hyperkik - 11:46 pm on Dec 11, 2006 (gmt 0)

I do NOT believe that the ODP will be moving towards more "untrusted" participation.

Nor do I, but for different reasons. One unfortunate aspect of community-based Internet projects owned by for-profit corporations is that the corporation tends to view everything about the inner workings and business model of the project as proprietary, with no vision shared with the community and little to no interest in entertaining ideas from the community. Another is that corporate executives neither trust nor understand members of the community, and the higher you go up the corporate hierarchy the less trust and understanding you find.

AOL has a hard enough time trusting DMOZ editors under the byzantine rules that have proliferated since it acquired the project. It would take an inspired person within the corporation to convince them to follow a different, more trusting approach - and why would somebody do that? When a project is marginalized and all-but-forgotten within a corporation, the best workers will move on, voluntarily or involuntarily, to other projects or jobs. Why spend your time thinking about or improving a project which the corporation plainly regards as an afterthought?

Count the community-based projects owned by corporations which have been summarily terminated, then count those which, once recognized as dated or on a track toward obsolescence, have been carefully rethought and redeveloped into viable, ongoing ventures. I must be missing something, I hope, because I can't presently think of anything which falls into the second category.