More fun with DMOZ.

Missed this one.

Discussions about changing guidelines can take place anywhere by any participants unless the content of editor posts in external discussions breaches the communications guidelines which say

Editors may not publish or disclose quotes from these sources to anyone other than other editors or the ODP staff. Rephrasing is allowed only if the communication as rephrased could not be attributed to a specific editor and disclosure would not violate any editor's expectation of privacy, with the understanding that a diplomatic choice of words is the re-phraser's responsibility​

The guidelines are intended to protect individual editors' privacy and not to prevent discussions of DMOZ issues externally with informed participants airing informed and honest views. The only other area that is confidential is that of abuse tracking and investigation whether of editors or spammers and there is good reason for that - not to reveal information that helps people overcome the techniques that trap them. Even as an ex-editor I would not breach those (except an instance of quoting a Staff ruling which I have apologised for but given it was related to the pedophile support site issue I felt was justified in demonstrating that there was never any official endorsement for such sites).

External comment with a different perspective may be valuable at times. As to whether editors can get coherent internal advice on interpretation of guidelines that are incoherent and inconsistent, that is highly debateable. It is this incoherency and inconsistency that makes rewriting the Adult guidelines to clearly bring it into line with the remainder of the Directory so important. If it was clear and agreed there would be no need for an internal debate on the subject.

As to the translation - it is highly unlikely that an Admin would have any feelings on the matter as long as the guidelines quoted above on communications are not breached. If they tried to warn people not to comment externally on a matter being discussed internally it would be a red rag to a bull to dozens and completely counter-productive. I was criticising poorly written guidelines publicly long before I resigned as an editor and never once even received even a hint not to. There are a small number of sub-Admin editors who believe you should not be honest in your opinions externally but they are in a small minority and generally ignored. As evidence there are editors who have been critical externally of some DMOZ issues and been subsequently promoted. I believe the vast majority of Admins, having known them for some years, would be happy to see informed external debate and would not dream of trying to prevent it by warning editors.

 

After the postings from some editors and a former editall, I think it is very clear that the only people who translate DMOZ Adult guideline through "Adult Editors English" translator are either adult editors who have interest in such listings or "ambitious editors" that have clear record on agreeing with anything that DMOZ does in hope of advancing their ambitions.

 

And, I might add, further posts by aquarius have made it clear he isn't an Admin - I confused him/her with someone else, obviously.

 

LOL - ambitious editors need to be leaders to advance and you don't lead by behaving like a sheep! So if that is the motivation I would advise a change of tactics. They could also consult the last internal issue of DMOZ Free Press for less conventional hints on promotion techniques being trialled by editalls. If I recall correctly, resignation was quite effective.

There is a posting style that seems familiar but I can't place it. But think about it - the free speechers were that so determined in their beliefs that they were prepared to tolerate the listing of sites that personally sickened and repulsed them regardless of the reactions of their peers. Do you really think those same free speechers would take kindly to being told not to discuss something like changes to deeplinking guidelines!

 

lmocr;

Are you reading this? These are words of wisdom from former editall, try to comprehend and learn from it.

 

I wasn't including Imocr in my comments gworld. Regardless of the impression you are obviously getting Imocr is one of the (many) good 'uns and not afraid of expressing an honest opinion when the time is right. You, I, might not always agree with Imocr but I believe the comments to be honest. In fact, regardless of how they are treated all of the editors who regularly post here (those who I recognise anyway) are of the principled stand up and be counted even if you are on the losing side variety.

 

Aquarius:

Please give me a break, that's a non-starter.

On that basis, we should have Real estate sites allowed more than one listing, let in all mirror sites, drop shippers, SMC affiliates, ebay listings, Amazon affiliate sites, and everything else on the Internet.

 

Yes I have to be honest there have been a few comments that have 'hit home' in this thread for me. Bear with me...

I applied to Dmoz on a recommendation of a colleague of mine and after a few questions I posed myself in another forum. I found this forum through searching for information ON Dmoz. I've never experienced such a forum as this and was left in tears sometimes, I have to say, at some of the comments I recieved when I first joined here.. which were for speaking my own mind regarding the non-Adult areas of the ODP.
But I stuck it out anyway, no-one ever died from writing a few posts after all. And I found eventually I enjoyed the debates and the ability to speak my mind just as freely as anyone else did.

I'd love to bring my throughts just as freely to the internal Dmoz forums, however there have been a few things which have kept me from doing so.

1) Was the 'Affirmative Views' category and it's contents. If I hadn't been reading here, as an ordinary, junior editor who edits nowhere near the realms of Adult... I would never have been aware of it if I hadn't been checking in here now and again. I think probably 95% of editors within Dmoz are still unaware this category probably ever existed, was debated and some action taken. What they don't know doesn't hurt right ? The debate was moved to Adult and if you don't edit there, why would you go to that section upon logging in ?

This would have applied to me no question about it. And I was reluctant to post a thread regarding Adult guidelines that would have again went straight to the (obviously unbiased ? ) Adult section for discussion.
Even if it had been discussed intensively...everyone would just be sitting waiting and waiting anyway for Admin to 'decree' what was going to happen. Someone not too far from here took the inititave to move 'certain categories' to 'Test' out of the way until things were decided.. and they were moved straight back pending the Admin decision. Most of the debate was a waste of time IMHO. No-one could actually do anything. Everyone was just 'waiting till they get back to us'.

None of this is news here is it ? It's all been, played down..but discussed before.

2)

I do too. Strange, but at least I feel I can speak openly despite the crap I get sometimes. Internally with this sort of discussion ? I feel far too intimidated to do so. Apart from that I'd want all editors to see it. Not just Adult editors debating my queries, otherwise I know I'd probably be wasting my time. Yes the internal forums are the place for discussion of Dmoz policies, but if 95% of editors don't see it or are even aware of the discussion going on ???

But you did resign in the end. I think part of it may have been the inflexibility to change things from within and the frustrations felt by that. I look at people like you resigning, after opening up loads of 'cans of worms' in areas you question... and wonder what REAL say ordinary editors like me can ever hope to have,

The external ones by editors didn't do too badly...

All I'd like to see is a bit of conformity throughout the directory, OR at least some justification as to why Adult has to be so different to the rest of it. I'm not going into my whole post history in this thread. Because really thats all I'd like to see... things being changed, OR things being justified to me and others as to why not, and why the current Adult listing methods need to be so lenient for whatever reason when other categories are so strict.

Must they ?

 

Oh please dont get me off on a rant about real estate sites LOL, they cant even list the ones that should be included. ONly way you are being included as a real estate site is if you hire a webmaster that is a Dmoz editor in major markets.

 

It probably is true that many listable sites do not get listed. Unfortunately for those sites, real-estate is a highly abused category - meaning unreviewed is chalk full of spammers and affiliate sites. It is constantly bombarded by so many marketing scams that ODP editors wasting sever hours on weeding them out to find the legit ones.

 

You mean unlike adults that is almost only spammers and affiliate sites? On the positive side editors don't need to waste anytime to find out the legit ones, there is none.

 

You are right real estate is highly abused, by the editors, who have clients that they dont want others in their markets competing with so they either refuse to list or they come up with some non-sense excuse as to why the site cant be listed. Its almost like in football, you could call a holding penalty on every play if you wanted, but the refs have to use some common sense.

There are plenty of legit real estate sites, the problem is most of those legit sites would knock off faster the editors clients if they had a listing in Dmoz, so editors dont want to list them.

As Gworld said, you can sure get all you want into Dmoz if you put up naked pictures on your site, but if you have a legit site and god forbid your webmaster isnt an editor, good luck getting listed.

Dmoz cant see it yet but ODP is on its way out the door. I guess if I was a corrupt editor I wouldnt worry either cause while I am waiting for Dmoz to fall flat on its ass, I am still making money because of my position within Dmoz. The sad part to that moral is that the good guys and gals who put a lot of hard work into Dmoz will be all for nault.

 

How do you make a "high quality, uniques" content site worthy of listing in DMOZ?

As I mentioned before if you look at the pages listed, links number 1,5,10 goes to bellababes which in reality is platinumbucks if you click on webmaster.

Now if we look at platinumbucks pages for webmasters, you will see on top menu, something called free content. click on that and you will get this page. It is safe to click since there is no actual nude image in that page, if someone find this kind of material objectionable. Instead you will find the following text:

"Platinum Constructor – TGP and MGP Custom Builder

Features:

All of our exclusive sites have a clip available for download to match each episode!
Exclusive content you won't find anywhere else online!
1000's of high-resolution gallery-ready pictures
Builds galleries on the fly with our content and provides you with a downloadable, customizable file.

We are pleased to have enhanced this feature to help not only webmasters looking for Free Hosted Galleries but those who are just looking to build a gallery with our free content.

How does this work?

You choose

The Site
The Gallery Design Template
The Photo Shoot
Photos or Videos
The Background Color
The Text
The Text Color
The Text Font
The Banner you would like to include

We will then provide you with the file for download.You can make any changes that you would like to from that file in order to make the gallery your own."

Now you know how to make a "site" that according to DMOZ adult editors is of such "high quality, unique content" that is worthy of 35 listing in DMOZ and it will not take you more than couple of minutes.

 

I loved listing real estate sites (I'm odd) and never once came across any editor abuse - that is hundreds if not thousands of relevant edits. I saw plenty of accusations I investigated and didn't once find any evidence to support them. What I did see was so much spam in big city categories that frankly it wasn't worth the effort to sift the good from the bad. Time would be spent far more productively in small town equivalents. Corruption in real estate categories is very difficult because (a) the guidelines are very tightly written with no room to manoever, unlike Adult, and (b) Regional is a big and active branch with lots of eyes specifically looking out for real estate edits that look suspicious, unlike Adult. With only 5% of sites suggested making it in each month and that ratio significantly lower in problem categories by far the most likely explanation for a listing not being there is simply that it hasn't been reviewed (and isn't likely to be).

I would also say that the real estate problems are confined almost exclusively to the USA and to American real estate agents operating elsewhere, e.g. Central America. There is very little problem with non-US real estate categories. The major factor in this is that in most countries a site is listed for the agency but in the US every individual agent has a site and wants it and the half dozen variants listed.

Well, you might be right. I resigned in part because I (and a number of very active other editors before me) felt things were moving in the wrong direction and real issues were being sidelined as inconvenient whilst fluffy windowdressing took prominence. In the past ordinary editors could indeed influence many decisions but the current system works against that. I can think of a number of debates on all sorts of things where change went ahead in the end but where someone now an Admin objected and was overruled by the majority - that is now impossible. And it is patently wrong. The only way to restore a proper level of community involvement is the use of secret polling, suggested several times, and always ignored. The entire Admin system, now it has been in place as an experiment for 18 months or so, needs a complete review. If I asked for reinstatement that is one of the first cans of worms I would open - so probably unlikely it would be granted really.

I think the real difference is that you can dismiss a lot of the crap in here, even laugh at it. Internally, when things get nasty, rude words are not necessarily used but the content is deadly serious and can be a lot more devastating to some, even those with rhino hides for skin. A withering turn of phrase from an Admin is, to an editor, far worse an experience than a whole heap of abuse and bile from outside where lack of understanding of the Directory and of editors can be part of the cause. Remember that a large number of metas and above are not man-managers, have no experience of it, and even less knowledge of HR techniques. AOL doesn't offer them any training or guidance in that role. What do you expect...

 

What I said was not up for interpretation. Just a simple fact that the massive spamming of the real-estate cat by webmasters only hurts the legit sites in the unreviewed. I edit in shopping and for every site I find listable, there are 20 affiliate sites I find to delete. And they aren’t obvious so it eats up hours of my time. That is one of the main reason editors go outside of the unreviewed pile to find sites.

I see this statement quite often by various disgruntled webmasters. It may be true. Any organization or business is always on the verge of becoming extinct but not for the reasons you think. Mathematically, the chaotic equation with its infintesable varialbles and thus outcome that steers each entity is too difficult to predict which path it may take. ODP may be on its way out today at 1:30. But so may Google, Microsoft, UPS, Yahoo, IBM, Enron .... oh yeah.

It seems to me that webmasters put way too much weight on how important ODP is to the success of their website. Sites have been very successful without having been listed. I've also seen many sites that fall flat even with a listing in ODP. From my experience, I have not seen an ODP listing create much of a financial windfall for any particular site. I just don’t think an ODP listing is critical or necessary for success. I’m sure you will all disagree with me but that is just my experience.

 

Oh, please. Not that tired old "disgruntled webmasters" bit again...

 

I have no doubt that there is spamming in real estate, adult and all the other categories within Dmoz, but we are all human and just because a site gets submitted more than once doesnt mean its intentional spamming. This also leads to another hole in Dmoz guidelines. If someone wanted to keep a competitor from getting in to Dmoz, hell all they have to do is submit their competitors site over and over again. Next you might say well we can track the IPs. HMM I wonder if IPs can be faked with a proxy. Its not hard to get a competitors IP address.

 

Indeed, the DMOZ policy of not giving feedback on the status of submitted sites pretty much guarantees that this will happen with some frequency.

 

That is not likely. It takes a lot more than just submitting a site a few times to be considered spam.

 

The bulk of sites that are effectively banned are for being mirrors, doorways, etc. Submitting the same URL to the same category wouldn't even be noticed as the new submission overwrites the old. Submitting it to multiple categories is going to be seen as deliberate with Real Estate as the rules are so precise and clear on the only category a real estate site can be submitted to. Assuming you don't submit multiple variations to multiple categories you are a victim of those who do. Experienced editors are very good at telling intentional spamming from accidental and the benefit of the doubt is always applied in any case.

Theoretically but in practice it has rarely been detected. Why would you go to such an extreme to get at a competitor when they only had a less than 5% chance of getting listed by submitting once only and it will have zero effect? If your real estate business is in Smallville and someone does review it sitting waiting in the Smallville category then it gets listed no matter how many times it has been submitted. The editor is unlikely to see duplicates in other categories and any submitted to the same category will have been overwritten leaving just one. So zero effect. Once listed in the correct category any further examples are simply deleted with the note "dup" or similar. Zero effect and a waste of the competitor's time. And a waste of the editor's time as it reduces their available time for reviewing sites, including possibly the competitor's.

The spam problem is removing sites that are variants on another already listed or submitted, and in removing sites submitted to multiple incorrect categories.

If it is multiple submissions to the same (correct) category then it affects no-one due to the overwriting. It possibly affects the submitter alone when an editor is reviewing in date received order as the resubmission pushes it to the back of the pile but few editors order sites that way any more.

DMOZ has steadily falling editor numbers that can no longer be passed off as seasonal fluctuatons coupled with ever increasing numbers of listings. Result - increasing quality control issues if the trends do not reverse quickly. That is what is damaging the Directory in the medium to long term. That isn't from a disgruntled webmaster but a concerned former editall very proud of his contribution (and from comments received via the rep system here when I said this in the thread about the February Admin report you can include existing senior editors as well).