The benefit of a directory over a search engine

sometimes you have to take the risk in order to get if not satisfaction, then pride of yourself.

 

Look, if you think this industry is a waste of time why not just get out of it and stop flaming every time you get the opportunity, your getting rather boring on your one man martyrdom. You clearly haven't got a clue what your talking about for in your very next breath you give it credability. Do everyone a favour, go back to school, your clearly a young person (at least in mind) that hasn't got a clue, otherwise you would not contradict yourself all the time.

Yes what Jamie is saying is true, directories do have an advantage over search engines, because a real person is evaluating the site.

You really are an ignoramus if you thought it was a self promotion excercise, are you seriously thinking I'd put our directory in the firing line if it was being promoted? Or was it your masters from dmoz who sent you over to troll as some of us directories are genuinely going to pose a threat to them, you do after all appear as if your trolling the forum like an over eager puppy trying to please its masters.

Rather than constantly have a go at our alleged empty categories go and look a little better, it might help you stop looking like a bitter little child who's constantly jealous of the boy with the shinier shoes than him. If you had anything yourself to boast of I'd take the criticism as worthy, as you don't even have a directory of your own and are merely a minion who seeks solace from being an editor with what is arguably the worst directory on the planet I take your words as those of a troll wanting to pick a fight with someone because it makes you feel good behind your little computer screen.

Was you bullied in school or something?

Now get this back on topic, as your not a directory owner and don't have a clue what your on about your not invited to the party, next time you jump in your getting reported for your constant attacking without foundation.

Here's a bit of self promotion, A hell of a lot of the directory categories are currently empty, a hell of a lot of them are populated. The empty ones are being re-reviewed for a range of reasons, one of them being we intend to practice what we preach and the best way for us to manage our directory is to go over every single old link and delete trash that may have escaped our notice. Something Dmoz should do, except you keep your crap there to keep the boast going of being the biggest directory out there.. I'd rather have the emptiest but safest directory, its far easier to set our stall for the long haul which rest assured we're in for. You seem to think its fine to be the biggest but full of crap, and I mean crap in the tens of thousands, not just the odd site. We've been around for 8 years and don't think ourselves too old to change, dmoz has been around for longer but won't change, I know which one I admire.

Before you take up name calling go look in your own back yard, you have a lot of crap of your own to clean up before throwing any. Oh sorry, you don't have your own back yard do you, you have to rely on playing around in someone else's.

Back on subject please, trolls not invited.

 

Very interesting. Well said!

 

Interesting stuff Jamie. You are a credit to your industry. You never explained the coffee shop in Alaska and bakery in Budapest thing.

 

There's no coffee shops in Alaska, only one coffee manufacturer, check your friends back garden before commenting

The nearest to coffee shops in alaska for dwaz is HERE

When you actually type in the keywords 'coffee shops in Alaska', you get sent to Hawaii. Perhaps you guys need to look at your own content before daring to comment on others.

Such inaccurate content is worse than no content. Just to make you look a bigger tit than your already doing yourself, check the links in the dying directory, (the link above) one site is dead internally, the rest except one is non coffee shop related. The one that is under re-construction so wouldn't get in our directory until its done. I could go on but won't do a volunteers job while the owners get big salaries even though they claim to be non profit.

Don't call me out for a fight, you punching above your weight, I'll knock you down every time you can be sure of that.

Oh; DWAZ doens't contain Bakers in Budapest either.

 

You are zipping off on a tangent.

Here is what your directory says, not the ODP by the way. You are getting all confused (and not to mention off topic)

Just to be clear Jamie Jim Jam in case you missed it, this is what your directory says.Your directory

 

I believe any directory where humans are involved in evaluating the submissions can be made to provide only 'safe results' or otherwise. Search engines rely on imperfect algorithms to filter out the junk. I would say that people would still use SEs for 99.99999% of searches and will go to famous (that means having a good brand name offline) niche directory to search for specific sites. General directories can't reach those levels yet the quality and quantity are inversely proportional making them unusable for searching.

 

Exactly. It is refreshing to have some commonsense injected into this discussion.

 

Back on topic, first its a great challenge you have in front of you but i keep coming back to why or is it needed ?

Unless your putting up 4 big walls and build a comminity that runs it's own tv. radio, newspaper has it's own edited version of dictionary then where is there and real value ? I suppose if such a data base did exist it could be leased to schools to give mum and dad that warm fuzzy feeling, but then i ask well my kids grew up with dictionary.com, probably has every word that you have banned in it and they turned out ok.

As above a great challenge and plenty of admiration forit but lost from that point.

 

I agree with what DownUnder has to say.

I heard about a company (Webaroo or something like that) that was planning to sell web bundles ( I don't know the exact name) that could be used offline for searching and you could also get niche specific web bundles for your phones and laptops. It was not a directory but something on similar lines that will also give you info when you are offline.. I don't think they are a big hit 'yet' !!

It's a noble quest / challenge to organize information of the world but I don't think it can be done manually

 

There is absolutely a need for a family safe search system that not only starts off on the right track by creating an absolutely safe and comprehensive database but maintains it. You don't need 4 big walls as you put it, a directory locked in a browser will do that.

This wasn't about Cantufind like one idiot above wanted to make it out to be, but cantufind for one will make a hell of a go at creating an environment that people can browse safely in knowing they won't have to worry about the quality of content.

The representative from Dwoz asked me about coffee shops in alaska, little did he know that this was a fantastic chance to challenge the power of a directory over a search engine. I rose to the challenge and after trawling through our database being re-reviewed I found we did have a few so got one of the editors to review one or two, using the power of the eye the sites that got listed are safe and exactly what the searcher asked for, 'Coffee Shops in Alaska'

I'm not saying its an easy task, not anyone is going to be able to create a massive directory covering everything and anything in safety but there is definitely room for one, and with the search engines never being able to match the eye it will only be a matter of time. Dmoz had a great chance to do this but failed out of the quest to be the biggest not the best, its their failing that is opening the way for others to learn by their mistakes.

To the original question WHY? Have you got Children DownUnder? I haven't yet but when I do I want my kids to be able to search the internet without worrying they are going to get tainted by half the crap there is in search engines and poorly maintained directories, that's why.

Call it a dream, call it fantasy but the computer was a dream once wasn't it. This wasn't my dream, it was the founder of cantufind's and without making excuses for him he never followed through well enough, I plan on doing something about that if I can.

Thanks to the people who brought this thread back on track.

Oh, neb, thanks for the red rep you gave me.

 

@Jamie: Are you planning add some entries to directory yourself (I am sure you are) Or you would only rely on people paying to get reviewed? I know many good informational sites that are not on the internet for earning money. Will you be including them in your directory for free?

Will you add a new website for every query that gives zero results?

Secondly, once we agree that it's a difficult to make a directory big enough yet safe within sane timelines..(wikipedia was done within sane timelines so this task doesn't sound impossible though it is very difficult) can we say that the time and effort is better put in improving search engine's safesearch filters?

 

Exactly, the engine won't do all the work, as technology has certain limitations. What's wrong with basic keyword search - I type in Caterers, then that's what I should get surely. Yet am shocked that Google and others sell themselves on their relevancy/accuracy of results. All that money, experts and technology and they still can't provide a perfect search experience Doh!

I wonder if they know the problems they have. Love to be a fly on the wall in Google HQ.

 

There's a pretty big database already being re-reviewed Jitendraag, there are paid editors doing that as I type. There is a short cut to getting good quality sites into the directory for absolutely no charge whatsoever, I'm not posting the details here though as the system will more than likely get abused. I'll p.m you the info.

That's the general idea, but if there are no results that's because the sites that were once there are now falling short on quality, content, been sold on and so on. The idea will of course be to fill every single category in time, one thing we have plenty of.

Cantufind already looked at this and didn't take the step of the directory route lightly. Filters will always prove problematic for a number of reasons, one being semantics which this thread is all about, the other is a pixel filter we devised. It distinguished skin tone etc and would allow us to ban any site with X amount of flesh was showing. That would have been great except for the fact that a gigantic amount of business on the internet is tourism and holidays, by filtering out flesh tones etc would mean people would have to wear clothes on the beach in the scorching sun.

We've looked at pretty much every angle, human reviewing is the only real way, even if its the hardest.

 

How about 'report spam in search results' that google has? I think in a way it supports your theory that it's better done manually?

 

Why do their job for them? They get paid Billions as it is. They want to improve their results I'd happily set a team to them but it wouldn't be free that's for certain.

 

Thats great that you sorted out the coffee shops in Alaska think , you can hold your head high, you are now an honest man. I am not sure why we needed such a big fuss for you to actually deliver what you claimed , but all well that ends well. How are we getting on with the Bakeries in Budapest?

And you are right what you propose is indeed a massive task. You will forgive me for being a little cynical I have heard this story many times before, to make a truly comprehensive directory you need huge resources. And the economics of it are such that the potential revenue generation is limited when compared to the likely cost, and the demand for directories today. Older pay for inclusion directories like Yahoo, and a few of the bigger ones have reached the critical mass and are more or less self sustaining, but for someone starting from scratch the task is so daunting that it is near impossible. And for an existing directory to climb out of the cesspit that is the pay for inclusion directory business and create a resource that is actually useful will require a very determined person with very large balls.

Oh by the way the red rep was not from me. I have not given anyone a red rep ever,If I wanted to tell someone something I have enough spine to tell them here.

 

I believe they do have a team in place and the team is being paid handsomely. I think it's give and take, they are providing one of the best search engines that people use daily (atleast I do) to location information on varied range of topics. They are entitled to earn some money off the business.

Why do you report bugs in a software that you have paid for? Why can't you we do it for something as good as google even when it comes for free?

I agree that this has gone offtopic. I agree that it will be a difficult task for search engines to remove spam results because of semantics and other complications associated with natural languages but I would continue to use a search engine with 'safesearch on' until someone (or you) really has a really useful alternative (in your case human-edited directory)

 

I understand fully what you say and if I'm honest I use Google but I'm a seasoned searcher who knows what to look for. Even the safesearch isn't safe as I've shown.

The problem with reporting for nothing is that its a one way street at the moment, if they paid people more for adsense and so on then we'd be happy to help them but its the greed factor that puts me off helping anyone other than those who deserve it.

Sent you p.m.

 

Yes Jamie i have 2 girls, one now 20 at uni doing nursing, the other going 16 in senior high plus also just started working, so perhaps we can share your dream with our grand kids.

we all must have dreams, we all must live for our dreams , otherwise life is a slow process of dying..