- Continued - It's hard, but I don't this computer automation would change this. Which brings me to my next point, “Dmoz will be better when/if AOL fires them all and automates this†- Impossible (in my opinion) how would sites be automatically placed to proper categories? Would this be determined by where the submitter indicates his site should be listed? This would be a spam directory. How would the descriptions be filled in? By the submitter filling in the blank on the form? By AOL pulling a meta-description from the site? This would result in a list of hyped descriptions (potentially and probably) not telling what the site is really about. Dmoz would turn into a free for all link farm if automated. What if AOL hired a staff of editors? How much would AOL charge for inclusion, to cover the cost of paying the editors? How would this set AOL apart from Yahoo? It wouldn't, they would become a mirror of Yahoo. What if AOL took it over for the huge database of sites? It already has the sites from crawling. Why would AOL need to step in and reorganize the directory if they are using new ground breaking search capabilities? Shouldn't they just keep sending their bot or spider over to Dmoz and harvest new sites every couple days, and not worry about the headache of having to manage another entity. They can just sit back let the editors keep finding new sites for their bots to pick up easily and crawl finding more sites from those new sites. If they want to be a power house in the search engine war, I would think they are gonna worry more about algorithms and improving search results, than making sure a site is listed in a more appropriate category of a directory. The Human factor in Dmoz, is what sets it apart from most others. "Who uses directories?" - I do. When I am looking for good information I use Dmoz. When I am first looking for basics on a topic I use Google search (which I find a few good sites but mostly not quite what I'm looking for.) When someone emails me on my website looking for information on something, I always point them to a category or two at Dmoz, 90% of them have emailed me back and thanked me. "Dmoz needs to collapse or all editors fired and start fresh to fix the problem†- If your fire all the editors and start fresh with new human editors, you will have the same problems. Webmasters make up the majority of the editors and many of them are only out to take advantage of the system and serve themselves. So if you think having all new editors with change anything, think again. You will still have people listing their own sites and deleting the competitor's, still have people that won't add bad sites and then they won't tell you why. Nothing will change. If you say collapse as meaning the administrative make up of Dmoz. That won't matter either. There are only like 3 or 4 paid people at Dmoz and they are mainly there to keep servers maintained and running right, they don't usually edit, they do review editors, and decide which ones deserve to be granted Meta permissions. And there are I think 7 long time editors that have been named administrators (non-paid), but that happened within the last year, and they are now mainly managing the operations like watching editors, investigating, tool development, and public relations. I don't see how getting rid of these people would do anything more than cause Dmoz to continue in a worse abuse state as no one would be monitoring everyone and everything. The "voting system for sites and additions†- Do you really think that would make the directory cleaner? Let’s see...1,000,000 submissions to vote on every week, how many votes would be needed to get added? How would people see the sites to vote on inclusion, all sites submitted would have to be listed, which mean the directory would show 10 one page spam sites or redirects to listed sites, for every 1 quality useful site. The sites that didn't get votes would be dropped? How long would they have to get votes before they disappear? A site describing in detail how to resole a pair of shoes to save money, would probably not get enough votes to stay listed in a directory filled with "get vi@gra now" spam sites that the submitted keeps voting for. Or the webmasters that create and use bots to keep voting for their site to stay listed as popular. This system would be abused even worse than the original version. "The stonewall, typical non-answer received from dmoz editors†- I have read many answers given by editors to the webmasters and maybe it's because I am an editor, but I can see and understand the answers. They are basically stating what is covered in the guidelines of the Dmoz. We as editors have read them many times to get a solid understanding of them and they pretty much make sense to most of us. Maybe that is why the answers given are not understood as an answer and people call them a run a round or stonewall answer? That would explain the ignorant submissions we receive everyday, if the webmasters can't comprehend the guidelines, I guess they would be able to understand an answer based on those same guidelines. The resource zone was a good idea. But I think it may be overwhelming to the editors now. There are way too many people with complaints, questions, and submission update requests for the editors to answer everyone and not get annoyed and upset from answering the same questions over and over. That is why I stay away from there. I edit my categories and try to stay out of the RZ. Put yourself in these shoes. You are the editor of shopping/online/gifts. The category has 500 listings already from previous editors that seemed to like to add every site that was submitted. You have 1,200 sites in the list of unreviewed that you start working on. The first site you edit is Mygreatgifts.com is a cookie cutter OsCommerce cart site selling SMC drop shipped gifts. Everything looks ok so you add it. The next site is 241greatgifts.com Site is the same Os cart site with a different colored header and logo, same layout, same SMC drop shipped gifts. You look further and find that it is owned by the same company as Mygreatgifts.com. You denied it as it is mirror site and has the same content as 100 other sites in your category. The owner come to the resource zone or emails you. He finds it was denied and starts ranting "Why did you denied my site it IS unique, I designed it and picked the colors myself. Why did you list Mygreatgifts.com and not mine other site? They are different!! The coffee mugs are $2.98 on one site and $2.99 on the other. Shouldn't users have to right to see the different prices? You are a power abusing idiot and I bet you have listed 10 of your own sites in that category!!!" That is the argument of 80% of all people ranting to us about being denied. As another editor stated in the RZ, we are a directory not a billboard. Dmoz is meant to collect useful sites for users, not to advertise sites webmasters. Macdesign's response earlier Is a legit answer. For Regional listing in the directory it is listed under the city where the company/store/person is located. If you don't want to be listed in a Regional category, easy, don't show your location on your website. I have sent my sites from my Topical categories over to regional for reason like this...the website is a company website for a plumber in Detroit, MI. The site only provides details on his services and experience and he only offers service to the Detroit Metro area. Should that site be listed in Home/Plumbing? It offers no value to a web surfer located in Mexico, so it doesn't get listed in a Topical category. But rather than just deleting the submission, we send it to Regional/US/States/MI/Detroit/businesses/plumbers where it belongs because the website only focuses on regional area. As far as why the Vacation Rental site wasn't included in the topical category, I don't know. I don't have permissions in that area of the directory and don't know what the category details are, and I didn't look at the site. But if that category is a spam magnet you can be sure that all sites are reviewed with a strong hand and questioning eyes. These categories are harder to get in because of the attempted abusive submissions that make the editors check everything with a fine-tooth comb and be even stricter with their opinions of what should be added to the category. The site listed there now, may have been added back when it was just another category and guidelines were a little more lenient, but then the spam started coming in heavier and finally now it is the way it is. Sorry to sound But I just had to respond to some ideas, and comments made in this thread. I am not trying to start a flame war and I do not think Dmoz is perfect. But I felt that some comments were made without understanding everything behind the directory. I could care less if Dmoz disappeared, I have enough in my life to fill it, but I find contributing to the directory somewhat fulfilling as well as fun as I get to visit different sites and see how the different sites angle to usability. And if my 2 sites waiting for review in the directory never get added that is fine too, my first site has grown to 40,000 visitors a month in the last 2 year without the link from Dmoz.
- Continued - Final - My constructive contribution to this thread... 1. Follow the guideline provided when submitting your site. 2. Submit to the appropriate category. 3. Don't submit over and over again. 4. Don't start trouble with an editor of the category you’re trying to get into, because unfortunately they may be a bad editor and abuse their privileges (then hopefully be caught and dealt with) 5. If you happen to submit your site to a spam targeted category, you better follow the submission form to a Tee, and have some useful, unique, interesting!, and abundant content to set your self apart from the spam. The editors might have a bad taste in their mouth when editing that category and you might be in negative position just from the company of sites in the list with you. But remember, First impressions can be a good thing...fill out the submission form so it looks like a perfect guideline following site, and maybe the editor will have a good first impression before visiting your site. It can only help! Ok, now let me have it for defending Dmoz. Later, Rob
Tutor, Read what ever you want. I just wanted to add my opinions to the the comments made. If you don't want to read it all, fine, don't. I like to write, even if it is all for nothing. Later, Rob
Rob, that is what is so bad about the DMOZ instructions in general, they are so long. I want to read it and will try later. keyphrase try ...
Holy crap, rob777. Didn't you get the hint when you exceeded the post limit the first time around? For those who don't want to read the whole thing, here's the summary: Rob claims that some DMOZ editors aren't corrupt although many are some DMOZ editors aren't lazy although many are some DMOZ editors really believe in the DMOZ vision, although many don't DMOZ editors are busy volunteers with limited time who deserve our sympathy (although apparently they have ample time to write enclopedic posts defending DMOZ or hours of free time to spend insulting and stonewalling people at the Resourceless Zone) Thanks, rob77, for clearing that up!
Hey Rob, we are happy you stopped by and thank you for your efforts in posting information. It is late and I can't read it all as your posts are long but I will read them later. The main problem folks have is a lack of real time communication with the DMOZ directory, in a real time world DMOZ is far from that and it turns webmasters off. So changes must happen or this directory is doomed in the end. Thanks for stopping by and we hope you remain a member of Digital Point
Wow! You really summed it! But you could have went shorter; You could have just said, "Summary=same crap said many times before" I suppose I should have just said that. Now you all think I am a Dmoz crusader. Preaching the cause. Later, Rob
Rob the problem is miscommunication, and as long as resource zone operates the way it does, there will never be good communication.
Since you took the time to write this, here is my thought: Sometimes all people need is a simple answer to a simple question instead of 3 ppl telling them how sick they are of answering questions. Does that make sense?
Yes... even if they ARE sick of ansering questions. And the fact that the same questions get asked over and over again should tell DMOZ that there is something wrong with the system -- but instead they interpret as something wrong with the people asking the questions.
LMAO! Okay, somebody got to you, didn't they, Tutor? Who was it? "That wasn't part of the plan! It wasn't part of the plan!" - Homer J. Simpson
I just think the arguing gets nowhere and it alienates good ideas from coming up. I am friends with some great editors, some are members here and others are even moderators on places like ihelpyou forums. There are however some instigators on the forefront in some places who enjoy playing around. I believe this will change. For the better. Let's not label everyone. That is like being labelled a spammer because you ask a question about your own site's review. It just came to me when Summer got on, that it all goes 2 ways. I myself want to be a part of the solution and not the ongoing problem. Peace!
It's too late for that, ST -- you're part of the solution now whether you like it or not. Besides, you've got a truckload of rubber sheep to worry about... that stuff won't stya fresh forever, you know.
Rob, I personally think you have provided alot of information that is helpful. Alot of us at WPW have been asking for answers and you went into detail on what exactly is done while editing a catagory. I think we have a breakthru! A DMOZ editor sharing information instead of saying bug off.
There are many good editors, Rob is definitely one. There are a lot of DMOZ editors here who don't want anyone to know that they are. But they have told me. It is not an us against them thing.
Collusion, Thanks. Hopefully I can help more people understand how things work over there and in the end make my "job" a little more easy. Tutor, Ahhh schucks