I found this blog entry over at http://www.neotitans.com/heecheesoft/2006/02/allowing-multiple-dmoz-editors-per.html and I believe that the suggestions found in it might indeed be very effective in combatting DMOZ corruption. "There is a simple solution here that should benefit everyone involved (with the exception of corrupt editors). The solution is to allow multiple editors per category. This way there would be more manpower to handle submissions for a particular category and the power of a single corrupt editor is greatly minimized. A site can be included by any single editor, but the power to _remove_ a site listing would need the approval of more than 50% of editors for a particular category. SEO practitioners would still be encouraged to gain dmoz editorialship (adding manpower to the dmoz effort - a positive thing), but would be greatly neutralized in using this position for nefarious purposes."
Multiple editors are allowed in categories - look at the bottom of the pages. Here are a few examples: http://www.dmoz.com/Sports/Equestrian/Breeds/ http://www.dmoz.com/Shopping/Sports/Equestrian/ http://www.dmoz.com/Regional/North_America/United_States/Louisiana/ The confusion might come when the rejection response to an application is that the category is too broad or is already well represented. This could mean (this is not an exhaustive list): (a) there are too many listings, (b) there are too many suggestions, (c) there are too many editors, (d) there aren't enough listable sites left, or (e) the category is just a link farm. Unfortunately most people think the only possible reason for receiving that response is (c), when that is typically the least likely reason.
Having reread the post - I now see the 50% deletion rule suggestion. If there was a serious problem about listable sites (in the correct category) being deleted, this would be a good rule to implement. However, since it's a relatively miniscule problem and a log is kept of all editor actions, the implementation of this suggestion would reduce the ability of the editors to delete hijacked sites, 404 sites, sites that shouldn't have been listed in the first place, and sites that no longer meet the guidelines.
Or an even more obvious one- http://www.dmoz.com/Regional/North_America/United_States/ There may be a misunderstanding from the rejection letter (as lmocr stated), but that misunderstanding results from the applicant not actually reading it because there are quite a few reasons for being rejected that are listed in the general letter and one just happens to be "already well represented". Having 2 or more editors named for Nesbit, MS would be slightly over-representing the category, now having one would be great I would suspect (although I have no knowledge of the application process beyond having filled a few out myself) that a large majority of the rejections might because a new editor candidate is applying for a large category or a particuallary spammy one. I would guess that very few would be because the category was fitting but to well represented already. My two-pennies
Well, I applied for a category that had no editor and 20% of the listings were either geocities sites that haven't been updated in 3+ years or dead links. I recieved a written response that the category I applied to was already well represented and I should apply for another category. I sent an email noting the above problem with the category and never recieved a response. They (at least some of the metas) simply do not want more editors, contrary to what they say.
I'm sure the complete sentence was something like "you have chosen a category that is already well represented, or is broader than we typically assign to a new editor" Why do people stop reading after they see "you have chosen a category that is already well represented"
May be because a BS is a BS, no matter how you formulate it. It is kind of like when sidjf in another thread was trying to convince people a doorway, affiliate page is not an affiliate page because DMOZ calls it free galleries.
@mdvaldosta I can confirm that the category you requested, with 173 listings and a number of URLs awaiting evaluation, is much too large for a trainee. If you try for something smaller, say of up to around 50 listings, be sure to answer all questions completely .
I think when I was looking at DMOZ, I noticed that support the pedophile category had only 6-7 listings, may be he should apply for that and help DMOZ to raise the quality of pedophile support category.
I have a question for Jim if your still reading this thread: Why are some entities allowed to spam DMOZ? Take for example topix.net, listed under every DMOZ City in my State. I dont know if they're listed in every City in the US, but I'd guess they are. Why do these companies get special treatment? shouldn't they get only one or 2 listings like everyone else ?
I can answer that - the Topixnet listings were not suggested, they were mass inserted. Editors have the discretion, under the guidelines, to list sites in more than one or two categories. In this case Topixnet was considered to add value to most of the locality categories - each listing can be reviewed by editors to determine if they are still appropriate. Suggestors, on the other hand, can only suggest a site once to the appropriate Topical category, once to the appropriate Regional category, and once to each World category (excluding machine translations). Some sites will not qualify for a Topical listings and some sites will not qualify for a Regional listing.