DMOZ Submission Reward - $1K

Look at the amazing success of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia has almost the exact opposite management philosophy of DMOZ -- and Wikipedia is thriving.

In fact, Wikipedia is thriving so well it is threatening to put me out of business. But still, that sort of success is an amazing story.

Wikipedia is doing things the smart way; DMOZ is doing things the other way.

 

What amazes me is when some little editors from some little category, happy in their little world come in here and try to re-explain the rules to us.

 

btw Brizzie, I forgot to sign it, but the last red you've gotten with a detailed explanation was from me. I don't appreciate being talked down to or talked at instead of being talked to. Do you understand the difference? Having reread your answers to my questions, I have realized that you have not only avoided answering, you have wasted my time explaining things to me that I've read in many places before.

If you don't have anything to add in here, I suggest you post somewhere where you actually can benefit somewhat.

If you don't understand what I'm saying: re-read my questions and then read your own answers.

If you still don't get it by then, well .. then there is no sense in talking to you period.

 

What amazes me is people still keep bumping up this thread

 

Mike - you asked me loaded questions designed to get me to appear to criticise something I don't believe warrants criticism. The answers were as diplomatic as I could manage. But I appreciate that coming into this forum as a believer in the ODP is somewhat dangerous. And I have got the "be gone" message as expected. Though given the criticism of how people are treated in RZ it is a tad hypocritical. What you have got from me is that it is regrettable when innocent questioners get flak in the Resource Zone. We may disagree on what proportion are innocent but we can agree it is wrong when someone gets flamed for no good reason.

The thing is that I am sure editors would be happy to work with the webmaster community and help and advise. But on our terms - it is our project, our labours, etc. We can show people how to comply with the Guidelines to mutual benefit. Some people don't want to do that, they want to change things to suit themselves and that is futile. Ultimately editors withdraw completely and leave disgruntled webmasters to vent and fume on their own to zero effect. That isn't being closed minded. You want someone to do something for your benefit at their cost not yours. It is only fair to accept their conditions. You and others want DMOZ to listen to you but few are willing to listen back. However, I know from first hand that you personally will listen to advice given by editors and hopefully it has helped.

Wikipedia is brilliant and a lot of DMOZ editors work there too. It doesn't have the same spam and abuse potential as a directory that includes travel agencies, real estate agencies, etc. and doesn't have a Google effect so despised by SEOs. Different situations call for different management techniques. DMOZ is also thriving but to understand that you have to understand our objectives - we are thriving to meet those. Others have their own objectives for us and those we cannot meet because we don't recognise them. It is down to understanding what we are about.

You are making the same errors you accuse editors of. You reckon editors too often class detractors as being financially motivated - propaganda. I personally believe that misunderstanding is a large factor and that covers those with and without financial motivation. Then you reckon editors are about promoting their own sites. The numbers of edits and the number of editors don't stack up to make that anywhere near a feasible assumption. Most editors who add the bulk of sites are schoolteachers, librarians, stay-at-home parents, ministers and priests, retirees, students, postal workers, civil servants, and so on. Most have little or no concept of professional web services. There are maybe a handful who are full-time professionals in web design and marketing and they hang those hats at the door. They do. Really. Because it isn't tolerated by the teachers, librarians, etc. Perhaps that is an important element in why you guys can't get your message across - you are talking about your needs as website promoters to people whose primary experience of website promotion is receiving spam they don't want and who are motivated by a desire to create something completely spam-free.

You may have heard all that before. Probably. But if there is a genuine desire to work with editors then you have to understand what makes them tick. Sniping and insulting is what makes them withdraw and ignore you as irritating background noise. But I have heard all this before too and since there is no effort I can see to try and work with editors my conclusion is that there are those whose primary aim is to destroy something they cannot manipulate. Put that down to propaganda too. Your loss not mine because there are opportunities to have constructive discussions that will be wasted.

 

The DMOZ is a scam. Those of you trying to get in there are just scamming on keywords, and google placement. Consider the fact that you are just trying to get free advertising from the DMOZ. Why are your expectations high, when you've paid nothing for the service?

 

Wrong, they were simple yes or no or easy to answer in 1 sentence questions which you have avoided. You are the one who has volunteered to come in here. Your posts are not different than if someone came on here spamming a site since you didn't contribute anything at all

They were also fake answers. Smoke screens. Those were not answers. Diplomacy was pretty much they only thing you have exercised. I would have preferred honesty over diplomacy, but hey: silly me for raising my expectations so high, right?

I believe in DMOZ as well, I have stated in another thread the other day what great results some of the categories provide, including helping a friend of mine find invaluable resources for her studies which no other search engine or directory could provide as well as the one that we have stumbled upon in DMOZ.[/quote]

Good, finally a good answer. I would green you if I could heh

I don't want them to listen, I want some real answers so webmasters know where they're at in order to prevent extra work for you guys and added frustrations to those who don't understand the system and how it works.

 

You invited me to slam fellow editors and I avoided that. Unjust treatment is wrong wherever it occurs. Including here in rep comments which are far more insulting than any language I've seen on Resource Zone.

Real answers to what questions? I came into this thread on post 137 and I think there is a fair amount of straight answers in that one. Maybe not answers people like but hey you want the facts of life not theories. In 139 I pointed out that suggestions based on blah blah blah were never realistic expectations and why. There follows an exchange about RZ treatment where we don't have any disagreement on it being wrong to unjustly treat the innocent.

Go read all the posts I have made on this forum. There aren't many. You can't find anything there that might help someone understand DMOZ processes and the reality of how editors do their work? Fine if you can't but these wretched rep things suggest others can.

I'm upset now, you've always had good things to say about me in the past Mike [Not really that upset, it doesn't do one's editorial street credibility much good to be a good guy on Digital Point ]

 

I have just written a huge response and when it came time to post, the forum logged me out. So here is a couple sentences from it:

Now that I know who you are, I know that you mean well. But here on DP people are too smart not to see the similarities in DMOZ answers and we are tired of them. Hutcheson himself happens to contact editors to change their posts in forums if he doesn't like them and that I know for a fact. We respect true feelings and opinions as well as open discussions here. We don't need to hear something we have heard before and if you really want to, look thru some of the DMOZ threads in here. It's all been said, discussed and done, and here we all are once again.

One thing I have learned in business is this:

The success of a company is being determined by the work of its good employees regardless of rank within the company.

But if the bad ones have so much power, the good work gets over shadowed and only gets seen once in a while.

I think that it's a shame that after so many years and so much work, DMOZ is getting such bad publicity. But when you defend them, ask yourself first what you yourself would do in the position of those who are leaders at DMOZ. Do you agree with how your work is being represented? I'm not sure if I could be a good DMOZ editor and be patient and serious enough to do a good job on an ongoing basis, but I know that there is no excuse for some people to take advantage of their position and that includes the amount of adult sites owned by a few editors who benefit from the work that countless good editors have done.

So seriously: I believe a lot of you guys have been brainwashed or don't see things for what they are in a broader scheme of things. DMOZ is great in many ways, but I think until there is an internal make over, this will continue to be bad. You guys feel obviously underappreciated while some assholes in DMOZ are laughing their way to the bank. So do spam webmasters, the kind that leaves 35 "comments" on my blog, the kind that cloaks itself to the top, the kind that submits to my directory with duplicate content and different urls, the type that comes into Digitalpoint and spams in the first post.

We have similar enemies, yet fight each others. I really wished you guys were not so watched when you comment in DP, I bet most of you would have a lot more good and productive things to express

Mike

 

This thread just won't die - kind of like dmoz itself. It serves very little real purpose anymore..............

 

Mike

I wish it were possible for you to join us as an editor. Even for a day, and see what things are really like behind the scenes and have a chance to chat to the editors, read our internal forums, and see that 99.9% of the myths are just that, myths. There was a time before I joined when it was said that DMOZ contained a lot of bullies amongst the metas. If that was true once it hasn't been during my time. Tell a lie, once I've seen it and it was stamped on hard from the top. I think some of the assumptions about how DMOZ is today stem back to those times and they are way out of date.

I must admit I never venture into the Adult section of the directory except to send a misplaced site. I have heard accusations of abuse there but have never come across it myself. If you or anyone else has evidence that it is still going on then please report it. Either using the Report Abuse link or via a meta you trust in the Resource Zone. I would trust every one of them to take such a report seriously. But bear in mind that any abusive editors may already have been taken care of, or the investigation found no case to answer. Many is the time I have looked at an area where someone has alleged abuse publically and there was no case to answer - x controls this category and is stopping his competition getting in and you check and 20 different editors have rejected the complainant's site. And you know a teacher from France has no vested interest in real estate in New Brunswick.

I have a feeling that lots of outsiders don't appreciate how seriously editors themselves take the issue of editor abuse. That is what damages us and an editor who is corrupt is lower than pondscum to other editors. You think RZ is harsh sometimes - that is nothing to what they would do to an abusive editor if they could. There are hundreds of editors on the lookout for abusive practices every day and they get caught and dealt with. If systematic abuse existed on any scale you can bet that DMOZ would face a mass walkout of editors. There is no way, given the character of some of the current meta and editall editors that it could happen and be swept under the carpet. I have reported abusive self-serving editors and watched them leave the building pronto.

I have also known and exchanged emails with a large number of current meta editors over the years, and with some of the Admins too. It is inconceivable they would be tolerant of ongoing malpractice at a high level. Again maybe this assumption is based on the distant past - high level editors have been ejected for abuse but it hasn't happened in a very long time.

The bad publicity stems from, I believe, a lot of misconceptions and a frustration that it is impossible to manipulate DMOZ listings. You can cite other causes too from a different perspective. But bad publicity is something editors have lived with for years and virtually no-one cares about. It has been factored out of anyone's concerns. I know that might sound odd but it is true - it is so persistent it is just background noise and not recognisable from the inside. Editors do care about how relevant we are to our users (specifically excluding webmasters) and the latest stats I've seen suggest a 17% increase in users over the last 3 months. Whilst others are writing the obituaries. The conclusion is that bad publicity or not our popularity with those editors feel are important is on a steep upward curve. So we're doing things right!

I think the things you might be most concerned about have long since been resolved if they ever existed. I don't know if they did, I have no experience of things pre 2002. But the confidentiality of DMOZ processes, which are a defence against spammers and abusers, mean that getting the message out is difficult. And ODP is undergoing a huge and I mean huge raft of changes internally. Because the world is changing and we need to keep up.

There is a good blog out there that came to my notice today. By a DMOZ sceptic (at first): becoming-a-odp-editor.blogspot.com

 

You guys here are kind of making me feel that way as an editor, I do agree.

Yes I am happy there, and if you are no way part of DMOZ then isn't it only logical that those within it do attempt to explain the rules ? Or do you know something I don't ? I felt I was pretty well versed in them myself, but I see now apparently not. But I'm still learning.

Would you mind awfully explaining exactly what I've been missing ?

1) I applied and was accepted as an editor first time. Non-profit category in health related area.

2) I was in no way shape or form let loose on even that small category. I had someone check in on me every few days or so and things explained to me in a friendly manner, time and time again in order to get things right. So, stands to reason the bigger categories are watched even more closely.

As in, are the sites, suitable ? Is the description grammatically correct (spellchecker available), not overly repetitive and looking at a site objectively. A simple observation in fact, of what a site is all about. What it does, and, what is contained within it. Nothing more.

3) Standards are strict because they are exactly that ! Standards. Spelling, grammar and simple observational skills. Nothing more.

4) I can look at sites in my submission pool, or I can go out and find them myself. I do both. Thats what I signed up to do. I enjoy both. Simple.

5) If a site doesn't quite meet the standard of a good and clean site then I leave it for a bit. I check on them every week or so to see if they've changed. If they are blatantly not destined for my category, I send them to the right one, with a grammatically correct description, and an observation of what the site is about and what it contains.

6) If a site blantantly does not meet the guidelines or is already listed numerous times elsewhere then I delete it. I've deleted about 4 so far in 4 months.

These rules apply to each and every editor from the highest to the lowest newbie. So tell me again what rules I'm not following. I'm all ears ?

 

that is not my intent.

They don't seem to be followed by many. Once again: every company or organization of power harbors corruption. The problem many of us have is when we feel like we're being lectured while others are getting away with abusing DMOZ on a much higher level.

 

Dont get me started on Dmoz, anyone only needs to look at how the dmoz staff behave online to realise what a joke it all is.

As for the site (didnt read the whole thread, so apologies if it was posted), surely instead of paying someone 1000 dollars, you would be better of spending that money making the site worthwile to visit.

A good site should get picked up by dmoz, not all do, but most do, and even if they dont, dmoz is not the be all and end all, you can get far better results from having links from lots of other sites, than from one single dmoz link.

 

Though this feeling is repeated ad nauseam, as is the reply of what you can do to fight it and what DMOZ actively does every day about it, people continue to make these claims, though unable to provide any evidence of it. It's a feeling, but until people start providing rational proof of this widespread corruption, rather than vague feelings, it's hard for the people you address these feelings to to take them any more seriously than a psychic detective's assertions of guilt.

If things are to improve - and believe me, I agree with you that they do, though perhaps not in the same areas or on possible solutions - the whole discussion, on both sides of the debate, needs to reach a greater level of rationality and maturity. Too many wild accusations are being made on one side, whilst there is a tendency to roll out the pret-a-porter answers from the other - neither approach is constructive.

 

It is difficult for editors to counter the accusations of widespread abuse when the answers rely on "trust me, I'm an editor, I know the accusations are false". The only thing we can do is highlight that the real life professions of most editors and other statistical data show that widespread abuse is not a credible claim. To which the response is "you would say that, you're an editor". Therefore, unable to disprove the false allegations to the accusers' satisfaction, whilst acknowledging pockets of wrongdoing that are addressed whenever evidence presented proves such wrongdoing, the attitude of editors is generally to ignore them totally. Move on, it's boring.

What if myself and hundreds of the editalls and metas I have worked with for years and trust are indeed oblivious of some secret activities that amount to high level corruption, and assume also that AOL Time Warner are similarly oblivious despite them providing legal services to the project and staff to oversee things? What can you do about it? The accusations have been flying around for years, editors themselves have looked into it with the benefit of inside knowledge, nothing to find. Are the perps so clever hundreds of us have missed the telltale signs? And if they have hidden their tracks that well (which would involve access to and falsification of logs) can they actually be doing anything that has any real effect.

 

It depends on part upon what you consider to be "widespread abuse". It's not necessarily abuse, for example, if an editor adds his own site, as long as he adds other competitive sites within the same category. But if I were an editor and wanted to target my PRIMARY competitor, and I added my site and several lesser competitive sites, how would the primary competitor feel?

Do you really not think that numerous editors would leave if one of the conditions were that they could not have their own sites listed in a category over which they had any editorial control?

 

I can't answer the question of editors leaving if they can't have their site listed but, maybe I can shed some light on why it would be impractical to have that rule.

I added my site - and then I added about 40 of my direct competitors (in the same state/category). Then I went on to add about 500 or so more throughout the US. Then I added about 1000 indirect competitors throughout the world. During this time I became the editor of a category that is four categories higher than the one I started in. There are over 6000 listings in that category. I have one site - in all those listings. I only have one site on the entire internet - but that's beside the point. My primary purpose in joining the ODP wasn't to list my site - otherwise I wouldn't be where I am now. I happen to enjoy the areas where I edit - and being able to look for new information with a purpose is a delightful experience - even if my kids say I spend too much time online (BTW they're complaining just because they want to use my computer )

What if my listing wasn't under my editorial control at this particular point in time and then I received additional privileges that put it under my editorial control - would I have to delist my site? How would that help anyone? Does that mean the ODP would have to lose the sites that belong to all the Admins, Metas, and Editalls - as well as those belonging to the typical editor who happens to edit the category that contains their site? Some of those sites contain a wealth of information not available elsewhere - what would be the benefit in that?

 

this might sound way crazy but...

you can spend your time moaning about dmoz, or you could volunteer and actually help out.

 

Good one, loki...