Thank you again, ishfish. The problems of DMOZ are caused by an organization that is not suitable for volunteer work and it is mainly formed to protect the power and financial benefit of the few. The situation is like someone who builds a boat and then complains that it won't fly. The people who like to talk will start discussing that boat will not fly because the people who have built it, are disagreeing about the color of the paint on the boat and everyone should continue to discuss the color, while a practical man understands at once, that boats are not built to fly and you have to build an airplane.
This sounds so much like beginnings of my website that it is scary but I picked much bigger topic and I didn't cover even 1% of it so I'll be very busy for the next few decades. Something like that although my topic(s) is still really badly covered, with exception of official sites and Wikipedia which barely scrapes the surface most good webmaster have burned out after year or two and there websites are gone forever rest never moved beyond pissing contents at there forums (sounds like here ) and are mostly stuck without any hope of getting back on there feet. Yep, it can take real effort to dig out some excellent websites which have become victims of total lack of SEO - one of the reasons I went SEO crazy with my website during move to CMS - what is the point of publishing information if nobody can find it. And I thought I was cynic, I'm beginning to see why ishfish is so popular. Now I wish I was more active on internal forums but I was too lazy for that (and it could take forever for damn thing to load).
If you don't know exactly what you are trying to solve then you are doomed to fail. The secret to solving a problem is to unearth what is at the root of that problem otherwise all you are doing is treating the symptom. You spout a load of crap about the root of the problem being mass corruption in senior ranks, which is patent nonsense. But even if it were, you have been fighting your battles for years and getting precisely nowhere because none of your ideas will ever see the light of day, they are impractical and unacceptable to the honest editors, that community you believe should be democratic. I'm not a consultant, I'm a project manager who specialises in turning around failing projects. You do that by asking questions, lots of them. You certainly don't do it by committee and by ignoring risks and issues - that way spells disaster every time. As to agreement for action, that isn't going to come from this forum in any way shape or form, is it. At least you can agree whatever you like but it will have nil effect. If you don't like me asking questions, for feedback on my thoughts, which to me have a purpose, then just ignore them, I won't be offended.
It might be that those who thought they were building a boat are very happy with a vessel that floats on the water. Those who thought they were building an airplane might well be disappointed but it doesn't mean they have a right to stick wings on it and call it a flying boat. They might be better off to go elsewhere and construct a helicopter instead. Was DMOZ building a boat, a plane, or a flying boat.
They do. That's the price for being up-to-date. I am going to repeat myself. Directories list WEBSITES. Typically, people don't look for WEBSITES. They look for pages. They don't mind sifting through a minority of spammy results to get what they really want. DMOZ won't help you find a page, a paragraph, a map, etc. The overwhelming majority of people use search engines. The Directory ceased being useful long ago. You know what would be a good idea? To integrate search engine results, with directory-type results that apply to pages, rather than whole websites. Oh WAIT!!! Google Co-Op already does that.
Let's have a poll: 1) How many here think that DMOZ project is not about making a good directory but something else like saving trees, ending the world hunger or other unknown goals? 2) how many here think that building a good directory is a rocket science? 3) how many here believe that good and honest people will support corruption or abuse for no good reason? I think I have advanced a lot in my fight against the corruption in DMOZ during this time since when I started posting, no senior editor was agreeing with me but today I am getting many PM from senior editors that they have opened their eyes and can see what is happening. The goal is defined and the way to achieve it in the first step is to implement organizational changes that are suitable for a volunteer organization. How do we do it? By putting internal pressure on "senior" management that is benefiting from present situation and putting external pressure on AOL, to take responsibility for what is happening and make changes. My ideas may be are impractical or unacceptable according to you but the only thing that I am asking is the possibility of editors make a decision about it. In the mean time you have no idea what editors want or think because there is no possibility for their voices to be heard. We can agree to disagree and while I will try to make changes, you can sit around and ask questions and engage in a pointless mission of finding a reason or better said excuses for DMOZ failures. Who knows, may be in the end, you can prove that all problems in DMOZ are caused by cosmic disturbances.
You live in a little world of self delusion and this is probably one of the most bizarre things you have said. No you have advanced nothing. All you are doing is thrashing about flinging unsubstantiated claims in every direction.
...while neb continues to serve his masters by attempting to distract from the message by attacking the messenger.
You are not trying to make changes though - you know full well that your solutions stand as much chance of being accepted as George Bush winning a Nobel Peace Prize. If you are serious about change in DMOZ then you have to do your research thoroughly and have every objection covered from the outset. Or it is dead in the water. But you know that already, hence you can make easy potshots without having developed your ideas properly in a way that could be accepted. I can see that - number of editors removed as a result - nil. Number of guidelines changed as a result - nil. Democracy in the community - nope. Your problem is that you have a one-track mind - corruption in Adult. 99% of editors don't go near Adult, don't care about it, don't want to know, can't relate to what you say because they don't want to spend their free time delving into it. Adult branch is 0.5% of the directory, the listing possibly impacted by the corruption, half of that. So 99.75% of the directory is relatively clean, if outdated. So in the great scheme of things corruption in Adult is trivial. Corruption is also one of the lesser priorities when it comes to the health of DMOZ. Editor numbers, falling listings in the English categories, out of date and ambiguous guidelines, maintenance issues, spam, and a dozen others are all there in the pot. Loss of influence over the Internet - making the web a better place now questionable, has to be one of the top issues. So continually focusing on Adult corruption is meaningless to most. Because it is such a small part of DMOZ but a disproportionate amount of time is spent on dealing with its problems, the cheapest, easiest and most effective way of dealing with Adult is to dump it completely. And about that corruption. The owners of the website know about the listing practices in Adult. If they own the directory, pay the bills, and are ultimate arbiters of what is accepted and not, and they choose not to consider those listing practices to be corrupt, then that is their right as the owners. It may appear corrupt, it may appear inconsistent, against the spirit of the project, whatever, but if the people who own the site say OK, then it is OK. Those who disagree can vote with their feet, no-one is forced to stay an editor. I don't personally think that is right, but we are not dealing with an independent volunteer project with democratic institutions, we are dealing with a big business owned (not sponsored) and run (via nominees) venture that just happens to use volunteer labour. That's the way it is, not an excuse, and it is a constraint in whatever can be done to improve things. Besides, with a DMOZ listing more or less commercially worthless now, and all the experts saying webmasters can be far more productive with their time than pursuing DMOZ listings, where is the motivation for widespread corruption - all that effort for next to no return. If it did exist, it is not exactly doing damage to competitors - you don't need a DMOZ listing to get a decent PR. And if there truly was high level corruption, these are the people who would be actively pushing for changes to make those listings valuable again and clearly they are not.
Accepted by who? The same people who profit from corruption and abuse? What you don't get is the fact that nothing will be changed as long as DMOZ organizational structure is not changed. You can "discuss" it as long as you want, you can make as many questionnaire as you want, you can write as many short or "long" proposal that you want. You can even write essays, short stories and books if you like and nothing will happen. Why? Because any positive change will be against financial interest of those in charge and people in 99% of time will not act against their own self interest. I try to make this as simple as possible so you can get it: 1) Corruption is not only in Adult but many other areas such shopping, real-estate, pharmacy and gambling. 2) in Order for this situation to be able to continue, "senior" editors need an organizational structure in place that is not answerable to editors and can crush anyone who is against the abuse. 3) Such organization will not encourage open discussion about DMOZ problems and editor will feel hopeless and powerless to make any positive changes. It also stops the recruitment of new editors. 4) This will lead in turn that directory will not be updated due to lack of resource and becomes irrelevant. Nothing will be changed as long as this power structure has not changed, no matter how much you "discuss" it.
And your evidence for this is... The senior editors did not put the structure in place, it was initiated by the founders, built on by AOL. It was never intended to be accountable to editors, the entire structure is upwardly accountable. Are you suggesting that AOL supports a structure designed to crush anti-abuse campaigners? And do you imagine that editors, even 100% of them, could unilaterally change the structure? Such a change would need AOL approval. The structure does not prevent open discussion about DMOZ problems but the holders of the highest positions in the structure do prevent it, and editors are powerless to make changes. Such discussions held internally tend to get squashed. Discussion externally tend to get hijacked by people obsessed with Adult branch. It does impact on editor retention but dubious about recruitment - most potential editors don't read these types of forums before joining. The reason why the raising of issues is discouraged is because Admins deem it irresponsible and disruptive to their agendas. Such an attitude is, of course, entirely counter-productive and far more damaging than facing the issues and dealing with them. And any decent project manager knows how to control and manage issue reporting so it does not disrupt but the Admins are not professional project managers. That is the position the project is currently in. So what is your plan? Storm AOL HQ and stage a coup? Buy the project from them perhaps and donate it to the community? What "action" are you taking that isn't external forum discussion? Admins and metas are not turkeys who are going to vote for Christmas. To change the power structure would mean convincing AOL to make the change and they appear content to leave DMOZ to sink at present. The only other way to approach issues is careful research and reasoned arguments sufficient to convince senior editors of the merit of change - it is not a glamorous soundbite method but it is more likely to have an effect. What evidence do you have that those in charge are motivated by financial interest, and even if you assumed they were, a commercially worthless directory is hardly in their best interests is it.
Read the threads please. Extra ! Extra ! Read the previous threads please ! Philippines / Travel / Senior Editor ?
No-one denies that corruption exists outside Adult branch but the implication is being made that it is widespread and systematic. Which is pure nonsense.
It would be nice if this thread could focus on what DMOZ is, and even what it could be, rather than focussing on the problems that have been discussed in detail in other threads. FWIW - it really is just a huge directory. Nothing more, nothing less. It has some flash tools to help manage it, and the editors have a hierarchy - but that's nothing special. Moderators and Admins in forums create a hierarchy. I bet the Wikipedia has one too. All systems are open to abuse, and how that is dealt with will be open to debate. All systems need to adapt and grow if they want to hold off the competition, and DMOZ does that too. Personally I wouldn't want to see Google drop it, but I'm happy to see it lessen the benefit from RDF using sites. Ultimately DMOZ may need to create it's own page rank type tool to help identify the sites which seem to be doing well and should therefore be edited more quickly but in a way that does exists already. The biggest issue will remain recruitment and as far as I can see there are plenty who bemoan DMOZ and not so many prepared to roll up their sleeves and do some editing.
The corruption exists in adult and it exists outside of the adult and it is obvious from discussions in this forum and other forums that DMOZ management is fully aware of it and pretends not to see it or do anything about it but according to you is not widespread or systematic. I don't think that anyone, has any difficulty to see what a nonsense your argument is, do you? widespread: distributed over a wide region, or occurring in many places or among many persons or individuals. systematic: 1)Of, characterized by, based on, or constituting a system. 2)Carried on using step-by-step procedures. 3)Purposefully regular; methodical. [quote="sarahk]It would be nice if this thread could focus on what DMOZ is, and even what it could be, rather than focussing on the problems that have been discussed in detail in other threads. FWIW - it really is just a huge directory. Nothing more, nothing less. It has some flash tools to help manage it, and the editors have a hierarchy - but that's nothing special. Moderators and Admins in forums create a hierarchy. I bet the Wikipedia has one too. All systems are open to abuse, and how that is dealt with will be open to debate. All systems need to adapt and grow if they want to hold off the competition, and DMOZ does that too. Personally I wouldn't want to see Google drop it, but I'm happy to see it lessen the benefit from RDF using sites. Ultimately DMOZ may need to create it's own page rank type tool to help identify the sites which seem to be doing well and should therefore be edited more quickly but in a way that does exists already. The biggest issue will remain recruitment and as far as I can see there are plenty who bemoan DMOZ and not so many prepared to roll up their sleeves and do some editing.[/quote] This is exactly on topic which asks what DMOZ is. DMOZ is a directory that is taken over by a group that use it for it's own benefit. How can you discuss DMOZ without discussing the structure that controls it? The difference between wikipedia and DMOZ is exactly in the structure. Wikipedia has opened it's editing logs and permits anyone to check for corruption while DMOZ hides it to protect the corruption. Wikipedia has opened it's door to volunteers while DMOZ has not and made a private club for a few since the majority of editors have no power and are there in order to inflate the number of editors in stats. There is no problem with recruitment if DMOZ management was not afraid of losing it's power and trying to block anyone with a brain from becoming an editor.
You are on topic gworld to the extent that I identified several possibilities, based on there not being an issue with the appearance of corruption in DMOZ, which, across the vast majority of DMOZ, over 99%, does not exist. You have provided another option, your view of DMOZ as a private club of corrupt senior editors. But you have not explained why, if this were the case, the same people are content to see their cash generator decline into complete commercial irrelevance. How are these people making their money when the financial value of the effort they have to put in is simply not worth it? It is simply not credible that with the thousands of editalls and metas who have passed through the ranks, that not one of them has ever come forward to confirm your claims. One Admin resigned on principle over Topix listings, why has he not come forward and exposed a corrupt system? Maybe because it is all in your imagination. The recruitment (and promotion) system is based on an assumption that everyone is a crook and to become an editor and extend their privileges they must jump through hoops to prove otherwise, unaware of what circumstantial (or actual) evidence might be against them. Guilty until proven innocent. In true Open Source volunteer projects editors are judged innocent until proven guilty and then punished accordingly, after given a chance to explain themselves. Also there is no formal training or development given to potential and existing editors. Also you have to question the value of rolling up your sleeves and editing when the results of your labours are relatively worthless, no-one sees the results. To attract and retain editors the project has to be of value outside the academic research interest, and attitudes must change towards editors via training, development, and advancement.
I was prepared. I did roll up my sleeves. However, I made the mistake of criticizing Rubylane.com deeplinks. If they want to remove an inconvenient editor, they find ways. Ask all the people whose applications have been rejected, if they weren't ready to roll up their sleeves. Instead of welcoming people and training them, even thought their applications aren't perfect, the ODP rejects them outright. They don't need help. The ODP is, after all, nothing but an academic exercize without a purpose or usefulness.
WOW brizzie, that was so beautiful, my eyes are swelling up with tears. That is so true. But even with thousands of edits under your sleeve, you are not welcome to help. Many working editors have their applications rejected, even when applying to long-forgotten mickey mouse categories. Gawd forbid they should accept your application, and give you a few pointers. The "slap-in-the-face" rejection breeds humility in the ranks.
And it's not like that was an isolated event, is it? What was Vicious Summer's crime? Criticizing DMOZ policy.