Read about "Team ODP"

Another super post for the ODP blog. http://blog.dmoz.org/2007/12/14/team-dmoz/
Read about how we work as a team. Inspire you? Then hit the "apply to be an editor" button of a small category that you have some interest in. You will need three sites that you want to add to that category and will need to add a title and a description. Hint look at the other sites and their descriptions in the category you are applying for.

See you there!

 

When I asked questions about the warning and appeals system I was called a troll. Even now that I've left, I am constantly reminded of not only my edit count, but of why many people believe I left. I hardly call that a "team" effort, especially as I was sticking up for someone on that team.

Would the official way of dealing with such ODP haters happen to involve disagreeing with everything that person says or resorting to personal attacks? Recently I told someone that the best way to get a listing was to read and follow the guidelines, to read the category description to make sure it was in fact the best cat, and then to check out the other sites listed in that cat. I was told that such advice was "shaky". (source)

Though, note, I do not hate the ODP, in fact, it's rather just the opposite of that. I would love to see it rise to it's former glory...

I've yet to lie about the directory and have backed up everything I've said with proof of what I've said. I'm generally replied to with personal attacks, as are most others that say anything in a negative light against the directory.

It's strange that even that blog gives the blanket answer of any claims against the ODP to be unfounded, while not mentioning any of them. I know that if they publicly tried to disprove most of the claims they would be humiliated as link after link is provided showing otherwise. Then again, some people are too thick headed to realize there is a difference between a bribe and being paid. *shrug*

 

Just for the record you were sticking up for someone who was no longer a member of the team. And you have a lovely habit of twisting the context of words you do it below about what was "shaky" and you do it here about being called a "troll" in the forum threads.

You would love it so much that you refused to take the advice of the person you call "your mentor" the person you said you defended, who clearly told you to go back to editing. You preferred instead to use smoke and mirrors to twist anything you could to bash ODP, but also try to pretend you know something about ODP. Claiming to have been editor..two minutes, one spat, having listed your own site and off.

 

Again, I've given a source for my claims, and again, you are the one twisting the words. If I was bashing the ODP, maybe I'd make something up, sadly, the editors are doing far more harm then I could ever think to do to anyone.

and I do not need to pretend to know anything about the ODP. Unless the guidelines are pretend? I've quoted them time and time again, and still the only thing in return is someone saying I'm pretending *boggle*

It takes 5 meta editors to get another editor fired, warnings are optional, there is no means to appeal. Hows that for being a "team"? What kind of teams does not give second chances? Does not need to allow teams mates to correct their actions? Does not give a fair trial, and what little trial there actually is, is all done behind closed forums where not even the editor in question is allowed to defend themselves?

Yes, a team indeed!

And I'm not twisting anything, this is all in the guidelines! So I do not need smoke and mirrors, I do not need to pretend, I do not need to do any other silly thing you can think up to distract those reading this thread...all I need is the open guidelines of DMOZ itself, and examples of those rules in action.

 

You think that comes from Guidelines? If it doesn't does that mean that despite your claims you have lied about ODP?

Ok well try guidelines here http://www.dmoz.org/guidelines/accounts.html#removal

It says despite your lies and usual half truths, that staff review the decision and that feedback about the decision can be made to staff. A little different from your twisted presentation.

Senior members of the community, well respected and a staff review and appeal to staff.
And before you try and make this personal to any editor I discuss the matter no further and you will not bait me to do so. But please stop lying and twisting guidelines and other editor's words. You really know nothing about the community you joined for your own selfish ends, to get your own site listed, and then used a flimsy excuse to throw a spat and leave. Yet claim you know want to improve it, but constantly use half truths and lies, as above, to try and extract as much damage as you can. Despite wanting you site listed, so when it 404's you immediately send an abuse report about the editor who simply did his job. I am surprised that there are as many editors as there are when we have to put up with your insults, half truths and abuse reports when we do what we voluntered for.

 

The way many great teams work ( personal opinion only ) :

Everyone does not do anything ... every one has their own job , which they excel at and together the effect makes the whole teams performance click .
If the goalie was allowed to shoot penalty kicks , or the centre forward ( all footbal terms ) was requested to make defensive blocks , or the 55 year old coach was asked to play a live match , he would probably fail miserably .
Thats why usually in a team , the Coach / Mentor only creates the plans , the goalie protects the offensive attacks and the centre forwards or Strikers aims for the opponent goal in the field .
Maybe this is what is meant by Team Effort .

if you agree , then i doubt you would be much worried why some decisions are / were probably taken in the ODP.

 

As for the rest, I am going by the threads I was involved in on internal forums. Read them and then tell me why I was lied to by editors and admin.

If you call me a liar here, then prove otherwise, or ask me to quote such proof for you. There were two threads, one specifically about a lack of appeals, and the other specifically about why a specific editor did not get a dashboard warning.

Half truths & lies? Yeah, only from you!

 

I haven't posted for sometime but this BS propaganda deserves reply...

So let see, new editor gets the pleasure of joining if he/she is lucky enough to have picked some category which isn't on meta spam radar and anyone applying is automatically rejected as spammer.

New editor will have pleasure of being regularly visited by senior editors who think of everyone as possible spammer or abuser who wants to destroy their empire of dirt and who will edit descriptions to make them sound even more boring.

If new editor wants to get another category he/she will have to go through entire application process from scratch so it could be weeks before new category gets approved (actually it is even worse since number of edits is checked unlike new editors).

And normal editor has zero rights since he or she can be removed by metas at anytime for whatever reason they can think of which is of course kept a secret, no explanation is given, no defense possible, appeals are a joke since it is impossible to know the crime you got accused of.

Yep, DMOZ is a real team in which everyone is guilty from the starts and nobody has a problem when team member is removed for unknown reason.

 

It takes little to drag out the booted.

Ivan, you disappoint me, no Gestapo no death camps, much more fun when you try to be serious.

 

Just trying to help people who might get suckered into thinking that they can act in DMOZ as it is Wikipedia since they'll get flamed or even worse find themselves removed.

 

Q, there is no need to hijack more threads to repeat how you invested 20 minutes of your life editing at Dmoz and will never get it back despite your dissatisfaction, or your threadworn discovery that SEOs aren't summarily booted from Dmoz. Half the time you accuse us of hating SEOs, the other half of coddling them.

Same goes for Ivan. Must everyone constantly hear of your personal tale of woe? So the Dmoz thing wasn't for you. Great. That'd be the time to go do something else and get a life. By now saying "nobody cares" about the oft repeated whines would overstate the interest of the audience. Let it go.

 

You really are a confused little fellow Qryztufre. There is nothing official about anything here. Digitalpoint is about as unofficial as one can get. Yes any advice that does not emphasis the importance of unique content is indeed shaky.

Many would find that hard to believe Qryztufre given your statements prior to joining as an editor calling for the death of DMOZ. Perhaps you were confused then as you are confused now and you didn't really mean it then or now.

When the ODP was “at its former glory” did you imagine that every one was standing around the cauldron holding hands all singing from the same song book. We still had bitter removed editors, disgruntled submitters and forums full of charming DMOZ sucks posts.

Regardless, your open antagonism towards the directory sort of made the team thing a little problematic in your case if you get my drift. You really need to lighten up and grow a sense of humor, I have noticed your posts becoming darker and darker by the day.

Yeah, not lies, confusion more likely. Actually I think that criticism of the directory is a good thing, as I have said before many of the systems and processes are ineffectual.

 

IIRC Freedom of speech is part of US constitution, so if you want to limit that you must be one of those people who hate America?

If DMOZ has right to mislead people by telling how great they are I got the right to tell the other side of the story and warn future editor what they can expect from their so-called teammates.

 

Sorry, was not hijacking at all. Just trying to show the wonderful definition of TEAM that DMOZ seems to hold.


and Nebby, please read the blog linked to from the original post, or at least the parts of it I quoted here. I was not the one that said "official" I got that from the blog and was wondering if what you were doing was official, or if you are just naturally a troll.

Thanks for showing your ignorance again!

 

Red reps I'm getting are best showing of what kind of team DMOZ is.

Yep, to anyone joining be prepared to deal with these people and don't count on them for any kind of help especially if you get removed since your instantly branded as worst kind of criminal (murderer and rapists get better treatment).

 

Writing outside approved guidelines seems to be very annoying for DMOZ team.

 

That's true in my experience.

You have got to be kidding me. I guess that's because she/he is a new editor, but still being there for three months should be long enough to notice the editors who have their sites listed multiple times, the editors that never add new sites to their categories, and so on.

You don't get huge amounts of people hating a website for no reason. No matter what anybody says that will be their attitude? Well, yes, because DMOZ never admits that they have made a mistake and they never admit that anything is wrong.

 

Any directory that selects sites with a sole criteria of adding value to a category will exclude sites, excluded sites means upset webmasters who always think their site is the best on the internet. Upset webmasters means many people hate ODP.

We can change that in a flash, have a paid directory, allow webmasters to write their own hype anyone who pays gets in. Simple, done. Trouble is directory is no darn use to the surfer, ones like that exist all over the place. Why does ODP get everyone excited and upset when they can't get in, if you listen on here to the ODP haters its of no value, so why do people want to get in? Well it must be seen as having or has great value, otherwise no one would get hot and shirty about the fact they are not listed.

There are a couple of exceptions for hating the site either you have been booted as an editor or you could not stand the pace and got out. Any offers for candidates for those posts?

 

I don't think so, I mean I'm sure you're partially right, but for the most part I think people hate dmoz because some of the editors (not all of them of course) but a lot of them say things on both internal and public forums like "webmasters are spammers, webmasters are stupid, we don't care about webmasters, we don't care about you or your site, etc."

Successful websites understand that even if a person is a stupid, greedy, spammer - you don't call them that to their face.

I've never once seen any person representing Yahoo or Google or any other search engine or directory call anyone a name, but I can't even count the times I've seen dmoz editors do it, I've even been called names myself once by some editor and another editor accused me of doing something with some websites that weren't even mine.

There are other things going on as well, twisting words, treating people unfairly, and so on, but the rudeness is the main reason in my opinion.

And just because a directory is paid doesn't mean it's a free for all, good paid directories don't allow webmasters to write their own hype, and they don't allow anyone who pays to get in.

 

Good point. Editors are human, too, and it takes a bit of practice to not react to false provocations. Also, those of us who read a lot of outside forums have a tendancy to know where something is coming from and where it's going after seeing the same statements over and over again.

If you've got a serious question, and not an accusation, many of us will be happy to try and give you an honest serious answer.

As far as rudeness from editors goes, I agree with you. Editors who choose to participate on outside forums need to remember that they're answering as editors, and that we still have a code of conduct to maintain, and the things you've mentioned aren't part of that conduct.

Unfortunately, most of those things are true, .

It is the webmasters who spam us, (the general public certainly doesn't have the knowledge and skills to do so), and we really don't care about the webmasters needs and desires, because it's not where our focus is.

Our focus is on building categories that will be useful to the web surfer searching for specific information, not on being of service to webmasters or site owners.

You may not agree with that or like it, but it's the truth.

Where we part ways, is at the point where the webmaster community thinks that because they build and submit a lot of site suggestions to us, that they should be given special consideration and preferential treatment that we never have and probably never will offer.

You are behind us, we're facing the other way and looking at the web surfer, and that enrages many of you, and you think we're disrespecting you, but, that is not our intention, we're just not looking in your direction, so you're misunderstanding us.

I'm one editor who believes we should be trying to get your cooperation and help, because I see you all as a very large outside workforce that could be of great assistance to us, save us a lot of unneccessary work, and speed up the time it takes to get listed. I've tried to give you ideas about how you could take direct action on your own to speed things up, but unless a great majority of you participate, you'll see little effect.

Until we have a policy change by AOL Staff, and the hardware to implement a plan with new features, the best we can do is to try to give you sound advice, and invite those of you who have honest intentions to join us as editors. No, we won't accept just anyone, we want honest people who can follow instruction, work well within the community, and set aside their own personal agendas.