What could DMOZ do to improve?

keep it constructive guys, no bashing, no hate and no revenge.
As the anti DMOZ threads are piling up and emotions flare, I would like to pinpoint the issues webmasters have with DMOZ and vice versa.

I am not an editor, not a DMOZ supporter and I don't hate DMOZ but I do believe some changes are in order.

I have also put up a blog http://dmozpetition.blogspot.com for anyone who wants to voice his/her opinion.

Once again, this is not about bashing but giving some ideas to those who can make a difference.

Mike

 

Hey man, this is your best thread yet TOOT, I knew you could do it

Happy 3,000, good way to get it

 

I sincerely think they ought to set reasonable ETAs.

1 - Granted they probably get millions of submissions. But this is a huge directory with lots of web based software (apparently). Can they not allot say, 1 hour to each site that gets entered, or some large figure, so the editor can say, go through once a week, or once a day and edit X many sites, and keep up? But if they fell too far behind, give them another editor to help? Multiple editors, as many as it takes to keep up with the rate of submission? OR find editors who actually enjoy their category enough to keep up with submissions.

2 - They seem to really dislike it when a site is entered every 3 - 4 months. I have NO clue if they've rejected it, or allowed it, or even took the time to glance at it. How about some type of automated system that just tells you what position you are in, and barring that, how about just if you been reviewed and accepted or rejected. Save everyone a lot of time and trouble.

3 - About multiple submissions, how about it doesn't let you submit the same site? Shouldn't it say "site already in queue." How difficult would that be? Of course that would be one less thing to moan about on various forums.

4 - They apparently really hate mirror sites, which I wouldn't have submitted, but after a while you figure they must have rejected your first site, so you resubmit. Anyway, there are a plethora of ways they could automatically detect a domain pointer. Yet they haven't implemented any? Pfff.

That's all I got for the moment.

 

Yeah, congrats on 3,000 Mike. How does one tear you away from here?

Anyway, I don't know much about this DMOZ topic or why it causes so much trouble, but I picked "AOL should put new people in charge of DMOZ", based on personal experiences I've had with them in the past Otherwise I am not affected by DMOZ.

I wanted to be an editor and got back a rather insulting email implying I just wanted to edit the category that my sites fit into, when that was NOT it at all. It made me so mad. I deleted that f*cker and never looked back, dumbasses!!

 

haha ... I just noticed it was my 3,000th post WOW, time flies! Let's make a difference, guys

 

Someone tell me why DMOZ (outside of SEO) is even needed.

 

Tell me too.

 

I can't think of any reasons, heh. Maybe someone else can.

 

Well a hell of a lot of Meta Search Engines use the database and so does Google as a factor to rank sites in the search indexes.

So getting listed in DMOZ can bring your site up on many of the Meta Search engines since they use the data as a search source. DMOZ can also help your "PR"

So there are many benefits and this is why so many webmasters are pissed off.

 

Are the webmasters pissed off because they are NOT listed in DMOZ?

 

If it wasn't for the impact a DMOZ listing has on Google, DMOZ wouldn't be an issue, I agree, we wouldn't even bother with it here

 

Sure they are pissed off if they can't get their sites listed, it is much more than the Google factor, like I mention, every Meta Search engine uses the DMOZ database as a source to pull search results from.

 

I am promoting this thread in other forums as well such as my own .Let's see where this will go

 

all the poll options seem the same to me except "google should drop dmoz"...

 

Here is something I would like to see, since it just happened to me.

If you have been listed in DMOZ for quite a while, and suddenly get dropped, maybe a little email before it happens, or why it happened?

My site does nothing illegal, immoral, or anything. I was listed there, and out of the blue, I realized this week that I am no longer listed.

Was an editor getting too much competition from me and used this as a line of defense? Hopefully that is not the case, but it makes you wonder when your site gets axed for no apparent reason.

 

Instead of trying to improve it, which won't happen, stop using it. Stop talking about it, stop trying to get listed.

All this whining and trying to get in gives it percieved value. If it sucks, why do you want in, is how a business thinks.

They see you trying to get in, not you complaining, and the perception from a corporate view is that is success, demand. The nay sayers and complainers are dismissed as the trouble makers.

Think I'm wrong? Is this not exactly what they say to complainers? It's not a coincidence, they are trained by corporations that hire psychologists to write the "get on board" copy.

But this won't happen anymore then the DMOZ will change. Every thread like this gives it more percieved value to the corps.

Cheers

 

I agree, let's get more and more votes in here. Google seems to be the ones giving any value to DMOZ at all. That is where the problem seems to be. Without Google, DMOZ wouldn't even be recognized as an entity of importance.
But since they use their results, it is a factor which is hard to escape since Google allows DMOZ to impact the SERPs to the degree where the impact of a DMOZ listing is very hard to be overlooked

 

Here is one idea for discussion.

One of the major problems is that editors spend much more time rejecting sites, moving them to the correct categories or changing the description than they ever do simply accepting them.

It's a fact of life that the majority of submissions are poor quality either because the submitter has not read the submission guidelines or they have read them but don't understand them or they understand them but want to try it on anyway.

If the huge number of poor quality submissions could be drastically reduced then this would free up editors to do other things like eliminate backlogs and provide a faster turnaround. Halving the number of these submissions would probably double the time editors can spend on reviewing submitted sites.

Based on this premise my suggestion would be for DMOZ to include in the submission process a simple, fully automated, multiple choice questionnaire that every submitter had to complete before filling in the present submission form.

These randomized questions, drawn from a large pool of similar questions, would be designed to test the submitters understanding of the submission guidelines. This would not be an onerous or difficult test but rather one that could be passed by simply understanding the guidelines. Failing the test would show correct answers alongside the incorrect answers with an explanation. Hence there would be an educational element and there need be no limit on the number of times the test could be taken.

Obviously this process would not eliminate poor quality submissions entirely but it should drastically improve the overall quality.

I am not suggesting this would be a panacea but just a practical, simple innovation that would (or could) bring about a vast improvement.

- Michael

 

Noppid, I agree with you 100%! But in the reality of things I cannot see it happen. Again and again new members will come in and ask why their sites are not being listed. Emotions will flare and little will get done other than venting of frustration while they do their thing on RZ. believe me, there are some cool DMOZ editors who never even talk about DMOZ because they are horrified by what is going on at resource zone, they are afraid to "come out" over here because they are afraid of being hated

 

Human edited directories provide a very valuable function for the internet and do improve the SE results. Unfortunately there are serious flaws, DMOZ is simply the largest directory and its importance is over-inflated by many factors.

I don't know much about their internal organization but a certain "sovietness" seems to permeate attitudes there. A change of personnel or leadership would improve attitudes but there would be a corresponding loss of quality with the loss of experience.

I think DMOZ becomes more unweildy as time passes, maybe splitting it into many smaller competing directories would work.

Directories are easily corrupted, it is difficult, maybe impossible to build a "pure" directory.

I have more ideas about this. I must ruminate a bit on them.... ::: chew, chew...:::

Andi