That is true so long as the one doing the SEO work isn't the editor adding the sites or isn't showing favoritism towards them, and most importantly they are listable in the first place. If an editor is only listing their clients sites = abuse. If an editor is deleting or ignoring client competitor sites which are listable while listing client sites = abuse. If an editor is listing client sites that are not listable according to the guidelines=abuse. If an editor is keyword/hype stuffing client site descriptions = bad editing and probably abuse. If an editor is listing all listable sites, including those that are clients with proper titles and descriptions = not abuse. Paying an editor for "SEO" to get an otherwise unlistable site listed would equal editor abuse and in turn would most likely get the sites involved removed and banned as well.
Sounds good but according to DMOZ, editors have no obligation to look at any site, no matter how long has past from the time it was suggested. Don't ever touch your competition listing and you have done no abuse. Every rule in DMOZ is geared toward making the abuse possible by senior editors while leaving no trace. Almost the only time that you can get in trouble for abuse in DMOZ is when you are not high enough in food chain and "senior" editors think that you have not earned the right to join the gravy train.
If the only edits you make are to affiliated or client sites that IS abuse period. So not touching your competitors sites is not abuse but not touching their sites and then only listing/modifying your own is abuse. Sometimes this takes longer to discover but when discovered action for removal is taken and the listed sitse dealt with.
How is it going to be discovered? The whole abuse reporting and procedure is just a joke which is sometimes useful to get rid of inconvenient people. Look around this forum, if you are high enough in food chain nothing can happen to you even if there is clear and indisputable proof of abuse.
WOW! The world must be coming to an end! I actually agree with gworld for the first time. Of course, I actually know of two cases of reported abuse of two different high on the food chain editors where nothing happened, so that makes it easy to agree on this one.
Come on, just two. Think a little, I am sure you can remember much much more. It is a simple fact that if you search for some of the "senior" editors in Google, you will see the same people who "volunteered" with thousands of edits in DMOZ are also "volunteering" in wikipedia and tens of other directories with thousands of edits. With so much "volunteering" which is more than a full time job, when do they have time to earn a living and actually work?
Sorry popo, if it's a good site I could probably have helped you, but I'm not corrupt so you'll have to keep looking for that perfect match.
Oh no Annie its not me. Someone just ask me that they have a site for that category. "And its not listed." Same with the dog delicacies.
Well I only know of one for absolute certain who appears to have some kind of invisible protection around him/her that even scares Admins. It came as a bit of a shock I must admit. But that doesn't mean there aren't a very large number of good honest people editing at high levels.
Until the last few days of my editorship I was totally unaware of any evidence of corruption at a senior level, other that the very occasional removal of someone senior for unspecified crimes. It isn't a question of closing your eyes but of being in a position to catch the evidence and know what you are looking at, and being able to see through and past all manner of nonsense that then emerges to convince you that you are imagining things. I eventually found the evidence compelling but others may genuinely feel otherwise and they are entitled to hold that opinion - perhaps they don't have access to the same information as I had, supplied privately, or simply interpreted it differently.