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God knows why it took me so long to figure out - mainly because at first it wasnt a competitive field and i had bigger fish to fry.
Anyhow just been contemplating for the last hour wether to report him or send him another email requesting he look at the site, and finally concluded - report him.
Dreadful abuse of power for which i hope that he reads this since he will know who his, i mean if you have 119 dmoz links you know who you are ;)
If the editor has placed all 119 of them himself while excluding others, that is abuse. If he has stuffed his with keywords while leaving others without keywords -- although not necessarily meaningful to his placement -- that is abuse.
But there are hundreds -- if not thousands -- of sites which have multiple listings which contain unique or helpful content, and that serves the searching public.
Please don't submit any more. You can get only one entry in Business/ and one in Regional/; resubmitting isn't going to help you get listed faster.
I'm pretty sure that they'd be intrested in someone abusing this rule as they were quite swift and brutal with my site.
Jamsy, if you think there's abuse involved, I'd recommend that you contact one of the meta editors listed at [dmoz.org...] . Or if you'd rather, you can stickymail me and I'll take a look (I'm not a meta but I can still look into the matter and pass it on if appropriate).
To me that is a goal to achieve!;)
Nick
Now you're getting the idea!
With google buying into yahoo i would think yahoo directory is the way to go for the future...hopefully!
[edited by: Laisha at 1:20 am (utc) on Dec. 21, 2002]
[edit reason] delinkified [/edit]
"Unique content is in the eye of the beholder."
By that definition nearly every website could be eliminated. I think part of the problem is the usage of the word "unique". Replace "unique" with "original" and there is a distinct difference.
"If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research." -Wilson Mizner
unique content by defintion is not open to debate
Oh yes it is.
You take an affiliate site in travel. It links through to TravelNow or similar.
Now Dmoz does not welcome such sites, but will (reluctantly) accept them if they offer "unique content"
Put yourself in the position of the DMOZ editor, that editor has to make a judgement as to whether the submitted site is
1. Only supplying affiliate information
2. Supplying the affiliate links, and not a lot else
3. A little else more...
4. A little more still..
5. .....
and so on up to
100. A site so overwhelmingly full of unique content that the affiliate information is an incredibly minor part of the site
On that scale of 1 to 100, there is no way that you can draw a hard and fast guideline that tells editors where to make the cut
Now put yourself in the position of the poor old punter wanting to get information and getting a series of sites that deliver virtually the same information. Its useless to them if they have to plough through sites that are all duplicates of each other (the design is different).
I needed to get airport parking at ****** Airport. Google was useless, a series of affiliate sites that led me to the same data base (no doubt each of those sites owners would claim some sort of unique content). DMOZ was much more useful, as they had eliminated the duplications.
We may not like it, but "unfortunately" the web is there for users and not webmasters :(
when i complained
Try submitting a properly documented case to one of the metas that hang around these forums.
Give them the facts and if you are correct, they will (probably) act on it.
Without wishing to appear rude, I assume that your site(s) do use "normal" punctuation (like using capital letters). If they don't, that may be a reason that editors do not like them :)
The open directory project is about research and not commercialism nor is it a directory to develop web site exposure for the sake of exposure.
Its ultimate purpose is to provide a diverse cross-section of topics, experiences, and concepts in every area of interest. If your site does not add "more" to that cross-section of samples you don't get in.
Although commercial models (such as affiliates) offer research value to those looking for examples of business opportunities, designs, and background information, etc. and others such as family sites, personal sites, as well as samples of a particular locality, these still come under the banner of research.
Re-purposed information and/or similar (e.g. affiliates) designs that lack adding more value to a particular category (e.g. - different perspective, alternative viewpoint, or original thinking, etc.) limits a researchers ability by hashing through the same things.
The argument of "this site is the same as mine"... is the point that your site was not added or removed, same thing.
"I have more content than this one" and they got in... maybe so, but "content" value is determined by the person viewing the content and not the person who provides it.
If you are serious about listings in DMOZ you need to break away from just "affiliate" status and develop a site that complements the research value which DMOZ offers.
DMOZ isn't about receiving eyeballs, getting links, developing PageRank, and/or making money. The more you focus on these points the less likely you will get listed.
In addition, complaining doesn't change this fact either.
If you really have a honest complaint... lots of research on your own into the merits of the complaint will help DMOZ enormously. Providing this information to a meta will be much appreciated.
IMHO anyway. ;)
<Added> Obviously your sticky site is not the site in question?<added>
...He left in sites that returned 404s. You can never justify this to me, not that you have to.
Here's a few reasons.
1. Smaller operators have bandwidth constrains. After so much bandwidth - kill site until next month. Editior reviews their cat, if the site is there - where's the problem?
2. I have some sites with thousands of outbound links. On any given day 50 or so are 404 due to various reasons, but this does not mean the sites no longer exist. In the case of DMOZ, the editor reviews his cat - if the site is there at the time - where's the problem?
3. No editor, regularly monitoring cat.
The fact is dmoz is important to search engines and so is important to be listed in, whatever romantic ideas you may have about it.
But this is not DMOZ's mandate. No romatic ideas here... regardless of why you wish to get listed, this is not DMOZ's concern. You need to start thinking why DMOZ would list you rather than why you want a listing.
Either you are consistent in the rules applied or you are not providing anybody with anything apart from the editors looking for holiday parking. How many people that are casual browsers have ever even heard of dmoz. If i was part of a gang i would also defend its members, whether they were right or wrong, however in this case they were wrong.
Rules/guidelines are respective of the norm.
However, I personally do not believe that say: NASA (a clear authority is space exploration) can be held to the same standard as a commercial web site selling copies of Hubble's imagery.
Between these two extremes is many variations of the exceptions to the normal rules.
I am not a representative of DMOZ, nor an editor, and not "part of a gang defending its members".
I do share a common interest with DMOZ though, to expand their directory categories with diverse "knowledge building content". I spend a great deal of time developing client content "with DMOZ in mind" and rarely get rejected.
My first and last thoughts (and a vast amount of research) before submitting is... "is this an exception to the rules"?
Yes - submit!
No - start over.
Preemptive planning makes the difference.
I am not a representative of DMOZ, nor an editor, and not "part of a gang defending its members".
I do share a common interest with DMOZ though, to expand their directory categories with diverse "knowledge building content". I spend a great deal of time developing client content "with DMOZ in mind" and rarely get rejected.
I nice summary of my position too.
I do have some large sites, covering say 100 countries or 50 states. Roughly half the individual countries or states will get deep linked.
The other half are rejected for deep linking by the relevent editor. Those rejections are due to 3 factors
1. The editor genuine thinks they have not enough original content (editor would be wrong :) ) and does not include them.
2. Editor believes (wrongly) that DMOZ policy is to disallow all deep links, or thinks that a quieter editorial life is to be had in their relations with more senior editors if they reject such links.
3. The editor is abusing their position and safeguarding sites of their own by rejecting my deep links.
Not a lot you or I as submitters can do about 1 or 2 above, but you can complain (constructively) about number 3, abuse (if you can prove it)
It depends almost entirely upon the amount of content each link has to offer, and how closely that section of the domain relates to other sections.
Unlike Zeal, we don't list multiple pages of the same site, but we may list separate sections of the same domain if they enhance or otherwise add to the categories they are submitted to.
There is a difference between sites that are hosted on the same domain and pages of the same site.
There are no arbitrary limits as to the number of sites that can be hosted on the same domain, although individual editors may look more critically upon those that already have a large number of listings.
If you feel that your site has been treated unfairly, or if you think that another domain has been given preferential treatment, contact a meta editor, either on the Resource Zone or one of the several who hang out here.
