I dont know a whole lot about DMOZ, other than it is benificial to be listed in, it is free and not a very "communicative" directory. I think its owned by AOL and Time Warner. There is always threads, rumors and blatant accusations of corryption and they are obviously way understaffed with volunteer editors. I just wondered if DMOZ had actually contemplated accepting paid links. This would allow employment of paid workers, hence the backlog could be significantly reduced. More importantly, it would stop all these never ending comments and accusations about corruption. I mean....It does get annoying. Is this an option? And can somebody advise why AOL, or indeed any big company, would actually buy a directory like DMOZ. Obviously it is great to own, but how can a big company such as AOL justify spending on something that dosent earn any money, seeing as it dosent sell paid listings. There may be a revenue avenue that i dont know about, like i said, i dont know a lot about DMOZ itself. I wonder if an experienced editor can perhaps fill me in a bit. Cheers.
I might agree with you. DMOZ is human edited mostly by volunteer, and getting your URL listed will take a long, long time. Perhaps by making it a paid service like Yahoo or BOTW will improve the submission process. Cheers!
Editors do it for the pleasure of building something for the Internet community. None of us below AOL staff are paid anything, for us it's merely a hobby. Most of have real jobs in RL, so why would we want another one? From conversations we've had, if we were offered a pay check, the greater majority of us would resign. Where you're going wrong in your thinking is that the Directory offers a listing service for site owners. That is totally false. It doesn't matter that you would like it to be that, it isn't. Editors build categories to be a good resource for web surfers looking for specific information about a topic or geographical area. Not every site that is available is needed or wanted. http://www.dmoz.org/help/submit.html http://www.dmoz.org/help/geninfo.html The volunteer editors run the whole show as a community. We don't take and we are not given orders by AOL Staff or our Editor-in-Chief, they merely make it possible for us to function, there is no Big Boss. There are new editors with limited editing permissions in one small category, and editors who have many years of experience and wide areas of editing permissions, and every kind of editor in between. All working for free in their spare time. Some work every day and some work occasionally, and that's perfectly ok. When someone is giving a gift, it doesn't matter whether the gift is large or if it's small, all gifts of free time are appreciated, and all gifts make the Directory that much better. We all work together as one. As editors do not act as a listing service for site owners, but build categories for web surfers, there is absolutely no hurry in listing sites and no reason to be accountable to site owners. The Directory allows the public to submit site suggestions to editors for consideration as a help to them in building these categories, but editors have no obligation to use those suggestions, as editors have many other resources to discover new sites to list. Suggested sites are just one of those resources. There are lots of paid directories out there and you're welcome to submit to them, the ODP is free and will always be free. http://www.dmoz.org/help/geninfo.html What you're really asking for is preferential treatment for a fee. I find that outrageous and self serving, at a cost to those who don't have the money to pay. The ODP is a level playing field for all, rich or poor, amateur or professional, mom & pop or International mega corps, all are treated equally. There is no cutting in line, and if it is ever allowed, you'll see a big dust cloud as editors leave, and if any of you think you'd get listed faster because of that, you'd be sadly mistaken.
I can see your reasoning Crowbar and thanks for your comments. I cant see why you think that Paid Suscriptions or Inclusions are "Outrageous", but you are entitled to your opinion, albeit incorrect Can you advise how the ODP does generate money and if it doesn't, then for what purpose the owners purchased it. There must be some purpose, because unlike small companies or individual people, they would not buy for emotional reasons. There must be some financial reasoning behind it?? Is it somehow connected with the film industry and promtion of those types of sites? I also agree that many editors are involved as a hobby, that's great, but dispersions being cast by evryone must be a bit disheartening sometimes and I do feel that paid inclussion would stop that from happening instantly. Stopping that would then surely result in a far happier working environment, due to Editors not getting constant false accusations constantly thrown at them. You dont agree?
Well it's not as if the acusations hurt anyone, like phisically hurt anyone... it's just stuff people say online... who cares about the opinion of people who don't get accepted in to a directory, just move on.
I guess it stems from when I built my first site, and I discovered it would never be seen unless a search engine picked it up, and finding there was a fee to submit to search engines and no guarantees. I was a very poor person, I couldn't afford to risk the little money I had. Then, I discovered the ODP. I hope that explains my strong feelings. That's a very reasonable way of thinking. I really don't know the answer for sure. I did read something either Netscape or AOL put out one time about corporate responsibility and giving something back to the community. That line of thinking is also good PR for a company to follow, so it could be written off as a business expense, I suppose, like a charitable donation. I'm sure their accountants and lawyers know the answer, but I don't. It's more than disheartening, it's abusive, unfair, and untrue. No, I don't agree, if you look at the whole Directory which includes a lot of hobby, informational, charitable, religious, educational, and political sites that serve communities. You're thinking business ( I have one of my own), but business is a very small part of what the Directory contains. It attempts to be all inclusive as far as topics, geographic areas, and differing views and opinions and tries to catalog all of those. If it's on the Internet, and it's legal, the Directory tries to build a category to represent it. Not all of the sites, just a good cross section of sites using sites that have unique content on them for the category. So, if there are 10 sites and 9 of them have the same information on them, we would only list the one that had something different on it. The web surfer doesn't need to see the same info ten times, regardless of the fact that there are ten site owners. And, we're back to the same thing, preferential treatment for businesses, and yet, our goal isn't to list every business but to build a variety of categories that are of interest to many people across a broad spectrum of topics. Why should a business get preferential treatment over a site about Water Gardening? How is that fair to the web surfer interested in that topic? And that is whom we serve, the web surfer. So that's why a paid listing isn't practical, in my opinion.
But, let's talk about business for a minute. If a business has a walk in, brick & mortar location, with an address, we most certainly want to list it in the Regional section of the Directory. 90% of those get listed in the locality (city) where their facility is. Those with multiple locations get listed in higher categories. (that is for our convenience, not theirs) Why do we want them? Because people want to see sites of businesses and other entities that are located near them, not a hundred miles away, and every city, no matter how small needs to be represented on the web. Most Regional sites do get listed, in my opinion, but you have no idea how swamped we are. Cyber businesses with no walk in location are another matter. They go in Topical parts of the Directory, not Regional. Shopping is one location and it is swamped with submissions, gets tons of spam, and it's an unenjoyable place for most of us to edit, so we don't spend our free time there. Some do, but not enough. Guess who's fault that is. ( hint: not ours) Regardless, the goal of category building applies across the Directory, whether it's Topical or Regional.
Some good points Crowbar and perhaps you have placed somewhat of a doubt in my mind, or maybes changed my point of view a bit. I can see where you are coming from and the reasoning behind it. Cheers
Being a business, myself, I understand your point of view too, and I'm not against having some kind of paid listings for businesses only, but I think it would have to be a seperate part of the Directory, with paid editors (just like any other business) who only edited there. It might even be a good idea if the Directory gathered up a handful of the better paid Directories that exist, and made them a part of the Directory for a yearly fee. They would benefit by association with the ODP, the Directory would get some backend financing for further developements, businesses could (possibly) get listed quicker, and the paid directories could do their thing, and volunteer editors could do theirs.
Paid listings are seemingly an option if you head out to sites like Scriptlance. Paying professional link builders can also greatly increase your chances of getting a listing, especially if they are an editor. There are other methods as well... however all payment methods run the risk of getting a site banned for bribery AOL nearly forgot the ODP even existed. It crashed a while back and there was no back up, staff was all but impossible to get a hold of, and once they did get in touch it was seemingly a bear getting the place pieced together through piecemeal attempts of various methods. Some information is still list, and likely will be forever. Staff is seemingly around again though, so maybe some money making things for AOL are on the way. Q
I, personally, don't think the Directory needs to get involved with paid listings at all. Why should it, when there are lots of other directories who are already setup and specializing in that? My suggestion is to take some of these under the ODP umbrella to satisfy what most people in here seem to want, and let them continue doing what they are setup to do, paid listings. (with a stamp of approval from the ODP, for a yearly fee, which would give them a little extra weight). The Directory itself would remain the same, building interesting categories for the web surfer, but a paid directory could be included to handle businesses who want to pay for quicker inclusion. Let the plumber do what he does best, and the volunteer do what he does best, no conflicts of interest, and the Directory gets money for much needed improvements through yearly fees. It's just a personal idea.