I agree with that. On average, sites in my categories, 2 years ago, had been waiting, on average, 14 months. If they were in the wrong category, but close enough that I had permission to the proper category, that was OK. But if I had to forward the submission to a category where I had no permission... the site was likely to again wait for another 14 months. Find the right category, but don't wring your hands over writing the perfect description. Capitalize properly and stick to one sentence. And if your link gets in... it's just one more run-of-the-mill link on a low-PR page in the deepest bowels of the internet, where only tapeworms dare to tread, or more accurately, slither.
If they created an automated system to inform people of their sites status it wouldn't effect the work load of the editors at all. As far as emails getting bounced back from fake addresses a script could deal with that too. The open directory project has failed. Few people actually use it to search for sites and the site is fast becoming old and stagnant. It was supposed to be a community project that overcomes the limitations of the search engines by having everyone contributing to finding sites and listing them where others can find them. Instead the site has become dominated by editors who only participate in order to get their own sites listed.
My opinion is that AOL wants to can the project. Keeping it offline for months just shows you how low priority it is. If the ODP had any worth at all, it would be considered important by AOL, and not only would there have been backups, but the crash would have been fixed within a few hours. I think they want to "Zeal" the ODP out of existence. They would be doing the editor-link-approvers a favor, forcing them to stop wasting their time, since they have too much invested in it already to dare realize it on their own. Everyone would be happier. The editor-link-approvers don't want change, and AOL is happy to comply. If the ODP isn't worth fixing for months, it's not worth implementing a site status automated mail.
I must say that there are still some editors there that DO participate for the good of the internet community. So not all of the editors there are bad, and while much of the project is dead, dying, or corrupt, there are still a small handful of niche categories that thrive for the goodness of all. I would also like to point out that some editors did let submitters know, and some even went as far as contacting site owners to help them get their pages back in order so they would not get removed after changes. Heh, or rather some did...or rather, i did *shrug* LONG LIVE THE ODP! Down with DMOZ!
Bah! When so much of it reeks of 2002, the minuscule minority of up-to-date categories doesn't amount to a hill of beans! It's much more important for the ODP to kick the minions out for dumb reasons, vendettas, etc., than to have good, well-taken care of categories. Don't be afraid of listing the URLs publically, frankcow. You aren't looking to bribe your way in, nothing is going to happen.
Hi according to my X-Ray Vision and looking at its status. www.rapidresale.ca - has not been looked at yet. (Lazy Editors) www.convurgency.com - has not been looked at yet. (Lazy Editors) And heres your live status report greenshag.ca - kokopeli 16/May/2007 22:20:42 EDT Deleting duplicates from unreviewed. One left for review. [Deleted from unreviewed in Shopping/Clothing] Attention: I have to eat a truckload of vitamins to get back my vision. Its just some random vision. Next time a fee would be imposed VITAMIN FEE
Thank you. So these really take quite a while to even be looked at!!! There must be thousands of sites in the queue
Search engines do it infitinely better and faster. I hope you realize why Google doesn't care about ODP data anymore, and hasn't updated its own directory from the ODP dump for a year and a half. I am sure with less effort, and more expedient service, you can exchange links with fellow webmasters. That's the way to go. You get PR *and* traffic, hopefully.
In my experience, no. You don't get a yes or no which is really frustrating, although I've heard of people getting an email back saying to change this and that and re apply... Maybe it depends on the editor, maybe it depends on the site... Maybe both! DMOZ, like Google, will forever keep us guessing
Can I ask a favour please popotalk - please don't mention the editor's name if you are going to give out this sort of information. Happened to me once and I got some very sinister emails at work. Some editors have been stalked or threatened with violence. It is rare but it happens. Just as a matter of principle, not a suggestion that frankcow would dream of such a thing.
Yes, and no... I'm not sure where brizzie is from, but in the US a typical call from police over internet stalking goes pretty much like this. Brizzie: Hello, I'm getting threats on my life from some loon on the internet. Local Police: You'll need to call the police from where ever that person is. [brizzie calls stalkers local police] Brizzie: Hello, I'm getting threats on my life from some loon on the internet. The other station: You'll need to call your local police station. Contacting peoples ISP's are even less help. Brizzie: Hello, I'd like to report violations against you Term Of Service. Support: I'm sorry, but you'll need to call the police. And on the off chance that you can actually get the police to actually hear you out, there is still nothing they will do unless the guy making threats actually calls the police himself and gives the threats that way. I think that the law enforcement here is actually DMOZ Meta's in disguise... And regardless of the circumstances, there is a high probability that an editor still won't tell you whether or not you can (or did) get a site listed
In backwater where I live both cops and ISP usually react to such thing, with abusers account getting suspended, although I didn't hear of any other sanctions but cops often like to call in people for a talk - left over from communism. Of course I live in country with population of 4 million and cops spend more time guarding drug dealers then arresting them... Of course there is always that other solution which involves few of your buddies and baseball bat.
If it went *too* far I guess most police forces would get involved. But omitting the name of the editor concerned avoids any nastiness in the first place. Of course, in one case, the police got very interested in an editor who listed Kurdish sites and he got jailed for that. Nice place Turkey.
Well if editor from China listed Free Tibet websites he would be in lot of trouble as would someone in US/UK listing pro Al-Qaeda websites.