DMOZ Supports Child Porn?

Wait...does the woman come with the house or not...?

 

Just submit to the next level higher - since we don't create categories in anticipation of receipt of listings. So when can we expect those suggestions?

 

Given the girl cannot be more than 6 ft tall and she is bigger than the house it might be short on headroom - perfect if you want somewhere fancy to keep the gardening tools though.

 

Do people get the girl when they click on the DOORWAY pages and buy a membership in a porn site through affiliate links?

I didn't want the "suggestions" for real businesses get mixed with all other DOORWAY porn affiliate pages and "conveniently be forgotten" to look at by adult editors.

 

I could say the same thing about half of the off-topic crap here..

I said my views..get the FBI involved then that'll scare AOL..... but ppl do not see the legalities of this issue....they just see the moral that dmoz has 190+ links to suspect porn, but when they submit their site - it gets dropped.... I guess thats more important to them, getting in dmoz.....

Anyway, carry on being off topic, I'll twoddle off now <sigh>

 

Someone earlier in the thread reported it to the FBI - nothing instant happened. And given legal aspects are for lawyers and it would take a court and a judge quite a while to decide the case if it got that far, it is best for the non lawyers to focus on the more practical route - the morality of it all. It isn't in AOL's interests to accept any form of censorship so they wouldn't really be afraid of fighting any attempts to limit them on principle.

There is more than one serious issue in this thread.

 

I think this thread clearly has shown that editors, volunteers or what ever you want to call them have no actual power or authority to change anything in the organization that they help with their free labor.

The next question therefore should be, who has the authority to make changes in DMOZ? If it is the people in AOL, doesn't this mean that DMOZ is not as off hand as AOL likes to pretend and actually it is a marketing tool in AOL corporate structure and therefore AOL is directly responsible, both morally and legally for child porn/ Pedophile groups advertised by DMOZ?

May be people should start emailing AOL executives to see how many of them are aware that they are involved in pedophile activities.

 

That's pretty much true. Any changes of consequence must be dictated by AOL staff.

 

While the moral point of removing these sites should be clear and enough for anyone, we can not deny that legal pressures and negative PR will also have a big effect on corporates. There is no need for anyone to directly contact FBI. There are many organization that you can report such sites and they file a report to legal authorities after looking at the site and because of their reputation, the police will take much faster action in comparison to ordinary citizens. Two of such sites are the following:

ACPO (Antichildporn.org)- Link to reporting page

ASACP (Association of sites advocating child protection)- Link to reporting page

 

If you mean "a single editor has no actual power" you are right. No one, not even the highest level editor, can make important decissions on his own. We have a group of editors called admin who are responsible for project management. You can read all about them on http://dmoz.org/guidelines/admin/ . These people have been selected by AOL/Netscape staff for their outstanding capabilities and knowledge.

This was true until a few years back when the admins were installed.
From the same page about admins

 

Outstanding capabilities and knowledge? Is this a joke?

A group of incompetent that not only can not remove listing of sites used for pedophile gathering, they can not even stop corruption with mountain of evidence.

In my opinion, Admins should take a group picture, so it can be used in picture dictionary for the word incompetent.

 

If AOL staff decided tomorrow that they wanted to delete all of the Adult branch for no reason at all other than they can, there is nothing that the admins could do to stop it. The admins, on the other hand, can't even delete a category advocating child rape. Who has the real power?

 

They could if they wanted to. They could have moved it to a non-published category called Test whilst discussions were taking place on its future. They didn't, that was a dreadful decision in the circumstances. Had I still been an editor I would have done it without a second thought and damned the consequences. They could always have restored it in seconds.

 

I understand that they could had done that. But their lack of action shows that they don't want to do anything about the category. Which, IMO, is worse than not being able to do anything.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me... why would this senior editor say this (it was about listing child pornography), but the same statement couldn't be applied to listing sites that advocate pedophilia?

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I want my DMOZ..........................................

 

It is even more strange that people who are crying about free speech and pedophiles right have no problem to volunteer for an organization that has no respect for democratic process and openness and it is controlled by a group that makes its decision behind close doors. Why can not the members see the Admins discussions and after a period of discussion, chose the direction of their organization? Isn't this the right of volunteers who are giving their free time to this organization to decide the direction of their organization or even if they want a pedophilia supporter as their leader?

 

Dmoz is worthless. Bunch of corrupt editors and horrible rate of inclusion for sites that are worthwhile

 

It's a nasty old world - unfettered access to internal forums would give spammers a field day as they learn the how their tricks are uncovered, and editors would feel less free to express their opinions if they thought they were being observed. Few companies invite outsiders into their staff meetings.

No, it is a benevolent dictatorship / meritocracy not a democracy. Like most organisations. If an editor don't like it the editor can leave! Electorates can often make very stupid decisions and are easily swayed by the more politically astute. But there might be a case I reckon for electing candidates selected from an approved list. Trouble is no-one in their right minds would want to be an unpaid fall guy in a no win position and with no real power as you have to act as a committee all the time. Sounds like hell to me. When people were speculating at who would replace the outgoing Editor in Chief I think I said something like anyone as long as its not a committee. A post or two later they announced a committee. Ah well...

 

I did not say that it should be open to public but at present time even the people who are in DMOZ don't have anything to say about what is happening. The other thing is that there is a big difference in policy making and actually implanting it. To have free discussion if DMOZ should support pedophilia or not, will not teach any spammer anything. To have a vote about this inside DMOZ, won't teach spammers anything. To discuss freely if there is enough procedures inside DMOZ to stop corruption or not, will not teach the spammers anything. While to protect an organization from outside dangers is important goal; to operate constantly in state of siege, paranoia and secrecy will destroy any organization from inside, only openness combined with correct procedures and routines can provide a secure environment for growth in a volunteer organization.

Unfortunately I could never see anything benevolent in dictatorship, dictatorships usually are only benevolent for dictators. Even Hitler and Mussolini with all their talks about the good of society were cheating on their taxes and filling their own pockets.

 

If you are a volunteer for Red Cross can you decide its direction? No, you can't.
Can you in any other volunteer organisation? No, you can't.
Unless you are at the top of the organisation.

DMOZ editors have been told that admins are aware of the situation and are discussing what to do. This discussion is not open, and I as a volunteer editor think that it is good that the discussion is closed. If I wouldn't I could simply leave.