gpmgroup - 1:26 am on Nov 30, 2006 (gmt 0)

For AOL or anyone looking to invest in DMOZ I would guess the biggest problem is the people management not the hardware. Would any forward looking company want to be saddled with the politics of DMOZ?

It would be a thankless task explaining to spammers their site isn’t good enough over and over again. And how do you gently explain to a volunteer that his posts in the editor forum stating that a site shall never be listed are not acceptable, especially if he were responsible for a whole country?

If you had a clearout and tried to make it more commercial you would end up losing many of the dedicated editors who give their time for free. So would it really be worth owning DMOZ for no revenue, being bound by the social contract, and a guarantee to remain 100% free in return for constant costs and hassle?

The present hardware saga isn’t really damaging to AOL, because most people don’t even associate DMOZ and AOL together. It’s doubtful if any of the minority who are aware of the relationship between them, are likely to change their impressions of AOL based on the behaviour of DMOZ. So it’s far easier to let it drift and wait and see if it can sort out its fundamental issues and regain its original dynamism or just quietly end its days out to pasture at AOL.