I've been lurking for a while, yet following the recent DMOZ train-wrecks with interest. DMOZ is already irrelevant, and if they maintain present course, they will become a mere footnote in internet history. Perhaps they already are. The purpose of DMOZ was to expedite listing requests by opening up the editorial process to webmasters, and those who were interested in editing pet subjects. This is because Yahoo! were too slow at same. This isn't what DMOZ is today. Today, DMOZ is a small club of people making up their own rules about what DMOZ is so they can ensure their own positions. They are unanswerable and unaccountable. That is all very well if they were paying their own way. But they aren't. DMOZ is owned and paid for by AOL/Time Warner. If AOL think they're providing a public good with DMOZ, then they need to be made aware of the public relations disaster the current DMOZ administration is causing for them. No one, other than those with vested interests, has a good word to say about DMOZ. DMOZ are widely despised by the one group who makes the most use of their offering: webmasters. The sad thing is, the editors have no real power, except over submitters and other editors. The metas do not have the power to change the way DMOZ runs because they too are being ignored by the (very) few paid AOL employee(s). There may just be only one now. The thing has been forgotten about. If Webmasters have problems with DMOZ, I suggest that they ignore the worthless RZ entirely and go straight to the source of power. Go to AOL/Time Warner. Email them and tell them how annoyed you are that a public resource AOL is paying for has been taken over by a small group of people who are making little or no effort to fulfill the social contract, and that this situation is causing widespread resentment and ill feeling amongst the webmaster community. Time for a shake-up. The present administration has failed and should step down. The more webmasters do this, the more likely AOL will take action to manage the public relations nightmare. That is the only way to hold the DMOZ powers-that-be accountable and effect change. PS: Webmasters rule the web. DMOZ don't.
Well said Bernard. However it started in the RZ. And one of the present parties is a fellow moderator of yours named spectragunner. He moderates the DMOZ thread in IHY. The other moderator is dmoz editor as well. Noone comes to IHY anomore because it is too biased. You have talked about the co-op but you were not ganged up on. By the way I didn't participate in it. I see Doug call names all of the time, anything from scum of the earth to worse. he is referring to spammers but my concern are not those but people protecting those who are in power and do wrong. You don't want to ever have a public forum get out of balance and be too one sided. I for example agreed with your coop remarks but out of respect to this place did not respond. I didn't make up lies or attack you or try to discredit you either. I am not about who is right but what is right. We are not in charge the search engines are. And DMOZ is polluting the results, actually the bad editors are - the majority which contains of lazy, arrogant, self serving and/or corrupt members. The conduct of your fellow mods has examplified it. If you start ganging up on someone like that, you cannot be trusted with being unbiased. I regret my conduct but will not be quiet when being talked to the way I was. Noone ever should be. Doug made a difference with rubberstamped.org but that was only a band aide. otherwise the forum is telling people things are being done when in reality they are not. people are sick of being lied to. Have your own mind and stand up for what you know. You seem to do so, I wished a lot more people would.
Mike, if all your recent posts were as thought out and eloquent as this last one, I doubt I would be addressing you right now. The only reason I was not ganged up on in the coop thread is because someone (sorry, it's been a while since it happened and I don't remember who it was) shouted out in my defense and "quieted the jackals". IMO, every forum is biased to one degree or another on any given issue. It is the nature of communities that members will gravitate to the ones they are most comfortable in. When you attack a member of a tight knit community, you will see the community rally to support the attacked. This is true of internet forums as well as any other settings where friends gather. Doug made a difference with rubberstamped - yes. I was told privately by at least one ODP editor at the start of that circus that Skrenta walked on water and nothing would be done. He was the most untouchable of "the untouchables". Funny though... his actions were not taken lightly or ignored. If whateveryousay is to be believed (post #8), the ODP is losing the honest, active metas/editors that it did have over the issue - and don't kid yourself, the ODP is (or at least was) full of stand-up, honest folks. The ODP keeps claiming that they will handle cases of abuse that are reported. The few issues that I am aware of, that were reported, have been taken care of. So far, I have seen little to get huffy about with regards the ODP. BTW, I was not always of this frame of mind. If you cared to, you could read some rather scathing posts I made with regards to the ODP several years ago at IHY. Over time, I have come to understand the other side of the coin. Perhaps I have the benefit of not ever encountering a corrupt editor, but I have met (virtually via forums) many and none of the ones I know (including spectregunner) deserve to be painted with the broad brush that is so easy to slap around. Everyone's blanket criticisms of ODP editors as currupt, self-interested, power hungry toads does nothing to encourage honest folk to donate their time at the ODP. It is counter-productive when you look at the big picture.
This is DigitalPoint, and this thread is about DMOZ. IHY has a history of siding with the powers that be, so I wouldn't apologize to them, sitetutor. The only way IHY get attention from the webmaster community these days is when they venture into other forums and talk about themselves. If webmasters have issues with DMOZ, then approach Time/Warner directly. DMOZ metas do not have the power or desire to make the changes necessary.
HI Whateveryousay, thanks for the offer of help, but there is nothing to be checked or done. Sorry if the word 'blocked' had some semantec relevance as an official DMOZ word. What was happening is that all my submissions were being 'ignored, binned', call it what you will. The editor in question is a good editor as far as it goes, they clean submissions no problem. We ran a test, I submitted one site, a friend submitted another, theirs (mine submitted by them) was approved, mine just didn't appear they were of course different sites not duplicates, and both equally acceptable under the submission guidelines. This happened 3 times, I think that is proof enough. I contacted the editor via DMOZ, and got no reply. Honestly I can see no way that I am misreading the position. When I asked a 'friend' to look, I was told off the record that my sites were not pending, nor were they approved. Draw your own conclusions. It is not an ideal situation, but hpefully Google will either buy ODP from netscape, or blow it out of the water. I am sure there are enough trusted people to build a quality resource.
All I can say is you are 100% RIGHT..contact AOL not dmoz. Maybe if we get a larger percentage of ethical editors in dmoz, then all those editors that are using dmoz as their own little serps machine will be told to hit the road and their listings gone with them.
For those of you who missed this thread before whateverusay edited this post, he indicated that he bought a DMOZ editor's login from "a website before it went out of business". I find that of more than passing interest.
there must surely be some kind of underhanded behaviour, not everybody is a saint, or joined DMOZ purely for the love of the internet. however i have decided to no longer criticize the editors of dmoz, it must be tedious work responding to the same old questions time and time again, and yet people still keep doing things like re-submitting every 5 mins, and a lot of spam surely gets submitted also. the problem is not with the editors, but with the entire system. there really shouldn't be a forum, then we dont need to see either agressive editors OR pissed off submitters. the sooner they either get an e-mail system in place,,,or simply have nothing, the better. (ie like google where you just submit, and they crawl when they feel like it) there are some hardworking editors for sure, otherwise nothing would make it ever... and also a lot of people who waste all their time and effort running un-necessary forums.
If someone finds the right phone number of the right people to contact at AOL/Time Warner, please list it here or PM me. I want to place it on my Dmoz fan page
I found my way to the resourse forum after applying to become an editor. After glancing through the posts, I see alot of this, and it is very disturbing. I was also hit by this in my question about becoming an editor. It seems these editors are very "full of themselves". (and I realize that not all of them are that way, but there are enough acting this way on that forum to make you think that the majority of them are way to "full of themselves")
There are some good editors out there, and I refuse to taint them because of the idiots. hutcheson is a nazi http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12651&page=10&pp=15 he is a nobody. people like that should be alienated by their own kind and placed where they belong: somewhere all alone with noone having to listen to them. It's revenge of the geeks guys, attempted revenge. I have made friends with some DMOZ editors but still : the bad ones are allowed to be so vocal at this point, there is no way it can be tolerated. This is a good example to why people become DMOZ editors: http://www.vbwebmaster.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2084&posted=1#post2084 I wanna challenge Hutchenson to reveal his sites. I bet when I will do a backlink check, there will be sites linking to him and being listed in DMOZ without meeting the standards of being listed in there.
I've had a lot of success applying as an editor, and including one of my own sites in the suggestion fields (as well as several unlisted, high quality sites, I don't own). My editor application has always been denied, but often they will include my listings to the directory. It only works if put effort into your application form (especially the site suggestions), and you get a sympathetic editor.
This sums it up for me... http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25911 October 20th, until December 7th just to get... Fuck it... I don't care.
insidedmoz.00freehost.com was the site I was on about (editor logins for sale). It ain't the same one but it is surely by the same person (probably the corrupteditor/nmoz author). See I was not imagining it!
$47 via PP. I got the impression that I was one of two or three who got them at the same time as the instruction PM I got was kind of a 'generic' one. I also got sent to me a copy of the original welcome to ODP email and a hotmail account login that was used for the application. I have changed the email address and password though for obvious reasons.