Why is my site removed?

Apart from feeding the troll to watch him dance I visit and post here because it is useful to learn from the honest detractors real issues about how we are perceived and to understand better what we can do to make ourselves clearer. That's is a bit different than just trying to educate others about DMOZ - others can educate us too. Some things we neither want to nor could do anything about, such as giving rejection information to spammers. Though we could be better at explaining why for the benefit of others and maybe we can look at ways of helping the others more. Other things such as views on the Adult branch are very useful - it never occurred to me before as an editor who ignores Adult branch that nevertheless I would be associated somehow with it anyway, and I am not happy about that at all.

I'll feed the troll later - must get back to work.

 

This is exactly what, to my mind, distinguishes the few DMOZ editors that I respect from the larger number of those I don't. What Alucard previously and now brizzie and Annie do is actually listen and make an attempt to see and underastand the perspective and frustration of non-editors.

It's what I call "active listening" in couples therapy: The object is neither to agree nor to disagree but simply to try to fully understand. Once you've done that, then you can process the information and make up yopur mind whether to agree or disagree.

In contrast, there is what I call the Resource Zone mentality: "Uh-oh. Someone else is criticizing DMOZ. Where's that RZ manual? Here it is! Let's see... (1) Deny the problem exists. If that doesn't work, go to (2) Answer in a convoluted way so that nothing is actually said and a lot of irrelevant information is dragged in. If that doesn't work, go to (3) State that DMOZ rules forbid you to reveal the information but ask the critic to just trust you - everything is okay. If that doesn't work, (4) Make personal attacks on the critic. Note: These do not have to be applied in the suggested order. If preferred, go directly to option 4."

 

DMOZ doesn't seek to licence or recognise a business. That is the job of governments to mandate. DMOZ is only interested in the credibility of the website of a business when it is submitted to us. An address that does not exist on a site for professional quasi-legal services, as demonstrated by a validated photo of a building site, creates severe credibility issues for the website. At best, if it is a mistake, and questions were asked to try and establish that although the first answer seemed to indicate it wasn't a mistake but an expansion. At worst it is fraudulent. In either case we would not list a fundamentally flawed or fraudulent site, regardless of the existence of a legitimate and registered business elsewhere. It is for the business owner to ensure that sites submitted to us are not fundamentally flawed or giving an impression of being fraudulent.

Association with a raft of other businesses in a sector well known for spam and affiliate activity also challenges the credibility of the website - sharing a telephone line between mortgage brokers, premium rate phone numbers, a psychic hotline, home security and a quasi-legal service must at least make any reasonable person question that quasi-legal service. The primary reason for questioning it is that from the known location of boohlick outside Australia, who implied the business and site were his, and the type of linked businesses means there is good reason to suppose that the business may be an affiliate type, sites that we do not list regardless of whether they are regulated.

Not at all. A business being registered and a site being listable are two entirely different things. The registration is one factor that weighs in the favour of listability but most other factors weighed against the site being listable. Those factors included impressions and answers given early on to add to photographic evidence, the location of the guy purporting to be the owner, the type of associated sites, and so on.

Why the interest in the court case? This was a strange mix of associated businesses already straining the credibility of the migration services website. Plus an address that is a building site. The information I had on the court case did not specify what it was about. In the circumstances it goes to credibility - had the case been about migrants being ripped off then it would have been very relevant.

As it was, when the actual owner of the site eventually came forward there emerged a reasonable explanation which the eventual reviewing editor can take into account when deciding whether to relist. In the circumstances I would think that as a minimum they would want to verify the replacement address now given.

Absolutely they have the right to conduct business regardless of what DMOZ editors think. A DMOZ editor, as a private citizen, can choose to present any evidence they have collated to the relevant authorities and I am pretty certain that in the absence of the reasonable explanation given such a report would have been made. But a DMOZ editor is considering whether to list the site, and that has zero effect on whether or not the owner can conduct business.

The questioner requested a category change by virtue of the address which turned out to be a building site - he stated that address as part of his request. And the request was made in public and repeated on this forum. It is fair that the resulting case was examined in public. It so happens that the evidence was gathered and presented by editors but anyone at all reading the posts in Resource Zone and here could have gathered exactly the same information from Google. Any damage done to the reputation of the company was made by publicly requesting a category change based on a patently false address and by having common information across a range of associated businesses easily accessible by search - editors didn't create the links, they just found them quickly as anyone else could. Would I use a migration service that shares premises and phone lines with a psychic hotline? No way. Shared phone lines? Yes, there is a shared phone line. Which sort of proved one statement - that about the psychic hotline and the migration services being unrelated except the former was a pal of boohlicks who asked for a bit of link publicity - to be less than honest.

As to the registration being in some way a factor that should override the existence of a building site photo where the Sydney office is located, consider one point made by the site owner himself, surely more of an expert on this market than anyone here can ever hope to be.

This clearly indicates personal knowledge that there are immigration companies that falsely claim to be located in Sydney. Presumably despite MARA registration, an acknowledgement that there are serious flaws in the self-regulatory system employed in Australia - addresses are clearly not verified as part of the process. He also says

I would take that as a commendation that at least one migration agency in Australia is pleased we take such care.

But gworld I commend you on placing yourself in a win-win position. I am absolutely certain that had you come across this site listed in the national Immigration category for Australia you would have been ranting about editors listing sites with patently false addresses and declaring it as absolute evidence of corruption. Had we said the reason was the MARA registration you would have accused us of ludicrous stupidity not to believe instead the evidence in front of our eyes. On the other hand we take the view that a false address does make the site unlistable, and your stance then becomes to accuse us of having an editor blocking a perfectly legal (because it has a MARA registration) site (that doesn't, incidentally, mention the Sydney address). And we are guilty of stupidity and arrogance for believing the evidence in front of our eyes. Whatever we do you have an opportunity to jump in with a corruption/stupidity/arrogance attack. I don't believe for one second you truly believe DMOZ should list sites with false addresses on them, except to provide you with a further avenue of attack. So there is no point in continuing to debate it with you. But I hope that others reading this can understand and appreciate some of the processes we go through to try and ensure the sites we list are credible at least.

There is another point about regulated industry websites that relates here. The travel industry is quite tightly regulated in most countries. Yet many legitimate and registered travel agents have converted their sites into affiliate link farms. Presumably because the walk-in business is drying up rapidly with online booking growing just as rapidly. We are removing these as we find them as they breach our guidelines - we don't accept affiliate sites. That again is no reflection on the existence or legitimacy of the travel agent, only a consequence of the website breaching our guidelines and becoming unlistable.

In any case the explanation boohlick eventually provided from the business owner might well save the listing that had previously been doomed due to what appears to have been a mistake or misunderstanding between owner and webmaster. Not only that but the owner now has an opportunity to correct errors that could well have seen him land in very hot water had it been picked up by the authorities following a client turning up at the website address in Sydney and finding a building site. He also knows that a quick search on Google links him with all sorts of odd businesses unrelated to immigration that would put a lot of people off, and can correct that too. As a business owner I would be very happy if someone let me know about that - whether the DMOZ link is eventually restored is more or less irrelevant compared to the damage all the evidence we uncovered in a matter of minutes was already doing.

And the main lesson is that if you are a legitimate business and you put up a website with an address on it, for God's sake make sure you haven't made a mistake and displayed a building site address. A second lesson is for those who look after websites but are not the owner - don't make out it is your site, just be honest and no-one will mind.