL probes

According to the same standards as you mentioned, I look forward to the time that you remove AOL listings from DMOZ.

 

gworld, I really don't understand the point of your posts in this thread.

You have editors here trying to keep an open mind about a submission with obviously odd features and trying to answer the submitter's questions -- and doing so in a decidedly non-Resource Zone manner (at least some of them are). I should think you'd want to encourage that...

 

I don't think that it was non-resource zone manner and even after I posted the fact about MARA, some of them still continue with their arrogant manner that we are the editors, we know best, as can be seen in brizzie posting:

Let's look at some previous postings by editors in this thread:

They publicly posted about this company and tried to destroy every aspect of respectability for this company in order to justify their removal of his listing from DMOZ. Can you imagine the effect that this can have on their business when is fully indexed in search engines?

The only editor who showed openness about this question and tried to act according to law and regulation was Annie.

The ultimate question will be:

Who should be responsible for licensing and recognizing a business in a regulated industry? A government mandated regulatory body which has the authority to issue and revoke licenses for this type of businesses or an unknown DMOZ editor with unknown qualification and motives?

What do you think minstrel?

 

OK... macdesign, jimnoble, and birdie (and a couple of others like pagode) ARE Resource Zone. But the past couple of pages you've been attacking brizzie and annie who, other than responding to your flames, have actually been trying to answer questions and investigate the site in question.

 

Add brizzie to the previous list and we are in agreement. I was not attacking Annie and I even posted and explained that when I mentioned SOME, I didn't mean her.

brizzie thinks that he is the authority and not the government mandated body, you surely can not take someone like him seriously?

 

Well, yes, I do. I see him making an effort to address issues.

In psychology, there is a concept called "shaping" - when you are hoping for behavior change in an individual or in an organization, you reward, not punish, steps in the right direction... even if it isn't yet the full outcome you hope to achieve.

When you see certain editors trying to act like human beings and actually address issues without condescension or ridicule, I would suggest it's a good idea to try to encourage that.

 

Who decides what the ultimate question will be? You? The person who asks the question? The person who answers the question? Someone else entirely?

Why are you so hung up on this person's legal registration, license, whatever - that doesn't matter for the listing in the category that was requested? Also - speaking of legal issues - did AOL hurt you somehow to cause the deep affection you seem to have for them and all things associated?

 

Does this mean I should change my avatar?

 

No - don't do that Annie - he's too cute

 

When it comes to regulated businesses, the ultimate question is defined by government and the law of the country.

Are they legal entity, licensed to do business in that industry or not? If they are then they have the right to conduct that business independent of what DMOZ editors think, if they are not then they can not conduct business independent of DMOZ editors opinion.

Your question is so stupid that it is difficult to imagine that you are serious.
What should be we concern with, if not legal registration, license and government regulation? Stupid comments by jimnoble and macdesign?
I was not discussing in what category this site should be listed and this was not what editors were discussing. Their discussion was about if this is legitimate business or not and accept or deny his listing base on that.

No I was not hurt by AOL. I only mention AOL because on one side the editors try make this guy and business some kind of scum because of some court case and paint themselves as some kind of holier than holy, while in the mean time they are volunteering for an organization that is involved in all kind of irregularities.

 

LOL.

How many years have you been discussing DMOZ with editors and how many editors have you shaped, so far?

Even if by some miracle you succeed then they will not be DMOZ material and just get fired.

 

Issues of legality and how they apply to DMOZ, a very much International organisation, are very tricky to deal with. Many things are legal in Iran, for example, that are abhorrent and against the legal codes of very many countries. Should DMOZ be forced to list a site in an Iran-related category that would breach the laws of the US, or Australia? Basically, what I'm trying to say is that basing an editorial decision purely on 'the law of the country', rather than on common sense (in this case: the site lists a false address, which could cause somebody that found the company through DMOZ a great deal of distress if they turned up and found they had been lied to by this company and had nowhere to turn to), is tricky ground. This isn't a case of 'Editors Know Best' - it's just that by listing this website we may only be serving the inteests of the webmaster, not of our users.

Government is fallible - and I would sincerely doubt it has EVER heard of the business/website in question; its control is so indirect in this case (having simply given a self-regulatory body legitimacy, not actually having any kind of review process, guidelines or mode of action should fraud be detected, that i know of, anyway) that I think that the MARA accreditation is sufficiently shaky for you to admit that an editor using common sense may actually be able to serve a DMOZ user's interests better than an editor blinded by the lights that lists the site in spite of the many genuine oddities and causes of concern brought up in this thread that you seem unable to acknowledge. Do you seriously believe the MARA badge should make us blind to all these concerns, or are you just being antagonistic for the sake of it?

 

DMOZ editors are masters of flip-flop.

In previous threads regarding child porn and 2257 regulation, the editors were arguing exactly the opposite that DMOZ should list these sites because even if these are illegal in USA, these sites are not against the laws in Norway that the domain owner is supposedly registered.

I suppose how a DMOZ editor argues the law depends on what serves their purpose in that minute.

 

when did I say anything about child porn, the 2557 regulation, etc? You've made your claims: by making that post I have flip flopped. Now, prove what you just said.

As for the other content of your post, if anything it proves the point I was making with the paragraph you have quoted. The legal arguments for/against listing a site are murky waters because of variation between countries' legal codes, and the debate anbout where their jurisdiction applies. It is better to just use common sense. I personally do not want DMOZ listing any sites promoting or featuring child pornography, if they do so - no matter which laws say it can or cannot. Likewise, I don't want us to be listing businesses who give out addresses to their clients which turn out to be construction sites. It's a matter of common sense. So please stop with the 'serves our purposes' bullshit. Neither I, nor compostannie, nor brizzie, have any 'purpose' in the Adult section or anything to do with it - it is only you who keeps bringing it up in conversations where it has no place. This in spite of the fact that many of us have clearly pointed out that our personal stance on the existence of the Adult section is one of disapproval. As for Australia or the immigration business, I don't know anyone who lives there, or who works in the immigration biz, or any editor that edits those categories. The only purpose I am serving here is that of hope, that you will come to realise you are frothing at the mouth, and that you will start thinking your position and arguments through more thoroughly in future.

 

yes it does...(like the soup notsi on Seinfeld)
No Forum for U.
excuse the spelling.

 

I didn't say you, I said DMOZ editors. Lets look at posting from editors, we start with yours first:

I think DMOZ editors should get their stories straight before coming and posting in a public forum, what do you think?

 

I think not. I have no desire to toe the party line, and neither does brizzie. Are you seriously suggesting we should consort and discuss and agree on an each others' answers before we give them? I am posting here in my capacity as a human being that has experience of DMOZ editing and would therefore like to explain and if necessary defend my work and that of my collegues, many of which are far harder working than I and have integrity not frequently seen in the real world. I do not come here as a DMOZ apparatchik. If my answers and arguments run parallel to my collegues, what a happy turn of fate. If not, tough. I may be wrong, I may be right - it's only my own opinion.

Now, back to the point: "I didn't say you" - you made that accusation basing itself on my post, in reply to my post. This clearly means your reply was addressed to me, right? If so, I'm still waiting for you to explain why I have flip flopped.

Furthermore, look deeper into brizzie's post - he too is saying that the guidlines and legalities all have to be implied, nothing is explicitly stated. This is why I would rather common sense be used than legal arguments - because as soon as you start doing that, people (angry webmasters that got wind of why their site was rejected, corrupt editors caught red handed, etc) will start looking for legal loopholes to argue their case, and so on...
None of us have the legal know-how, certainly not of international law, to be able to even know what legislative framework we are working in or what parts of it would apply to us; so we would be quite ineffective if arguments about a site's listability were allowed to degenerate into law loophole banter.

Some people like horses - they edit a category about horses. Some people like New York - they edit a category in New York. An international law diploma is not required for the job, however common sense is. This is why I'd rather rely on that to list sites.

 

Good reply bradley; I couldn't have said it better myself, which is why I didn't try.

gworld, you are taking the role of an ODP editor much too seriously. Please remember that we are not lawyers. If you're really serious about the legal issues you insist on beating us with you should contact who could then refer you to the legal department. Bullying editors will do nothing but make you look irrational.

All this nastiness is really pointless. Editors follow guidelines, not rules set in stone. We couldn't possibly have precise rules to neatly deal with each individual website. There are bazillions of sites and they are all different, or at least they should be. We're expected to use a combination of common sense, practical knowledge, and the guidelines. If there's still doubt about any individual site, we discuss it with other editors, not attorneys.

Also, the editors posting here are speaking as individuals; none of us are pretending to speak as official ODP representatives. If you want a ruling on the official dmoz.org policy you can only get it from the lawyers who represent our sponsor.