DMOZ editors can you please clarify?

Hello All ...

I had a question for you all. we had a site listed on DMOZ/ODP for a while now. The site's function, design and business approach has not changed for quite some time. I was checking our logs today and saw that there was a refer to my site from what appears to be an internal dmoz/odp forum. I am also running a backlink tracking software which alerted me that the link to our site had been removed. Sure enough after checking the index it had been deleted.

I have a few question that I hope you will be able to answer and I am hoping that what others have said about maybe our competitor finding a corrupt editor to manipulate the index is not correct.

1. Does DMOZ/ODP re-evaluate indexed sites and how often?

2. Does DMOZ/ODP have a mechanism/process for alerting staff to sites that are listed that may be questionable by endusers?

3. What would trigger our site to be delisted out of the blue?

4. Does the process of de-listing an established site with good standing need verification by more than one ODP/DMOZ editor?

5. If a site has being de-listed is there a way for one to find out why? For example maybe the site in question did something inadvertently since it first launched that may have triggered the de-listing or perhaps its something internal to ODP that is triggering it.

6. Is there an appeals mechanism/process in place to have ODP/DMOZ editors investigate our de-listing? For example a reinclusion request?

I appreciate your time and look forward to your feedback and comments.

thanks

 

1. Does DMOZ/ODP re-evaluate indexed sites and how often? Yes, indexed sites are re-evaluated but the timing varies.

2. Does DMOZ/ODP have a mechanism/process for alerting staff to sites that are listed that may be questionable by endusers? Staff is not alerted, but anyone can go to the category where a listing is and request an update if they think something is wrong with a site.

3. What would trigger our site to be delisted out of the blue? There's no way to try and answer this question without knowing the site.

4. Does the process of de-listing an established site with good standing need verification by more than one ODP/DMOZ editor? Not usually, but if there was a referral to your site from the internal forum it's a safe bet that your site was discussed and more than one editor agreed.

5. If a site has being de-listed is there a way for one to find out why? For example maybe the site in question did something inadvertently since it first launched that may have triggered the de-listing or perhaps its something internal to ODP that is triggering it. There's no way to know officially, but if you post the site we may be able to help you figure out why the listing was deleted.

6. Is there an appeals mechanism/process in place to have ODP/DMOZ editors investigate our de-listing? For example a reinclusion request? No there isn't. The closest thing to a reinclusion request would be to figure out why it was delisted, fix the problem, then resubmit.

 

Sadly that is a huge problem within the project.

Robozilla could have flagged the site on a bad server day?
An editor with competing sites may not have liked it?
The site was really crap, and the editor that listed it was canned and a meta delisted it?
It could have simply been moved to a better category!

I would also look over your site carefully and see if there are any errors or other reasons why it would be removed by comparing your site to the guidelines. Then resubmit, but once again make sure that you are in the BEST category.

Good luck not getting flagged as a spammer

 

the site was obviously delisted for a good reason, there are ex-editors like Q who want to try and persuade people that the directory is biased or editors crooked. It is not true.

I don't think the directory has huge problems in this area, another massive, incredible, huge, gigantic exageration by Q.

All that speaks is not neccessaraly operating with the agenda of helping people, just sometimes the irony of trying to knock the project creeps in just a wee, tiny, small bit.

PS compostannies reply is spot on, try posting the site here, people like her have an excellent insight and are often willing to give of their experience.

 

Are you honestly saying that the things I said do not happen? If so, then who is the one with the gross exaggerations? Annie had a FANTASTIC post, I can most certainly agree on that, all I did was expand on it. Sorry that I did not shed the perfect light on the directory...but saying that I was wrong certainly sheds no better of a light.

Besides, you can not say I am wrong until you know what site. Your speculations in this case are as good as mine!

 

Our automated tools run every so often, and if there is a problem with a site it will be delisted temporarily until an editor can investigate it, and either confirm that it is gone, is down temporarily, or has just moved to another url.

Other actions might be that a category is being reorganized (something I'm involved with now) and the site has just been moved, or an editor has reevaluated the site and found that it no longer (or never did) meets our criteria.

I'm not quite sure what you mean, but Annie is correct.

The site is down temporarily, it was listed by mistake, what made it listable at one time, no longer applies.

Absolutely not, but if there is a question about a site, the editor will usually ask for second opinions. There is no such thing as a site having good standing within the Directory, it either meets our criteria or it doesn't, .

No, there isn't, we're bound by rules of confidentiality and giving out proprietary information is cause for an editor to lose his editing privledges. We can give general probable causes, as Annie and I have done, but no specifics about a site, or any actions by editors.

Former editors could, of course, look at your site and give their opinion based on experience, but current editors do not give status reports.

No, there isn't. No site is ever promised or guaranteed a listing, it's listed and stays listed at our sole discretion. We're not a listing service for site owners, , we collect and organize sites in categories for the benefit of the web surfer searching for specific information about a topic or geographic area.

We look for unique content on a site that will make the category a more valuable resource for the surfer. (in our opinion, not the site owners opinion)
Not all sites meet that criteria, not all sites are listed, and asking us to help you "fix it" sort of defeats that purpose, .

If a site owner forgets about their own interests, and just looks at the site from the web surfers point of view, and tries to service their every need with as much unique content as they can think of, instead of just having generic content that we often see on the "cookie cutter" type sites, your chances of being listed increase dramatically because that's what we're looking for.

(Sorry about the long sentence)

Editors want to list good resources, and we'll go to great lengths to keep a good resource or discover new ones.

The best advice I can give you, is to look your site over with a critical eye, and perhaps get opinions from surfers who use your site, with the above goals in mind, and then resubmit your site suggestion (if it's really gone).

I would do a search on the Directory itself to see if it's really gone, or has just been moved, but leave off the www. Just use mysite.com as your search term.

Added - Pay no attention to the misinformation Q just put out. My experience has been that certain people will make one true statement, and 5 false ones, and the problem with that is that the reader will then recognize the truth of one and assume the other 5 are also true.

I'm a verifiable editor, Q is not.

 

First does not and the second is highly unlikely unless you routinely submit the same site mulitple times.

Q is an editor with ODP but chose to leave.

 

I must apologize. Crowbar is correct.

Robozilla does not flag sites that have server trouble
No editors are corrupt, so getting de-listed at the whim of one has never happened
No listed sites are crap, and the meta team does NOT do quality control
Sites are never moved to a more suitable category

Are you two happy now that I've clarified?

 

Excellent, Q, .

Just make the first statement true, and everybody will know to just ignore everything after that, .

 

As you are an editor and I am not, making all you say true and all I say false, then tell me which of my statements is true in the above post. The ones I quoted from myself, or the ones after that?

You can not say both are false, that would create a paradox.

I mean, you even backed up what I said about the automated tools...

You even agreed that it could have been moved to a more suitable category...

Are you going to say that Editors have NEVER delisted competing sites? If that is not a problem why is it in the rules?

Are you going to say that crap sites have never been listed?

Are you going to say that Meta editors have never investigated crappy sites getting listed by unscrupulous editors?

Tell me just where I made a false statement in this thread! They may not be common answers, but they were and are all possible answers. There is no real way to tell unless the site is known. Are you saying you know the site with out being told, so your answers are the correct ones?

It's clear you are saying my answers are false, even though I have given possible answers that have matched yours.

 

Yep, you got me, I agree with you, .

You could always apply for reinstatement you know, .

 

I honestly do not think they would have me. Did you see how well it went over the last time in internal forums?

I have actually been doing my best not to troll the editors as of late, though sometimes life does get the better of me. I have also been doing my best to help, and when someone comes along and says what I've said was false when I know I was actually correct can really get under my skin.

I did not give the most obvious answers in my first post here, Annie already did that. I simply gave alternative answers, and while they may have not shed the ODP in the kindest of light, they were all possibilities.

And again, no one can say for sure till the site is known. Once it is known, my guesses could very well be proved wrong...but then, they were only possibilities, and they were given as such. As it stands, any one of the answers could be the correct one, mine, yours, annie's *shrug* Maybe the OP will come back and help us help him...heh, had he done that in the original post, it would have saved us all a lot of time

 

Other editors, who might have differing views, have come back, Q. That's above my pay grade.

I've noticed that, but the things you pointed out are the exceptions, not the norm, so that's not really helpful to a site owner because the chances are, none of those things apply. Every 75 to 100 years, we get flooded here, but it's such a rare occurance that it's hardly worth mentioning, .

I understand.

That's true, and fair is fair, .

 

These two replies say everything. Unfortunately what Q says can also happen but I believe its rare. I think in this instance, since the OP said he saw referrals from the internal ODP forums prior to the delisting it's pretty certain it wasn't done my a rogue editor.

The noise to information ratio in this thread is really quite bad, but I want to clarity this point. Indexed sites are checked by automated tools such as robozilla but editors look at them periodically as well. Robozilla will not delist a site just because it has a server problem once... it will recheck another time before that happens. Robozilla is a good editor and doesn't do things on a whim.

I really didn't want to post in these ODP threads but thought the OP asked some pretty specific questions and I hoped that by giving straight forward answers all the trolling could be avoided. My bad.

What a pity.

 

Q, I seriously think you should at least apply for reinstatement. I think the metas are smart enough and human enough to understand how upset you were when your mentor was let go. Emotions were running high. You could do a lot of good for the directory as an editor.

If you don't ask, your answer is NO by default.

 

I read all those forums and there was at least one other editor, certainly more vociferous but also more experienced,  who lambasted harder than you did and that editor has returned. You might have some problems in the way that you expressed your dissapproval rather than that you objected. But compostannie is right you will not know until you try.Can I record that I admire the way that you annie post helpfully & courteously here despite the events.

 

I second that view.

 

Its really unfortunate that some ppl insist on bringing other agendas to the table. None the less my questions were directed at current DMOZ editors, not ex-editors or wanna be editors or what ever.

I didn't post the actual URL as I didn't want it public or others who are not aware of the ODP policies commenting on it and sending me off on a wild goose chase.

I will be sending Annie a PM for her to take a look at the site and comment.

Thanks to everyone who stuck to the original intent/topic of this post.

 

If you notice, this is A) a public forum, and B) it was an ex-editor that gave you your answers. When actual editors showed up they just repeated what was already said by one ex-ed, and then tried to say what the other ex-editor said was false, even though they said the same thing.

Oddly enough, you are thanking the ex-editors here.

 

I'm sorry we got off topic, LaCabra, that was a disservice to you, I apologize.