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DMOZ Submission Reward - $1K

Discussion in 'ODP / DMOZ' started by rbfallon, Apr 11, 2005.

  1. macdesign

    macdesign Peon

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    #121
    If you listen to the news, you often hear about criminals who get though through their own stupid mistakes of from some public tip. The same applies here. It's surprising also how many editors on the internal forums end up getting into some discussion where they give away clues to their biased editing. Most abusers are low level editors who are too stupid to be good at being corrupt. Now I admit ther might be a few smart ones out there, but to make any real money at being corrupt, you have to edit at a high level, and be able to access many categories, and have a track record of good editing. That represents a lot of work, that really does not justify the potential rewards.

    The most likely scenario of severe abuse would be a good editor at a senior level who after some time, had a change of mind and lost his morality and became slightly insane. I have seen that happen to a low-level editor, who managed to hide some minor abuse for a couple of years - he was just tweaking his site and his friends site descriptions - I doubt he ever took any money. Suddenly one day, he started making all descriptions total nonsense. He was terminated within a few hours. Subsequent investigation found he had been an edditor previously several years earlier, under a different id, and had been terminated before.

    Sometimes it's just random checks and supspicions that lead to catching problems. I once checked out a complaint in an SEO forum that an editor was stopping a site getting listed. Now 99.99% of these complaints are pure nonsense, but in this case I was able to see that an editor had not only listed his own site, and was very slack in reviewing other sites, but in fact he had approved tow of hi site in the same categiry. I raised an abuse complaint, and he and his sites left. The person who complained got his site listed a month later.

    One time I unreviewed a site whose site owner was annoying me with continual update requests. I meant to refer the site to a senior editor to decide what to do. Wihin a day, another editor making random checks, found what I had done, put the site back up and I received a rebuke for unreviewing it without good reason. Someone is alwyas watching.
     
    macdesign, Oct 23, 2005 IP
  2. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #122
    An editor for just over a week and already trying to figure our how you can conceal the perks of the position? :rolleyes:
     
    minstrel, Oct 23, 2005 IP
  3. Alucard

    Alucard Peon

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    #123
    If you can characterise fraudulent money exchange as a "perk" (implying that it's ok), and you apply that characterisation to government and corporate bribery, then maybe that is accurate.

    I just have never seen that sort of thing described as a "perk" before.

    Perk: "an incidental benefit awarded for certain types of employment (especially if it is regarded as a right)"

    I don't think any editor would see it as that. It's bribery, plain and simple. Not a right in any way, and not right in any way either.

    I think that if it were a perk, we wouldn't see editors getting canned for doing it....
     
    Alucard, Oct 23, 2005 IP
  4. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #124
    It was sarcasm, Alucard. It certainly does seem to be applicable to government and politicians - I doubt that anyone outside of Canada cares but we have a LOT of that going on up here at all levels of government :mad:
     
    minstrel, Oct 23, 2005 IP
  5. Alucard

    Alucard Peon

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    #125
    Ohhhh - sorry, I missed the [SARCASM][/SARCASM] meta-tags. The humor-challenged may have taken you seriously.... ;)
     
    Alucard, Oct 23, 2005 IP
    wrmineo likes this.
  6. bradley

    bradley Peon

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    #126
    Curses! Caught in flagrante delicto! You win this time, Minstrelman, but perhaps next time there won't be a superhero such as yourself to save the 'Net from sociopathic evildoers such as I! MUAHAHAHAHAHA

    [/sarcasm]
     
    bradley, Oct 24, 2005 IP
  7. Will.Spencer

    Will.Spencer NetBuilder

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    #127
    Canadian politics are fun to watch. :)
     
    Will.Spencer, Oct 24, 2005 IP
  8. Shoemoney

    Shoemoney $

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    #128
    I don't meant to be captain obvious here but c mon... you guys know there is corruption in the dmoz. I cant believe people are even arguing the point. When you get power like the dmoz has its so .... corruptive.

    Whats the famous quote - Absolute power corrupts absolutely?

    Anything with that much power has some level of corruption. Don't be so surprised. Well course cept for shawn (namedrop) I think he is uncorruptable ;)

    imo a dmoz entry is worth at least $2,000.00 and soon once google makes the dmoz there business listing directory and charges 500$ a year for entry that will seem pretty reasonable.
     
    Shoemoney, Oct 24, 2005 IP
  9. Blogmaster

    Blogmaster Blood Type Dating Affiliate Manager

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    #129
    I'm also surprised how surprised so many people act over that. Especially with such a large amount of editors. They say everyone has a price, but I believe some people are very hard to corrupt. The question is how to manage an organization so that things don't get out of hand and the problem is that there is nobody really in charge.
     
    Blogmaster, Oct 24, 2005 IP
  10. Will.Spencer

    Will.Spencer NetBuilder

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    #130
    During the cold war, the KGB's planning numbers were that one out of every three people could be convinced to betray their country.

    Are there more than two DMOZ editors?
     
    Will.Spencer, Oct 24, 2005 IP
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  11. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #131
    Not if you live here :mad:

    In Canada, we like to watch British politics to make fun of the Royals and US politics to make fun of the Democrats :D

    One of my favorite commentaries on US politics came from The Simpsons. Bart and Lisa use Grampa Simpson's name to get their Itchy and Scratchy scripts published. When they finally tell him about it, Bart asks, "Didn't you wonder when all those checques suddenl;y started arriving?", and Grampa says, "I just figured the Democrats were in power again."
     
    minstrel, Oct 24, 2005 IP
  12. Alucard

    Alucard Peon

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    #132
    Yes, there is. I don't think you will find many editors who would try to claim that there is NONE. The difference seems to be that the anti-ODP posters seem to imply that the whole directory is corrupt, and that the ODP tolerates it and tries to do nothing to deal with it - it's a "perk" - nothing could be further from the truth.

    There are corrupt people in government, business, the army - all walks of life. I don't see reasonable people claiming that because of this, the whole thing is irrelevant and should be shut down. But that same measure seems to imply that the ODP should be. Just doesn't track, in my opinion.
     
    Alucard, Oct 25, 2005 IP
  13. joeychgo

    joeychgo Notable Member

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    #133

    I dont think thats why people say that - I think its because so many catagories appear to be ignored, as do submitted sites seem to often be ignored. It also seems as if most editorsare more interested in defending DMOZ then accepting sincere criticism and making changes.

    Notice I used the word 'seem'.
     
    joeychgo, Oct 25, 2005 IP
  14. Alucard

    Alucard Peon

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    #134
    joeychgo - I have seen many threads on this forum which goes from finding one corrupt editor to "the ODP is corrupt". So I think that logic chain has definitely been used.

    Yes, categories appear to be ignored, I agree. There aren't enough good editors to go around. (notice I use the word 'good'). I would love it if it could be different and if the ODP could find an interested, non-corrupt, unbiased, team-player who would tend some of those categories.

    I would love it if the ODP listed every quality site out there - not just those that have been submitted, but those which haven't as well.

    As for making changes - an internal ODP document was leaked by one of the "corrupt editors" a few months ago which talked about the efforts to change and renew the ODP. One of the solutions to the problem is to get more good editors. There are plans to try some new ways of doing that - still a work in progress, that one. There are also efforts underway to try to reduce the editor workload caused by the so-called "spam submittals" - but I am obviously not going to go into any details about that.

    Sincere, altruistic criticism (as opposed to self-interested) is listened to. Ideas are taken on-board all the time from posters in fora. Just because an idea isn't implemented doesn't mean it was ignored.

    Unlike Google, for example, ODP editors regularly post to fora in order to explain how the directory works, set expectations, and to try to engage in serious conversation with those who are interested. Everyone has their own style of how to do this, of course, so results will differ.
     
    Alucard, Oct 25, 2005 IP
  15. Alucard

    Alucard Peon

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    #135
    ok, now why on earth did I get red-repped (with no comment) for the previous post?
     
    Alucard, Oct 29, 2005 IP
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  16. Blogmaster

    Blogmaster Blood Type Dating Affiliate Manager

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    #136
    Who knows, people are pissed at DMOZ, Google, seochat, you name it. Anytime you are taking someone's side, you may get hit.
     
    Blogmaster, Oct 29, 2005 IP
  17. brizzie

    brizzie Peon

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    #137
    Our volume - capability to add new sites - runs at about 250,000 net (after removals of dead and sub-standard) a year. There are 500,000+ categories. Therefore on average, a category can expect the addition of 1 new site every 2 years. But that isn't the way it works. Editors work on whatever categories appeal to them personally and because editors are a cross-section of web surfers the categories that get most attention are the ones that are currently of interest to surfing society in general. I might be looking for a new car online and in doing so add any missing car dealerships and manufacturers I come across in my part of the world.

    We receive between 5,000 and 10,000 suggestions a day. Over 2.5 million a year. Maybe only 5% of them will make it through into the Directory. The balance of additions will come from editors going out and finding new sites to add themselves which is proven to be a far more effective method of finding unique sites likely to be of interest to our users. What happens to the remaining 95%? The vast bulk are spam - unlistable sites, duplicate submissions, deeplinks, affiliates, and so on. Editors have to process those too. So in a typical year, editors between them will process 3 million+ suggestions, deletions, updates, and independent adds.

    When you understand that background you can see that editors are far from inactive or ignoring categories. It is an iceberg with the bulk of activity never reaching the public pages.

    Are submitted sites ignored? There is some truth in that and editors have not made any secret of it. Submission pools are by far the least likely source of listable sites and therefore experienced editors tend to give them the lowest priority when building a category. A random Google search or a local or specialist directory is going to yield far better results. So the best way to get listed quickly is to gain a reputation elsewhere for having a great site.

    Editors do defend DMOZ because most of the critics have no idea of the concepts or the background. Most of the critics want to turn us into a commercial listing service. That would not work because 99% of editors would leave and start DMOZ over again based on the original principles. Any change has to carry consensus of those who donate their free time to the project, the editors. So outsiders suggesting changes that are intended to benefit themselves, usually from a profit motive, will be dismissed out of hand by editors. In the same way they would dismiss out of hand any suggestions I made to them as to how they could better spend their spare time to better profit me.

    Lets face it, it is not logical, reasonable, or socially acceptable to seek to dictate how others should spend their free time so you can make some money out of it.

    The real complaint is not what DMOZ is or does or how it does it but with the commercial effect it has. This was never part of the concept and it is something editors cannot control. Our data is made available free of charge and whosoever want to can pick it up and use it as long as they follow the T&C. So quit complaining about DMOZ and focus on those who dish out the commercial effect. I presume Google. Tell 'em their business and to stop putting weight on DMOZ data. No doubt you'll get the answer - you pay nothing to have Google list you so it in turn owes you nothing.

    The whole anti-DMOZ thing stinks really. The complainants are generally trying to manipulate Internet search results to benefit themselves financially and disadvantage their competition. Why should DMOZ, or Google either, be party to that. It has nothing to do with providing the best products or services and everything to do with how good you are at key words, key phrases, smoke mirrors and gateways, and link exchanges. Marketing. DMOZ is about information - in commercial terms unique products and services and have zero interest in marketing. That is what upsets the detractors - their web equivalent of their junk mail gets binned.

    Those with legitimate excellent quality sites stuffed full of unique content and which aren't listed. Look to the purveyors of spam and mirrors and gateways and affiliates, and other junk websites for why you have not been listed. If they did not clog up submission pools with their crap they might be a more reliable source of listable sites. If they did not submit at all then editors would not be spending tens of thousands of man hours clearing them out of the way and would be adding twice the number of new sites at least. Start a campaign against them not us.

    It has not been discussed seriously by editors and is only a personal opinion but I think there will come a time when the ability to suggest sites to DMOZ in commercial categories will be closed entirely. Abuse something once too many times and lose it.
     
    brizzie, Oct 30, 2005 IP
  18. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #138
    This is one of the things that I find upsetting about the forum responses of many DMOZ editors - you cannot dismiss the criticisms of the directory by assuming that anyone who is a "detractor" is a scheming manipulator or even someone who has been denied a DMOZ listing. That is insulting, incorrect, and close-minded. That is Resource Zone rhetoric. It doesn't belong anywhere else but in that sorry excuse for a public platform.
     
    minstrel, Oct 30, 2005 IP
  19. brizzie

    brizzie Peon

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    #139
    You will notice that in my post I used "most" and "generally" not "all" (deliberately because it would be insulting etc to the minority). I'm afraid that is because 99% of the detractors fall into that bracket - note how 99% of the threads start and who starts them. I am aware there is a 1% who are detractors for other reasons. And some of those may have been the unwitting victim of an ODP error - it happens with something edited by humans. Error includes being the victim of a corrupt editor - when they are caught the rest of us do our best to clear up any mess they caused but things can get missed. If you, as a detractor, do not fall into the 99% then the statements don't apply to you and there is no reason to be upset.

    Criticisms of DMOZ and suggestions for change generally fall into one of several categories and there aren't that many of them, they tend to be mostly recycled.

    Most suggestions for change stem from a belief that:

    1) DMOZ is a listing service. It isn't.
    2) Submissions are not dealt with fast enough. We don't exist to process submissions.
    3) Editors are corrupt/self-serving. They aren't with the exception of a small minority who are ejected when proven guilty.
    4) DMOZ is secretive. In some areas it is and for good reason - we have enough problems with spammers, we don't want them to learn our defences.
    5) DMOZ should accept paid listings. It can't.

    All suggestions for change founded on any of the above are doomed to instant dismissal. Sorry and all but it's a fact. If the assumptions on which the suggestion is based are invalid, so is the suggestion most of the time.

    There is a great deal of change going on within the ODP currently aimed at improving things from our perspective. To get a change to go through effectively requires editor consensus and consensus in any field is very difficult to achieve. It is founded on listening to editors with their knowledge of the problems experienced and their understanding of why they are editors and the principles of the project. Are we going to share our weapons of mass spam destruction. No. Are we going to share improvements to guidelines. Yes.

    Well the Resource Zone is a place where editors tend to hang out and can access records relating to the questioner. They either put up with a questioner's lies and misleading statements or they give as good as they get. Once or twice an innocent can get caught in the crossfire or be wrongly tarred and that is regrettable. But it is a rare occurence. In a typical case the questioner will start by saying their site has been waiting a couple of years and it is disgraceful blah blah blah. Then you find that the site they are referring to is a mirror they have spammed over many categories and one version of the site is already listed anyway.

    Whatever the platform, whether it is Resource Zone where an innocent questioner is flamed because they have got themselves bundled in with the spammers, or here where editors get flamed because they have been bundled in with the tiny number of editors who have abused their position, it is something to be regretted.
     
    brizzie, Oct 30, 2005 IP
  20. minstrel

    minstrel Illustrious Member

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    #140
    Granted...

    I think you are missing or dismissing a lot of valid criticism if you think the proportion is that small.

    But perhaps not as often as the rationalizations used as responses to those criticisms.

    Either you need to do more reading at the Resource Zone or you are being deliberately disingenuous or you have tunnel vision - sadly, the gratuitous and condescending put downs are far from a rare occurrence at RZ.
     
    minstrel, Oct 30, 2005 IP