DMOZ inclusion problems.

If you own the site in your signature - the message was indeed directed at you.

Five editors have had to waste their time dealling with your spammy submissions to multiple categories. And it's acts like this that waste editor time, and slow down the review of those sites that abide by the submission guidelines.

 

Indeed it is, I've not heard anything on the status of some submissions I made a couple of weeks ago, ok that might sound a bit impatient but if you're going to run a decent directory the turnaround on submissions has to be reasonably fast.

I'm working on something like this at the moment, the four problems I see are:

1. How to deal with the sheer number of potential submissions
2. How to deal with broken/outdated links
3. How to check that people aren't spamming several categories (personally I think listing a site in 3 or 4 categories is fine, so long as those are relevant)
4. How to stop editors being corrupt (best solution I can think of is for two editors to approve a submission before it goes live, same goes for deleting them - a bit like the way kuro5hin.org handles new articles)

 

But to really compete with ODP you need several thousand people and have to pay them - and you probably need half a million dollars in equipment. Everyone claims to be able to compete with ODP with paying directories - but I'm still waiting. There's a clutter of these directories appearing, each with paid submissions all competing with each other.

Were you expect email notification? - cause that does not happen.

Yes it's massive - but ODP is not supposed to be a submission processing service and it does not plan on listing every web site that exists.

It's not perfect, but there are tools that automatically detect a lot of them. I'd like to see these automatic systems improved. Feel free to post at http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5453

I agree about several categories, but realistically it would overload the editing work - so it won't happen.

You can't stop them - but you can catch them - other editors do review other's work and then senior editors will concur on editor removal. I'm not a senior editor - but I catch a few a year and report them - they all get removed. Other than that it's a slow build up of trust, that's why new editors are limited to what they can mess up and abuse.

Rogue Students was moved recently to be reviewed in Reference/Education/Colleges_and_Universities/Europe/United_Kingdom - although I would not count on it being accepted.

 

I'm not claiming to be able to compete with Dmoz, certainly not at first anyway. I just want to run an alternative that will hopefully result in people's sites getting approved quickly and for them to know when it has happened. Even if I was aiming to compete, it would take a while for the site to build up popularity and for word to get around about it. I imagine it would take at least two years to reach the scale that dmoz has, in that time I'd be making sure that the resources were available for it to expand if need be, and at how to fund the site.

Yes, and I know it doesn't happen - that is a major failing in my opinion. How am I supposed to know if any of my sites have been accepted without continuously checking dmoz.org (and that assumes they haven't been moved to a slightly different category).

How so? You'd have one record for a site, then multiple pointers to it from each category. When a site was submitted, you could have a list of checkboxes for each category it was submitted in. If you thought the site was appropriate for some categories but not others, you'd only select some of the checkboxes and the site would only appear in those categories. I'm sure there are a few other ways in which you could add multiple-category support without overwhelming the editors as well.

If you had a rule "two editors must approve/deny a submission before it gets removed from the queue", that would stop a lot of the abuse before it happened. Even if there isn't much abuse going on or you clamp down on it, a lot of people (especially from what I've seen just on this forum) perceive the directory as being abused even if it isn't. Having a policy whereby you made it clear that it would be very difficult for one editor to go on a rampage would put some minds at rest and also save you from having to clear up the mess when you do catch them.

The problem is that, unless I know an editor in that category who is willing to keep an eye on my submission, how on earth am I supposed to know whether it has been accepted or not? I don't get any "thanks for your submission, we're looking at it" or "we rejected your submission, but here's how to do it better next time" or anything like that.

 

I agree that if an automatic email system was put in place, i.e. an email to say, no thanks, or yes your site is accepted! That way it will the editors won't have to spend so much time in the resource zone answering webmaster queries.

When you look over time at directories, so many of them have come and gone, look at bluefind, webatlas etc, all having problems with Google. Dmoz has stood the stand of time, but I do agree with comments about obnoxious editors, but then some webmasters can be just as bad.

I've had major complaints about the directory, and I'm sure you could look them up if you really wanted but providing you design a unique, easy to navigate, compliant in all browsers website, that isn't spammy, has tons of affiliate links on you cannot go far wrong in my opinion.

 

You'd have to be about.com (I know not a true directory, but they do have thousands of paid editors), Looksmart, or Yahoo. Get your checkbook out.

 

I'm guessing the original SEO people submitted the site a long time ago, but if my memory serves me right I attempted to get us listed twice over the past year in different categories each time.

It's quite annoying having to wait months and months and have no idea whats going on, the categories I used had very few sites so I don't see how the editors of those categories are actually doing anything.

The check your status forum is useless as well, 'your site is awaiting review' for a year is pointless.

Useless PERIOD! I don't expect our site get every listed there, it's the biggest garbage I've ever seen and the search engines that actually use that pile of *hit should get something else to base their results on.

DMOZ = GARBAGE, and I don't care what anyone else thinks.

 

I think it has always been garbage but it stands out more because more people are trying to get in.

I think the creation of anti-odp sites lately is really funny. In the past few weeks there has been corruptdmozeditor.com, nmoz.com/ and geocities.com/insidedmoz (if there are any more I would love to see them).

Give it another year and there will need to be a directory for ex-editors and dmoz bashers.

I personally think that the ODP needs to pay more attention to the webmasters and although they should nt bow to them they definately should try to work together more. They are both after all both trying to get info the an internet user.

Here here.

 

Heh, that nmoz site is most amusing. As an ex-editor I can relate to some of the points he makes about meta-editors getting their knickers in a twist over minor/non-existant problems.

 

It is important to remember that the editors are volunteers and don't/can't spend enough time on submisssions. Polite reminders which are spaced out in time and persistance usually work from my experience. I recently succeeded in having a site accepted after 2 reminders and about 8 months from the first submission.

 

To get another understanding of the problems there at dmoz go read this thread http://www.national-real-estate-directory.com/real-estate-forum/showthread.php?t=113 I believe you will find it interesting from a past editall, who left dmoz because he broke his neck in a car wreck.

 

Interesting thread referenced in your post, LVH. Thanks.

 

The problem with reminders is that there's no easy/automated way to check whether your submission has been successful, so you don't know whether you're reminding an editor about a site that's already been denied. If you have to wait 8 months and bug the editors several times most people won't bother.

 

Yes, the problem is lack of automation, they do have the SOC technology working for them though.....and it is quite good


SAME OLD CRAP

 

I just posted a question about a site I submitted over two months ago. It'll be interesting to see what kind of reponse I get, and how long it takes to get one, if at all.

 

Hey, just got the response: "The submission has been accepted and is awaiting review." I guess I can live with that for now.

 

what was the url?

 

This is all true, but many times you can tell if your site deserves to be accepted so bugging the editor (infrequently) is helpful although a pain. The question is whether or not it is worth it. That has to be weighed against other options. Getting in to a Joeant or similar is much easier (and a bit more expensive) however the link is probably not as strong (since Google probably links from DMOZ as well as their own dmoz copied directory). On the other hand there are other] ways to get linked.

 

maybe if editors were less dweebish and learned how to communicate, DMOZ would have a chance to survive long term

 

Keeping up a directory that is for free is not as easy as it looks. Yahoo gave up and now charges. Once a general directory starts to ask for fees, it becomes much less useful since it is missing a lot of sites. There is no easy answer.