Forum Moderators: open
Note: you might ask yourself if moderation is fair given that you have paid for inclusion. I think so - you just have to make it plain and clear to advertisers signing up that their listing may be moderated below a default viewing threshold. If their site is just pop-up city then they get what they deserve.
Note: yes I know the Yellow Pages list alphabetically but they can't help it. We've got technology on our side now - let's move on.
....If I, as a user, first report a mispelling, broken link, inappropriate link mirror site, etc, I get a USD25 bounty.
That's gets away from the DMOZ idea of everyone being a volunteer and moves much closer to the commercial ideal that there's money in it for everyone.
Each organization that lists a site pays a USD250 deposit per site -- which they get back after three months, less any error bounties paid. If the whole deposit is used up, they get deleted and can resubmit with another USD250 deposit. That would really encourage guideline reading before submitting.
Of course this causes the old Catch 22 conundrum - how do you get the first advertisers (listees) to sign-up?
The first advertisers don't pay. They are picked from a web of trust and used as "bait", of course.
What is "too much" money-- too much by Fortune 500 standards? Too much by OECD standards? A Yahoo listing could be $10 for life and still be priced out of reach of central Africa. If Yahoo can sustain itself by charging $300, it would seem that $300 is the market price.
Is this a general purpose or a specialty/niche directory? Does it list information about the site or about the business/organization? How much information? How do you ensure that it is updated?
The directory dmorison describes is an SEO's dream and an end user's nightmare.
Can you elaborate?
No human editorial or review process.
User / community moderation of listings
If it works, it would be anarchy. What happens when a committed group of users decides they don't want to see a listing for reasons other than the merits of the site itself? Suppose, for instance, that Microsoft developed a new product that threatened an open source favorite (hypothetically, of course). I could easily see a horde of Slashdotters descending upon the category to vote the MS site into oblivion.
Or consider the fact that some unscrupulous webmasters have gone so far as to get multiple ODP logins, then carry on solipsistic conversations in the internal forums about why a site should be deeplinked or multiply listed. If they'll go that far, how, do you patrol who does and doesn't get to register an opinion on a listing from a much broader pool?
Do you remember the recent controversy involving townhall.com's web directory? Users used to be able to cast votes for links they thought were more worthy, and sites with high ratings became featured sites. And, to the chagrin of the owners, neo-Nazis succeeded in getting one of their sites listed and voted to the top.
Besides, you need editorial supervision regarding stylistic conventions for titles and descriptions, and the placement of sites within a taxonomy, and the shape and structure of the taxonomy itself.
Community moderation makes certain assumptions about the community-- that it is representative, active, educated, well-intentioned, and participatory. That is in effect what ODP attempts to do-- develop a community that is equipped to identify and classify websites-- however imperfectly. But I don't trust cnet.com product ratings, do you? I don't trust online movie ratings based on community votes, do you?
The folks at the ODP are not out to screw anyone nor do they ignore quality sites that are submitted.
Perfect for whom?Sorry if I was not clear enough. This is webmasterworld so I was asking webmasters of course. To be a little more precise I had anyone who has interest in promoting a site in mind.
What is "too much" money-- too much by Fortune 500 standards? Too much by OECD standards? A Yahoo listing could be $10 for life and still be priced out of reach of central Africa. If Yahoo can sustain itself by charging $300, it would seem that $300 is the market price.Frappuccino in Starbucks costs $3.50 and people are still buying it. Is that means it is worth $3.50 well... yes, ... let me think again ...not really.
Is this a general purpose or a specialty/niche directory?Sorry I didn't specify. I had general purpose directory on my mind.
Does it list information about the site or about the business/organization?About site.
How much information?No too much.
How do you ensure that it is updated?There are many ways to do this. I don't see any problems there. What exactly you think it would be a problem?
Anyone have the time or resources to develop this "perfect directory"?Well.. I don't know for any yet. Do you?
The folks at the ODP are not out to screw anyone nor do they ignore quality sites that are submitted.My opinion is that DMOZ is the closest match for this "perfect directory". The only problem is that is based on volunteer work. And that is why it has problems that it has.
Too much by OECD standards? A Yahoo listing could be $10 for life and still be priced out of reach of central Africa.Then how would they have a site to get listed? The hosting and registration are already too much of a burden.
Two paths I have been thinking of are:-
1) All listings are free if and when we find you and we set your title/desc/keywords etc, or $X to submit/edit and you have a say in the listing details subject to editorial policies.
AND/OR
2) Basic listings are always free, advanced listings costs $X and get you extra details, some promo blurb, etc.
Both of these would be dependant on first generating acceptance in the subject area and then a track history.
Onya
Woz
You know, this is beginning to sound an _awful_ lot like Google Adwords displayed on Google Directory pages.
This pretty much defeats the one advantage directories maintain over spidered search engines: sound human judgement.
Once you abdicate human judgement you end up with just a paid FFAL spammed out by SEO's. ;)
